Strawberry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free

I'm addicted to making different varieties of oatmeal cookies, or breakfast cookies as my family has called them. I can double the recipe and make a large batch for mornings on the go (which with a 4 month old are crazy to begin with!) and eat them through the week. Plan on making my protein high ones (that include peanut butter or protein powder) the day before my 5K and the day before my husband's Tough Mudder so we have them for breakfast the morning of our races. I also plan to try a sweet potato version and a pumpkin version soon.

1 cup gluten free quick oats
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup of dairy free and gluten free chocolate chips (I use Wegman's brand, but chocolate dream works too)
4 large strawberries

Mash bananas well and mix with applesauce and quick oats. Let sit for 10 minutes. Cut the strawberries into small chunks and fold strawberries and chocolate chips into your oatmeal batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.After cooled store in air tight container.

Makes about 8 cookies at 114 calories a cookie.
(79 calories a cookie if you don't add the chocolate chips!)

Weight Loss Update

My before and after pictures so far...

Before:

Me this morning: Down 35 pounds!

Registered!

I have officially registered for my first 5k! I will be doing the Biggest Loser 5k run in Washington DC in July. Time to start training!!! I have a long way to go and only a little over a month in which to do it. I downloaded a couch to 5k app onto my iphone and did the first run on my treadmill a few hours ago and it was actually kinda fun.

Best Gluten Free cookies!

Made these last night and they are FANTASTIC! And they are only 150 calories a cookie. I make cookies with oatmeal and bananas and they are still around 100 calories a cookie so 150 isn't bad at all. After all, it is a chocolate chip cookie! And the best part?.... They were only $2.99! Amazing, I know! No more paying $4 for betty crocker cookie mix and then still needing other ingredients and you have to go home and make them yourself. These are ready to bake, break apart cookies. I also bought them in fudge brownie. I found them in the refrigerated cookie section in Wegmans!

Getting Healthy

So true!!!!

Let's fill our bodies full of nothing but junk and then when it makes us sick we can use a ton of pills to fix it and put more weird things in our bodies. I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER since we started eating healthier! I cooked some chicken in balsamic vinaigrette the other day and it was so much more oil than the hubby and I were used to that it actually made us feel sick afterwards. We used to eat stuff like that (and MUCH worse) before and we didn't even know how bad we were feeling just from the food we were putting in our bodies. You don't know how much better you can feel till you make the change. Don't get me wrong, I still hit the drive thru every once in a while. My oldest is addicted to "chicken fries" which is her way of asking for a McDonald's happy meal. But like everything else in life, it is about moderation and making smart choices. For example, getting a Big Mac, definitely not a great choice but okay if it is only like once a month. Getting triple stack whopper with everything, never okay. That's like your entire day's worth of calories in one sandwich. I wish someone would finally open up a healthy drive thru! I truly think people would go. A place with healthy, allergen friendly foods! Where you can take your child with the peanut or milk allergy and know they aren't going to have a reaction to something they eat. Where you can actually get gluten free food! If I had the money I would do that in an instant. I need to make a millionaire friend so they can back me :) How has someone like Jillian Michaels or Doctor Oz not already pitched this idea? We all know people are suckers for convenience, we are all too busy during the day. This could possibly aid in curing America of obesity. So sad that no one with the ability to make it happen is taking the initiative. 

End of the year IEP

As we get close to the end of the school year, I can't help but think about how incredibly far my little Lily has come this year. Since being diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech in September SO much has changed. When we started speech at the school in November she still only had 20-30 words, now she is using 3 sometimes 4 word sentences! There is still a lot of work to do though. Her apraxia makes it very hard to understand her so even the words she knows don't always come out correctly, but the progress she has made is truly amazing. I can actually joke with her now and she will point out things on the tv and has even started making her dolls have little conversations. At her last IEP meeting we decided to keep her in the classroom setting instead of moving to just speech therapy, there are still a lot of fine motor skills she needs to be working on. I also had them add on eating techniques, since she still struggles with forks and spoons and drinking from an open cup. They also want to increase her days from twice a week to 5 times a week next year since she is struggling with routine, like coming to the carpet for circle time without being prompted multiple times and stuff like that. But she is still only 2 (3 in July) so things like that aren't that big a deal. If someone had told me in September that I would be able to have small conversations with my daughter by June I would have never believed them. Now I just need to find ways to build on it so we can continue to learn through the summer while she is out of school!

Welcome Annabeth!

Annabeth was born on February 6th at 9:10pm at 6lbs and 11ozs!

Deciding to take a little turn on the blog and go from just infertility to covering getting into shape with a chronic disease, healthy recipes, and being a mommy to my little ones with apraxia and food sensitivities.