the birthday boy

Someone at our house just turned FIVE!

The older kids are out on Spring Break this week, so we all got to go have a picnic by Dad’s office.

And we got to go to a museum near by. Indiana Jones loves museums, so this was a cool thing to do. In the children’s section they got to dress up and try Latin American dances.

He got some new Star Wars Lego’s from Grandma and Grandpa M. I can’t really tell if likes them or not. He’s so hard to read.

He asked me to make him an “I” cake. I thought he meant an “eye” cake, and was kind of grossed out. I was glad he explained it to  me and didn’t have an eyeball staring at him when he expected his initial.

Happy Birthday to my little man.

around the conference table

I love General Conference. I think it is better than most holidays because you get wonderful family time without all the crazy stress.

We may have had a Jedi council going on too.

Because I don’t really have a better place to put these things, (I am afraid of Pintrest because I know myself to be a notorious time-waster) I wanted to stick my favorite places that I found activities to print off for my kids here so I could find them again in October or for FHE.

My favorite printable packets were from foodstorageandbeyond.com. Ian had the most fun with that packet.

This blog had a good coloring book from the Friend already put in a google doc and ready to print. (I don’t always get good results trying to print from the lds.org coloring pages.)

Deseret Book also had a cute packet that we liked.

Now I just need to work on improving everything I took note of before the next conference! Luckily I have six months.

elementary school musical

Cali just finished up performing in the musical at her school. It was “Doo Wop Wed Widing Hood,” and Cali was the cutest member of the chorus on the stage. I’m not biased in any way.

I was actually surprised at how well they were able to do a musical for a group of elementary school students. I couldn’t even memorize a poem when I was that age.

(Natalie always thinks she is the one that we want pictures of, and Cali was nice enough to share her spotlight. )

adding another peanut to our gallery

Here is the first look at the bun in the oven, who is due to make an appearance this September.

Being pregnant and having the other kids be a little older this time has been fun, as they all feel ownership in “our baby.” Such as: their feeling like their input on names is really important. We still haven’t come up with anything better than “Indiana” or “Hermione” yet.

Ian also asked me the other day if I ate the baby, and that is how it ended up in my tummy.  I just kind of left the answer at “no.”

Speaking of eating, I haven’t felt sick, but I have felt like eating everything in sight. I am not sure which I would really prefer.

Someone recently pointed out to us that we are going to have five kids under the age of ten.

We know. Aren’t we lucky?

nine

Cali doesn’t enjoy her birthday cakes quite the same way she used to eight years ago.

Yes, she is nine already.

Cali picked bowling for her birthday activity.

Natalie didn’t even care where the ball went. It was all good.

Ian took his turns all by himself, and his legs turned into pogo sticks as soon as the ball was let go.

I told him he was an awesome bowler.

“I know.” he replied.

It was a pretty close contest. I was sitting it out, but I did bowl one frame for Scott.

I got a strike.

I quit there.

Really he didn’t need my help.

Happy birthday to my sweet girl who first made me a mother.

Three is a magic number

Yes it is, it’s a magic number. (remember, School House Rock?)

Anyways, someone at our house just had a birthday!

Natalie enjoyed blowing her candles out at breakfast, which was good because I forgot my camera, then forgot a memory card, and then she just had us light them again for no reason.

We had a long weekend so everyone had the day off, so she got to celebrate all day long!

We decided it would be fun to take a trip to the zoo.

That wild cat looked an awful lot like Cali.

Just kidding. Natalie really thought that cat would like to come to our house. I read the description and it said something about ferocious. I think it likes the zoo.

We finished off with a ride on the train, and some cotton candy. Two ingredients for pure happiness.

Natalie got some mini princess dolls which she plays with for most of her time.

And some of her own Star Wars toys because her brother is rubbing off on her.

Natalie didn’t take time to make a wish, or eat any cake. But she did keep checking wrapping paper to make sure she had found everything.

Happy birthday to my littlest princess.

healthified oatmeal banana bread

This is one of those recipes that I use all the time.  I love this stuff.

I got the original recipe from myrecipes.com, but I made a few small changes.

Oatmeal Banana Bread

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup applesauce

2 tbsp. canola oil

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)

1 cup regular oats

1/2 cup skim milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour (from white wheat)

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

 

Preheat oven to 350. Grease one 9x5 loaf pan or 3, 5 3/4 x 3 inch pans.

Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl; beat well at medium speed. Combine banana, oats, and milk; add to sugar mixture, beating well.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup and level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir with a whisk.  Add to sugar mixture; beat just until moist.  Spoon batter into the prepared pan.

Bake 9x5” loaf for 1 hour 10 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. Bake 5 3/4 by 3” pans for 35 minutes.

Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan.  Cool completely on wire rack.

Enjoy!

healthy pancake mix

My kids are giving up cold cereal. It could have something to do with the fact that I don’t like to buy cereal if it doesn’t have at least 5 grams of fiber per serving. (Frosted Mini Wheats has 6 grams, it’s not like I’m trying to get them to eat All Bran.) I just eat a bowl of steaming oatmeal every morning, but they aren’t jumping on that bandwagon either.

Anyways, pancakes are a hot request. I have always made our pancakes from scratch, but recently came across this mix which has cut down on my prep time. This is good, because mornings around here aren’t exactly laid-back.

I have some other recipes I probably like better, but when it comes to simple this one is winning out.  Also this is actually a recipe I found for Healthy Bisquick, so you can use this in any recipe that calls for bisquick (like biscuits or any impossible pie recipes.)

Healthy Pancake Mix (or Healthy Bisquick)

recipe from food.com

4 cups Whole Wheat Flour (from white wheat)

2 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup powdered milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1. Mix first four ingredients together

2. Stir in canola oil until it is the texture of fine crumbs

3. Store in Refrigerator (Makes 5 1/2 cups)

 

Easy Pancakes

1 cup Mix

1 egg

1/2-2/3 cup water or milk (add enough to get the consistency you like)

1. Mix together and cook on your skillet or griddle

2. Makes about 8 medium sized pancakes, so adjust the recipe accordingly.

 

Easy Drop Biscuits

2 1/4 cup Mix

2/3 cup milk or water

1. Preheat oven to 450 and grease a baking sheet

2. Mix ingredients until a soft dough forms and then drop large spoonful's of dough onto pan.

3. Bake 8-10 minutues.  Makes about 16 biscuits.

magically delicious

The above picture is what happens when I ask Ian to help me get a picture for my blog.

I love making popcorn treats. Probably because I enjoy eating them. I made bucketsful of caramel corn at Christmas and some of it miraculously made it to our neighbors.

So I am looking for more “kids in the kitchen” type recipe and this one was great.

I would rate the taste good, but not actually magically delicious. (Or maybe it was because it did kind of taste like the marshmallows in Lucky Charms.) The best part about them was making and eating them together.

I got the recipe out of a book I have called: The Magic of Jell-O. I guess that is why Harry Potter was so interested.

Jell-O Popcorn Balls

1/4 cup butter or margarine

6 cups mini marshmallows

1 pkg (4 serving size) Jell-O gelatin, any flavor (berry blue was our choice)

12 cups popped popcorn (1/2 cup of unpopped kernels-worth worked great)

1 cup peanuts (optional) (left out by us)

Place butter and marshmallows in large microwavable bowl.  Cook in microwave on High for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until marshmallows are puffed.

Add dry gelatin; stir until well blended.

Pour marshmallow mixture over popcorn (and peanuts if you use them.)

Stir quickly to coat.

Shape into balls. (coat hands with cooking spray first to make it a lot less messy.)

Makes about 36 popcorn balls (I don’t think we got that many, don’t know if we made ours too big, or if it was because not all of the gooey popcorn made it that far. . . )

Enjoy!

dynamic duo

We had a little problem with monsters the other morning, but luckily we have some experts that know how to deal with them.

Our house is safe once again.

a few of my favorite things

I finally have a minute to record some of my favorite photographed moments from Christmas.

There were twice as many that didn’t get photographed.

Anyways, here are a few snapshots from a wonderful holiday:

There was a trip downtown to see some lights.

The annual gingerbread house building.

(Quality Control)

Finding this note to Santa on Kimi’s Stocking.  “tere’s someting in tere for you! and it is to keep” (I thought maybe it would be the letter “h” inside since it seemed to have gone missing.)

Ian finding out that Santa thought he was a very good boy.

Ian was surprised to find out that Santa also thought Natalie had been a good girl.

Our little angel appeared to the shepherd, and then went on to the manger.

The wise man came bearing a ring pop.

And the angel came back to tell Mary to take the baby to Egypt and chased everyone else away with a “You no kill the baby Jesus!”

That’s our Christmas all wrapped up!

Happy New Year!