Friday, March 29, 2013

Easter fun - Egg hunt



Egg hunt at Daddy's school.  Piper was very serious about it.  


 Cadence was serious about having fun and running with her buddies and finding lots of eggs.




This cracked me up.  After the egg hunt, I let Piper have a lollipop she found.  I'd had to put her big coat on because it was cold and she was dripping lollipop drool, so I stuck her bib on her and she was carrying her sippy of water around.  Classy.

Monday, March 25, 2013

A thought for Holy Week



I was reminded of this lyric from one of my favorite singer/songwriter's yesterday (saw it here; it's from the song "For the Love of God").  As part of my meditation on it, I made this quick image at picmonkey this morning.  I pray this week, as I remember the sacrifice of the One who taught me this truth, I will be quick to give others a "foot bath" (as Cadence calls it).

Saturday, March 23, 2013

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Banana Peanut Muffins (Virtuous!) with Chocolate Buttercream Icing (Sinful!)



The gas pedal in our car stopped working reliably on Monday night...which brought back the debate about when we should upgrade to a minivan and led us (well, just Matt this time) back to a car dealership for I think the 4th time since November.  We got the gas pedal fixed and again walked away without a new car. 

So to console us and encourage our financial self-discipline, I made cupcakes. Technically, muffins with frosting.  I think I came up with a really good mix of flavors and healthiness.  Banana Peanut muffins with Chocolate Buttercream.  The buttercream is really rich and and smooth and sweet, but the muffins are only mildly sweet and they have whole wheat flour.  Plus, the peanuts give them a nice crunch.  I will make these again.



For the Banana Peanut Muffins:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup stevia (or sugar, or splenda)
2 tsps baking powder
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup coconut oil (or vegetable oil, or canola)
3/4 cup mashed banana (1 large banana)
1/2 cup dry roasted lightly salted peanuts

Mix the first 4 ingredients together.  Mix the egg and milk and add to dry mixture with oil and mashed banana.  Stir, then add peanuts and mix until combined.  Pour batter into a muffin tin sprayed with nonstick spray.  Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins.

For the Chocolate Buttercream:
1 stick salted butter, at room temperature
scant 1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 squares baking chocolate, melted and cooled
1/8 cup (or 2 tbsps) milk
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Melt the baking chocolate in the microwave and set aside to cool.  Beat the butter in a mixing bowl until nicely whipped (I used the paddle attachment on my mixer) then mix in cocoa powder.  Once the baking chocolate is cool, mix it in too.  Then mix in the milk and the powdered sugar until you have a nice whippy frosting.  Yum!





Sunday, March 17, 2013

Saturday, March 16, 2013

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Rainbow art

Cadence is really into seasonal decorations.  When we put away our Valentine's things a few weeks ago she was pretty disappointed that we didn't have much of anything to put out since I wouldn't let her put out the Easter stuff yet.  So we made a St. Patrick's Day-ish art project.


I had in mind a little project with gluing torn and wadded up tissue paper onto a piece of paper that evolved into a rainbow and a pot of gold.  And a flower.  And clouds.


I save tissue paper from gifts so we had all the colors of the rainbow.  (Although the orange is kind of peachy-pink.)


Cadence enjoyed writing the colors of the rainbow as I told her the letters.

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Spring Break

We're halfway done with Matt's spring break.  He spent the first half on a school trip to London.  The girls and I took a whirlwind (I describe all of our trips as whirlwind, I think) trip to Virginia with my mom to visit my grandparents and aunts and uncles up there.  It was a nice visit, lots of relaxing and chatting.  And eating.  We drove through snow on the way there and the way back and that was pretty.  

In other news, Piper decided she wanted to start walking 2 days ago.  Finally.  There's no stopping her now.  (Or telling her which way to go either.  Yikes.)  Cadence got her first mani/pedi with Aunt Pami at the salon and she now has bright pink fingers and toes.  

Now that we're all home, we're all looking forward to some quality time together.  And I have grand plans to read a book I haven't started and reorganize a couple of closets and the laundry room.  And plant the first veggies in the garden.  We'll see how much is really done by the end of the week, huh?

Friday, March 08, 2013

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.