Healthy chocolate muffins

You guys, this muffin recipe is so good. I love that I can have two for breakfast and not feel sad! And its just so wonderful with coffee because you know, anything chocolate is good to have with coffee! I saw this recipe on my friend's pinterest (that's where all the good recipes are now, right?) and was so excited to get the ingredients on my next grocery trip.

NOTE: if you sprinkle a tablespoon of ground flax seed into the batter, or sprinkle oat bran onto the muffins once the batter is poured, it would be a great way to add to these in a healthy way, I thought of that after I made them of course. Next time I guess! And if you are wondering if your significant other or your family will like them, I can tell you my husband really liked them! So here it is:

Healthy Chocolate Muffins
1 3/4 cup Oats
3 Egg whites
3/4 cup Unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup Unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 cup Plain greek yogurt (or regular plain low fat yogurt)
1/2 tsp Cream of tartar (or 2 tsp. vinegar)
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp Baking soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Hot water
1 cup Baking stevia OR 1 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar. (I used baking truvia)
1/2 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Tip Foil cupcake liners, remove the inner paper lining (because paper liners tend to stick to muffins)

Instructions:
1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with foil cupcake liners, or spray muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.
2
In a blender, (or food processor), mix all of the ingredients together, except for the chocolate chips. Blend until oats are ground and mixture is smooth.
3
Place mixture in a bowl and gently stir in 1/2 of the chocolate chips (set the rest aside). Scoop mixture into prepared muffin pans.
4
Place muffins tins in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove muffins from the oven (but don’t shut oven off), and distribute the other half of the chocolate chips on top of each muffin.
5
Place the muffins back into the oven and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.*Note, you could skip this step by putting all of the chips in the batter, and baking the muffins for 12-15 min straight.
6
Cool muffins before removing from pan.
Then enjoy the chocolate heaven!

3 months

My boy is three months! It's been the most wonderful 3 months of our lives. No exaggeration.

-He has decided to sleep through the night the last few weeks! It just arrived one night out of no where. But we are enjoying it, whether it's a short season or not:)

-We had our first shots a couple weeks ago. It was torture, yes. Poor guy was so hungry too as he was getting them. But thankfully the nurse was quick.

-He is 15lbs and 25 inches. Close to the size of an average 5 month old. He is 90th percentile in everything, he's a big boy.

-He is not a fan of tummy time. But somehow is still learning to hold his head up really well when we are holding him on our shoulder.

-He loves cooing and talking with me for long, long periods of time. He smiles when I talk back. It is my absolute favorite part of the day.

-He loves when his daddy comes home, he kicks and grins and is so ready to be held by him. I love it.

-My favorite clothes on him right now are t shirts and sweat pants. He is such a little baby stud in them!

-He went on his first library trip and loved these baby bear books! So we checked out the 3 of what I could find of the series.

-He's not too fond of the car seat. But I just try to reach back for his little hand while I drive, his cry can be so heart breaking.

I'm so in love with his little boy.

Some pictures lately

Life's been good. Me and the boys all caught a cold at home, but it's still been good! Here's some pictures of things lately, except Ernie Brooks and his friend Nathan. Gosh that was like a month ago.

2 months

Oh my. I love the two months stage. It's been my favorite so far!

-He smiles and giggles at us.
-He cracks up at the bird mobile on his swing.
- He takes naps pretty regularly in his own room. (not just wherever I am anymore, sad). And seems to be sleeping longer.
-He went on his first vacation. He was a trooper!
- His tummy is starting to hurt less I think, as I suffer through the no dairy thing except half and half in the coffee (suffering! I even eat pizza with no cheese people). I crave a glass of real milk everyday:) although chocolate almond milk was this wonderful revelation in my home. I'm getting off track here.
-He is chunkier than ever, fits into a 6 month sleeper.
-We made a switch to size two diapers.
- It looks like he's starting to get up just once a night.
- He's so thrilled when he sees daddy.
- He's really enjoying baths now.
- He is showing so so so much personality.

He's just such a happy baby.

Our trip to the mountains

Last weekend we spent some time with Ernie's family in the fresh mountain air. And rain.
Ernie and I love going there. It's a cute little town that is perfect for family trips. I got to spend some extra time with Ernie's sister which I really enjoyed!
We just so happened to be up there around the time of our anniversary (4 years!), so we spent the afternoon at a really cute cafe and browsed antique shops, our favorite past time up there. We also walked around the beautiful lake up there, our other favorite past time. So here are a billion pictures of our stay up there and our baby. It is his first vacation, so he's basically in all of them.
Thanks to Yvette again who took some of these photos!