BOO!

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We have begun the "booing" tradition on our street a bit early this year.  After seeing this adorable "BOO" sign and directions at The TomKat Studio, we decided it might be fun to start the "booing" ourselves.

My kids think it is so much fun to look around at the neighbors' doors to see if anyone else has been booed!  By starting early, we are hopeful that our whole street will be "BOOED" by the time Halloween rolls around in a few weeks.  

Enjoy some "booing" of your own!  The free printable sign and directions were found here.  

Happy Halloween Month!

Warm and Cozy: Perfect Banana Bread

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I love banana bread but finding a recipe without dairy for my dairy-sensitive kids can sometimes present quite a challenge.  When I ran across this recipe for banana bread without a trace of butter or heavy cream, I was overjoyed.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/3 cup vanilla yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup ripe mashed bananas

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½  tsp salt

*we add walnuts {approx. 1/3 cup chopped walnuts} to ours and enjoy the texture and taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare chosen pan.

Blend together the eggs, yogurt, oil, extract and bananas in mixer with low speed.

Add in sugars and fully incorporate.  Then add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

(Be sure to start checking your banana bread at 45 minutes.  I have had it be done in 50 minutes or heard that it can take as much as 75 minutes.  It just depends on the accuracy of your oven.)

Enjoy this warm and cozy recipe on a cool Fall day!

paint project gone awry

When the weather turned cooler, I thought it might be fun to stamp some apples with my little one.  

{yes, those are my scissors jabbed into the apple...it was an attempt to make the stamping a bit easier}

I had grand ideas to create some apple print goodies with her stamps, or so I thought...

 

She had other plans...

She thought it might be fun to eat the apples with paint on them, smear paint on herself faster than I could blink, take paint and smear it on every surface she could find, snatch the bottle of paint and open the top with her teeth {not sure where she found out how to do this?} and pour paint all over the painted and eaten apples, and finally, she wanted nothing to do with cleaning the paint off.  If she had it her way, she would have slept with the dry crackled paint all over her skin.  I am sure you all are thinking, where was Momma during all this commotion?  As I was cleaning up one mess, she was making another--it was a vicious cycle that didn't end until everything was put away.  

I am not so sure we are ready for any more painting projects for a while. Whew!

I think this little one is in the paint exploration phase of life, not the "paint something and make a nice product" phase.  I will remember this the next time I decide to whip out the paints and make cute apple print goodies!

view

There is nothing like that great expanse, that glorious view.  It pleases us all and never tires.  Somehow, even though the lake is low, the people still gather to see the beautiful view.  The opening in the earth that allows for reflective sunset viewing and gorgeous blue waters that change with the day, is magic for the soul.  

October

"Listen!  the wind is rising,

and the air is wild with leaves, 
We have had our summer evenings, 
now for October eves!"-  Humbert Wolfe 

The wind did kick up today and the temperatures were cooler.  We are so ready for some cooler October eves!  Happy October!

storytime

For years, I have driven a long way for one of the best storytimes at a public library.  I felt like my kids always got a lot out of the program, so I was more than happy to make the trip.  The other day, we were at our local ice cream/coffee shop and happened upon a storytime there.  It was wonderful and the man that does it, just loves kids, books and music.  What could be better?  The children come alive with him in the room.  It is absolutely amazing.  Needless to say, we have stopped driving and starting walking to our weekly storytimes.  I am always so impressed with people who do things because they love to--especially when they positively impact the lives of others {little ones and their parents, in this case}.

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents"

-Emilie Buchwald

the shadows on the wall

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The shadow fear has hit like a ton of bricks and out of no where, it seems.  My little one first pointed to a shadow in her room the other night.  She pointed and shrieked to the shadow of the lamp on the ceiling.  When my husband told me about the incident, I dismissed it as a one-time occurrence and thought nothing more of it.  Early one morning this week, I was awakened long before the sun by the same high-pitched cry...the cry of fear and desperation.  As I dashed to her room to see what could be wrong,  I never thought a shadow could be the culprit.  After changing the position of her night-light and rearranging things in her room that could create potential shadow problems, I thought everything would be fine.  

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Driving the car this morning, I had to pull over to the side of the road when uncontrollable crying and screaming came from my little one in the backseat.  I couldn't imagine what the problem might be.  Maybe her little finger got caught in some part of the car-seat?  Maybe she dropped her little lovey?  Nope, it was her shadow on the side of the car door that was scaring her.  Every time she moved, the shadow moved and she screamed harder.  Finally we placed Elmo between her and the door to block the shadows.  The poor child held onto that Elmo until we got home and I could "rescue" her from the backseat.  

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All day, we practiced waving at our shadows.  We practiced waving outside and inside and when I explained that WE make the shadows, she seemed indifferent.  

Tonight, when I went in to check on her before going to bed, I noticed that the rocking chair was oddly shoved to the far corner of the room.  I guess it was moved because it was making too many shadows.  

Poor kid.