Baby brain has struck again!

That’s right, we’re expecting Baby #2 in March!  I’m doing my best to stay on top of my blog, but I’ve been needing a lot more naps these days.  I’m hoping the exhaustion part ends soon and I can get back into top form here!

The Snooze Wrap Plus is for babies who are between 7 and 14 pounds, so roughly from birth to about 3 months old.  It’s made from a very soft 100% cotton and uses multiple soft-touch fasteners to create a nice, snug fit for your little one.  I received the Snooze Wrap Plus in Ecru (pictured at left); it is also available in pink, blue and sage green.

The fasterns really are very soft and I don’t believe that there would be any danger of a baby scratching themselves on them.  There is also a removable Cradle Support Pad^™ that runs under the baby’s head and body, which gives you a little something extra to grip when they’re so tiny!  This also makes sure that everyone remembers that it is recommended that babies sleep on their backs now, which was not the case when most of us mommies were babies and can be hard for new grandma’s to remember.

My favourite feature is that you can swaddle with arms in OR arms out.  It’s very hard to find a swaddler that allows for the arms to be out, and that’s what we needed with our daughter!  She needed her legs swaddled but had to have her arms free because she slept with her hands behind her head (and did so until she was close to a year old and started sleeping on her tummy).  For that reason alone, I’d be looking to buy one of these for our next baby!

The Snooze Wrap Plus from sootheTIME is available for sale at Babies R Us in the USA or at Toys R Us online.

Ingredients

• 1 Graham cracker crust
• 24 oz cream cheese (we used two packages of light and one of regular)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 Tbsp honey

 

Directions

1. First, prepare the graham cracker crust. To me, cheesecake needs a crust up the sides as well as on the bottom, but that’s a personal taste thing. Drape your crust according to your preference and bake it blind for about 15 minutes at 325°F.
2. Let the cream cheese come to room temperature for about an hour. Then, in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until lighter in texture. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in between each addition. Finally, add the cream, lemon juice, and vanilla, beating them all in. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat some more. The batter should be silky smooth and reasonably thick.
3. Now, divide the batter evenly into three bowls. Leave one plain.
4. In the second, the flavor is peanut butter. Add the batter, peanut butter, and honey to the bowl of the stand mixer. Beat it well and set aside.
5. In the third, the flavor will be chocolate. Melt the bittersweet chocolate chunks (30 seconds in microwave, stir, repeat until melted) and give it 30 seconds to cool down a bit (we melted ours on the stove in a bowl over a pot of boiling water instead). Beat the melted chocolate and cocoa powder into the batter (in the bowl of the stand mixer, of course).
6. With all three flavors ready, now all that remains is to assemble the cheesecake. The order you choose, doesn’t matter, but into the graham cracker crust, I poured the chocolate batter, smoothed it out, then the plain, and finally, the peanut butter batter. Give the pan a tap in case there’s any air bubbles trapped in there (you don’t want them).
7. Now, set a pan (larger than your cheesecake pan) in the oven (which is at 350°F) and fill it with water. You want to bake the cheesecake in the water bath for 45-55 minutes (you want the center to have some jiggle to it, still). The water bath tempers the heat of the oven, helping to prevent your cheesecake from cracking. Once time is up, kill the heat, but leave the cheesecake in the oven for an hour more before you remove it and let it cool down on the countertop. Once cooled down, let it sit in the fridge overnight before you grab your self a slice.
8. Optionally, now is a good time to top your cake with some ganache, but trust me, you’ll love it with or without. Enjoy!

CafePress has a wide variety of unique and personalized gifts for everyone!  From sports teams to television shows to your favourite animal, there is something for even the hardest person on your shopping list.  A huge bonus is that they ship to Canada!  For review, I chose the uRban Junque aRt Tote Bag, which was designed by Rhonna Farrer (she’s a big name in scrapbooking and I love her stuff!).  I wanted a bag that was big enough to fit whatever I’d need for an afternoon out with my toddler, but that was still easy to carry.  As you can see, their totes are very generously sized!  There is lots of room, but it’s still easy to find whatever you’ve packed.

I really appreciate how long the straps are, so that I can easily carry it on my shoulder without it slipping off or digging in.  The bottom is also nice and wide, so it stands up by itself.  This makes it so much easier for me to find the all-important snacks that always seem to fall to the bottom of any bag that I pack.

Here’s my bag.  As you can see, I’ve got a ton of stuff in there and it’s only half full!  There is a beach towel, baby swimsuit, swim diaper, wet bag, cloth diaper (Happy Heiny, in case you’re wondering), pack of wipes, change pad, snack cup AND my clutch.  This would be a perfect beach bag for the rest of the summer, but it’s definitely cute and functional enough that I’m not packing it away with our sandals at the end of the season! 

Want to know how you can score one of your very own?

One lucky winner will get a tote bag of their choice from CAFEPRESS!

To enter, go to CafePress and take a look around (grab a coffee, this could take a while), then post a comment here telling me which tote bag you’d choose!

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