Banana Muffins Again

So this morning when I woke up I decided that I wanted muffins and since the banana's would go bad soon I decided to make Banana Muffins. I once again used the recipe from Smiles Blue's Clues book (which I will list shortly). Mainly because last night as I was talking to Baby Jail at Raven's it was mentioned that all of the recipes for banana bread usually has nuts in them. This recipe does not so I wanted to share it with you!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

3 Large bananas
1/2 cup of butter (softened)
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 cup of sour cream
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt

1. Cream sugar and butter
2. Add eggs, vanilla, mashed bananas, sour cream into the mixture
3. Stir in dry ingredients
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until top is golden brown

I added some nutmeg this morning and I think I like it best with apple chunks in it.

Oh and here's my bad poetry for the day...

Sleeping baby lies on my lap.
Do I dare disturb her?
How come am I such a sap?
At least she doesn't purr.

It Snows!

Hollow Toilet Bowl
Old boyfriends who go.
No one knows how my brain works
Not even me... it snows!

I am starting to wonder if I am doing this poetry badly on purpose now. It would make sense of the nonsense that I just wrote. Of course my brain is great at randomly picking up silly things throughout the days and thinking that since they make sense to me everyone else will know exactly what I am talking about. Right! Right?! Anyways it snowed this morning and at Raven's house a friend from Sask country was over and mentioned an old boyfriend of hers. I was really glad to see her. It has been awhile and I missed her brand of sarcasm. Wow did she get some good zingers in. At least I do not have a frickin' huge pot of turkey stew at my house. I got to leave most of it at Raven's.

It is good stew but once again Hubby did not think about proportioning it to just our family. He keeps forgetting he only has to make enough to feed 4 people. Well 3 if you count the kids as one adult. Though some days Bear eats more than me. Still we no longer have roommates who'll scarf down enough to feed a small army. Sigh time for me to go to bed now. I am starting to ramble and yeah.... night!

Colors of fish

I am going to try a Haiku this time. We will see if I am successful.

Green with three leaves
Purple Fish, Blue white pearl
Falling gently down

This was inspired by a silly game called Age of Japan that I play on one of my facebook applications. It is very pretty game but kinda mindless. Just what I need right now another time sucking game. lol

The Crow

A big black Crow sitting on top the tree
Waiting for the food provided by me.
My daughter as gift received a birdfeeder
Only to cater to this bottomless eater.
Now each morn that we wake
His raucous caws we have to take.
As all the food has fallen to weeds
So no other bird can get some seeds.

Whee more bad poetry!

This time of course inspired by the crow sitting on top of the tree as I patiently refilled the birdfeeder. Sigh!

The Screamer!

Cry Scream Wail Jag Jag
Baby plug thy name is soother.
Screech Waah Sniff Mmmmbbrmlm
Why have you not come into my life sooner.

Yes it's bad poetry day.

I figure I do not do enough creative writing anymore so even if it's bad I'll still try to do something every now and then. Preferably every day but right now as I listen to my daughter not want to learn how to go to sleep by herself this is the best I can do with my blaring headache. So suffer everyone as I have suffered! Bwahahahaha. Oh oops that was the quiet part loud again. Sigh when will I ever learn!

Pizza Sunday

Normally that should be Easter Sunday but it got turned into Smiles making Pizza for supper last night. Friday was so busy and an oops day that Smiles was not able to make supper that night. Saturday was also very busy and supper was at Nana's house (as in previous blog) so that left Sunday. We had one of those premade pizza mix box's that when checked turned to be six years past due date. Sigh and with Smiles all raring to go on making pizza Hubby had to go out and get some pizza shells (and extra toppings). So all in all it turned out really well. Smiles liked cutting up some of the toppings and grating cheese (until her hand got tired - yes there was a whine there!) and laying out the toppings on the pizza shells. They were also very yummy.

Today I am mostly tackling the mountain of laundry in my laundry room due to the spectacular clean out of the kids room. I was wondering where most of their clothes had gotten to. The other thing I had them do yesterday was I gave them one tub each that they had to fill with toys to be put into the garage. Of course I had to state that Bear could only fill his tub with his toys and Smiles had to fill her tub with her toys and neither could cheat by throwing the other child's toys in their own tub! Sigh! The reward was when those two tubs got taken out to the garage (today) they could go through the other seven tubs in the garage and take ONE toy back into the house. Smiles was ecstatic because we found the original MreowMreow for her. I am also happy because it's a small toy....hehe.

So today I am tired, very, very tired and not likely to get a nap since I still have a mound of housework to do. It also didn't help that I rearranged the garage again. Silly me. I think I will just finish my coffee and play on the computer for a bit instead :) Then I'll think about those dishes from last night. And the sauce splatters on the wall, the stove, the floor etc....

Baptized

Tonight was Eyes' baptism and lemme tell ya it was an exciting day! First off just as we were about to leave to go to supper at Nana's when Bear was told to do a quick clean up in his room. So what did he do... he started throwing things up onto his bed. Being a top bunk in a bunk bed this is understandable. Except that it is against the rules because it is a small room which is why we have bunk beds in that room. So what did Bear hit while throwing his turtle onto his bed - the light shade on the overhead light. It shattered of course all over the toys and clothes still littering the floor plus Bear cut his finger during the glass breaking. So instead of having a leisurely get ready to leave Hubby and I are scrambling to clean up the glass shards all over the kids room. Which basically meant the kids got a free room clean up from Mom and Dad. Aaarrrggghhh! And we forgot to grab things which we were supposed to bring for people! Sigh!

Supper was a wonderful meal of turkey, potatoes, gravy and stuffing. Mmmmmm Nana has figured out a great substitute for her pork sausage she usually uses in her stuffing - I like the ground turkey it was yummy. Afterwards my soon to be new sister-in-law Queen Pet and I ended up doing the dishes. We took a little longer than Smiles wanted but it was worth it in the end. Except that then Hubby started rushing to get ready to go to the church for Eyes' Baptism. So we left a few things at Nana's which thankfully Nana ended up bringing with her to the church. The ceremony was very nice and despite Raven and Blankshield's Internet and Phone problems today everyone showed up on time. Raven is ecstatic to have another daughter (god-daughter is still a daughter after all) she is so funny sometimes. Bear and Smiles were mostly good with very little fuss (it was after their bedtime after all) but in the end I think they enjoyed seeing Eyes' being Baptized.

Unfortunately I think Eye's is a little sick because as soon as we got home she went from a happy congenial baby to an incredibly cranky squalling bundle of tears. Thankfully she seems to have finally gone to sleep. For awhile it seemed like she wouldn't do anything but scream. Maybe she was overtired too. Maybe I should take this as a cue that I should go to bed. haha. After all who knows how long she'll sleep. Uh oh I think I just cursed my sleep tonight!

Tokens

"Squeeee! The tokens are here! The tokens are here!!!!"

This was what I got when I answered my phone yesterday! Which admittedly was not a bad thing because I then got to go over to Raven's house before swimming and open my box. (Only half the order came yesterday - the other half came today! Which means I will be heading out to Raven's again tonight!) The cool thing was that she opened her last box and found a purple token. Which was awesome. As I was opening my rolls of tokens I came across not a purple but something better - A Golden Ticket token! Which I then promptly gave to Raven. In exchange she gave me her purple token that she had found.

And yes a Golden Ticket token is like the Golden Ticket you read about in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You see Raven and I had agreed that if I found a Golden Ticket in my stacks o' tokens that I would give it to her. It means more to Raven to be able to go on the VIP run at True Dungeon than for me to so I was more than happy to make her dream come true. She hugged me alot. LOL! Then we went and swam!

Today I was able to make it to the wholesale fabric place that Raven and I might be able to get a roll of black twill from for our cloak making. Alas getting the swatches was a little more difficult than I had planned. First off Raven got lost trying to find the place. Secondly they could not find the samples that had been promised me in the first place. Third I had the baby with me. All in all I left with a sample of another fabric that I thought might work and later I got a phone call from them saying they had found the original samples. So I went and grabbed them. This way I can show them to Raven tonight as we open TOKENS!!!

Hehehe

I have Serged

I was at my Mom and Dad's this weekend for the sole purpose of sewing. I also ended up sleeping alot. Mmmmm an actual full night of sleep! What a luxury! Oh and I did sew some things. Not much only three items in particular but they are done! My Mother-in-laws curtains (I suppose she feels entitled to asking me to sew them because she was one of the people who got my serger for me this Christmas :). Of course I did not use the serger for her curtains LOL), a play cloak for Smiles and an actual hood to sell! I like having a serger! Thank you Mother-in-law and Sis-in-law and whoever else got it for me!!! My mother reminded me though that I am going to have to make a little cape or something for Eyes. Luckily scraps of fabric are not hard to find!

Other than that our house is a house of sickness again. We're doomed! That's all I can say! Hahaha. Oh and I am almost done watching my Anime. Well this series anyways. There are at least three others that I want to watch!

List o' things to do today...

There were five things that I have wanted to do today and have gotten three of them done so far. Of course there's more things that I should be doing instead of blogging but whatever!

1. Take a shower (check)
2. Call people on my list (check)
3. Get the dishes done (check)
4. Return moldy cheese sticks to store (They were still in the package-grr.... oh and not check)
5. Get the last dozen eggs to Star (I called her and she said its not a hurry so I may or may not get to her place today. Not check)

Of course I also am doing laundry and feeding the baby and playing with Smiles and Eyes and tons of other things. Sigh! Oh my the baby has almost rotated herself under the couch. LOL. She can't move forward or backward yet but give her time and she'll spin 360's. Okay before I head to the grocery store I think I will watch one more episode of my Anime.

Positive Reinforcements for today...

1. Took a shower.
2. Phoned important people.
3. Did the dishes.
4. Did laundry.
5. Watched Anime... okay okay I blogged!

Maybe I should go for a nap instead!

Bear's Friend

Bear has a friend over right now. He sorta showed up without any warning. At least he phoned home and got permission to stay for awhile otherwise I would have felt compelled to send him home. Bear has been wanting this boy to come over and play for awhile now but I wanted a phone number from his parents first to make sure it was alright with them. So since he has permission he can stay for awhile. Oh and the reason why he is over is because he followed Bear home. You see Bear has been walking home by himself for the last week and a bit now. We experimented with this phenomenon last week and Bear came home each day by the specified time so we are going to let him continue to have this privilege.

In other news I bought more bananas with intentions of making more muffins or maybe even banana bread. I have been thinking about baking more often now and I think it is because of the spring like weather. It's my way of avoiding housework. That and I still like cutting things up. I made another batch of salsa today. Except for one ingredient. The most important ingredient too - the banana peppers. Otherwise it will have no spice in it at all. Oh well I am going swimming tonight so I will just have to make sure I swing by a store and pick some up.

Eyes is going for another round of Immunizations tomorrow. That will be fun. NOT! Still I am quite happy with her progress. She is sitting up (under supervision - otherwise she has a tendency to tip over hehe) and even rolled over last night. She is grabbing things more and laughing. Or at least giggling a little.

Smiles on the other hand has been wanting to call her friend (boyfriend!) in Newfoundland. So today I called K up and chatted with her seeing how things are going with her and her boys. Apparently they have been doing renovations to their house ever since they moved back there. She still misses E-town and wants to come back here. Especially since they had blizzards for most of December and January meaning that B and R would miss 2 days of school almost every week. Other than that they are doing good and she insists that she won't play Scrabble with me anymore. Hehehe. I have been trying to give her hints on what she can do in the game and I think with time she'll be really good at it. Still we'll see if she's better at Scramble or Othello because I don't do to well at those games. LOL.

The last thing I have realized is that I have not been doing my Positive Reinforcements lately so here's today's list...

1. Got a nap in this morning.
2. Made Salsa.
3. Hosted Bear's friend after school.
4. Did the dishes (from last night)
5. Blogged.

Still Addicted to Anime

My favorite mug broke the other day. It developed a hairline crack down its length so whenever I put my coffee in it the coffee would spill out. Sigh. Yeah it's just a mug but it was a tall dark burgundy mug that I have had for a few years now. I used to use it when I was still working so it has some memories for me. But it is just a mug. It's funny how material things can be so seemingly important sometimes.

I made banana muffins again today. This time from the Blues' Clues book that Smiles likes to read called Blue's Breakfast. It's a simple enough recipe and turned out really well. I even put the leftover chunks of banana's and apple pears from last night's fruit salad into it. Very moist and tasty if I do say so myself. I haven't tried making more carrot muffins yet but I think I will see if I can find one that has nutmeg or cinnamon in the ingredients. Otherwise I just might use a carrot cake recipe and turn it into muffins instead. Now if only I had 2 muffin tins. LOL.

And yes I can not seem to tear myself away from watching my Anime lately. I am not sure why exactly but my guess is I need an escape from real life right now. It is that time of year where I get bad cabin fever and depressed from lack of sun and such. So at least I am bed each evening before 1pm. That's good right? Dammit I am even thinking in Anime speech. I just read these last sentences as something the main character would say. Hyuuuhhhhhh! (That's supposed to be a disgruntled sigh!)

Carrot Muffins Part 2...well Part 1 really

Well I have made some carrot muffins and both Smiles and I have a scrape on the exact same finger on the same hand from grating the carrots. Sigh! Like daughter like Mother. Hehehe. I am not sure I like my carrot muffins. Something seems to be missing but I don't know what. Mmmm maybe Cinnamon? Anyways the first batch is baked. I think I might make some more banana muffins later. Those ones turned out really nice before.

In other cooking news it was decided last night that every Friday we are going to allow the kids to make supper. This week it is Smiles' turn. The only rule is an adult has to help with supper (this way no one gets seriously hurt in the kitchen lol). I suggested that she makes nachos for supper with fruit salad for dessert. Nachos is easy enough to make and all it involves is grating cheese to go on top of the nachos. Though I will be frying up some ground buffalo to add to the nachos too. We have salsa for Daddy and me and veggies for the kids. Then the fruit salad just involves cutting up bananas, an apple pear and mixing them with strawberries. We also have blackberries but Smiles has decided that she doesn't like them. Sigh! She's so stubborn somedays.

Carrot Muffins

So ever since I baked Banana Muffins a few weeks ago I have been wanting to make some more. Since I had no more banana's but I did have lots of carrots I thought I would make some Carrot Muffins. Except.... I can not find any carrot muffin recipes anywhere. My husband gets cook books regularly for his Birthday or Christmas 'cause he likes to cook. Out of that plethora of cookbooks you would have thought there would be one recipe for Carrot Muffins. After all they are the second most popular Muffin sold at Safeway. Yeah I could experiment using a basic muffin recipe til I got one right but I was also out of Vanilla Extract. So.... anyone have an easy Carrot Muffin recipe or even Carrot Loaf recipe hanging around anywhere. Please?

Last night I went swimming with Raven and she's all excited about Tokens. Hence the enthusiastic.. "They've been shipped! They've been shipped....except to Canada.". She's so funny some times.

Right now Smiles is in a phase where any little thing that goes wrong warrants a melt down. I was picking her up from school today and she sat cried for a good few minutes. Over what I do not know. Which makes me worried that it might be more than just middle child jealousy kicking in. She still loves Eyes and wants to hold her and carry her. She loves playing with her but she's also been more clingy lately wanting more Mommy cuddles. I think I might have to sit down tonight and give her the birds and bees talk. After all in this world you just never know what might happen. Thankfully I have been frank about their body parts and what limits are supposed to be placed on them by others. I think I just worry too much sometimes.

Anime!

So instead of sleeping right now I am blogging. Such is my stupidity lately. I have found a site which lets you watch Anime and I have been glued to it literally for the past two days. Sigh! It's just that Anime is so pretty!

Anyways the Bear did go swimming on Friday night with K (Raven's daughter) and wimped out about dyeing his hair green. I think he is more my son than I realize. Maybe if I get my hair dyed he would consider it. Then again he also might be getting into that phase where what his friends and teachers say mean more to him than his mother. After all he was appalled at his brush cut hair until he received compliments from his classmates. I even caught him running his hand over his head.

Lady Mike came over today to play with Eyes and I used that time to take a walk with the family. That way she could have play time with the baby and I wouldn't have to take the stroller out onto the icy sidewalks. Boy is it bitterly cold again. Still Bear brought home a Fitness Shoe from school where he has to record 10 physical activities that he has done and then return it to school. The activity has to be at least 20 mins in length. This is a good thing because it means I will probably have to do things with him. It makes me realize just how little physical activity I really get and how I am shortchanging my kids on that side of things too.

There are other things I want to blog about but am tired and really should go to bed soon. See ya later!

Oh and man is DEXTER (the TV show about a serial killer) creepy! Funny... but creepy.