One More Week

Guess which four munchkins are super psyched that Christmas is only one week from today...

Halloween 2013

It's always around this time of the year that I'm dusting the cobwebs off my neglected blog to post again. October looks so sweet and innocent sitting on my calendar; but I've learned that, for a photographer, it's hidden beast. Instead of visiting my blog space, I've spent my computer time editing everything from babies in pumpkins...

...to fairy princesses in the woods.

But I'm stopping by the blog to show off my littles at Halloween. I was having an especially bad attitude about Halloween the other night after spending part of my evening working with my preteen to make sure his wrestler costume was "cool" enough. (Lord, help me through the "cool" years.) I was fed up with a holiday whose only point seemed to be pushing me to my costume-making limits, which is pretty low to begin with, and filling my children's body with refined sugar. 

But last night we pulled our fire pit to the end of the driveway, and actually had a chance to chat with our neighbors and see our kiddos bouncing around with the joy of their costumes (or maybe it was all that sugar), especially a little girl who had her first year of trick or treating.

My little barista and the semi-cool Mexican wrestler:

Laura Ingalls and my little football player (a study in the vast differences of their personalities):

Next year as I begrudge coming up with four costumes to match four unique personalities, remind me that in the end, this was actually kind of fun.

A Decade With Elijah

This week we celebrated one decade with my redhead, who's as squirrelly as he is cute.

He asked for a dirt cake for his birthday (bless you, my child, for your easy request) complete with gummy caterpillars and worms (because nothing says boy like biting down on a squishy bug).




All the little cousins enjoying Elijah's birthday lunch...


The biggest hit of the gifts was a fire pit complete with s'more kit..




Here's to another 10 years with my freckled love!

Adriana's Owl Birthday

For her seventh birthday, my dark-haired beauty requested an "Owl Birthday". This mommy was uber happy to oblige since I was bracing for Disney princess nightmare.

Adriana's welcome sign...

For a game we created some simple mini-marshmallow poppers (you can find the directions HERE) and had fun shooting them into each other's mouths. My youngest nephew walked around drunk with giddiness as he gleaned all the misses.

The birthday queen...

Birthdays with Allergies

I've found birthday cakes to be one of the tricky parts of having allergies. The dilemma: how to make a cake that you can feed a crowd that is allergy friendly and yummy enough for those without allergies. I've done this a couple different ways.

One is to double my cooking efforts. My son wanted his "normal" chocolate cake. I'm not about to make the kid have a different cake on his birthday just because his sisters and I have food allergies. So for his birthday, I made the Cake Mix Doctor's chocolate cake, having to spit out the batter I absentmindedly licked in order to avoid those gut-wrenching pains. Then I baked some carrot cake muffins from a recipe my sisters created. I plan to bake these sometime even for those without allergies because they are straight-up delicious.



Vegan Gluten-free Carrot Cake Cupcakes

• flax seed mix (recipe below or you can simply use 4 eggs)
• 1 3/4 c. sugar
• 1 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1 Tbsp. oil 
• 5.2 oz or 145 grams of blanched almond flour*
• 5.2 oz or 145 grams of gluten-free all-purpose four*
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3 c. grated carrots

Flax seed mix:
Stir 4 Tbsp. of ground flax seed with 3/4 c. of water. Let stand at least 10 minutes

Whisk together the flax seed mix, sugar, applesauce, and oil. In a separate bowl, stir together both flours, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add the wet and dry ingredients together, stirring until just combined; do not over-mix. Gently fold in the grated carrots.

Pour into lined muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Be sure not under-bake since it will result in a gummy consistancy.

*One of the tricks to baking with other flours is to add it according to how much it weighs. If you have no food scale, add approximately 1 1/2 cup of almond flour and 1 1/4 cup of the GF all-purpose flour. But for the best results, take the extra step and weigh it.
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The second way to handle the allergy issue was simply to make a cake so yummy that no one could even tell it happened to be missing gluten and dairy. This is what we did for Ava's birthday. You know its good stuff when you're getting compliments on the cake with no one knowing the secret that they were actually eating a healthy cake. The ingredients of this one will totally catch you off guard. A cake made with no sugar, but with lots of black beans...I promise it's good.  You can find that recipe HERE.

Now have a happy birthday with food that makes your body happy, too!

Birthday Season

Summer means birthday season for the Sieb fam. Birthdays in May, June, July, and August, oh my. This means our little one coming had better be born in April or September.

Here are some photos from Ava's and Isaiah's birthdays. They turned 3 and 11 respectively ("2 more years until I'm a teenager, Mom." Dear. Lord.)



Classic Ava face...


Plotting how to swipe some icing...






Both birthdays had my grandma (called simply "Great" by my kiddos) as the special guest...


Next week I'll share how we worked around our allergies to make yummy birthday cake.

Picture It...Easter

To Michigan we headed...


Three generations of Sieb ladies...














The cousins...


At the end of our visit, we stopped by the new River Raisin National Battlefield. Dressing up was the highlight... (Unless you're a pre-teen with a reputation to protect.)

Picture It...Christmas

First there was a Christmas Trip to Michigan...


We visited the Toledo Zoo all decked out for the holidays...


A little rain simply means we had more of the zoo to ourselves...






Ya better watch out....I'm tellin' you why. This two-year-old is comin' to town...






Gang mugshot...


Then my parents for Christmas Day...




More babies to mother...maybe this will mean she'll stop trying to mother her brothers...


Nuff said...


Do you admire the man's loyalty or simply pity him...


Christmas'ed out...




Recreating the Olan Mills "stare up at the heavens" pose...