Bloggy Giveaway

Its time for a fun bloggy giveaway! On Monday morning, I will draw a name from all of the comments left on this post and one lucky winner will receive the books Pirate Things to Make and Do and Fairy Cooking. These books are filled with fun activities and crafty ideas to beat summertime boredom.

So, here are the rules. Visit my Usborne Website and have a look around. Post a comment below (be sure to comment on this post) telling the name of at least one book that caught your eye. On Monday morning, I will choose a winner and post the winner's name here on my blog.

There is also another chance to win books. All orders placed through the "Bloggy Giveaway" e-show link on my website will be entered into a drawing to win the hostess benefits from that e-show! You could win from $15 to $100+ in free books of your choice (based on the sales of the e-show). Be sure to place your order by Sunday evening - the show closes Sunday at midnight.

Be sure to tell your friends. If we have more than 50 comments (by 50 different people), I'll draw a second winner, as well. And the same goes for the e-show. If we have more than $400 in orders, I'll choose 2 winners! Now, go on - spread the word :o)

100th post and a yummy recipe :o)

This is my 100th post :o) I didn't realize I post that often. ;o)

Yesterday, at Kroger, the produce dept had bags of ripe bananas priced to sell. We picked up a 5 lb bag for $1.50, knowing that we'd use them for banana nut bread and smoothies. Today, we tried a new recipe for Banana Nut Pancakes. Delicious! Here's the "recipe":


Banana Nut Pancakes

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour (we used 1/3 cup white, 1/3 cup whole wheat and 1/3 cup of oat/ flax/ wheat germ mix)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
hand full of chopped walnuts

Mash bananas and add egg and milk. Mix well. Combine dry ingredients then add to wet stirring until just mixed. Add walnuts and stir. Drop by 1/4 cup onto prepared griddle/ pan and cook as you would cook pancakes.

We added butter and honey and they tasted exactly like banana nut bread (without the sweet topping, they are a little bland as there is no added sugar in them). We put the leftovers in the freezer and will definitely make these again - I think they may become a regular addition to our breakfast rotation.

Thrifty Thursday - Cloth Napkins

This is my first time participating in Thrifty Thursday over at Comical Coupon Sense. I don't have a picture (camera issues). Sorry.

This past weekend, we hit 3 garage sales in our neighborhood and found several things that we needed. First, we found boys jeans that fit my boys for .50 each. My boys wear out jeans faster than I could ever have imagined. I will not pay full price for them, as they usually end up ripped at the knees within a few wearings.

What I am most excited about though was the cloth napkins I found. One garage sale had 30 cloth napkins she sold them to me for $3.00! We already had 6 and I had been wanting to buy more, but not for $1.50 - 2.00 a piece. Now we have enough for 3 meals a day for 3 days without running out. I love that we will now be throwing out less paper (I really hated using paper napkins). I also think that using cloth napkins is making our meal time seem more special - its reminiscent of eating in a fine restaurant. After all, those are usually the only place most people use a cloth napkin.

Check out Comical Coupon Sense for more Thrifty Thursday.

I have some empty space in my garden - what did you plant this year?

We have a square foot garden. I love it. We have 4 blocks that are 4X4, so we have 64 square feet of productive garden. So far this year, we have harvested 4 (of 6) heads of romaine lettuce (we lost the last 2 in bad weather last week), lots of baby greens (butter crunch, red bibb, green bibb, spinach), carrots, broccoli, green onions and several bunches of basil and parsley. We have planted 18 cucumber plants, 9 tomato plants (flowering-yay!), 4 pepper plants (flowering-yay!), green onions, 2 strawberries, (we get about 1 berry per day from them right now - we are putting in more beds for these next year) spinach, carrots, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, basil, parsley, baby greens and purple hull peas. With all of that in the garden, we still have some "open" squares - 16 to be exact. I'm thinking I'll put more peppers in and perhaps more herbs. I'm still looking for a few more things to fill up those last squares. I'd love you ideas. What do you have planted?

WFMW: Homemade Break Apart Cookie Dough

I posted this last August and thought it was time to share it again. I love the convenience of break apart cookies from the grocery store, but don't like all those funky chemicals that I can't even pronounce lurking in my kiddos snacks. Last year, I made a quadruple batch of sugar cookies and baked one, then put the other three in separate gallon sized zip top baggies.



After smooshing the contents of the bag flat, I used chop sticks to make the "perforations". When I want to use them, I take the bag out of the freezer and break them apart while still frozen. It also helps to put baking instructions on the bag in case you can't put your hands on the recipe when you're ready to bake (not that I ever lose a recipe or anything, lol).

Now, when we make cookies, we usually at least double (but often quadruple) the recipe and put some in the freezer for later. And it works beautifully with other kinds of cookies, too. If you'd like to read the original post, click here.

And check out more ideas at Rocks in My Dryer and Works for Me Wednesday.

Once a Month

Once a month, give or take, our youngest decides to give Mom a break and cooperate with school. He just turned 5 so he's not officially even Kindergarten age, so, I'm not talking about his cooperating with his own education. No, this post is about his cooperating with his older brother's education. Typically, our day starts with a few minutes for the boys to fully wake. Our youngest is usually hungry when he gets up, so he has breakfast at this time. N doesn't like to eat first thing because it upsets his stomach. N is also pretty slow to wake, so it usually takes him a good 20 minutes to fully wake up (sometimes longer). This is usually the point when A starts trying to get N out of school. Hahaha! This kid can actually go all day with it, too. If he could only figure out this he is actually making it take longer for his brother to be able to play, but anyway . . .

Today, was so peaceful. He played alone (something he rarely does) while N finished up what he was working on and then they played together with Legos for over 2 hours without a single argument (another record!). And to top it off, this is the second time in 5 days that A has cooperated with school :o) Maybe we're making progress?

**Note: We have tried giving A "school" work to do with his brother (it worked for a short while). We have also tried the box of "special" toys (worked for a week - 30 days worth of activities). We even tried a DVD (which I was determined never to do when we first started homeschooling - didn't even work the first time). We've even tried asking for his cooperation and explaining why he would want to cooperate. Anyway, I just wanted to add the note, so that you'd know we've tried. I'm really just posting this to encourage others - ours is not the only one, and neither is yours :o)

Menu Plan Monday - May 19, 2008

Here's the plan for this week. We will be using the last of the lettuce from the garden as we lost most of it last week in a really heavy rain/ flood (4 inches fell in less than half an hour-it tore most of the lettuce leaves to shreds). I'm really disappointed, but also grateful that we didn't lose more.

Monday: Grilled oriental chicken and asparagus salad with roasted fingerling potatoes
Tuesday: Italian meatloaf, green beans, rolls
Wednesday: Italian meatloaf subs
Thursday: Tuna/ White Bean “Burgers” on dressed bun with veggie tray and fries
Friday: Clean out the fridge (leftovers)

We already have all of the ingredients for these meals in the pantry or freezer, so this week, if we do any shopping, it will be only for fresh produce, milk and any not-to-be-missed sales.

To see more menus, check out Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.