Save the Bears!

Natania and Claire were pretending to shot bears and lions the other day. (I decided that if I had boys I wouldn’t be surprised that they wanted to pretend to hunt and shoot so I don’t want to have a double standard! Although I really don’t know where that idea came from, not me!) Anyhow, after they had brought us their 4th or so pretend dead bear, Daryl and told them they shouldn’t shot too many bears, only what Natania and Claire could eat themselves so that they didn’t waste. Claire then told me that they were having a big dinner and needed enough for Natania, Claire, mommy and daddy. We then said that they needed to make sure they didn’t shot all the bears because other people needed to see them too. Natania called down, (she was hunting upstairs) that other people could always look at pictures to see bears and lions!

They are quick! Maybe it was too early to be teaching them about conservation!

Natania cracks us up all the time. A couple weeks ago we had family from out of town visiting. Daryl's aunt from Colorado and Grandparents who live in Wyoming as well as his parents, brother and girlfriend were all over for dinner at our place. We had a great time together! At one point in the evening Daryl asked his Aunt Natalie how old she was. Aunt Nat teasingly said to all of us, "I'm old as dirt!" Natania who was standing right by her, looked at her and said, "Aunt Nat, you're not old as dirt," and then she pointed at Daryl grandparents sitting on the couch and said, "they're old as dirt!" We all had a good laugh at that one!

Sweet Claire

Last week we had a first hair cut... first hair cut by someone other than mommy that is! Natania got into the scissors and gave her little sister a hair cut. i was trying to find a good "before" picture but i just cut Claire's hair a couple weeks ago into a cute bob. and was probabably feeling a little pride about how adorable she was with her cute little hair cut. Well, as you see below, her golden tresses are rather short in some areas! We've tried to down-play the whole "oh Claire your beautiful hair is gone!" response while still taking the "playing with scissors" seriously. Even at this early age she is learning from us what beauty is and we want to be very intentional about treating looks healthily and without very much importance. I would love to raise girls who are free from the lies this culture and world teaches us from day one about beauty and needing to conform to a certain image that media and current fashion feeds us!

Ok, so here is the evidence!

Flour-Less (yes it's true!) peanut butter cookies

Ok, i was looking for a new Gluten Free cookie recipe to try out for Daryl and came across this recpie. I was skeptical at first, but i know this blogger does a lot of GF cooking and blogging and after reading through a bunch of the reviews on her site, i decided to try them and wow, i'm glad I did! Daryl loved them and we were both surprised at how good they came out without any flour. I read that some people substituted honey (only 3/4 cup instead of 1) for the sugar and also had great results... i think I'll try that next time. I don't normally like PB cookies, but these were delicious! (i did add a couple chocolate chips to the ones i baked for myself. If you like chocolate then i'd suggest adding a couple chips on top- wonderful) I did change the recipe a bit because Daryl isn't eating "peanut butter", so here is my version of the recipe as well as the process!

Becky's Cashew/Almond Butter Cookies
(how many things do you have to change to a recipe to make it officially yours?)

1/2 cup cashew butter
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. baking powder
(extra sugar for rolling the cookie dough balls in)

that's it! ...i'm serrious! so simple.

Step 1. Mix ingrediants. Here is the dough... pretty sticky












Step 2. Make into little balls and roll in a little sugar. Small is good; apparently they hold together better if they are smaller. (this much dough would make a very big cookie! I made mine much smaller!)














Step 3. Press the classic fork "x" on them.













Step 4. Bake at 350 for 11 mins. Then let sit on pan for 5 minutes or more, then remove them from pan and let cool longer on wire rack or plate. As the cool the outer sugar coating gets crispier!

Step 5. Enjoy!

Becky's Chocolate Crinkles Cookies

These are wonderful, i took them to work last week and everyone loved them!

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 cups white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup of almond flour (optional: you can use more white/whole wheat if you don't have) 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1.	In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flours, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours, or put in freezer for 45 mins.
2.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Get hands wet (very important as the dough is sticky!) Roll dough into one inch balls. Coat each ball in confectioners' sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets.
3.	Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Take them out right when you think they may need a minute longer. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute and they will sink down a little and finish cooking. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Enjoy!

Here it is! The finished curtain!

following a bit of a hiatus, I am back. This winter /holiday season has been full of family, new traditions at Christmas, a slow "parents of preschoolers" new years (i.e. we went to bed before the countdown...sorry) and now getting back into the rhythm of life. I'm doing good. Tonight i almost finished a little project I’ve been working on for a couple weeks... ok that is misleading. I have not been working on it for two weeks. I have been looking at it for 3 weeks, slowing gathering supplies and motivation to actually sit down at my sewing machine and make the girls their new curtains. If you saw them, you would realize that it was more of a "two night" project but, for me, 2-3 weeks is pretty good.

Next week I’m going to be gone for dinner one night. It will be a nice to have a night away from my normal duties, maybe I’ll convince Daryl to cook himself or take the girls out so that i don't have to make dinner either. Isn't it funny how on nights that mothers get "off" we still have to do almost the same work (at the cooking part ...) This Christmas Daryl told me that he is willing to try and learn how to make a couple meals (beyond his current repertoire of .... toast....scrambled eggs... grilled cheese.... tuna/beans/corn/bell pepper stir fry -i know, it sounds weird, but the girls gobble it up and i try to pretend when i walk in the door from work at lunch time that Daryl's concoction is yummy and normal for them to eat ...(i make myself a sandwich on those days) Anyhow, i need to think about how to really encourage this idea of his to make dinner and cultivate this into a wonderful new tradition... "Daddy's Dinner night" or "Daddy's Surprise casserole Night" something fun like that. Unfortunately i know all to well what a little discouragement can do to an idea like this. When Daryl and I first got married he offered to learn how to make 5 dinners. For some stupid reason, i told him that he didn't need to be in my kitchen! Oh naive little wife i was.... what was i thinking! how many times have i kicked myself for turning down his offer... (he has teased me ever since about my lost opportunity and pretty much stayed out of the kitchen) This time around since apparently enough time has passed for my past deflating remarks to drift out of his memory, i'm going to gently seize this opportunity and put some recipes in his path..

More another time….