4 things, to catch up.

What i've been doing. 

1. Eating and making Amazing bread. (this recipe.) I let it rise a bit too long, so it was mis-shapen and really tall - HOWEVER, i used freshly ground rice flour (like right that min before i put it in the bread) and IT WAS SO GOOD!!!  fresh flour makes SUCH a huge huge difference.  This was a double batch.

 2. practicing for the 2nd annual Flats Challenge! This is Jamie, age 4, to the right - in his night time diaper. amazing.

3.  pineapple orange ice cream! WOW!!  about equal parts frozen orange slices and frozen pineapple chunks + apple juice to sweeten.. throw it all in the vita-mix and serve immediately.  YUMMY.

4. Mollie was REALLY happy about how many sight words she can read!

Allergy friendly brownies!

I did it! Finally! 

 Jamie is turning 4 tomorrow - today he had his 'birthday party' after our homeschool co-op  - Among the group we have allergies to dairy, gluten, egg, corn, and peanuts (and more!).  

Jamie requested brownies or chocolate cake..  

This is what i came up with after a failed chocolate cupcake recipe..  

Black bean (egg free) brownies!

• 1/2 cup millet flour
• 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
• 1 can (or equivalent) black beans, drained/rinsed
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1.5 tbsp oil (i used grapeseed)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup choice of sugar (I used 1/2 coconut 1/2 raw sugar) 
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips 

Process all ingredients except chocolate chips in food processor until smooth.  Stir in chocolate chips, reserving some to sprinkle on top.  Bake at 350 for about 25-30 mins in a greased pan (8x8) until they pass a tooth pick test and have begun separating from the edge of the pan. 

Black bean brownie cupcakes WITH egg.

 These starwars cupcakes are regular black bean brownies decorated with William-Sonoma Starwars cupcake stencils. 

Oh, and I also made these chocolate fudgsicles (in case the brownies flopped, but the kids got to eat both!) they seemed to REALLY like them!

Homeschool classroom, disovery bottles, spring planting and more

I like to call this furniture the reuse/recycle look.

 I've been trying less new recipes lately, and just keeping up with the old favorites - in the past week I made 2 loafs of bread and 2 batches of muffins.. and chicken nuggets.  I'm sure there was more than that..  just nothing new to talk about!  So, that is not to say that i didn't have some major projects this weekend! I spent a lot of time reorganizing the home school 'classroom' ... honestly, we haven't used the room for much more than storage in months because it just wasn't toddler-proofed ..  I'm not sure how the reorganization is going to help, but everything on the lower shelves is at least toddler-approved.  If she dumps it all, it will still be a huge mess... we'll see i guess.  Plan B involves a baby gate and putting Annie on the playroom side of the gate - and since many of the dump-able toys from the playroom have been moved to the 'classroom' she won't be able to make as big of a mess..  i hope.  We also cleaned and organized the master bedroom, we removed a recliner and added a twin bed in its place and WOW it looks so much bigger! and now Annie has her own sleeping space to start out the night.  I'm hoping once she does well on the twin bed to move her to her toddler bed in Mollie's room.  baby steps! 

Last week I made these discovery bottles .. so far, the kids loooove them.  I made something like 15 of them i think. The usual, glitter water, oil and water, and some more exotic like marbles in hair gel - they are hypnotic! (pictured to the right, and also above, under the fish tank)  Annie loves to sit in the basket WITH all the bottles and play with them. 

 

 

We went out today to get some supplies for a minor project and ended up finding these shrubs on clearance!  We got 4 forsythia and 2 lilacs - all but 2 of them got planted today.  They looked great for 60-75% off! Usually clearance plants require some babying but these look like they'll do great.  oh and on this topic, we're still battling the weeds in the garden, they are HORRIBLE this year.  And i thinned the radishes today.  Something is eating my strawberry plants BAD. I don't know what it is or how to fight it, so i'm kind of just giving up for now, my lettuce is untouched and about ready to start cutting - it looks spectacular.  Carrots started sprouting in the past few days, they need to hurry up and grow so i can weed around them better.. the weeds are bad.. and Mollie and I must have done a horrible job of spacing out the carrot seeds, they are so close together.  Though i saved some seeds this year, if there are big gaps in our rows i'm just going to fill them in!   

there, now I feel like i've accomplished something.