Recipe: Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins


3 ¾ cups flour
1 to1 ½ cups of sugar, depending on how sweet you like your muffins
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
2 t. baking soda
2 eggs
 2 ¼ cups mashed bananas
1 cup yogurt
 1 cup oil
2 t. vanilla, optional
1 ½ cups chocolate chips and/or nuts

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, combine eggs, oil, yogurt, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 2o minutes or until done.

I love this recipe because it is easily and unnoticeably “healthified” with whole wheat or oat flour and sucanat. I use plain or vanilla yogurt. If I use vanilla yogurt, I rarely put in the vanilla extract. You could probably use nuts in place of chocolate chips, but I never make them without the chocolate chips!  Another reason I love this recipe is that yogurt is often marked down to .99 or .89 as it nears expiration, and bananas are often marked down due to ripeness.  You can bake up several batches very inexpensively, and your children will thank you!  This is a definitely a winner.

Happy Birthday, Hannah!

My Dearest Hannah,

I asked you if you were excited about your birthday coming up and you grinned from ear to ear and said, "Yes.  I'm just a little bit three now!  I'm almost four and I can't wait to be five!"  This is a big change from last year when you did not want a birthday.  At. All.  You preferred to ignore your big day and proceeded to burst into tears anytime someone wished you a happy day. 

I love to hear you chitter chatter away about any little thing that is in your mind.  One day, I'm sure I'll be glad not to have to guess what you're thinking.  You're rarely quiet,  but in a good way.  Sort of. 

Your personality has been peeking through as you've grown older this year.  You want to do school like your big brothers.  You want to read and will sit through reading lessons, and you want to write and will sit for me to teach you.  You enjoy learning, and soak up everything  like a sponge.  When we begin our school day, I often find you gathering sight word cards, pencils, and as many purple crayons as you can find.  You'll gather paper and go find somewhere to sit, quietly, to "do school."

You are crazy about getting together with other little girls for "girl parties," and since we got home from visiting your cousins, you and Grace have thrown countless tea parties.  You are very much a little girl who likes to do things by herself, and I love to watch you learn.  All of you kids like to get into the kitchen to help me cook, but you, my girl, take the cake!  If I ever forget to call you to come crack my eggs, I am in t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

You're tenderhearted and love your family.  And you still run to hug your brothers after their karate class because it's been 45 whole minutes since you got to be near them.  I've begun to find you and Ethan sitting together, and you're listening to one of his stories.  I've found you playing blocks with Daniel.  And I've found you playing Mommy with Grace.  You asked me if it would be okay if you married Daddy, and I told you I was already married to him but that we'd help you find a good man to marry.  Smiles and hugs.  You have a precious heart.  A sweet spirit about you.

Your shyness and rottenness only comes out when we get around people we don't spend a lot of time with. Thus...the look.  I promise...this look has got to go...It ain't becomin', sister.

This year, we got our hair cut together, and you had a great time.  Then, two weeks later, you cut the rest of it off and immediately wanted it back on your head and cried anytime someone told you how pretty it looked.  It was such a drastic change in appearance, but you are still a beautiful girl!  Just beautiful!  You remind me often that you want it to grow out, and I assure that it already is and that we always let mommy or the stylist cut our hair.  You nod emphatically, and then you go tell Grace that only mommy or the stylist are supposed to cut hair.  Mainly because Grace is the only one smaller than you that you can pass all your wisdom to. 

I'm so thankful to be your mother.  So thankful that God blessed me to have the opportunity to love you!

Love,
Mommy

Story of Us: Part 1

On my old blog, I wrote something similar to what I will be writing, but I've lost much of those writings.  So I'll be starting this series anew.  This is more of a journaling for me, but I thought it'd be fun to share.

The Story of Us


It was June of 2001.

I graduated high school and had plans like any other high school senior. I thought I knew what I wanted out of life. I was going into Respiratory Therapy (which I would have hated). Seriously. I was going to get my Associate’s Degree and then be working in that field while I went to school for something else, also in the medical field. I don’t really know why I wanted to be in that field. I enjoy taking care of people, but other than that I certainly am not suited for it.

I continued to go about my business that summer which brought me to church one Sunday when my pastor’s granddaughter, a good friend of mine, and her new husband were there. Her husband was nine years older than her which was crazy to me! Such a big age gap. Wow. (Please note that they will have been married ten years this spring and have two beautiful girls!)

After church, she asked me if she could give Deron, her brother-in-law who was six years older than me, my email address. What was with all these big age gaps?!  Not wanting to hurt her feelings or her husband’s, I said, “Sure.” And thus changed my entire life…

Grocery Savings

After mostly taking off since Thanksgiving, I'm back to bargain/coupon shopping.  Here are my totals for this week.

CVS:
Total before: $13.64
Total after: $1.65
$4 ECBs remaining

Publix:
Total before: $19.15
Total after: $3.59

Kroger:
Total before: $124.25
Total after: $74.46

Grand total before: $157.04
and after: $79.70
Average of 50.7% savings

Not bad.This was a stocking trip, and I will only do little trips to get sale items and milk for the rest of January.

Goal: Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

One of my goals this New Year is to step outside my comfort zone and try a few new-to-me things.


One of which is to really let my chillins in the kitchen with me. The “fun, memory making” mom in me wants to let loose and let them try their hand in there…within reason, of course! The “let’s get it done” mom in me wants to hurry through cooking by myself. It’s faster and easier and cleaner and faster and easier without all the extra hands. {sigh}

My mom gave me an awesome calendar for Christmas called Cooking with Kids. It has monthly recipes that give the children tasks during meal preparation. I get lost in what I want the kids to do because I think too far into the clean-up process. However, there are skills to be learned all over the kitchen for any age. Meal prep and clean up are life lessons that go hand in hand, and if my little chefs participate in one aspect, they shall participate in the other.

We’ll see how it goes…

(Photo by Erin O'Quinn!)

Grace- My Littlest Comedian

Grace is indeed the youngest child.  She's precious and pleasant for the most part...  But she has a comical side that's a mile wide.  She really hates the song "Amazing Grace."  So much so that I take her out of church whenever we sing it.  She assumes in her own little Grace-is-the-center-of-the-universe world that we must all be singing about her.  And I don't mean a little bit of dislike.  I mean this little girl will burst into tears.  Seriously.

On the way to Deron's folks house last weekend, the other rotten children in the van wanted to see her get all riled up, so they sang "Amazing Grace."  We stopped them of course, but the damage had been done.  Then, as everyone else hushed up, Grace began to sing "Amazing Hannah, Amazing Mommy, Amazing Daddy..." with a look on her face that asked us, "See?  How do you like it?"

Then, the other day, the kiddos and I were playing Twister.  It was pretty hilarious.  Daniel always chose to hit his circles as far away from each other as he could in order to be Mr. Funny Man.  His shirt was creeping up exposing his six year old tummy.  He was laughing, and Grace couldn't resist.  She ran over to tickle his little belly. No one actually told her it would be funny.  But I can't remember when I've laughed so hard with my little guys!

I just love her natural sense of humor.  She's a sweetie.

(Please note that these photos are courtesy of Erin O'Quinn.  Didn't she do a fabulous job?  I'll be posting all the pictures from her over the next few posts!)

The Snaggle-tooth Boys

Daniel lost two teeth in two days, and Ethan joined him yesterday!  I wonder what foods I should be preparing for their toothless mouths to enjoy...

Adorable. 

Hannah has been pretty dissappointed that she hasn't lost a tooth, yet.  She's been so upset, and there's no reasoning with her.  A couple weeks ago she was distraught because she didn't know how to fly, and there was nothing I could say to talk her down from the completely unreasonable position she'd taken.

(P.S. I got my Christmas gifts- 1. a new "cyber-cheap" camera to get me by until I can get what I really want...at which point my children will be old enough to be completely uninterested in my gadgets. and 2. a new keyboard for my laptop because the girls had popped off over half of my keys so I rarely typed anything at length!  They had better not even touch these keys... grrrr.)