I Heart Food

I know. Shocking right? But who doesn't love to bake? I used to want to put a bakery in the field in front of my house when I was a kid. Good thing THAT dream was never realized. I'd be at least 400 pounds right now.

One of my most favorite things to bake? Banana Bread. Yum. So the other day, I decided to bake up a couple loaves and ended up with a little experiment.

The one on the right is a normal loaf of banana bread, baked off of this recipie.

Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

Turned out great, but I ended up having extra bananas, so I wanted to make another loaf. As I started though I realized two rather unfortunate things. 

#1. I didn't have enough white flour

#2. I didn't have enough butter

So I decided to try and make it a bit more healthy, and altered the recipe slightly and made the loaf on the left. 

Slightly Healthier Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 ripe bananas, smashed
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 Container of Yoplait Vanilla Yogurt
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 Cup ground flax meal

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter and yogurt into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda, salt, and flax meal over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

This actually turned out really good. You couldn't tell the difference between the two. The "healthy" version actually was a bit more moist (I'm guessing because of the yogurt) the best part? I just worked out the nutrition facts.

Normal Version

Healthy Version

Do you see that? 123 calories A SERVING! And 24 grams of FAT?! OMG. I really didn't think it would be that big of a difference but...wowee. I will now be baking everything a bit more healthy. 

I wonder how many calories that butter adds...

Well anyway, I had to make up for all those lost calories some how, so...

Last night I found Pink Lemonade Cupcake mix at Target. 

(Side note, have you seen all the fantastically cute outdoor stuff at Target? I should probably get an award for not buying any of it last night.)

They turned out delicious, like a lemon poppy seed muffin...at least that's what I told my self when Lucy and I ate one for breakfast. 

I think I might try and make a homemade version of these, with lemon cake base, and fresh strawberries or rasberries in it. YUMMO! I'll let you know how it goes. 

The Bathroom Remodel: Before and After

There are quite a few things I'll miss about my house when we finally do move. Like the view from my front window.

And the big back yard that Lucy loves to run around in:

But what I'll miss the most is my new, beautiful bathroom.

It was a nasty mess before. First time DIYers + an old bathroom = this:

Maybe not the worst you've ever seen, but let me walk you through the major issues:

#1 Huge, ugly vanity. 

this vanity was big for this tiny bathroom, and left you with not much room by the toilet. Also, it was not the prettiest counter top.

#2 Poorly/Half done shower

There were some issues with the old shower, so within the last year or so, Jeff ripped it all out, and replaced it with a cheap shower surrond. Well...it didn't quite work as well as we hoped, and he never completely finished the tile on top. 

#3 Peel and Stick Floors

Honestly, not terrible. And we were pretty proud because we did this ourself.  But they were looking old and dingy and if you look closely you can tell which one we had to replace, because it's a different color. 

#4 The Walls

We had the basic damage from tearing down wall paper, but we also had this. 

Yuck. This was from our not so well done shower redo. 

It's hard to believe what a little money and some professionals can do.

Before

After

Everything was redone, and done well, and professionally. I'm so thankful for our friend Chuck at Renovation Creations for putting together this beautiful bathroom. You can be sure, I'll be calling him when we move to the next house. Because in our budget, I just keep finding bathrooms like this:

Yikes. 

The Bathroom Remodel: Part One.

Moving Back Home

As we readied our house to put on the market, we knew we had to do SOMETHING about our only full bathroom.

It's a pretty small bathroom to begin with, so every little thing matters. Like the giant vanity with terrible old countertop. The too loose shower surround, the nasty flaky walls. Anyway, it was bad. And in this terrible market, I knew something must be done to help the house sell. So we called up our friend Chuck at Renovation Creations and he came over a few days later to start a complete bathroom redo. Now, the incredibly unfortunate thing about fixing your only full bath, is that you are without a bathroom for a while. And if you've ever had a small child with you while someone is trying to fix something, well you know, we had to get out of the house for a few days. So Lucy and I moved in with my parents, while Jeff stayed at the house at night and showered at his dad's.

What could have been an incredibly stressful time, was like a mini vacation for us! My family were great hosts. It was nice to get texts from my dad like "Got donuts. Please eat them"

Well OK! 

Lucy and I slept in the same bed, which was a litte strange, especially since she likes to be touching you ALL THE TIME. It was fun to wake up in the morning and see her say "Good Morning Mama! Sun's awake!" But I was glad to get my own bed back. In the morning we'd shuffle upstairs, I'd make some coffee and get Lucy to eat something, and then sit down at the kitchen table.

This pretty much sums up everything I love about my parents. All my life I've woken up to my mom being awake already, sitting at the kitchen table, reading her bible. I've talked about it before, how I want to be that mom, and am still working on it. And then, of corse, there is my dad. Who still reads the comics and randomly strums his ukelele. (My dad sits at the kitchen table and reads his bible too, don't worry). The older I get, the more I realize what amazing people and parents these guys are. I so enjoyed spending all this time with them. 

Although, the more time I spent there, the more I remembered that Brent had moved far away. There are so many things at that house that remind me of him. From all the Minnesota paraphernalia that my parents have collected:

wish I was sharing this cup with you brother!

To the childish cereals that were left behind from the last time he visited:

You'll have to go shopping the next time you come, Lucy and I dominated these boxes.

I miss him lots, and am really looking forward to the week or so in the summer he'll be here. 

I'm so blessed to have two sets of Grandparents that not only adore Lucy, but that she adores. Every day she asks to go to "Grandpa's" and when I pick her up, she never wants to leave. I usually have to bribe her with something to get her in the car with me. Sometimes, it makes me a little sad, but I quickly realize what an amazing blessing it is. She loves Grandpas house because as my dad says "There's no naughty spot at Grandpas!" 

A great time was had by all, and I was very thankful to have a place to shower and watch cable TV all day. (HGTV...all day...I am now a DIY expert)

Coming soon: Before and after pictures! WAHOO!

I have lots of ideas:

I haven't posted in a while, but it's not due to lack of ideas. In fact, I have so many, I'm not sure where to start. So I'll do what every administrative type does, and make a list:

 1. The bathroom remodel: A two part series. We had our bathroom redone, and I'd like to not only share the amazing before and after shots, but I'd like to dedicate a whole post to the week Lucy and I lived at my parents house.


2. What Lucy eats. This may be a really short post, or really long. I'm starting to actually figure out how to get this girl to eat real food on a daily basis, and want to share my tips and tricks.

3. Tuesdays with Grandpa. I'd love this to become a fairly regular series. My dad has offered to hang out with Lucy on his Tuesdays off whenever possible, to give me a break, and him some bonding time/child labor. I also have fantastic in-laws who love having Lucy whenever I have a meeting or something I need to work on without a two year old at my feet. I was inspired by another blogger I follow, Abby, who has "Single Ladies Wednesday". I feel our days will look rather similar, somedays being great adventures with friends, somedays not wearing pants. My favorite SLW post was a guest post by Katherine, who talked about all the things she misses about being a single lady. I laughed out loud when she talked about Panera Bread. It is a favorite spot of mine and Lucy's, because daddy doesn't understand overpriced bread like we do.

4. Camp without my BFF. People always ask me what it's like working without Carrie. It's hard. And sometimes, I really hate it, because I just really like her. We work perfect together. But I'm working on a team for Teen Camp that I actually kind of like. Old friends and new faces are blending together nicely, and I think it will make for one rocking week of camp.

5. Container Gardening. I really like growing things, and am excited to have a summer off to do so, however, I will be real mad if we move and I have to leave behind all my hard work. So I've been discovering all the wonderful things you can plant in pots. I love reading blog posts (like this one, from Rachel) on gardening. So I thought you might too! Disclosure: I'm not really great at growing things. I tend to kill things pretty easily.

6. My child: The Fashionista. Honestly, I just want to have a place to put all the pictures of how cute Lucy is. Like this one:

and probably the biggest:

7. For Sale: Our Home.

  Our house is officially for sale. It's a hard process, getting your house ready to sell. Where do you PUT everything, if people are going to LOOK at everything? But it's on the market now, and we are looking for homes in the South Bend/ Granger area, with 3 bedrooms and a basement for Jacob. It's stressful, and a little depressing to be selling a home in such a horrible housing market, in ELKHART none the less. But we I am staying really optimistic. I'm hoping for a pool by summer! I really love this little house we are in, and I'm hoping someone else will fall in love with it after their first drive by, like I did. I will desperatly miss this view from my front window:

 I'd like to eventually do a guest post with lot's of moms voices about Discipline. Spanking no spanking, time outs, yelling, punishments. I'd love all my blog moms to write a post about it I could link to, and maybe get some awesome non blogging mommies in on it too. Whadda think? Any takers?

So that's it. I think I'll start with the bathroom remodel. There's some good stuff there, great pictures. Keep your eyes peeled for lots of posts coming! For now, it's nap time, and I think I'll join Lucy today in celebrating the wonders of nap time.