make your own grocery totes...

I have decided to start posting links to blogs, etc. that I am enjoying every now and then to my page. I rarely actually get to do projects, or even update my blog, and it seems to me that one of the greatest things about blogging is sharing the wealth of amazingly creative ideas that are out there. So here is a link to a tutorial from this blog for these sweet recycled grocery totes. I would just love to make these...sometime...

mom's pancakes.

You know those recipes that your mom makes, that you totally take for granted when you are a little kid? And then you grow up, and one day you remember that wonderful...well, whatever...that your mom made and you just have to call her for the recipe? Well, last week I resurrected my mom's pancake recipe. I have actually had the recipe for a while, but haven't ever made it. I guess I overestimate the difficulty of getting out ALL those dry ingredients. That, and I never seem to have buttermilk on hand. But last week, I just happened to have the perfect amount of buttermilk and the overwhelming desire to eat some of my mom's pancakes. They were just as good as I remembered...

Here is the recipe:

Mom's Half Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

• 2 cups flour (1 cup white/1 cup whole wheat)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons oil

1. Sift together dry ingredients in large bowl, mix wet ingredients in smaller bowl and combine, mixing well.
2. Pour by 1/4 to 1/2 cup onto hot, buttered griddle (I usually have mine around 300-350, I think). Cook until bubbles on top pop, then flip and cook until browned on opposite side.
3. Top with whatever you want and enjoy! These can be frozen and reheated in the toaster.

a new year.

Ok, it's halfway through January and I am just now getting around to posting about the Holidays. Not very impressive at a time for New Year's resolutions and starting fresh, but, it's an accurate representation of how life has been of late. We have, collectively, either had houseguests or been traveling since the second week in November. It seems that the last two months of the year are destined to be crazy in the Gardner home, as they contain 3 out of our 5 birthdays and the two biggest holidays of the year. So here's a brief rundown of the last three months...

November 13th was Mr. Gardner's 35th birthday. I attempted to organize a surprise party for him the night before his birthday, with some of our closest friends coming over for appetizers and

drinks. It was very enjoyable, and our little home was packed wall to wall with people.

Three days later, Josiah turned 4. He is growing up so quickly! He amazes us with all his observations about life. He's an outgoing, kind, talkative, and sensitive boy. To celebrate, we had his favorite dish, Macaroni & Cheese, followed by yummy rainbow chip cupcakes. My mom was visiting, and it was wonderful to have her there to share in his big day. It's hard to believe it has been 4 years since I became a mom, I still feel like I'm trying to figure out parenting basics most of the time...

My mom left at the end of the week,

and the day she left, Mr. Gardner's mom came up from Phoenix to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. She was able to stay for a week and a half, and we had a wonderful holiday, despite the fact that we all managed to get sick with various illnesses while she was here.

The boys got the stomach flu the night before Thanksgiving, and it spread through the whole house over the next few days. At some point we were all feeling well enough to go on a foray to the South Hills to cut down a Christmas tree.

A few days before she left, Grandma asked if she could take Eli home with her for a few weeks and bring him back for Christmas. Although the mommy in me was really quite distraught at the prospect of being without him for several weeks, Kevin and I both knew this was a wonderful opportunity for Eli to have a little undivided attention. He doesn't get much of that being the middle child in a family of three boys 4 and under.

So, off he went with his Grandma. I missed him terribly,

but Josiah and Noah kept me busy, and I was able to enjoy having just the two of them for a while.

Mr. Gardner finished his semester the week before Christmas, and that weekend, Grandpa and Grandma Dawson brought Eli back.

They had to share the upstairs loft with their grandsons, and I'm sure that they didn't get much sleep while they were here. But the boys loved every minute, and we were so glad to have them here. Our Christmas was not at all white, but that made for an easier trip home for Grandpa & Grandma the day after Christmas. Eli, in particular, was brokenhearted to discover that Grandma had gone home. It took him a few days to adjust to not being an "only child", but we could tell that the extra attention had really done wonders for him.

Three days after Christmas was Eli's second

birthday. I must confess that I often forget it is almost his birthday until right about Christmas

and it's a challenge to give the day the attention it should have. It motivated me to take down the

Christmas tree in an attempt not to have it overshadowing his Birthday. He was just happy to have a birthday cupcake for breakfast, although he was quite distressed by the burning candles on it, and would not be consoled until his (overly helpful) big brother blew them out for him.

Mr. Gardner and I worked over New Year's and then we were off to Salmon to visit my family for a few days. We had subzero temperatures for much of the visit, and spent a lot of time around their cozy wood stove as a result. It was a very enjoyable visit, and the boys seemed to especially enjoy roughhousing with their Uncle Jeremy.

So there you have it, that brings us up to last week. I'm feeling tired just thinking about all the activity these last few months have held. Still, we have made lovely memories, and closed out the year blessed, healthy, and happy, all the while in a state of perpetual, controlled chaos. Mr. Gardner and I often look knowingly at one another and wonder what we have gotten ourselves into...but we wouldn't have it any other way.

I was trying to explain what an absolutely life-changing experience it is to have children the other day and all I could come up with was that it absolutely consumes my life. It is the most challenging, wonderful, amazing, all-encompasing, life-altering, heart-expanding thing I have ever experienced. Our children make us less selfish, whether or not we want to be. We are the ones that they depend on for only everything. What an amazing responsibility. I pray that this year I would have the grace of parenting my boys well.

hustle & bustle...

Kev turned to me the other night and asked "Are you feeling Christmas this year...'cause I'm sure not." I had to admit, I'm not. I'm dreading the holiday deadlines, craziness, the scramble to find something meaningful for the people I care so much for. It's all so far removed from the simplicity of Christmas. I know it's cliche, but the true meaning of Christmas is so easy to lose in all the hustle and bustle. It's so easy to give presents, but the real gift is to give of ourselves.

That being said, I am looking forward to enjoying this season with my family and friends, and I am trying to be so, so very thankful for the gifts that I receive every hour of every day. We are SO blessed, and this is a perfect time to remember that.

felted sweater hat and mittens

I've been fascinated lately with all the amazing things people make out of felted sweaters. I had no idea people actually shrunk wool sweaters on purpose to make things out of them. I've been itching to try some of the projects I've found online and scouring local thrift stores looking for felting candidates (the sweater needs to be 80% wool or higher in order to felt well). I found a few the other day, one of which was 100% new wool and hand knit in Ireland...just lovely. I felt a twinge of remorse as I threw it in the washer on hot and then in the dryer. Sure enough, it came out about one third of it's original size and REALLY thick (my thumb started going numb from trying to cut through it with my little scissors)













Next, I got to work finding patterns online. I decided on this one. I must offer this caveat, though: I never, ever follow patterns or recipes...even if I want to. I did all the measuring and made a template and cut all the pieces and sewed a few together, only to find that the hat was hanging down to my nose and would have been WAY to big for my head, if I had used all the pieces. So, I only used four of the five pieces I cut, and then turned the cuff of the hat under and hemmed it so it didn't cover my eyes.

For the mittens, I found a lot of patterns, but thought the simplest way to make them would be to use the cuff of the sleeves of the sweater for the cuff of my mittens. So I put my hands in the sleeves the wrong way and then traced the outline of the mitten where my fingers were. The sleeves had shrunk so much they almost weren't long enough for my hands. Then I turned them inside out and stitched a very small seam around the raw edges (which was not easy because the felt was THICK...my poor sewing machine had a rough time...but we made it through).

I really like the finished products, especially the mittens. The seams are a little annoying because they are so thick, but they are very WARM and look oh, so nice. Wish I had enough for a scarf...

muffins

This lovely fall...or, more precisely, winter weather has been making me want to bake and, as we always seem to have a plethora of overripe bananas at out house...I thought I'd make some banana bread. I had all the ingredients, and got to work looking at recipes online. Apparently I was not the only one craving banana bread...it was in the top searches box on allrecipes.

Now there seems to be a misconception about banana bread, at least in my brain, because it's made with fruit...it must be more nutritious than, say cake. Not so, I found as I perused through all the top rated recipes. Two sticks of butter in one loaf of bread is a bit excessive, in my opinion, especially when I'm sure I would probably end up eating most of it.

So on to Plan B. I needed to find something that called for overripe bananas, that tasted good, and was somewhat nutritious. I must admit, I wasn't optimistic. But not only did I find a recipe that met all the criteria, it also called for apples...which I had, and needed to use. The stars were in alignment! All was right with the world!

So I got to work. Of course, I had to change the recipe, because I can never actually follow a recipe to the letter. First off, I tripled the recipe, because I wanted to make muffins we could eat for a week or so, and a loaf of bread. The recipe called for raisins...plumped raisins... not a fan. So I left them out. Actually, I substituted walnuts. And I added an extra egg and a substituted a little all-purpose white flour for some of the whole wheat because some reviews said they didn't rise well. So this is what the recipe looked like when I was done with it:

• 4 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 4 1/2 cups bran cereal {I used bran flakes}
  
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  
• 6 tablespoons melted butter or oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 3 apples, cored and shredded {zucchini would work too}
  
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 cup brown sugar or honey
• 1-2 cups chopped walnuts
  

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 36 muffin cups or two large loaf pans.
2. Beat the eggs and the milk in a large bowl, and mix in the bran cereal. Let the mixture stand until the cereal absorbs the liquid, about 5 minutes (this is when I mash my bananas and grate my apples). Add the mashed bananas, shredded apples, melted butter (or oil) and vanilla. Gently mix in the dry ingredients, and stir a few times to combine.
   
3. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

They were wonderful! Not quite as good as banana bread *smile* but still very good. A new staple at our house for breakfast, I think.

10 things

I discovered a blog last week that has really been inspiring me. From time to time the author does a post of 10 things that she loves at that moment in time. I am loving that idea, of taking a little snapshot of the things that are occupying my thoughts and dreams at a given moment in my life. So here are my ten things for this very moment...most of which have to do with the turning of summer to fall {which just happens to be my favorite season}

1. Harvest food

I am loving the fresh, local produce, some of which is coming from my little garden {my boys "helped" me by picking all my tomatoes...ripe or not}


My mom came a few weeks ago and picked me some peaches from a local orchard. We made freezer jam and frozen slices for pies, cobblers and such. I love peaches...

I ventured out on a limb last week and made a butternut squash bisque with some homemade soup sticks that were absolutely delicious {this is coming from someone who doesn't like squash...yeah, try it}

And of course...apple pie.



2. Wool socks

I may only wear sandals during the summer, but I'm also among the first to pull out the warm fuzzies as soon as it starts to get chilly. This most favorite pair of wool socks my sweet husband bought for me when we were dating. Yes, you read that right...these socks are 10 years old, but pulling them on is still one of my favorite things about fall.


3. Finally...a family photo collage

It's only taken me 3 years to finally hang these pictures on the wall next to the staircase where I envisioned a pottery barn-esque collage. My friend gave me a picture frame for my birthday and that was the impetus to get it done. Now, we'll see how long those pictures stay on the wall...

4. New slippers
Doesn't get more warm and fuzzy than these...


5. Blogs & blogging

A few new favorites are the sometimes crafter, soule mama, and the long thread.

6. Fall sunshine

Not too hot, just enough to warm you in the cool fall air. It's sunshine at it's best. Perfect for lying on a blanket in the backyard.

7. A clean kitchen

But don't look at the rest of the house...


8. etsy.com

9. Coffee and books

That won't ever change, but, as the mornings get colder, getting up early for hot coffee and some time in a good book gets all the more appealing...



10. These boys...

They're my world. I love these rare moments when we are all together in one room {usually piled on our tiny queen bed} They just don't come often enough.