Tag Archives: family

In the Kitchen with Grace

7 Jan

For the past year Grace has been my helper in the kitchen.  (And by “helper”, I mean actually giving me a hand as opposed to making messes and calling it help.)  This year along with her school curriculum she asked to have a cooking class as her elective.   I still don’t let her use a knife by herself or take things out of the oven but the rest is up to her.  Our first recipe is from her book:  Kids Cooking – A Very Slightly Messy Manual

My mother-in-law passed this book on to us at the beginning of the year and we are enjoying reading through and cooking together.

Our first recipe was Buried Treasure Muffins.

Since Chris and I are really working on our health and trying to watch what we eat, Gracie and I adapted the recipe (just a little) from the one in the book.

Even with the adaptations the muffins turned out great.  The “buried treasure” part comes in by adding fruit or jam as a filling.  Grace decided on banana, pear, and cinnamon as her treasures.  She believes cinnamon makes everything taste better.

Buried Treasure Muffins

1 Cup whole wheat flour

1/2 Cup quick oats (or wheat germ)

1/4 Cup agave (or sugar)

1/4 Cup cooking oil

3/4 Cup vanilla almond milk (or whatever you have)

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Fresh fruit, jam, coconut…(your  “treasure”)

Preheat oven to 400F and line your muffin tin.  Stir together flour and oats, baking powder and salt.  If you were to use sugar add it here.  Since agave is in liquid form we added it later. In a separate bowl, break the egg and mix with milk and oil (and agave).  Then get your filling ready.  Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir.  The batter will be lumpy.  At this point add your fruit.  We added one mashed banana and one chopped pear along with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Put in muffin tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Yum!

 

Because it’s your birthday

27 Dec

How do I love Thee?  Let me count the ways:

  1. For almost 12 years you have spent your birthday driving me (and the kids) to see extended family for Christmas get-togethers even though you are most definitely a homebody.
  2. Last year (on your birthday) I had surgery and your birthday got pushed aside.  You never complained.  Your children watched you love and serve your wife completely.
  3. You wrapped every single Christmas present this year and most of the gifts last year.  You are my hero.
  4. You do P90X with me so that I have a partner and accountability even though you really dislike it.
  5. You read C.S. Lewis to the kids before they go to sleep.
  6. You didn’t complain when I brought home the wrong number of candles for your cake/cookies/brownies.  (I promise, I know that you are thirty two, not thirty one.)  And you still blew them out, wrong number and all…
  7. You eat whatever I place in front of you, and you do so happily.
  8. You love babies, even when they are not our own, and you’ve never minded being spit-up on.
  9. For the last week I’ve barely been able to walk and you have taken care of everything around the house…everything. And you did those things while under extreme stress…with a smile. There was always a pillow under my foot and a cup of coffee on hand.  I’m honored to be your wife.
  10. You put up with my picture-taking.  🙂

Happy Birthday.

A Week of Thanks

23 Nov

We start the weekend before Thanksgiving with a pig roast at my dad’s house.

Every year without fail, we gather and eat and fellowship.

Sisters

More Sisters

And still another sister...

There are a few girls in my family. 🙂

And kids, lots and lots of kids…

And on Monday night we celebrated Friendsgiving.  Don’t you love the name? 🙂

We made the kids all eat outside…

…except the babies, of course.

There is more Thanksgiving to come!  How blessed are we?

State Fair of Texas

15 Oct

On Thursday we woke up early, piled in the car, and headed to the State Fair of Texas for our annual “staycation”.  It’s our favorite Fall family outing.  If there is one thing Texas does well (besides Tex-Mex) it’s this event.  There are so many free shows and attractions, plus the food is amazing.  It’s the one day of the year that we throw diets out the window because everything is fried.

Seriously:

Fried peaches & cream and fried club salad

Yep, they even fry the “healthy-ish” stuff… a fresh peach and salad… But Oh My Word it was good.

Fried guacamole and fried Frito pie

I personally didn’t love the frito pie but it was the winner of the taste test this year.

Fried cheesecake

Sorry Matt, but this is the only picture I have of the fried cheesecake (which we all love).  Can you tell we love to eat?

TX-OU Butter Sculpture

No, we didn’t eat this.  🙂  Every year an artist makes a different sculpture out of butter.  Since this was last year for the TX-OU game at the Fair Grounds (which apparently is a big deal) the sculpture was in honor of two great players.  Honestly, I had no idea who these guys were, but everyone else did.  Also, there was a Tom Landry exhibit…I didn’t know who he was either…some Cowboy something or other…In fact, here he is:

This guy is more to my liking:

And here is the Texas Star:

We also love seeing the Birds of the World show.  Every year at 6pm we head to the amphitheater and listen to the same message on conservation, hear the same songs (John Denver, mostly), and watch the birds fly.  It never gets old.

And a few of us:

"Becca, you walking backwards is dangerous."

Love these guys!

Chris pulling the wagon (all day long).

Chris spoke my love language and pulled that wagon around all day…non-stop. I love that man.

And here is the star attraction:

Big Tex!

Thanks for stopping by, friends!  🙂

September 10th

10 Sep

10 on the 10th in pictures:

What we’ve been studying in school.

Coffee with my girl

My two best guys

Texas State Fair

Flower girl

Barbie came to lunch.

Chris and Jay being goofy in their rally caps.

Visiting our favorite coffee shop in Corsicana with friends.

Thanks for stopping by, friends.