Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Banana Ice Cream?


Have I mentioned my great love of pinterest? Well it's great and I love it. I see the coolest strangest things on there. This is one of them.

It is a recipe for "dairy free ice cream" made from just blended frozen bananas. So we tried it. Take slightly over ripe bananas, peel, chop and freeze. Once they are frozen then blend them up until smooth. That's pretty much it! It has the texture of soft serve. We tried it with the magic bullet but it doesn't like to blend without liquid. The hand held blender thingy worked great, but I might have overheated it....
The recipe says it doesn't really taste banana-y but it does. Good, cool, smooth, but banana-y. So we added unsweetened cocoa powder. It made choco-banana-y ice cream. Still good. I will definitely experiment with this again maybe with PB as the recipe suggests or even nutella or vanilla, who knows. Still sweet but low fat, and dairy free if that matters to you.
At least someone thought it was good!
My banana loving child (K) didn't like it. Then again he does like black coffee, rocks and cucumbers (just the outside peel). And pita bread makes him gag. I don't understand either. R and I finished off the rest after it had been in a dish in the freezer for a few hours and it was quite good too, not as soft, but still banana- choco-yummy!


Tuesday, June 28, 2011

He's back!


He's now safely at home. Well all safe except a slightly crushed hand that is getting less swollen every day. Thankfully the kids and I are safe too having survived 8 days without him.

Here is where my camera and husband have been for over a week.

I promise to start posting pretty stuff again soon, now that I have time, and a camera:)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

when the father is away...


It's Father's Day at our house without a father. We celebrated both our grandfathers yesterday, and great grandpa we'll see next weekend. But Daddy is away. His 'gift' is getting to kayak with his friends for 8 days. Nice.
I do miss him. Not just because I have to do the dishes and the garbage, yuck. (I so much appreciate that he does the dishes everyday.) But just hanging out with him. Being apart for a time has never been that big of a deal to us.
I am aware of his absence a bit differently this time. Not that I can't manage or that I want to be there. Just missing the everyday moments and all the funny things the kids do and say that are too good to be kept to myself. Missing him not what he does for our family.
I know he will have a great time. Being out in nature is one of his favorite things. And you might just get to see some pictures when he gets back...
How sad is it that the most recent picture of the 2 of us is from Spring Break? Then the one before that, New Years. Note to self, more silly couple self portraits.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Boys dresser details

I finally found the before photo of the dresser I was talking about here. I think it is so dramatic to see the dark wood furniture get painted. I was going to wait to take a true after picture until I had time to "style" the boys room. Who am I kidding. I cannot fight the tide of Lego that overtakes this room on a regular basis. A cleaned off the dresser the other day and within one hour it looked like this again.
So I am just going for the before and afters. Here ya go.

Generous hand-me-down wood dresser
BEFORE
a few coats of Benjamin Moore's Kendall Charcoal HC 166 later
AFTER
Lego crazed boys strike again
I am pretty happy with the results, Lego and all!


Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Garden Party

My mom has the best yard. When they bought the house there was no landscaping, just a rectangle of dirt. Everything you see came from her work and imagination. It is one of our favorite places to relax when the nice weather starts. This year she decided to change the details up a bit and added sunny yellow to the lush green of the plants. It's bold and I love it!Looks great Mom!


Monday, June 6, 2011

The answer for my hair


I am kind of hair challenged. When I was younger I wore a ponytail every day. Then after I became a mom I got my hair cut shorter so I would be forced to style it every day. And I have styled it- the same way every day. I just can't get any fancy things to work. I have 2 or 3 hairstyle choices I use on my daughter and I feel pretty proud about that level of variety.

I was trying to do something new the other day as I was getting ready to go on a date with my hubby, a rare grown up occasion. Anyway, I loved the idea of this easy hairstyle I saw on pinterest but just couldn't make it work. My sweet babysitter suggested I buy spin pins as she uses them in her lovely long hair to make an easy bun. So I bought them.
I tried the style I talked about earlier but still can't quite master it. But this:

This I can do. Plan on seeing my hair in a bun all summer people. It's my new everyday style.

Photos by the crazy and talented 5 yr old K.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

My birthday


I was pretty much spoiled for my birthday this year. Two diners out, a little family party tomorrow, a shopping trip with my hubby, flowers, ice cream cake for work. I told you. Kinda spoiled. Here are two very special things I recieved...
Spoiled indeed!