Tuesday Tip of the Day! The BEST Cookie Recipe

You know how homemade cookies look so....homemade?

That is NOT the case with the cookie I'm sharing with you today.

My boys LOVE the way these taste, but honestly, I love how they look.  Just look at these pretty cookies!

Perfect if you need to bake something for school or church or whatever.  I'm betting you'll find any excuse to whip up these babies!!

One warning:  They're not healthy.  So don't freak out when you see how much oil is in the recipe.  The goal is a pretty and wonderful tasting cookie.  Keep that in mind.

For those of you who use a gram scale, I'm including all the weights for you.  Hope that makes the recipe even sweeter for you!

Carb count information at the bottom.

Tracy's Terrific Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups of flour, weight of 360g
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups Quaker Old Fashion oatmeal, not quick 1 minute, weight of 240g
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar, weight of 200g
1 cup dark brown sugar, weight of 220g
1 cup of mini chocolate chips, weight of 165g (You can use regular chocolate chips, but your cookie will not be as pretty.  One secret to a pretty cookie is using mini chocolate chips.)
1 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375.
2. Get a LARGE bowl.  This recipe makes about 70 cookies!
3. Mix all ingredients.  Keep scooping up the flour in the bottom of the bowl.  It will a while to get it all mixed in, just keep at it!  
4. Line cookie pans with foil and spray with Pam.  (See tip below)
5. Drop small amounts of dough on the cookie sheet.  Smaller amounts of dough will give you a prettier cookie.
6. Bake for about 9 minutes.  Don't bake too long and don't worry if they look a touch underdone.  They are fine. Check because your oven make cook different.
7. Let cookies cool for a few minutes.  They will look very puffy at first, but will "settle down" within a few minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack.

Tip:  I prepare 3 cookie pans with foil.  While pan #1 is in the oven, I get pan #2 ready with dough.  Cookie pan #1 comes out of the oven to cool.  Pan #2 goes in oven to Bake.  Now I get pan #3 ready.

The goal is to make sure you put dough on a cool cookie sheet. Very important!

Carb Info:  Your ingredients may be slightly different, but I'll share my carb count information.  If you follow the directions, your cookies should be similar.  For me, one batch of dough is 938 carbs.  I make small cookies, so I usually get about 70 cookies.   That makes each cookie about 13 carbs. Of course, some are bigger and some are smaller.  You know the routine!   The carb factor is .60  Hope that helps.

Now, go make your family happy with some yummy cookies!

I'm Making Progress

Kevin and I love to watch The Biggest Loser.  Although truthfully, the contestants are so nasty this year that it isn't as good.

Anyhoo....after Matthew was diagnosed with diabetes, I would watch the weigh-in part of the show and this would happen:

321
289
178
302
221

On the show, they were weighing people, but all I saw was Matthew's blood sugar.

Every single time.

Until last night.

A 234 popped up and I realized that I didn't think of Matthew's BG.

Oh, I still think about diabetes a lot---that's a requirement of being a d-mom.  It's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I pray about at night.  I've accepted that part of my life.

But at least I can enjoy a show with my husband and not think about it for while.

Progress!

A Cupcake: What would you have done?

Last Wednesday, Matthew had been running high all day.  Mid 200's at every check. Pretty rare for him, but I wasn't too concerned.

That night we went to church and at the end, they passed out cupcakes.  Matthew said he wanted to eat his in the car on the way home.

We checked his BG and he was 362.

Not ideal for a cupcake.

But thankfully, Matthew stepped right up and said he didn't mind waiting until the next day.  He really wasn't hungry and that was okay.

(((This was where I started thanking the Lord!  Matthew's attitude was a huge blessing!)))

What mother wants to deny her kid a cupcake?  But should you sometimes?  Probably....

So...would you have let him eat the cupcake?

How do you handle those situations where you don't want your child to feel different?  Isn't his emotional health as important as his physical health?

A couple months ago, we did tell Matthew to let us know if something is really important to him.  On those occasions, we've agreed that if at all possible, we'll let him have "whatever" as long as he doesn't abuse that privilege.

But if this had been one of those times, oh it would have been really hard to let him eat a cupcake with a BG that high!

Giveaway Winner!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last week I hosted my first giveaway....which I now realize excluded many of you who are not using Omnipod.  Honestly, I didn't even think about that.

I'll have to do another giveaway that includes everyone.  And I will!

But the Bands4Life are so awesome with the pod that I just had to share with you.

Enough of that.....who's the winner?

Misty from God is Good!

Congratulations Misty!  (Leave me a comment with your email, which I won't publish, and I'll send you the info.)

On another note, the Tuesday Tip of the Day will return next week.

I have a FANTASTIC storage tip for strawberries.  They will last for at least a week.

How great is that?!

My First Giveaway!

Next month marks 2 years since Matthew was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

One of the benefits of being a "seasoned" D-Mom is that I've discovered lots of things that make our life easier.

Today I'm giving away one of our favorite discoveries:  A band of your choice from Bands4Life!

They're fantastic little wraps designed specifically for the Omnipod Insulin Pump.  It's certainly one way to jazz up the look of the pod, but this band is about much more than looks.

Matthew likes to wear his while swimming and he especially loves it during sports because it really helps with the jiggle factor!

Bands4Life has lots of patterns to choose from and they have bands for every area--even the tummy.  They also sell ID bracelets.  Hop over and check them out!

They even donate a portion of all sales to the JDRF!  Woo Hoo!

GIVEAWAY

One lucky reader will win their choice of band from Bands For Life.

Required Entry
To enter leave a comment telling me:

• One funny story about your child.  (Yes, Matthew came up with that!)

Want Extra Entries?

• Blog about this giveaway including a link to this post.
• Post about the giveaway on Facebook including a link to this post.
• Tweet about this giveaway including a link to this post.  

Entry deadline February 12, 2012.
I will be using Random.org to generate the winner.

The winner will be announced on Valentine's Day!

Because I love you!!

My First Giveaway Tomorrow!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'll be hosting my first giveaway tomorrow.

Because I love all my Bloggy Friends!

I won't tell you what it is yet, but Matthew says it's "useful and cool."

Any guesses??

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Tuesday Tip of the Day! Swagbucks

If you haven't heard of Swagbucks, then today is the day to change that.

It's a great and easy way to earn free gift cards!

Swagbucks is basically a search engine like Google, but you earn "bucks" that you can redeem for all sorts of prizes.

You can also do a daily poll or various little surveys to earn "bucks."  They even have coupons that you can print off and you'll be awarded "bucks" when you redeem them at the store.

Pretty easy, huh?

It really takes up very little of my time, but it's totally worth it.

Personally, I love getting the $5 Amazon Gift Cards. I can usually earn at least one card a month (sometimes 2) and that $$$ adds up fast.

It really comes in handy when I'm running short on test strips and then it's like getting the test strips for free!  You can't beat that.

But of course, you can use your "bucks" however you want.  They have all sorts of gift cards and prizes to choose from.

Take a few minutes and check it out.   It only take a few moments to sign up and then you'll be on your way to earning a little extra money.

I bet you'll thank me in a few weeks!  : )

Can I Get Off this Roller Coaster?

Here's how the past couple days have gone for us.

Wednesday Night: Matthew dropped.

Thursday Night:  Steady Eddie. (I like it when this guy's around.)

Friday Night:  Matthew dropped again.

Saturday Night:  Steady Eddie returned.

But this time he was in the 240s because I was afraid to correct. (Can you blame me?!) The night before, Kevin had given him a full juice box because he kept dropping.

Finally at 2am, I did do tiny correction, but it just kept him steady. So I guess he was really rising since he resisted the correction.

Last night was even worse with a rise, BUT that does give me a 2 day pattern.

When he's like this, it's so hard to know what to do!

Another Victory!

Matthew continues to make huge strides in taking care of his diabetes.  And let me tell you....it's a huge blessing to know that he's learning to take care of himself.  (A constant prayer of mine...)

I think I've mentioned before that there's no nurse at Matthew's school.  There is a teacher who has a daughter with Type 1 and she has graciously acted as his "school nurse since Matthew was diagnosed.  Nearly 2 years ago!

But for the past several months, we've been working to transfer responsibility over to Matthew.  The teacher is there if he needs her and he can always call me, but basically he's on his own for lunch.

And he's getting it!

Earlier this week, Matthew said he felt low in English (right before lunch) so he took a tab.

By the time he got to lunch, he still felt low and sure enough, he was 61.  He said he took another tab AND deducted 5 carbs from his lunch meal....just to make sure he wouldn't go low on the playground after lunch.

Couldn't have done it better myself!

I'm really proud of the way Matthew is gradually moving in the right direction.

Sometimes it's so hard to let go and trust him to take care of himself.

I worry about him making mistakes (because I've made a lot!) but I know the only way he's going to learn is to gradually let go.

This is the part of being a D-Mom that really stinks.

Well....that, and the loss of sleep.  ; )

The Truth About Cheese

If you're a "nutrition label reading geek" like me, then this won't be news to you, but perhaps it will help a few people.

Did you know that cheese is not always carb-free?

When we were trained on how to care for Matthew, we were taught that cheese is always considered a free food.

Not true!!

For a long time the Kraft Single Slice cheese has had one carb, which is probably not a big deal for your kid.



BUT....recently I've noticed that the carb count has gone up to 2.

I'm guessing they've added more milk.

Again, 2 carbs isn't a big deal if your child is just having one slice.

But if they're hungry and decide to grab a few slices since they're "free"....be careful.

Those 2 carbs will add up quickly and that could make a big difference in the BG later!