Little Bo Peep

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

and doesn't know where to find them.

February

The upside to the perpetually hot weather here is that we can do THIS. . .

in February!

Recipe: Banana Muffins

After doing some "research" and combining a couple recipes, I do believe I've come up with the world's best banana muffins (that may be a tiny overstatement). =) Anyway, give them a try. . . I think you'll like them!

Tip: These muffins freeze very well and make for a great fast breakfast. To freeze: cool muffins completely then wrap each one in plastic wrap. Place all muffins in a gallon sized freezer bag and freeze. Reheat individual muffins for 30-45 seconds.

Banana Muffins

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin pan with nonstick spray.

In a mixing bowl, combine:

3 large mashed bananas (the riper the better)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup softened butter

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, sift together and then add all at once to wet mixture:

1 1/2 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt.

Fold in dry ingredients. Do not overmix.

Fill muffin tin (should make about 12 large muffins).

In a small bowl, combine until crumbly:

1/4 cup butter (not too soft)

2/3 cup flour

3 Tbs brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Sprinkle crumb mixture on muffins.

Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes.

Jabberwoky

Lewis Carroll has nothing on Annabelle. She is the Queen of Jabberwocky.

What we've been up to lately. . .

Finger Painting (or, in Annabelle's case, Body Painting)

and. . .

Pretending to be Elephants at the Zoo. . .

and. .

A little bit of "Crazy Time".

Merry Christmas!

Baby #3

Caption Contest

Well, actually this is more like a Captionfest than a Caption Contest since there isn't a prize (unless the glory of having the best caption is prize enough for you).

To play along, just leave a comment with a caption for this photo. I'll kick it off. . .

Mom's Group

One of the things I love most about the church we attend is the Mom's group I am part of. It is a great group of women and I look forward to the fellowship and encouragement every week. Recently, we had an outing at the Botanical Gardens and one of our church members offered to come and take some photos for us.

The Thankful Tree

I thought I'd share an idea I had for a simple craft to make with your toddlers to help them prepare for Thanksgiving. (I'm sure I'm not the first person with this idea!)

The Thankful Tree

You will need:

• Construction paper: brown, green, orange, red, yellow
• Scissors
• Glue
• Marker
• Bigger sheet of paper for "canvas"

I cut out a tree trunk, limbs, and leaves. Caleb was in charge of pasting. We started with an empty tree and then I asked him to think of something he was thankful for. I then wrote that item/person on a leaf and he pasted the leaf to his tree. When the tree was full of leaves, we prayed and gave thanks to God for each leaf on Caleb's Thankful Tree.

You could make this as simple or complex as you wanted. If you have more than one preschooler, you could use a different color leaf for each child. Or, you could even make it a family tree with larger leaves and more room to write (our little leaves only had room for one word, which worked fine for a three-year-old) . The possibilities are endless ;-)