YUM!

I made chocolate chocolate chip banana bread this morning. I think I have finally found my new favorite breakfast! You may remember a while back I made all these giant claims about being a foodie. I don't think that was even close to being true. I just can't handle the pressure of being a foodie. :o) Although I still love to cook and try new recipes I think I will stick with the title of family cook for now. On to the recipe from one of my favorite food blogs -The Sisters Cafe.

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

submitted by Melanie

Recipe adapted from Cooking Pleasures

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 1/4 cups mashed bananas (about 3)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa (I prefer dutch process)

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350. Spray bottom of 8x4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

2. Beat sugar, eggs, and oil in large bowl at medium speed until combined. Beat in banana and vanilla at low speed. Combine flour, cocoa and baking soda in medium bowl; beat into banana mixture at low speed just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

3 Spoon batter into pan. Bake 60-70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack.

Disneyland

We had such a great time in Disneyland with our friends!
Sydney, Samantha and Maddy in the teacups.
Maddy driving the car at the Autopia


The girls in their costumes in front of the castle.

I will add more pictures later but I really need to unpack.

Blue Feet, Easter Egg Hunt, Kite Flying and Rainbows

Well Easter has come and gone and hopefully spring is going to arrive any day now. Here are some pictures and videos of things we've been up to. Out of order because I didn't feel like resorting them.

My cousin Coreen came over from St. Louis and we had lots of fun -especially since she volunteered to watch Maddy on a Friday night! Nate and I went with some friends to see the play Jersey Boys. It was great. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It was lots of fun and the music was fantastic!

Saturday we dyed Easter Eggs -a first for Maddy. I thought a spoon would be easier for lowering the eggs in the dye, it might have been with a smaller spoon, so the pink got tipped over. While Nate was throwing clothes in the washer to get the pink out, I spilled the blue all over Maddy's socks. Once the socks came off the feet were blue. Pretty funny really and it did come out so no harm done.


These are pictures of the community Easter Egg Hunt last week.



Here we are flying a kite, one of our favorite things to do on nice days

A message

Busy Weekend and a new title (if I am able to bestow titles upon myself)

Whew what a weekend! My oldest brother Mark, came in from England. He is here for some training in Dayton and he was able to spend the night with us on Saturday. We were excellent hosts and showed him how efficient the city is at snow removal. Yep that's right we got a wee dusting of snow (about 6 inches or so). His visit was much too quick, so quick in fact that he was a blur and I wasn't able to get any pictures (You're welcome Mark) After Mark headed off to Dayton we played in the snow because I am sure this is it until next winter. I hope mother nature is listening.

As for the new title. I am starting to think of myself as an amateur foodie. Why a foodie? I have cooked so many new meals this year (some more successful than others) and I am actually planning my menus for the week. I still have to figure out a way to eat leftovers (besides pizza), I am just not really a fan of them.

I made bread twice this week (one honey whole wheat and on french bread that I will definitely do again).

But the real reason I am bestowing the title upon myself is because for the first time, in the history of man, both Madelyn and Nate finished their dinner and they LIKED it! What, pray tell, do you feed a 3 year old who thinks the food groups are chocolate milk, Doritos, chicken nuggets and pop tarts? And a 30 something man that eats plain meat and potatoes? How about Savory Braised Short ribs and potatoes (which Maddy insisted were yucky until she actually tried them). Now you see I have a more adventurous palate (at least compared to those two) My potatoes were a very delicious Balsamic Shallot potato but I digress.

Now I know some of you remember when Maddy was a baby and she ate EVERYTHING- the thing is I bragged about it and honestly felt quite smug that I, a first time mom, had mastered the secret of raising a non picky eater. How foolish I was! Every meal for the last year or maybe two has been a struggle. I know I know I am probably celebrating early and tomorrow will be another battle of wills but tonight I am victorious!

For those of you that want to share my title as amateur foodie here are the links to my recipes this week. Thank you Recipe Zaar and La Fuji Mama Blog and Heavenly Homemakers Blog.

http://www.recipezaar.com/Savory-Braised-Short-Ribs-6505

http://lafujimama.blogspot.com/2009/03/katie-kinsers-french-bread.html

http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/blog/honey-whole-wheat-bread

Got a chocolate craving? This are the easiest bestest fastest brownies ever! I recommend eating them warm.

http://www.recipezaar.com/-Whatever-Floats-Your-Boat-Brownies-32204

Or you can eat the batter right out of the bowl... that's good too!

Ribbit Ribbit

Maddy has been trying to hop around on a beach ball lately so I finally found a hoppity ball. Here she is with no instruction, she just figured it out.

St Paddy's festivites

We went downtown on Saturday to watch the dyeing of the river. It was interesting. I don't know if you've ever seen the pictures but usually the entire river is green, like this:

But for some reason this year it looked like this:
I just don't think we waited long enough or who knows maybe because of the economy they could only do a little bit. Whatever the reason it was disappointing. I thought we would be festive so I got all of us green shirts (and green socks for me), I was a little worried that we would be conspicuous with our green. Boy was I wrong, there were people with green feather boas, green hats, green hair, green from head to toe. Then there was this guy, hopefully you can see him he was jogging so he caught us by surprise.

Then we were off to find the parade, it wasn't near the river, it was down by the park so we started off with the throngs of people (most of them on their way to being completely toasted). The parade route wasn't really obvious so we meandered a while and finally gave up.

It doesn't really sound like we had fun but I did, mostly. It was disappointing about the river and now Nate will probably never want to go again, because we've seen it and it was less than spectacular. On the bright side the weather was fantastic! In fact it was so nice we decided to hop on the train and head downtown again on Sunday. Our original plan was to hit the Field Museum but I think it must have been a free day because it was packed inside. I didn't really want to deal with the crowds so we walked along Lake Michigan toward Navy Pier. The lake was still frozen in places but it was really pretty. It was a great chance to just look at the architecture and enjoy being outside.