It's almost Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day! It ranks up there as a favorite holiday along with the 4th of July. I love decorating for Valentine's Day and baking things for Valentine's Day- that's why I signed up for small group treats on the 13th of this month and I always try to sign up for bringing treats for Bren's Valentine's parties. I saw a cute idea on someone's blog to do a Valentine countdown using $ store materials. So here was my  take on the project- using all items from the $ Tree or things I had on hand!
Brennan saw me working on it and was so excited! He kept asking me when it was going to be done, and when the hearts would be filled. I actually had to put a couple of pieces of tape on each of the hearts to keep him from opening them up early!

 The stand, the round pizza pan, the hearts, and ribbon at the bottom are all from the $ Tree. I covered the pan with some scrapbooking paper I had. I used my scrapbooking stuff to put the numbers on each of the hearts, andd then used an acrylic sealer over them. I hot glued the bottom of the hearts to the pan, and then used some stickers, etc. to decorate.

 The title is made out of some acrylic letters I had and they are also hot glued to the edge of the pan.

Each of these hearts open up. I filled them with candy, change, and dollar bills. As I said, I had to tape the sides of each one to keep him out of them before the day they are to be opened!  It was so fun to get crafty again! It has been on hold for several months while I have been in moving chaos.

is this how you feel about New Year's resolutions?

Delicious snack

We are trying to eat a little healthier around here. Gary is in a weight loss competition at work, and is working diligently to take off pounds that accumulated during his CPA study months. I let my Snap Fitness membership at the end of last year as things got crazy with moving, Christmas, etc. but as of Sat. I've renewed it and back at working out.
Anyway, Gary brought this recipe home from one of his nutrition classes. It is really good!! It stays nice and moist and quick to put together- both of the kids like it so that's an added plus!

Six Layer Nutrition Bar

2 cups oats
1 cup honey
1 cup milled flaxseed
1 cup 100% healthy Whey Protein (chocolate)
1 cup Skippy Natural peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

Spray a 9x13 pan with PAM. Combine oats, honey, flaxseed, protein powder, peanut butter, and chocolate chips together in a large bowl. Mix with spoon or mixer until all ingredients are mixed well. Press mixture into prepared pan. Bars will remain soft and slightly gooey.

the newest member of our family

Although I'd love to tell you that we got another cat, that, unfortunately is not the case- and there will be no more Hydorn babies unless God chooses to play a little joke on us : ) , but I am very happy to welcome this one into the fam- an Oldsmobile 88 for Bradley!

For those of you who don't live in Iowa, our state allows 14 year olds to get school permits- yes, drive to school ALONE!! Now, that never seemed like a big deal to me... until MY BABY turned 14. And he certainly didn't seem old enough to drive, let alone drive ALONE somewhere. Thankfully, he turned 14 last January, and we were having an awful winter. There was no way this anxiety-ridden mother was going to let my baby drive for the first time on icy snowy roads. So he had to wait until spring break to get his permit. His dad is much more relaxed and at ease when Bradley's behind the wheel than I am. He encouraged him to drive whenever the opportunity allowed it (which is good- I just can't take credit for having the same attitude!).

Any of you parents know that being an on-call taxi service takes a lot of time. Between all of his sports practices, school activities, early morning agilities, student council meetings, etc, etc, etc, I was soon looking forward to him having his school permit. And I was feeling more comfortable with his driving abilities.

Having just built a house, extra money is not exactly rolling in at the moment. And we had a limit for what we wanted to spend... which was not a whole lot. I don't feel a brand new teenage driver needs an expensive car that could likely be dented up in the Indianapolis Speedway  school parking lot. 

He finished drivers ed at the beginning of Dec. and we got the school permit over Christmas break. It was nice for him to be able to drive the van to his 7 AM practices during Christmas break so that I didn't have to get up!!!

He turned 15 on January 7. And on January 8, we got lucky and found this guy. We have a trusted used car place that we bought our Buick at. Several of our friends have purchased from him, and trust him. We drove through the lot to see what he had. We spotted an older Buick and took it for a test drive. It was OK and would have been perfectly acceptable for his needs. After we brought that one back, the salesman pointed this one out to us. It was only $500 more, much cleaner, only 78,000 miles, and drove wonderfully. We were sold.

Bradley was thrilled and shocked when we drove up with it. Not a chick magnet by any means, but it's a nice solid, decent sized, well priced vehicle that hopefully will last into his college years!!!

My 2010 project

If you were around a year ago, I shared a project I intended to complete during the year. See blog post here Well, today I finished the last month!! It is pretty simplified. I did the base of the album the first of the year, and then put pictures from each month in its own folder on my computer. I created the collages in Picassa when I had some free time, and there it is! But I love the results. The right side has a folder for each month and I stuck in movie stubs, programs, school projects, etc. that were applicable. This past year I did less scrapbooking than I have since I started this hobby 14 years ago. I'm happy I at least kept up with this project. 2011 I plan to make up for my lack of scrapbooking during the past year. I have been done in my room these past couple of days getting 2009 (yes, you heard that right) pictures in order. A couple of days ago, I uploaded 1600 2010 pictures to Shutterfly and ordered almost 400. I am determined to get caught up with the last 2 years of pictures during this next year. I'll update you on that goal next January!

And here it is- all 12 months...





January

 



February





March





April





May



June








July





August




September




October




November






December

 

Another good banana recipe

Bananas have always been my favorite fruit from the time I was little. But I am a finicky banana eater- as soon as any brown spots begin appearing, I don't like them anymore. That means I have a lot of bananas that don't get eaten in time... hence the need for a lot of good banana recipes.

I made a double batch of these things a few days ago... and they're gone. Granted everyone likes them especially Bradley and I. They are very filling- a dense muffin, but fairly healthy, unless you put in twice the amount of chocolate chips like I do : )

Banana Chip Oat Muffins

1 cup quick cooking oats
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

In large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In a small bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until crumbly. Beat in the bananas, egg, applesauce, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.
Coat muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray or use cupcake liners. Fill 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

1 muffin equals 218 calories.

Having total fun with this site!

I have been looking through all of the favorites on my computer- cleaning things up a bit, and came across this site in my "photography" folder- fun and easy! Easy Photo Collages! I've only made one so far- a collage of Bradley and Madi for his room, but there will be definitely more to come... especially if I have a snow day tomorrow!