How To Crochet: Single Crochet

I'm participating in the Photo: 52-ABCs Challenge. Basically you take one picture a week that goes along with the alphabet letter. You'll go through the alphabet twice in the year. If you'd like to participate also, you can go the facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/photo52abc

Chocolate Banana Cake

I recently found a recipe on pinterest for a banana bread made with cake mix and thought, that sounds great! I thought I had a box of yellow cake mix in the cupboard so I set out 4 bananas to get good and over ripe. Well, when I went to grab my yellow cake mix I discovered that I had Devils Food mix and not yellow. So I went with it!

Ingredients:
4 very ripe bananas
1 box Devils Food cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degree.
Grease and flour a 9x12 casserole dish.
Peel and mash the bananas with a fork in a large bowl.
Add eggs and stir. Add cake mix and mix with a hand mixer until combined.
Stir in chocolate chips
Pour into casserole dish
Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I whipped up a little peanut frosting to top the cake. I call this cake and not bread because it's not very bread like, it is moist and delicious though!

How To Crochet: slip knot and chain

If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer them!

B is for bus {Photo: 52-ABCs}

I'm participating in the Photo: 52-ABCs Challenge. Basically you take one picture a week that goes along with the alphabet letter. You'll go through the alphabet twice in the year. If you'd like to participate also, you can go the facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/photo52abc

Quick and Easy Ranch Dressing

Being dairy free there are a few things I miss, one of them is ranch dressing. I checked EVERY bottle of ranch in the dressing aisle and was never able to find one that didn't have milk in it. So I scoured the internet for a ranch dressing recipe and ended up making my own and I think it's quite good. This can be made dairy free or with dairy and it's nice and thick :)

1 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream (sub Tofutti Sour Cream to make it dairy free OR you can sub 1/2 cup coconut milk + 1 t lemon juice (original not vanilla, I use the Silk refrigerated drinking kind, not canned cooking kind))
1/2 t dried parsley
1/2 t dill weed (you can use 1/4 t if not a huge dill fan)
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t onion powder
1/4 t salt
1/8 t black pepper
1/4 t dry mustard
1/8 t paprika

Whisk it all together and refrigerate before serving!

Living Room Take Over

When I had my first child I remember feeling like my living room had been taken over with baby gear, and that was just as swing and bouncy chair. As Jake got older and we had a second child our living room really was taken over. Our living room has a bit of an odd layout being an old home, so it was almost too easy to split it up into half living room, half playroom. We've been moving things around, removing furniture, and adding toy storage to accommodate the growing toy collection over the last three years but our hardest hit occurred just a few weeks ago with Christmas and Audrey's first Birthday!

Our first piece of toy storage was this Step2 toy box we got just after Jake's first birthday. I really love this toy box and highly recommend it.It can be purchased here http://www.amazon.com/Step-2-883100-Bookcase-Storage/dp/B001LMW5Z4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326165587&sr=8-2

Our play kitchen, which doesn't get much play lately, but takes up a lot of space!

Our latest piece of toy storage is the shelf with the multi-colored crates in front of the window. We've had it for almost a week now and so far I like it. It was very easy to put together and it hold a lot. My only issue is that Jake pulls the baskets off the top and sits up there! For anyone who is interested it can be purchased here: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Delta-Multi-Color-Deluxe-Toy-Organizer-with-Bins/17167595

And lastly the kiddie table. This table gets a ton of use by Jake. Sometimes he sits here to have snacks and he sits here to do his coloring. (Yeah, he colored all over the table)

I wish we had a better solution for what to do with the bigger toys, but overall they don't really bother me that much :)

New Year: New Weight Loss Goal

Starting Weight: 243 March 2011

Goal #1: 225 lbs BMI 33.9 Obese (pre pregnancy #1 weight) COMPLETED!

Goal #2: 215 lbs BMI 30 Obese (wedding weight) COMPLETED!

Goal #3: 199 lbs BMI 27.8 Overweight (Making it out of the 200's)COMPLETED!

Goal #4: 195 lbs BMI 27.2 Overweight (My weight when I started dating DH) COMPLETED!

Goal #5: 178 lbs BMI 24.8 Normal (Making it into the "normal" BMI range)

Goal #6: Not sure yet!

My current Weight: 193 BMI 26.9 Overweight, 50 lbs lost so far!

1. What is your #1 motivation for losing weight?
I want to be around to watch my children grow up, I want to be healthier when we decide to have baby #3 in the hopes that I won't have trouble with my blood pressure and blood sugars. I also want our children to grow up eating healthier than we did in the hopes that they will make good lifestyle choices as adults.

2. Have you always been overweight?
Yes, my weight issues started in about 7th grade. In college I lost a lot of weight, but when I started dating my husband it slowly creeped back on due to our poor eating habits and lack of exercise.

3. When you want to give up what inspires you to keep going?
Over the past 9 months we have created a new lifestyle, we feel so much better about ourselves, and it feels so good to fit in a smaller clothing size.

4. What is the #1 thing you look forward to when you hit your goal weight?
Going shopping for some new clothes!

5. Do you have support on your weight loss journey?
Yes, my husband is also on the same journey

6. What is your favorite exercise?
Crocheting. I know that sounds like a joke, but I burn about 500 calories a night just sitting in front of the TV making hats. I also enjoy walking, in the Spring I hope to start the the C25K progam.

7. What is the most important thing you have learned on your weight loss journey?
I have learned to eat to live and have curbed emotional eating. I also don't limit myself, I don't count calories and I DO eat junk food every now and then. I've learned when I deprive myself of things like chips and sweets that I want them even more.

Is it Spring?

The weather here in Ohio has been unseasonably warm. Normally this time of year I'm hunkered down in my house wondering when the snow will melt and when the temps will at least be out of the teens. It has been in the 40's and 50's and us Ohioans go a little nuts when it hits 50 degrees in the winter and run around in t shirts and jeans pretending it's Spring. The weather isn't just confusing the people, it's confusing the plant life too. Yesterday Jake and I were outside running around with the dog and playing fetch and came across a dandelion in bloom. A pretty yellow dandelion in the grass that is much to green for January. And as I looked around for more signs of Spring I see my phlox is blooming as well. I know this warm spell won't last and soon the snow storms will come, but did it have to torture me with a taste of Spring?

A is for artwork {Photo: 52-ABCs}

I'm participating in the Photo: 52-ABCs Challenge. Basically you take one picture a week that goes along with the alphabet letter. You'll go through the alphabet twice in the year. If you'd like to participate also, you can go the facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/photo52abc

Avocado Egg Salad Recipe

Yesterday I was searching pinterest for ideas on what to do with the very ripe avocado on my counter and I stumbled across the pioneer woman's recipe for avocado egg salad. I said it sounded delicious, my husband said it sounded disgusting. He now takes back what he said. I didn't follow her recipe, I just got the idea from her, and gave it my own spin.

Hard boil 8 eggs. Cool. Peel. Chop.
1/2 cup of mayo
1 Tablespoon marzetti slaw dressing
1 ripe avocado. diced.
salt & pepper to taste.

toss it all in a bowl and stir to combine.

I will admit it's not the prettiest food ever, it basically looks like green egg salad. But it's simple and tastes amazing!

I totally get it now, Mom

When we were small kids, we were never allowed to have pets. We begged and begged and begged for a dog for years. And then they finally caved, and when I was in Fourth grade I was allowed to get a fish. (Eventually we broke then down and we got hamsters, then a cat, and finally a dog when I was in Eighth grade).

For Christmas this year, the kids got a fake fish as a gift. I was a bit skeptical about having a fake fish and kept asking my husband, where are we going to put it?! But eventually I caved and I filled the bowl up. Jake was crazy about that fish the second he saw it, seeing him so happy I thought, maybe a fake fish isn't so bad? I don't have to feed it or change the water, and it's kind of cool.

Then again came the question, where are we going to put this thing? My biggest fear was putting it somewhere the kids could pull it over on themselves. So their bedrooms were out of the question. I left it on the kitchen table for a day, then against my better judgment I put the fish in the living room. Not 24 hours later, I had a soaking wet 2 year old.

In that moment, I thought to myself, thank god it wasn't a real fish, that he had only dumped the water and not pulled over the glass bowl, and, no more pets (we already have a dog), not even the fake ones. The fish is currently living on the kitchen counter where the kids can't get to it until we find it a new location where it can be seen but not dumped out.