Apple Pie Pancakes and a Birthday Party!!!

I think I've found a new favorite to replace my morning oatmeal and apples! It's still oatmeal and apples, just in a different form! A few weeks ago I made Apples & Flax pancakes but got to thinking about replacing the whole wheat flour with oatmeal ground up into oat flour. Genius idea if I do say so myself because it tasted FABULOUS! My hubby took a few with him for his drive into the office and later told me he thought they tasted like sweet apple pie!!! He's right though...it does remind me of apple pie. MMMM,mmmmm, good! I especially like it with a bit of Almond Butter spread over the top.

Apples Pie Pancakes

2/3 cup ground oatmeal

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tsp. stevia

3/4 cup of almond milk

1 granny smith apple, peeled and chopped

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Combine dry ingredients. In a seperate bowl combine applesauce, milk, and vanilla. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir until just combined. Fold in chopped apples and let batter rest.

Spray skillet with non-stick spray. Pour batter into pan to form pancakes and cook over medium heat. Let cakes cook on one side for several minutes, until bubbles start to form and pancakes are golden brown. Flip and cook for a few more minutes. This recipe should yield approx. 6 pancakes.

Later, my youngest, Ashton and I got to baking in the kitchen to get ready for our annual Happy Birthday Jesus Birthday party! As you can see by the "cookie roll" he is cutting that this was not any attempt at preparing something healthy, vegan, or remotely good for you in the least! But with less than 24 hours till 16 moms and 43 children emerged on our home, a mom's gotta do what a mom's got to do. And in this case, it meant Toll House.
Ashton was the perfect little baker, slicing and placing each piece in the individual mini muffin pans.

Once they came out of the oven, we stuffed each one with a reese's cup center! YUM!

I think Ashton liked them....
We had a GREAT time celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus! We started out with a word search and a maze activity for the kids to do. I tried to keep everyone on schedule since there were SO many kids...figure too much free time is where something always goes amuck.
After the kids were done with the Christmas Activity pages we got to work on our Christmas craft. We made homemade Christmas ornaments. One 3" styrofoam ball and 18,000 cut out 3" pieces of fabric (LOL) and one pencil is all they needed. Push the fabric square into the ball part way and then pull the pencil out. They turned out really cute!

Of course a Happy Birthday Jesus Party wouldn't be complete without "Pin the Star on the Manger".
We had stars all over the place!!
Then the kids gathered around to sing Happy Birthday..... what sweetness the sound of children singing!

This was the first time I've ever made a three layer cake. I was so proud of myself, especially given that I waited to the 9th hour to complete it! Each layer had a different meaning...the brown layer symbolizing our sins, red layer= the blood of Jesus, green layer= our growth and fresh start with Christ in our life, the roundness of the cake=Jesus came to Earth which is round, white frosting= Jesus washes away all our sins!
I didn't actually have any cake myself, but from what I hear, it was delish! :)