Recipe for Pumpkin Spice Cheerio Bars, pairs great with leggings and slippers and oversized shirts.
Imagine this. It’s mid-August and your Pinterest home feed is starting to fill up with orange-y fall vibes. Lots of pictures of fashion bloggers in those thigh high boots and corduroy skirts. Leaves. Coffee cups with leaves. Girls with pretty hair holding a coffee cup standing in leaves. You get what I’m going at, right?
Okay now that we’re there, imagine that someone mentions PUMPKIN SPICE CHEERIOS to you and your head begins to spin because what could be more delicious than that? Without having ever tasted a bite of them, you take advantage of the grocery store’s 4 for $4 sale on Cheerios and you buy BOXES of Pumpkin Spice Cheerios, only to find out…
What you were REALLY jonesing for were Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s. The O’s are bigger and crispier and destroy the roof of your mouth LIKE ALL GOOD CEREAL DOES (lookin’ at you, Cap’n Crunch).
You force yourself to finish at least a box before you cave and buy the Pumpkin O’s. But now the problem is you have BOXES of Pumpkin Spice Cheerios. Whatever shall you do?
If you happen to relate really deeply to this, then you’re not alone because it is EXACTLY what happened to me.
I stared at the Cheerios for awhile and then a lightbulb went off. I’d try something. Rice Krispie Treats, BUT WITH PUMPKIN SPICE CHEERIOS. Maybe out of a bowl they wouldn’t be as disappointing.
Man, was I right. and I’m here to pass my right-ness on to any of you looking to sprinkle a little more pumpkin spice into your life (and if that’s not you, bye for now).
ONE // Grease a dish for holding your PSC bars. I have this cute one I found at Goodwill with a cute design on the edges. I just used Trader Joe’s Coconut oil spray.
TWO // Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large pot over medium heat.
THREE // Add in 4 cups of mini marshmallows and stir constantly until the mallows become all melted with the butter and becomes a fluffy, sticky paste-type thing.
FOUR // Pour 4 cups of Pumpkin Spice Cheerios into the marshmallow mixture and stir very well, coating all of the cheerios.
FIVE // Pour the cheerio mallow mixture into the greased pan. Pour is a loose term. You’re mostly just scooping it out, then press it down as flat as you can. Press it real good so it all sticks together.
SIX (Optional) // if you have chocolate chips, go ahead and sprinkle some on top before it cools. Great for people like me who want to sprinkle chocolate chips on top of basically everything.
Let it cool for awhile, then cut it into whatever size squares you feel are acceptable (I’m not gonna judge).
Also speaking of not judging, I figured since I’d never actually tried this recipe I should probably test it before I posted it. If you’re wondering what I thought of it, check out this photo I realized showed the damage I did to this pan of tasty treat:
In case you can’t tell, I ate a whole bunch of it…. for research. also for motivation to get out of bed and feed the baby again. I mean, I would have fed her no matter what but this made it a little easier.
As a first time mom, one of the things I obsessed about for about a month and a half was what to pack in my hospital bag. I looked on Pinterest, read my friends blog posts, and reached out to my Instagram peeps. After one big trip to Target (and one to Walmart, where I found my actual hospital bag), I was pretty much set.
Was I planning on taking a really nice picture of everything in my hospital bag for this post? Yes.
Did I ever end up taking a really nice picture of everything in my hospital bag for this post? Absolutely not.
Let me start with what I ended up buying and packing, because I remember it all.
Because we were induced, I had time to put my bag together and walk into the hospital super prepared. Well.. as prepared as you can be to walk in a family of 2 and walk out a family of 3.
I’ve had a few people ask me what we packed in our hospital bag and what we used. I listed what we brought, and now to tell you what we used..
Out of all of that, I used my own pillow (pictured above!), the sound machine, a nightgown (on our last night) and my hairbrush. That is literally everything I used. Although I used my favorite cat pillow, I also used roughly 237 of the hospital pillows to make a nest for myself on the hospital bed the first night and during the second day. From the minute she was born, we turned on the sound machine so the baby wouldn’t have to experience big empty silence for the first time right after being born.
Honestly, everything went SO FAST that I didn’t even really think to get my stuff out. I got the hospital gown on when we first got to the hospital, spent all night trying to sleep, and then had so many people coming in and out before they started the contractions that I didn’t even think about changing. After she was born, I realized that my nightgown allowed for easier skin to skin than the hospital gown, so I wore it the second night so we could snuggle closer together.
Before we were discharged, I took a shower with the hospital’s all in one wash because I was trying to pack and didn’t want to dig around for my stuff, and then I used my hair brush to destroy the one big dread my hair had turned into because I put it into a ponytail and literally never took it out. Don’t do that, it’s rough.
So basically I spent hours researching and collecting supplies and packing and barely used ANYTHING, but you know what… I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Here’s the thing.
There comes a point in your pregnancy (I’m guessing I should add your FIRST pregnancy because all second+ time moms pack their bags at the last minute) when you’ve done everything there is to do. Your nursery is ready, the clothes are washed, the car seat is installed and you just need to DO something. I had NO IDEA of what to expect. When I first started packing my bag, I was assuming we’d experience spontaneous labor and so I kept thinking “well, tomorrow it could happen.” There’s only so much emotional preparation you can do before you need to do some tangible preparation.
All the things people said were right; the hospital gives you everything you need. The water bottle, the socks, the disposable underwear and everything to put in it.
If I were to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Yes we ended up making multiple trips to the car when we were discharged (we got flowers! and snacks!), but I needed the opportunity to DO something for a week. I ended up using everything I purchased during the postpartum period, so it’s not like any of it went to waste.
begins the first line of Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle In Time,” and begins the final chapters of the pregnancy of Baby Martian. As we sat in the delivery room, listening to thunder roll and in a darkened room because the power went out in the hospital, I made sure every. single. person. who walked into the room knew about that first line of the most popular book by my favorite author.
These are the final two days of the pregnancy of Baby M.
We had an induction scheduled for Friday, September 27th. I woke up and for the first day in our whole pregnancy, my wedding rings didn’t fit. I put them on and noticed immediately that my finger began turning dark red. At the beginning of the summer, we bought an $8 ring at Walmart for whenever my fingers were too swollen for my real rings. The funniest part? I got SO MANY COMPLIMENTS on my $8 Walmart Ring.
It felt surreal to walk around knowing that later in the evening, I’d go to the hospital to have our baby. When people said “have a great evening,” I wanted to tell them my most prized secret – that I was ending one chapter and about to begin another.
After work, Justen picked me up and we headed to Thatcher’s. I’m weirdly sentimental about things, and it was important we stopped by for a cup of something warm before our lives changed forever. In January of 2016, this guy I’d just met on Twitter told me he was working from Thatcher’s that day and even though we had a time to get coffee scheduled for later in the week, I should stop by. I remember sitting at the bar, talking to him about any and all things. He bought my mocha because he’d forgotten about getting coffee together the week prior.
We walked out and he said he’d still like to get coffee a few days later if I was interested. A year and a half later, I woke up, put on a nice dress and went to see him at Thatcher’s.
All that to say, it just seemed fitting to go to Thatcher’s. We sat at the bar and drank our warm beverages at the place of our first coffee date on our last coffee date as a family of two.
Then we went to Red Robin, because I’d been told to have a big dinner before we came in. and why would I bother with doing dishes on the day in which we would get induced?
From there, we went to the hospital. With only my wallet in hand, we said “we are here to get induced.” I assumed it would be a long, boring, slow evening. Our arrival time was 6:45, and I assumed we’d just sign some papers or something and get the show on the road.
We walked into the very room we toured during the hospital tour last month and I awkwardly stood in the corner as the nurse gave me a hospital gown and invited me to sit on the bed.
The bed where I would GIVE BIRTH. But it still hadn’t fully hit me. She began asking me what felt like 18,000 questions while strapping me up to monitors. We’ve seen those monitors every week of September – one for the baby’s heart rate and one for measuring contractions.
My uterus was going crazy (as was the rest of me), so instead of oral pills to start labor, our midwife and the doctor on call agreed that cervical balloons would be the best way to get my cervix ripened for labor. It took three attempts, but we finally got the balloons in and inflated (its was not fun) and at 9:45 I was left to try and sleep until the next morning when they’d get taken out.
Sleep was hard, because homegirl had a lot of amniotic fluid to squirm around in and if I moved in the slightest, she would go off the monitor. Which meant all night the nurses came in to wake me up and readjust the monitor. It made an already anxious night go by even slower. Justen said the next morning that he eventually started tuning out the nurses. What a nice luxury, I responded.
When the balloons were removed, I’d gone from being dilated at a 1.5 and 70% effacement to 5 cm and 80%. At 11 am, pitocin started. At 1 pm, I had started feeling crampy and decided we should watch a movie while I spent hours feeling crampy. We chose to finally watch A Wrinkle in Time – which seemed so very fitting. Less than halfway into the movie, the cramps had gone from annoying cramps to painful contractions.
By 3 pm, our midwife came in to talk about breaking my water. I cried and asked her if she thought I was a wimp for wanting an epidural. Over and over I tried to explain that I had gone in wanting to see what my body could do, and I didn’t know if I was merely on step 2 of 15 or if I was on step 8 of 10. If that makes sense. I just didn’t know if I was tapping out way earlier than I’d planned.
After being reassured that I wasn’t a wimp, I was the proud recipient of an epidural – after a failed first attempt. A few minutes after receiving my epidural, I exclaimed that I was really cold and needed a blanket. As I laid shivering under four heated blankets, the nurse told me that shaking was perfectly normal during labor and wasn’t related to being cold. What do I know.
At 4:30 they went to break my water and I was at 7 cm and 100%. She merely poked the amniotic sac and it all came gushing out.
and then.
Y’all, I kid you not. There was thunder. and there was lightning. and then the power went out at the hospital. It was, as Madeleine L’Engle wrote, a dark and stormy night. I made sure to tell everyone that walked into the room.
The power eventually came back on, but man I got a kick out of it until then. At around 7 pm, our midwife came in and checked me. All systems were a go – 10 and 100%, just waiting for me to feel the urge to push. Our friend Tomera showed up around 7:15 to take delivery photos. We talked for awhile and I started feeling really uncomfortable. It was a lot of pressure in my pelvis and it felt weird, but I had no “urge” to do anything.
It kept getting worse and both Tomera and Justen told me to call the nurse if it was getting unbearable. The nurse walked in, and instead of telling her about what I was feeling, I just said “I’m going to throw up.” She handed me a barf bag, and sure enough I threw up a few times. That’s when it felt real to me, because I NEVER THROW UP. Everything after that was honestly a huge blur. In the blink of an eye I was legs in the air ready to push out a human being FROM MY BODY.
There was a moment when I told Kate, our midwife, that I had changed my mind. Didn’t want to do it, could I please just go home. She didn’t let me. Guess I was a little too far into the whole thing to just turn around and go home, haha.
I pushed for 20 minutes, and I will never ever forget feeling the body of our baby come out of me. Kate held her up and I immediately began sobbing. When we were walking into the hospital, I told Justen that I’ve been keeping a wall up to protect myself – just because we made it all the way to the hospital for an induction didn’t mean we’d be leaving with a baby. In that moment, I looked down and saw the little life I’ve been feeling grow and move inside of me this whole year and I realized.. we had a breathing baby.
Before I knew it, our baby girl was tucked into my hospital gown so we could lay there, skin to skin, in amazement of each other.
I wanted to stare at her forever – this little human being, not as terrifying as I thought she would be. Squishy little cheeks, tiny little fingers, a head full of hair. A little baby martian from a water world, thrust into a world with air, wind, bright sunshine, very loud and startling noises, room to stretch your limbs out in all direction.
For months I’ve been asking Justen if he thinks he’ll cut the umbilical cord when the time comes. He wasn’t sure, but when it came down to it, he freed our little human from the remainder of her womb life. We’re the new placenta.
They weighed and measured her – 7 lb 4 oz, 20.5″ of perfect little human.
The hospital plays a chime noise every time a baby is born, and I thought it was kinda cheesy until I was sitting there holding the baby I’d just delivered, and I heard chimes. Through tears I asked if those were OUR chimes, and was so excited to find out that they in fact were our chimes.
After our family came in to meet her, it was time for me to get up and get cleaned. I stood up and a few seconds later, the room started spinning and I thought I was dying. I looked down and saw a bunch of blood running down my legs. After commenting on both of these things, I woke up laying in bed. I’d passed out because homegirl did some damage to the birth canal when she came out, resulting in hemorrhaging.
I attempted to go to the bathroom when I came to again, and almost passed out again while on the toilet. I said I just wanted to go to sleep, which they let me do.
That made the whole first evening of her life go by really quick.
I never understood why people would get excited to hear other people’s birth stories, but now I get it. It’s been over a week and I still think about my experience with labor multiple times a day. I can’t believe I did it. For months I’ve been so scared of delivery, and I. FREAKING. DID. IT.
It was a relatively short process, but I endured 3 Cook Catheters, 2 separate IV sites, 2 epidurals and contractions that went from 0-60 in 2 hours.
My body, which I’ve had issues with for my whole life, successfully grew a spike in hormones into a human being and then magically adapted to get her into the world. I’ve never been more proud of myself. I often find myself staring at her and thinking, “I made that. I got that out of my body through a small opening.”
So I’m a little bit late, but Baby Martian is here. MadeleineDonna, named with love and care. She is an absolute doll and we are smitten.
Maybe it’s nesting (probably) but on the first chilly Saturday of post-Labor Day, I went on a cleaning frenzy. We’re talking emptying out/wiping down cabinets, re-organizing under the sink, and FINALLY hanging up a clock in our kitchen (that we never look at, lol). We’re all aware of Spring Cleaning, but let’s look at the other side of the coin and get down on some FALL CLEANING. Sharing a Fall Cleaning List with y’all today!
Put some chili in a crockpot, diffuse some spicy oils, put on your cozy socks and tackle some of these cleaning projects!
FALL CLEANING LIST: KITCHEN
Take out everything from your cabinets, check the expiration date, and then deep clean the shelves
Replace your dish towels to some festive fall ones (here are some cute ones i’ve found!)
Do a thorough cleaning of your coffee pot. If you have a coffee station of any sort, add some seasonal syrups (like this Monin mini-pack!)
Straighten/organize your pots and pans and lids.
Buy yourself a label maker and go to town, ESPECIALLY on baking products because y’all know it’s baking season!
Wipe down all handles and knobs on appliances and cabinets.
Clean that nasty part of the bottom cabinets.. you know, the space between the bottom of the door and the floor.
Pour some baking soda & vinegar down the drain to give your drains a good cleaning (actual tutorial here).
Take everything out of your fridge (EVERYTHING, you hear me??) and give it a good wipe down. Re-organize everything you put back in, and make sure to check expiration dates. If you’re living from spring cleaning to spring cleaning, then you probably have some weird stuff in there.
Another place to take EVERYTHING OUT OF and wipe down/reorganize is under your sink.
Clean your stove top! Take out the drip pans if you have them and give them a good scrub. Here’s a great site with info about how to clean various kinds of stovetops.
Listen, I don’t have a microwave or a dishwasher but if you have one… you should clean them.
Dust the top of your cabinets and appliances. Unless you’re gonna claim the dust and cobwebs as Halloween decorations in which case, carry on my friends.
Clean out that one drawer. You know what drawer I’m talking about. YOU KNOW. Use any little boxes you have to create drawer dividers (thanks Marie Kondo! I use my old Birchboxes for drawer storage).
While you’re at it, go through that pile of mail you’ll get to later. Go through any coupons you find and check for expiration dates, toss junk mail, file the rest.
FALL CLEANING LIST: BEDROOM
Wash ALL OF YOUR BEDDING. If you’re blessed enough to have spare bedding, switch it out while you wash. If you’re looking to make your bedroom a little more cozy, add a nice chunky blanket to your bed!
Take everything off of the flat surfaces in your bedroom (nightstands, dressers, bookshelves, etc) and wipe them down. Re-evaluate everything as you put it back on.
If you have anything under your bed (we’re guilty of this because we have limited storage in our apartment), take it out and go through it. Use the opportunity to vacuum under the bed.
Dust your blinds and wash your windows.
Use the hose of your vacuum to dust the top edges of your room (where the walls meet the ceiling!).
Wipe down the light fixtures.
Depending on the weather and where you live, swap out your ultra summer clothes for your fall stuff. Re-fold your clothes (it seems like a lot of work, but it’s SO WORTH IT). I use these thin velvet hangers because they hold so much and save space.
Throw away any single socks and ratty underwear. You know you have both.
Dust any picture frames you have displayed.
FALL CLEANING LIST: LIVING ROOM
Clean and dust your windows (including around the trim!).
Just like in the bedroom, take everything off of flat surfaces and dust/clean them. Re-evaluate everything as you put it back on. This is also a great time to maybe put some seasonal decor up!
Dust your tv. Not just the screen, but the edges.
Take the pillows and cushions off of your couch. Use the hose on your vacuum to clean the crumbs that have fallen into the couch. Enjoy whatever food/pens/change you find in there.
After replacing the cushions, use the hose on your vacuum on the cushions and frame of your couch.
Swap out your throw pillows for some seasonal ones.
Dust all of your picture frames and if you have any fall family photos, put them in front of the other ones (keep the other ones in the frames if you can that way you can easily swap them around for the season).
Clean the baseboards around the room.
Wipe down all door handles and switches.
FALL CLEANING LIST: BATHROOM
Wash your shower curtain and liner.
If you have any mats in your shower/tub, rinse them off and set them somewhere to dry (in the sink for now?)
Use a drain snake to get any hair out of the shower and sink drains.
Wash and replace all towels that are out in the open. Re-fold all the other ones. Seriously, re-folding is a game-changer.
Replace toothbrushes or toothbrush heads. You’ll need those to be on the A game to tackle the sugar bugs in the upcoming months lol.
Go through any closets/cabinets and throw out old products.
Dust the lights
Wipe down door handles and light switches
Clean the mirror
PHEW. I’m exhausted just making this list! Take advantage of the chance to do a deep clean before the weather forces you to stay inside a little bit more. Plus, if you’re having people over for the holidays, it’s not been months since a deep clean. So best of luck to y’all! You can’t tell, but I’m cheers-ing you with a pumpkin chai π
I live in the Pacific Northwest, where I love to drink coffee and adventure. I blog because I think life matters too much to let it go by without noticing.
