Happy Family Times #17--Visiting Extending Family & Zucchini Muffins

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting fun family activities each week so we can all be inspired to have more quality family time. Please share yours below.

This week we went to visit my parents at Cape Cod. Steve had the two cats in his car and I had Hazel and lots of stuff in mine. We left Thursday. Hazel was so excited because her only first cousin visits my parents from North Carolina every July, and she does not get to see him very much. Even though her cousin is ten, they play so well together and really love each other. I love watching them play together. Thursday afternoon Steve took both kids to the beach for a swim while I helped my mother with dinner.

Friday morning my mother and I left for Connecticut (a three-hour car drive). One of my first cousin's got married at Foxwoods Resort. Apparently they both love gambling so they thought a casino setting was perfect and they thought Friday, the 13th was perfect since it was the same date as their first date. Since we were going to splurge and spend the night at a luxury hotel, we decided to go for massages before the wedding. It was wonderful.

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Before the wedding we did some quick shopping for gifts to bring back for the kids. I got Hazel a great Native American drum. Foxwoods is run by the Pequot Tribe. (I have to admit I have a huge fascination with Native American culture and history, so if you would like to learn more about the Pequot history check this out.)

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The wedding was at Lake of the Isles which is also run by the Pequot Tribe. The ceremony itself was on the deck by the lake. It was beautiful!! Plus the couple really put a lot of themselves in the ceremony as well as the reception. It was so unique and fun. It was fun to catch up with my cousins and aunts and uncles as well. We do not see my mother's side of the family all that much. My mother is one of five children and each of them has at least two children--almost all who are married and with children now. The reception was in the clubhouse ballroom. The food was excellent and I danced a bit with my cousins--plus we all had fun with the photobooth and costumes.

Saturday my mother and I ate earlier than the family brunch and headed back to the Cape so I could enjoy my family vacation. Hazel had gotten to hang out with her three favorite males in the world--her Daddy, her Pop and her cousin. She had a great time.

My father's zucchini is starting to be ripe so on Sunday Hazel and I made Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins. Her cousin was going to help us, but he slept in that day and we gave up waiting for him to get up. We used a recipe from my mother's cookbook--The Classic Zucchini Cookbook by Nancy C. Ralston, Marynor Jordan, and Andrea Chesman. (She has made several recipes from this book and has loved all of them.) Dinner for Saturday also came from this book.

We of course changed the recipe a bit. The original recipe is very similar to this one. We mixed two cups of whole wheat flour, one tablespoon baking powder, a quarter teaspoon salt, a teaspoon cinnamon, and half of a cup of oatmeal.

Then we beat two eggs, three-quarters of a cup of non-fat milk, one third of a cup of olive oil, and a quarter of a cup of honey together. Then we added grated zucchini and raisins. I added much more than one cup of zucchini since my mother had a lot to use up. She had a large one that she had used in the pesto pasta salad the night before but she only had used half of it so I used the other half. I would guess it was close if not more than two cups. This was too much!!

Fluffy wanted to help too!

 Then we scooped them into the muffin pan. Hazel wanted to do most of the scooping. It was a bit messy, but she had fun. Then we baked them at 300 for at least 25 minutes and with the extra zucchini we should have baked them even longer. They were good but a bit too mushy in the center.

Then we cooled them in the pan for ten minutes except my mother turned the timer off on us since she thought it was for the oven which was already off. Oh, well. Then we enjoyed them warm. Again they were tasty, but a bit too mushy.

We brought home some more zucchini so maybe we will try again or we will try zucchini bread.


Steve left Sunday morning, but my sister came that morning. Hazel was so excited to see her aunt. She actually was in tears this morning about having to come home. She didn't want to leave all her extended family she doesn't get to see enough. We had a fun time last night going to Provincetown and having dinner at our favorite restaurant, Napi's. If you are ever in P-town, you really should check it out. If you are seated before 6, ask for the Early Bird Specials. The food is excellent and it is such a unique place to eat.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

As I have mentioned before, Hazel loves pancakes. Well she has been asking to make pumpkin ones again. I finally remembered to buy a can of cooked pumpkin so we could. Then when she asked to make them I was able to answer yes. 

We pulled out the ingredients. We adapted the recipe in our Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Cookbook that I have had since I was six. I love this book! We used one cup of whole wheat flour, two teaspoons baking powder, a half of a cup of almond meal, a half cup of oatmeal and a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. Hazel measured and mixed our dry ingredients! 

Next we beat an egg--Hazel cracked it by herself and beat it! Then added one cup non-fat milk, one tablespoon olive oil and a can of cooked organic pumpkin. Again she mixed it for me. At this point I started heating the pan and sprayed it with a cooking spray.

Then we combined the two together and added one cup of frozen blueberries. We had fresh ones but I didn't see a reason to waste fresh ones by cooking them.

Next Hazel pulled her stool over to the stove and helped me scoop it into the pan. She didn't totally understand why we had to do it over the stove, but she did help with the first two batches.

Hazel claims these are her favorite pancakes. When I flip them over I press down on with the spatula to make sure the batter gets around the blueberries. I usually flip them twice and do this both times.


Enjoy!!


This is where I share...

Banana Muffins

We had some ripe bananas so we made some banana muffins. It is a relatively easy recipe. I changed it from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Mix:
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup ground almond meal flour
1 cup oatmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 chopped/ground walnuts

Hazel mixed the dry ingredients while on the phone with my sister! I had to hold the bowl for her.

In a different bowl beat an egg and then mix in:
1 cup nonfat milk
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cups grated/pureed carrots
2 overripe bananas mashed

Hazel stopped helping at this point but came back to help scoop into the pan. Mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. The batter is a bit thick. Then spray a muffin pan and preheat oven to 400. Scoop into muffin pan. Then bake for 20 minutes. Cool for a bit before eating.

Enjoy!!

This is where I share....

Paper Flowers and Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

Monday morning Hazel and I made a few paper flowers to decorate our kitchen table. We made some of the handprint Easter lilies you see everywhere lately, but I first saw at Family Fun and some daffodils that I made up.

The lilies are very easy. You trace and cut out a handprint on white paper or cardstock. (We used construction paper.) Curl the fingers around a pencil. Then curve the hand around a green straw and tape it together. Fold half of a yellow pipe cleaner in half and bend the ends and stick into the straw. Then add a double leaf with a hole punched through it.

The daffodils are fairly easy as well. Design a three petal shape and cute two out of yellow paper (or white if you want white daffodils) and punch holes in the center of them. Then cut a strip about 2-3 inches wide and use scallop edged scissors if you have them or fringe it. If you want to add color to the strip you can. (We used Hazel dot markers just to give the edge a bit of color.) Put the sets of petals through a green pipe cleaner and bend the end so they stay on. Make sure they are open and not completely overlapping (you can use a little glue to keep them this way). Glue the strip into a ring and then glue in the center of the petals.

I then stuck them in a vase with a little bit of blue crumpled paper/Easter grass. They look beautiful with our Easter egg table cloth.

This morning we made pancakes. Hazel has been asking to make pancakes for a few days. We finally had the time this morning. She wanted to make pumpkin pancakes. I pulled out my old standby cookbook. It was a birthday present from a friend at my sixth birthday. Needless to say it is well used.

I of course modified the recipe.

Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes  

2PointsPlus Value Per Pancake (Weight Watcher PointsPlus) 

Makes: 10-12 pancakes

Ingredients

	1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
	1 cup(s) canned pumpkin
	1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	1 Tbsp olive oil
	1 large egg(s)
	1 cup(s) unsweetened frozen (or fresh) blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mix pumpkin, milk, oil, and egg in a different bowl. Then add to dry ingredients and mix well. Then stir in blueberries.

Heat pan and spray with a cooking spray. When warm enough, spoon small amounts of the batter onto pan. When first side has had time to cook flip with spatula. Cook all the way through and remove and serve. Repeat until batter is gone.

This is where I link up...

Happy Pi Day!

I'm showing my geeky roots and going back to when I taught math. On March 14, math teachers have started celebrating a holiday called Pi Day! Earlier in the week I gave you some links and ideas of lessons to help with the celebration. Since Hazel is 3 and we are pursuing a Waldorf education we didn't bother with all the geometry stuff and we went to my favorite part--baking pie!

Spring and Muffins

Yesterday and today feel like spring. It has been close to 60 if not over 60 and we are loving it. However we still have the feeling of brown all around us. Everything still looks brown. We see a few spots of spring bulbs starting to break through the earth, but not enough to change the overall color you see. We found a book at the library about this, And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano. This book literally talks about how everything is brown and you plant seeds and wait and wait and then one day suddenly everything is green. It is a great book for this time of year at least around here.

This morning we decided to make muffins before heading to school. I pulled out my Deceptively Delicious cookbook (by Jessica Seinfeld) and amended her applesauce muffin recipe. The recipe can be found here. I used whole wheat flour and used raw carrot puree instead of the butternut squash puree.

Hazel helping puree the carrots

I also used more carrots than called for (either squash or carrot in the book). Hazel has no problems eating most vegetables so she doesn't mind me putting them in. Her father on the other hand doesn't really eat enough vegetables so we do try to hide them in things for him.

Hazel mixing the dry ingredients

Hazel of course did the mixing and pouring of measured ingredients. Her technique has definitely improved.

Cracking an egg

She has gotten better with eggs as well, but still needs to do them in a separate bowl so we can get all the shells out.

We ate them warm for breakfast and then rushed off to school. It was one of the first times we were not the first ones in class there. They are changing the start time next week since everyone always comes late to our class. Oh, well. The muffins were delicious!

Oh, and why did we bake muffins today. So we would have something to link up at

Won't you join us over there!! Thanks, Kelly for hosting a great baking party!

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Baking with Hazel again

So on Saturday morning Hazel had it in her mind that we were going to bake muffins. She came up with this idea Friday night. I slept in (Thank You Steve!!), which was wonderful and Steve had already fed her some breakfast. But she was determined, so I pulled out a cookbook. We did not have overripe bananas this time, so we decided on pumpkin blueberry muffins.

I adapted the recipe from C is for Cooking: Recipes from the Street by Susan McQuillan, RD. It is a cookbook I bought awhile ago for Hazel when we were letting her watch a bit more television and she was so into Elmo. She still loves all the characters and loves the cookbook. The recipes are relatively healthy and very easy. They also mark the parts they consider kid friendly to do.

My Little Baker with Ducky Watching

Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 egg
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
1 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 cup blueberries (or you could use 1/2 cup of raisins or dried cranberries)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line or grease 18 muffin cups
2. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ginger.
3. In a different small bowl, have child crack egg and take out any shells (if there are any). Then beat egg with a fork.
4. In a large bowl stir together sugar and oil. Then add egg, pumpkin, and yogurt and mix until blended.
5. Stir in the flour mixture and oatmeal.
6. Gently stir in blueberries (or raisins or dried cranberries).
7. Distribute batter into the muffin pans filling each to about 2/3.
8. Bake for about 25 minutes. Cool on rack slightly and serve warm. Store in an air tight container for up to 3 days.

Yesterday I had a busy day. Do you ever notice how your child seems to grow out of her clothes all of a sudden. Well that happened to us. So I went out yesterday after church to buy Hazel the next size of clothes (which all seem big now). Then I went to tutor, but before I left I got another call about tutoring and planned that one for a few hours afterwards due to the student's work schedule. I tutor about 45 minutes away from home so I try to get them all done at once. Well with two hours to kill, I decided to go shopping. On my way to Target to see about more clothes for Hazel, I saw a fabric store I had been meaning to check out for my mom. Needless to say I spent an hour wandering around and came home with three fabrics. I did show some control since I only bought three. After that I decided I would go to Starbucks and read my book.

Magnolia Flowers from kit from the Paper Source (my first ever purchase there)

Well then I remembered the Paper Source and they were still open. Do you know the Paper Source? It is a great store. They have an on-line store as well at http://www.paper-source.com/. I never order on-line but I love wandering around and looking at all the great craft things. They are basically a great store for any paper craft and stationary. They have beautiful kits for paper flowers (see above) and wreaths as well as ones for kids. It is really a fun store. Well, I found some great scrapbook paper to make some of the wonderful crafts I have seen on this week's Sharing Saturday (there are already over 145 entries and they keep coming).

The crafts are from the crafting fiend: Toddler Valentine Craft

and It's Overflowing: Simple Valentine's Day Craft

They are pretty similar. I think I will cut double the hearts and have Hazel do one while I do one.

My Purchase at the Paper Source last night

Isn't that heart paper perfect? All I have to do is cut them out. Plus I have the stencil to make other sizes. Then the needle felting flower kit was on sale--half price and the clothespins were so cute. I thought I might use them with something from a couple weeks ago Sharing Saturday.

From Desire Empire: Pretty Artwork for a Little Girl's Room. Won't they be perfect?

Well I'm so excited to be able to share my purchases with you. I was so excited to buy them and wanted to share them with someone who would appreciate them. Somehow I didn't think Steve or Hazel really would.

Hope you have a great day!! Happy Monday!

Happy New Year!! And now onto the birthday party pictures

Happy New Year to you and your family!! I hope 2012 is your best year yet in every way!

I promised to share pictures from Hazel's third birthday party, so this is the post. You may remember I shared the invitation, the favors and some decorations, decorations done with My Memories, and birthday hats and more decorations previously. So I won't repeat those at least not too much.

Busy Weekend...Baking, Cooking, and Candle Making oh and the Pageant

Yesterday, we did some holiday baking. We made snickerdoodles, peppermint bark and some reindeer cookies that I have been seeing all over Pinterest. We used red sugar in our cinnamon sugar for the snickerdoodles to give them a festive look. I used the recipe in my Better Home & Gardens Cookbook, but they have it on line as well.

For the peppermint bark we used a recipe from Martha Stewart Magazine. Of all the recipes I have tried from there this is the only one I liked. Hazel had fun opening the candy canes and helping break them into tiny pieces. I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but it looks similar to the one on the recipe.

Before Baking

For the reindeer cookies, I admit we used slice and bake sugar cookies. For some reason I have the worst luck with sugar cookies when I make them homemade. Plus I was trying to make sure we had something fun to decorate that Hazel could help with and not have to refrigerate for an hour or more before going on. I used chocolate covered pretzels (from Trader Joe's) and M&M's. They were so easy and turned out pretty cute.

After Baking

We some of each type to church today for the annual cookie swap. The cookie swap is a fundraiser for the high school youth group to go on their mission trip over the summer. You bring in cookies and then people pay $10 for a decorated box (decorated by youth group) and can fill box with the variety of cookies everyone brought in up to 3 dozen. We didn't get around to making gingerbread cookies yet, but will this week.

On Friday night, we made some candles. I had bought two kits of Pure Beeswax Honeycomb Candle Kits at the Cape Ann Waldorf School's Holiday Fair. The kits come from Hinode Farm. My idea was to try the Cookie Cutter Candles from Family Fun. Well we did one. I don't know if my wax wasn't warmed up enough or if it was suppose to be so hard to cut it with the cookie cutters, but I hurt my hand and felt like it was a huge waste of wax.  However we did make one.

Then we started rolling them. Much easier and more efficient. We used the scraps from the cookie cutter ones to decorate. To make the striped ones I looked at the tutorial on Hinode Farm's website. We are giving some as gifts to family, but most Hazel did not want to part with. We also rolled the few big scraps of the red and got very small ones.

Hazel wanted to keep all the blue ones.

The ones Hazel would give away

Today at church we had our Christmas Pageant. Hazel and I were angels. They changed it this year so the kids didn't have to rehearse and the also involved all the congregation who wanted to participate and be part of the story. It was fun. Oh, and our good friends who we have a play date with every week was the holy family. Hazel was Baby Jesus her first Christmas and was an angel last Christmas. She wouldn't walk down the aisle without me either year so I have been an angel both years as well.

Oh, and we started our day yesterday reading Curious George Makes Pancakes, and we made banana blueberry pancakes. So much fun to read and do the same activity as one of her favorite characters. George after all comes for a playdate every day according to Hazel.

One last craft, that we did ages ago, but I don't think we shared.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week! Try to find peace this week and not all the craziness of the holidays!