tgim and hand over your best muffin recipe

Thank God it's Monday?, you say. Is she crazy?
Probably. I'm just feeling good getting back in to the routine of things today.
Weird, I know.
My parents left yesterday, which means I'm off of my pseudo semi mommy vacation.
Oh you didn't know I was on a vacation? Well with my parents here for the past week and a half, I feel like I pretty much just sat on my butt all day. I feel like they took over like 75% of my parenting duties during the day... Savannah gets a little attached to her grandma and always wants grandma to be the one to make lunch for her, give her baths, tuck her in bed at night, lay with her at naptimes, play games, draw, etc, etc, etc...
It was awfully nice to have other people in the house every day to play with the kids, to take them for walks and to play outside, to read them stories, and break up fights. When we weren't keeping busy out of the house, you could pretty much be guaranteed to find me basking in my irresponsibility on the couch. On the laptop, reading a book, or just sitting not doing much of anything besides enjoying watching my kids play with their grandparents.
It was kinda nice.

But now it's the start of a fresh week, it's a beautiful day, and now we're back to reality.
And a busy reality so far this Monday morning. Sawyer had his two year check-up first thing this morning. His doctor wanted some blood work done, so when we left her office, we went to the lab and he had his first in-the-arm-big-boy-blood-draw. He was very brave.
The kids had been so good in and out of waiting rooms and Dr. offices all morning, and it was such a beautiful sunny day, we stopped off at a park on the way home and they ran around the playground for about an hour. Came home, ate lunch and the kids then played "naptime" on Sawyer's bunk beds for a bit while I cleaned out and organized our linen closets. There's one outside the main bath and one in our bathroom and I had never really unpacked and/or organized those closets after our move at all. Everything was just thrown in there and it was a mess to get anything out. It feels so good to finally have that all done; it only took me four months!!

Now Sawyer's napping for real and Savannah's about to go have her rest time and I'm once again back on the couch. lol! Just taking a quick break before I hit the lunch mess in my kitchen. I need to vacuum and then turn our dining room back into a dining room rather than the golf course it's been for the past three days. I also want to attack the kids' playroom today. In putting away the new things Sawyer got for his birthday, I'm simultaneously beginning a big purge of toys to go into the give away or garage sale boxes in the basement.

Oh, also! Sawyer's been on a serious Hunger Stike for the past few weeks. I'm not talking about normal ridiculously fickle toddler pickyness. He seriously eats nothing for days in a row. It's kind of scaring me. Even his old standby favorites are no-go's. He'll agree to applesauce or a banana or his favorite pretzels or even fruit snacks once in awhile, only to take one bite and decide no, he's not all that hungry. We're talking seriously maybe two bites of food a day. He's probably eating the equivalent of one whole meal every seven days. Maybe. (hence the reason for the blood draw this morning)
But then.
A break through!
For breakfast today he ate one half of a banana and -I was in shock watching this-- two whole muffins. Savannah and my mom had made strawberry muffins yesterday (he did eat half of one yesterday) and this morning there were two left and I offered them to the kids for breakfast. Sawyer's was honestly gone in about 30 seconds. And he asked for more. I think I thought he forgot how to ask for more we haven't heard that in so long! So not wanting to miss this window of consumption, I threw together some Jiffy blueberry muffins and popped them right in the oven. He waited for them to bake and then ate a whole nother muffin!

I was hoping this meant the fast was broken, but no. Not one bite for lunch. No snack this morning either. Oh, he claimed he wanted a cracker at the dr's office, but then he threw it in the garbage. He did ask for another muffin after lunch though. I'm glad you found something to eat Sawyer dear, but we're not eating berry muffins for breakfast lunch and dinner. Breakfast, yes. Snacks, probably. We may need to instate a muffin limit per day.
I am going to try a couple of healthy muffin recipes and hope he stays on this kick. If muffins are the only thing he'll eat, then we're going to pack 'em full of nutrition.
I have a recipe for some Breakfast muffins with random things like wheat germ and raisins and yogurt and orange juice. Also an Applesauce Bran muffin recipe. I think I'm going to try those for tomorrow morning.
Anyone else have some good muffin recipes? I need them to taste really good (so he'll keep eating them!) but I want to sneak in as much nutrients as possible. Carrot? Pumpkin? Zucchini? Anyone have any muffin recipes to share??