BEST EVER BANANA BREAD!

When I was a teenager, I had a church leader give all of us her recipe. I started making it after I got married and continued to make it for 11 years! I felt a little snobby not to try other recipes, so I did. Quite a few, actually. I ALWAYS went back to this recipe! It is delicious and FOOL PROOF! I love that I don't have to be wary of over-mixing. Please trust me and make this today!


Banana Bread

1 cup sugar
 ½ cup shortening or butter (I've only ever used shortening) 
3 ripe mashed bananas
2 eggs

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 TBSP sour cream

½ cup chocolate chips
...
Cream together sugar and shortening; add bananas and eggs. Mix well, add next 5 ingredients. Stir in choc.c chips. Grease loaf pans (I use mini loaf pans and it makes 3 loaves). Bake at 325 F and bake for 45 min. For muffins, bake at 400 F for 15 minutes. (times will vary!)

Basketball pancakes

My son had his first basketball game tonight so I made these special pancakes for him along with his team number. =)  I added food coloring to make them orange, and then I piped melted candy chocolate on for the lines. Super easy and so fun!

rosette cake!

I saw this cake on http://strawberry-chic.blogspot.com/2011/06/diy-tuesday-rose-frosting-technique.html and FELL IN LOVE! I only had pink so I did pink hues instead. It was SOOOO much easier than I imagined it would be! I love love love it and plan on making lots more!

perfect hair

Getting ready to cut her hair like this again. It was so easy to do and just adorable.

Tis the season

Hey everyone! I thought I'd add my Christmas Advent Calendar Activities to the mix! I know there are tons of great ideas out there, and mine aren't anything special, but it's something different from last year. This took me F-O-R-E-V-E-R (ever seen Sandlot?) to make and organize this list. My husband has a tricky work schedule so I had to coordinate each activity with his work schedule for each day. WOW! The number next to each is what day # it is. If it says (E) that means that activity was written on a paper to go in an envelope. If it says (gift) then that activity was wrapped as a gift. I'll post a picture of the completed set of activities that I displayed on my mantel!

Ø Play Christmas Clue  (17) (this was Tyler's idea... just give the characters Christmas-y names!)

Ø Build a fort and have dinner in it (E) (7)

Ø Cut out paper snowflakes (gift of coffee filters) (6)

Ø Make popcorn and watch a Christmas movie (gift of 'Elf' and popcorn) (16)

Ø Hot cocoa and marshmallows (gift of cheap stuff!) (5)

Ø Make a Christmas craft (E)(10)

Ø  ‘Don’t eat frosty’ (gift of game and candy) (4)

Ø Make a card for someone and mail it (gift of scrapbook paper and stickers)(9)

Ø Gingerbread cookies (gift of premade cookies with icing/candy)(15)

Ø Drive around and look at lights (E)(20)

Ø Read Christmas books (gift of books we already had, just hadn't brought out this season yet!) (2)

Ø Make a music video of a Christmas song (E)(14)

Ø Play with Christmas play-dough (gift of red peppermint scented playdough) (3)

Ø Make teacher presents (E) (8)

Ø December 21^st: dinner by candlelight on the longest night of the year! (gift of candles)(21)

Ø Christmas music dance party (E)(12)

Ø Make reindeer food (gift of oatmeal, sequins, glitter and Christmas sprinkles)(23)

Ø Act out the Nativity (E) (24)

Ø Sing Christmas carols  (E) (13)

Ø Have a ‘snowball’ fight (gift... cereal box filled with crumpled up coffee filters)(11)

Ø Play Christmas charades and Pictionary! (gift... mason jar filled with words)(22)

Ø Christmas light thumbprint art (E)(18)

Ø Christmas bingo (gift of, well, bingo!) (19)

 Hope that gives you some fun ideas! Other ideas that we are doing, just not for our advent activies include:

-Make an elfyourself video

-http://www.portablenorthpole.com/home Make a personalized FREE video to your kids from Santa!

-http://pinterest.com/diyfreak/christmas/ Check out my Christmas pinterest board for lots of fun activities/art projects/food ideas!!!

 

Merry Christmas!!!!

 

 

BRAVE Giveaway

http://www.meetthedubiens.com/2012/11/disneypixars-brave-review-and-giveaway.html?showComment=1351992361337#c8789453429162184610

One of my favorite blogs (Meet the Dubiens) is giving away a copy of Brave! Check out the link for more info!!!

Halloween is almost here, and I can hardly wait!

I made a few changes to the Frankenstein pudding cups. Instead of drawing faces on the cup with sharpie, I used chocolate almond bark and piped the eyes and mouth inside the cup. It cooled quickly once I set it (on it's side) in the fridge. Then I put in the green tinted vanilla pudding. I topped it with chocoalte sauce. For the bolts, I used Hershey's kisses. I trimmed the points off with kitchen scissors and adhered them to the cup with some chocolate frosting. I was happy with them. Can't wait for the kids to see their snack after school!