New dosing directions

New Dosing Directions for Infants' Acetaminophen Products Every maker of infants' acetaminophen products, including Infants' TYLENOL®, is changing the amount (concentration) of acetaminophen in their medicines. This means there will be new directions for these products. These changes are intended to standardize dosing across products and help to reduce medication errors. Some of these new products are in stores now, and the transition will take place over time until all old product is no longer on shelf. Infants' TYLENOL® products will be returning to store shelves with these changes during the upcoming cold and flu season. What You Need To Know There may be a time when infants' acetaminophen products with the old and new concentration are in stores and in your medicine cabinet. The old infants' acetaminophen products are 3x more concentrated than the new. Using the directions from the new product with the old product (concentrated drops) could result in serious overdose and cause liver damage. Always read and follow the label directions on the product you are using. What You Need To Do Always read and follow the label instructions on the product you are using. Give the amount of medicine listed on the label for your child's weight or age. For children less than two years of age, only your healthcare professional can give you the right dose for your baby. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you have any questions. What's Changing? The amount (concentration) of acetaminophen is changing. All boxes and bottles will clearly label the concentration. Always tell your healthcare professional exactly which concentration you have so that he or she can tell you the correct dosage amount for the product you are using.

Old concentration: 80 mg per 0.8 mL

New concentration: 160 mg per 5 mL

As always, it is very important to read and follow the label directions. For children less than two years of age, only your healthcare professional can give you the right dose for your baby, therefore please call a doctor or pharmacist to be sure you know the right dose before using these products.

Free Batman pics

We bought the two older boys Batman shoes and they came in such colorful, fun boxes. I was actually able to save the tops of the boxes and hang them up in their room. Take a look!!

Soft N Chewy Chocolate cookies with Halloween bags!

Two of my neighbors' kids helped us with the boys on Saturday. To thank them I'm making some treats.
I have always wanted to try this recipe off of the Baker's recipe site. Nice and chocolately - for sure going to make them again. I didn't follow the glaze recipe section because I didn't have either ingreds.

Ingreds:

cookie part

4 squares BAKER'S Unsweetened Chocolate

3/4 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2-1/2 cups flour

Glaze

1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping (Do not thaw.)

6 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate

 

Microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add sugar; mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour; mix well. Refrigerate 1 hour or until dough is easy to handle.

Heat oven to 350°F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls; place, 2 inches apart, on baking sheets sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake 8 min. or just until set. (Do not overbake.) Cool on baking sheet 1 min.; remove to wire racks. Cool completely.

Microwave COOL WHIP and semi-sweet chocolate in microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-1/2 min. or until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring after 1 min. Let stand 15 min. to thicken. Spread over cookies. Let stand until glaze is firm.

I found these white bags at Michaels for $0.39/ea. The boys and I decorated them and we are going to use these to deliver the cookies in. Just need glue, construction paper and googly eyes!





 

baking eggs

I really like to bake eggs - ramkins, casserole you name it. My husband will try it and say, it tastes just like you cooked them on the stove but the difference for me is time. While the eggs are baking I can prepare side dishes and everything is served hot. *remember that eggs need to rest just like any other protein you cook. To avoid dried or overcooked eggs I take out the eggs 2-3 min before my timer goes off. While resting, the eggs will continue to cook.

Baked Eggs in Ramkins
Heat oven to 350
Grease/butter ramkins
Start by thinking of your favorite combos with eggs. My husband for example likes basic ingredients. For him, I added 1 TEASP of diced onion (or chives), 1/2 TEASP fresh parsley chopped, 1/2 slice of bacon cooked and crumbled, 1/2 TEASP green pepper diced. I cracked the egg over the veggies, added 1/2 TBSP of cream, then topped with cheese and sprinkled with S&P.
My hubby likes his eggs cooked over easy so depending on how hot your oven is, I would cook this between 12 and 18 min.

For myself I would cook some spinach with EVOO, garlic and onion - about 2 min. I would add ham, proscuitto or cooked bacon to my buttered ramkin. Then top with a little spinach and feta. Crack the egg over this and again pour 1/2 TBSP of cream over egg. S&P I like my eggs over hard so I would bake this between 15 and 18 min.

You can make a large version of this in a casserole dish if you are entertaining. It's something different and looks amazing.

Egg N Ham pie
Spiral ham was on sale this week so we ate it for dinner and of course had leftovers.
Ingreds:

• 1 refrigerated pie crust (any ready-made crust)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/3 c milk
• 1/4 c diced onions
• 1/4 c diced green peppers
• 1/2 c diced ham
• 1/4 c shredded colby jack cheese

Whisk the eggs and milk. Pour into crust. Evenly sprinkle rest of ingreds into egg mixture. Bake depending on internal oven temp between 15 and 20 min.

Isla's snap-shot ornament

Here is how the ornament I made for my brother-in-law turned out. I really liked it!

Contents

• Isla's hospital hat (had to cut it in half)
• 2 hospital bracelets

Outside:

I found pink letters (normally $2.99 found them on sale for $0.79 at Michaels)

"Isla 4.25"

leftover sweetened condensed milk

I always buy sweetened condensed milk when it's on sale but I'm not sure why. Then the holidays come and I find myself making those 7 layer magic bars.
Today I made french toast for my boys and replaced my milk with sweetened condensed milk. It tasted good it reminded me of my dad's french toast.

Ingreds:

• 2 eggs
• 3-4 TBSP sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 TEASP vanilla extract
• pinch of cinnamon

Whisk all ingreds together dip bread in and fry in heated pan!

Halloween spider craft

I had some extra coffee stirrers and thought we could use them to make spiders for Halloween.
Take a look!

Tools:

• black construction paper
• coffee stirrers
• googley eyes
• scissors
• glue

snap-shot ornament

My brother-in-law LOVES anything my boys make him. So for his birthday I'm making a basket filled with various homemade gifts from the boys. I will post when basket is filled but so far my favorite is this ornament.
I found a box of clear glass ornaments at Menards for $0.99 a few weeks ago. I knew I would stuff them with something for keepsakes but wasn't sure what.
Mason drew a picture of Uncle Chris and we stuck that inside, loosely rolled so you can see the colors, etc. Mason wanted blue glitter and his Superman logo inside so we added that and also one of Mason's superman stickers to the outside.
Looking at this ornament, it's a snapshot of Mason at age 3: blue is his fav color, he is just learning how to draw stick figures, he loves superman - I love it.
Best part? It cost me less than a dollar to make and it took less than 10 minutes. I'm excited to make more!

Other ideas on stuffing: strips of your child's fav book (I may do this with Goodnight Moon since it is/was a favorite and to put it nicely has been loved. Just can't bring myself to toss it), sheet music looks pretty (cut into strips), if you saved the hospital bracelet that would fit inside (along with some baby-themed scrapbook trinkets, paper, etc.)...lots of possibilities here.

Pumpkin jars

My friend gave me this idea. I always save my glass jars for food storage, shaking homemade salad dressing, etc. I had plenty to pull out for this project.
Make a pumpkin face on the jars with masking tape. Then paint the entire jar orange or whatever color you wish. Black (bat), green (alien), white (ghost) or purple would be cool. Let the paint dry, peel off the tape and you have pumpkin jars! The boys LOVED it. And to my surprise not one has crashed on the floor and shattered.

Halloween edible crafts

Halloween clearance shopping is one of my FAVS!!!!
Last year I picked up a cookie coffin and a cookie grave yard at Target for just a couple of bucks. I dug it out and Mason and I put it together. It's just like the pre-cut cookie houses from Wilton - comes with frosting, fondant, cookie pieces and spooky decorative candy pieces. We had a lot of fun.

A grave yard would be easy to do if you had those mini (or regular size) Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies as tombstones. You can decorate them and stick them in cupcakes, a sheet cake or on top of a heavily frosted cookie cut into a 8x8 square. Frost the bottom with green frosting and use crushed cookies to resemble dirt.

The Coffin was supposed to be 3-D but the bottom was cracked. It still looked nice.

Halloween porch

I wanted to spend some alone-time with the two older boys, while Jaxon was napping. So we visited a local pumpkin patch. I was planning on buying the usual orange pumpkins, maybe grab a white one (yep I have a wild side - watch out!).
But once I saw the gourdes and pumpkins through the boys' eyes, my boring pumpkin plan changed. Mason found one gray pumpkin and he was thrilled. I didn't even know gray pumpkins could grow. Brant found these green gourdes - "look mommy snakes!" What a great idea I thought. So with the help of my creative kids, this is how we decorated our porch this year. I love it - like the way it looks but most of all like that we created the idea together.