Grant at age 6

Birthday Survey


 1. What is your favorite color? camo
2. What is your favorite toy? hunting toys

 3. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
4. What is your favorite tv show?dirt bikes
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? ham/turkey sandwich with chips
6. What is your favorite outfit? hunting clothes
7. What is your favorite game? Candy Land

8. What is your favorite snack? pretzels dipped in pb

9. What is your favorite animal? lion

10. What is your favorite song? Lord's Army
11. What is your favorite book? Cabela's catalog

12. Who is your best friend? Kenan and Sam
13. What is your favorite cereal? Cap'n Crunch
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? ride bike, 4 wheeler and go to Sam's

15. What is your favorite drink? Diet Coke
16. What is your favorite holiday? my birthday :) and Christmas

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? frog blanket and Froggy

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? oatmeal
 19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? something better than pb and jelly :) and cake

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? farmer

Brynna at age 3

Birthday Survey

 1. What is your favorite color? purple, pink, girl camo
2. What is your favorite toy? My Little Pony
 3. What is your favorite fruit? grapes
4. What is your favorite tv show? Dora
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? pb and jelly
6. What is your favorite outfit? dresses
7. What is your favorite game? Hunting game on the Wii
8. What is your favorite snack? cereal (??? she never asks for cereal for snack)
9. What is your favorite animal? pig, horse, cow, chicken
10. What is your favorite song? Jesus Loves Me
11. What is your favorite book? Rainbow Brite (she just picked it out of a pile, we never read it)
12. Who is your best friend? Owen
13. What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? ride bike
15. What is your favorite drink? milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? my birthday :)
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Pooh blanket and babies
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? cereal
 19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? pb and jelly
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? a girl farmer with chickens

She's THREE!!!!

Winter Weekends

This is what we do for FUN around here (BRRRR!)
At least I was able to talk Lee into a trip to the mall in the evening :)

Valentine's Day

Last year on Valentine's Day I had to buy 4 new tires and sit in the tire shop all morning while Lee spent the day (year) in Afghanistan!!! SO, I knew this year had to be better :)

Lee bought flowers for B and I, and candy for G! We had planned to eat at a restaurant in town, so he dropped everything off there on his way home and surprised us with it at the table!
How SWEET!!!!

Cabin Fever

Even though it's been a mild winter, we are starting to go a little crazy because of lack of time outside. Lee set up the tent in B's room and let the kids sleep in it last Saturday night. Other than the fact that they got up at 5:30am!!!! they did great and had a blast!

Sleepy heads :)

Oatmeal Bars (Oatmeal Breakfast Clafoutis)

I'm always looking for easy, make ahead breakfast food. Lee HAS to eat in the morning (and the kids, obviously) and I'm NOT a morning person.

I found this recipe on Pinterest and LOVE it. You can make ahead, freeze individually, and then heat up as needed. They can also be taken to go!!! Perfect combination for this house :)

They are also very versatile, you can add in any type of fruit/nut combination you like. I used raisins, craisins, and pecans.

Find the recipe here.

Lee's new ride!

Gas prices + 700 mile weekly commute = Toyota Prius


It just needs a couple stickers...
maybe NRA, "Don't Tread on Me", or an upside down American flag??? :)

Spirit Week

Tuesday was Grant's 100th day of school!!!!!!!

They celebrated all week with Spirit Week. They had a theme for each day, a special chapel service with story each morning, had 100 snacks!, wrote 100 words, and had a lot of fun.


Monday - Inside Out Day

Most of the kids (and teachers) even had their pants on inside out, but Grant wouldn't do it. He said the pockets were weird. So he just wore his shirt inside out.

Tuesday - Career Day

Our little farmer :) HIS choice of career.
He wore a JD hat, JD tshirt, flannel, jeans, rubber boots, a belt with pliers attached.

Kindergarten Class: football player, cheerleader, 2 stay at home moms :), gymnastics coach (like her mom), farmer, football player. His teacher was a missionary.

Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday

I must not have taken a picture of Wednesday....but he wore camo. Not really wacky for him, but the only day I'll let him wear camo to school :)

Thursday: Class Color Day
Kindergarten was BLUE

I don't know why this picture is so small. He won best dressed boy for his class this day b/c he had blue undies, socks, 2 blue shirts and blue jeans.

Friday - Favorite Team Day

ISU jersey and a tattoo on each cheek!

Frittata

Frittata is an egg-based dish similar to an omellete or quiche, enriched with additional ingredients such as meats, cheeses, veggies or pasta. It may be flavored with herbs. (from Wikipedia)

This is SO good, easy, and can be made with whatever is in your fridge + eggs!

Saute' the veggies (here is sweet potato, onions, mushrooms, peppers, and spinach)
****Use an oven proof skillet, as you will bake this for a bit****

Whisk eggs and pour into veggies, I used 5-6 eggs
Let cook for awhile on med-low heat, lifting up the bottom to make sure it doesn't stick and letting some of the egg mixture flow underneath. When it is cooked on the bottom but still runny on top, stick in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Throw some cheese on top if you wish.

Done! Slice and serve, easier (and fancier) than omelletes.

Slow Cooked Mexican Pork Carnitas and Cilantro Lime Rice

Slow Cooked Mexican Pork Carnitas (Spicy Mexican Pork)
Recipe HERE

Cilantro Lime Rice
Recipe HERE
*I would suggest cooking your rice according to pkg directions, then adding lime juice, cilantro, etc...following her recipe, my rice wasn't quite done.

Homemade Guac (YUM!)
I used a combination of these two recipes HERE and HERE

This is SO good and different from our usual homemade Mexican food.
G thought it was okay (he ate it), B thought it was to spicy, and Lee and I loved it! Lee loving Mexican food is really saying something.

Homemade Granola Bars

Super easy, super yummy and pretty healthy!!!

I found the recipe on Pinterest, where else?

Individually wrapped in plastic wrap so you can take them with you!

The original recipe is below. I omitted the chocolate chips and added raisins instead. Next time I would add cinnamon with the raisins, and I would use a little less butter as they were just a bit soft. I am going to try them with peanut butter too, oh maybe pb and chocolate chips! You could add craisins, nuts, coconut...anything really! They are easy and quick, and no ingredients that you can't pronounce like the store bought ones.

No-Bake Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
yield: 10 bars
adapted from Rachael Ray

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick cooking oats {not rolled oats!}
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Directions:
In a large bowl, stir oats and rice cereal together. Set aside. In a small pot, melt butter, honey and brown sugar together over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. Reduce the heat and cook 2 minutes. Pour in vanilla and stir. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well to moisten all ingredients. Pour into lightly greased small jelly roll pan {about 12x8x1} and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness. {If your pan isn’t small enough, pack the mixture into one side. You really want to press them down so they stick together.} Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and press down lightly. Cool on a countertop to room temperature for two hours or until the chocolate chips are set before cutting into bars. Wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Recipe Notes: If your granola bars don’t seem to be staying together when you cut them, you may have made them too thin or you didn’t pack them in tight enough. Stick them in the fridge for 20 minutes and that should help keep them together. {Be sure not to keep them in there too long or else they’ll become super hard!} The next time you make them, try reducing the butter to 3 tablespoons and really packing them down.

http://www.laurenslatest.com/no-bake-chocolate-chip-granola-bars-easy-healthy/

Day Date

Lee and I hadn't been on a date since before Christmas. Grant was asking when "M" was coming again (our sitter) and he even said, "I think you guys need a date." Okay, I don't need much more convincing! We scheduled our sitter to come during the day so we could get out and about while things were open.

We went to Americana in downtown Des Moines for brunch. We actually didn't know they did weekend brunch. They had a large selection of food...everything from fruit, pastries, and yogurt/granola, to apple crisp, waffle bread pudding, fried chicken, breakfast meats, egg casseroles, crepes, chili, etc. But the best part, was the bottomless Mimosa and Bloody Mary bar. The server brought the champagne or vodka, and we got to add whatever juice/mixes we wanted. It was SO yummy!

From there, we headed to West End Architectural Salvage, and just browsed through FOUR floors of antique/salvaged/repurposed junk.

Next were stops at Trader Joes's, Best Buy, Borders, Scheels, and Pottery Barn. We didn't buy much, but it's fun to be able to shop without worrying about kids.

We headed home and still had all evening with the kids and got to tuck them into bed ourselves! It was SO hard for me to realize that Lee and I needed to take time for ourselves, away from the kids, but I am SO glad I know it now. It's good for ALL of us!

Peanut Butter Granola

This recipe was a Pinterest find.

Peanut Butter Granola

(Makes four 1/4 c. servings)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. creamy peanut butter (I used organic from Trader Joe's)
  
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 c. oats

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
• Combine peanut butter and honey in a bowl and microwave until peanut butter melts (approximately 20 seconds). Stir.
• Stir cinnamon and vanilla into peanut butter and honey mixture.
• Add oats and stir until oats are completely covered in peanut butter mixture.
• Spread out oat mixture onto prepared cookie sheet and bake for 7 – 8 minutes until granola is slightly browned.
• Let cool until granola is crunchy.

http://www.pbfingers.com/2011/06/14/peanut-butter-granola/

After it was cooled, I added craisins and chocolate chips to make a snack mix.
YUMMY!




I put the granola (minus the craisins and chocolate chips) on top of some almond flavored greek yogurt and it was delicious!

Black Bean Brownies

Okay, you are thinking GROSS!!!!! At least that is what I've been thinking for months, since first hearing about this recipe. I decided to try it, because if I can make "healthy" brownies, why not? I figured if they were bad, I was only out a few dollars, and then I'd know for myself. Well, they are GOOD!!!!!!!!

The texture and taste is almost the same as regular brownies (if you didn't KNOW they had black beans, you probably wouldn't notice any difference). The kids love them....Lee hasn't tried them yet.. I'm not going to tell him until AFTER he tries them to see if he notices anything different. (Hope he doesn't read the blog at work today!)

Directions:
Open a can of black beans, pour into a collander and rinse, scoop back into can and fill with water. Pour can of beans and water into blender and purée until smooth. Dump beans and brownie mix into bowl and stir until blended. Pour into greased pan and cook according to package directions (do not add oil or egg).

Yummy! I would not qualify this as health food, but certainly HEALTHIER dessert!

Steph, these brownies for breakfast might be okay :)

If you try these, let me know what you think!


Nutritional info can be found here: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/06/black-bean-brownies-2-pts.html

Princess Party

Brynna got invited to her first "friend" birthday party..and it's a PRINCESS party! She is so excited :)

Lee is taking her because Grant and I aren't feeling well...what a great dad!!!

Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

These are yummy and healthy!!

Grating the carrots is a little work, but totally worth it in my opinion.

It took 2 large carrots to get the 1 cup of grated carrot.

The batter is pretty thick.

These are hearty and delicious!

Recipe
1 cup pumpkin
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup grated carrots
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder


Beat together pumpkin, brown sugar, oil and egg.
Add in carrots.
In a separate bowl, blend together flour, salt, soda, baking powder and cinnamon.
Add to the pumpkin mixture.
Fill muffin tins about 2/3 full.
Bake at 375 degrees for 10-14 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/recipes.asp?recipe=13719

For an extra treat (and to trick myself into thinking of these as dessert) I put a little bit of non-fat cool whip on top as a "frosting!"

Enjoy!

Christmas - Take 1

The first Christmas celebration was with my mom, Roger, and my Grandma Audrey.
We had SO much food, SO many presents, and a great time together!

Grant, Ellie, Brynna, Whitney
(Matt, Tiff, Owen, and Eli didn't make it over b/c Eli was only 2 days old)

Her new nail polish (and her super daddy)!

The Army guys playing with Grant's new Army toys.

Cousins!

Matching pjs!

Thank you for a wonderful weekend everyone!!!