Recipe: Hearty Banana Oat Muffins

I truly love banana bread, it's kind of a comfort food staple in my house.  Funny thing is, I don't really like to eat bananas; not unless they are still slightly green, but not bitter green.   I've been using my husband's aunt's recipe for a number of years and have changed it a bit here and there and I love it.  It's buttery, moist and just plain delicious.

But, I wanted to make some banana muffins with oatmeal in them and found a few recipes on Pinterest that were similar in ingredients to what I love.  The one I settled on to try is very tasty and you'll most likely have all the ingredients in your house right now.

I'll give you a minute to gather your ingredients.

With this new recipe I added cinnamon because I love they way it compliments the bananas.

Fresh out of the oven and they are warm, soft, nice (as my 7 year old says) and belly warming.  As you can see below, Oliver didn't hesitate at all to devour one, and then asked for seconds.

Hearty Banana Oat Muffins Recipe ======> click here for printable recipe 
adapted from The Chef Next Door

Ingredients:
1 cup light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/s tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 TBS baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 muffin pans with paper liners and set aside (you'll make 18 muffins).

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the brown sugar and butter until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla. Next add the mashed bananas.

In a medium bowl whisk together the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the mixer, in about two additions each.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean. Cool the muffins on a cooling rack before serving.

Schools out for summer!

That's right, folks, schools out for the summer!  Last year, honestly I was dreading the summer.  This year I'm actually kind of excited (we'll see how long that lasts, right?)

I'm kinda like

What art or science projects can we do during break?

Or

Or maybe

But when all these are finished, what's left?

Maybe

And all that's only in the first week of summer break.  I'm guessing after day seven I'll be like

And

Then finally

How do you plan to keep your summer sanity?

Designing Sarah's room

I am a group member of several local "sell your stuff" Facebook groups and the other day I came across a nightstand I just had to have.  The gal was selling it for only $10 and that is a deal I just can't pass up.

So then that got me thinking...the nightstand was dirty, like gunk splattered all over it (yuk!) and needed a really good cleaning.  And maybe a paint job.  But what color?

Then my brain started going into overdrive...silly brain!

What if I did this?

Is that crazy?  I think not!

My plan is to remove that top drawer altogether and making the inside more sturdy to use as a shelf.  In kid's bedrooms the furniture should not only be pretty (because...pretty) but it should be functional and withstand wear and tear that a toddler/preschooler/youngster dishes out.

So then I started thinking some more.  Uh oh.  And then I ordered fabric to go with this nightstand, which then turned into creating a design board for Sarah's room (who will soon be 2 years old - boo hoo).

See what I did there with the nightstand?  My plan is to paint it either a bright green or magenta with the shelf space (where the missing drawer was) painted a metallic gold.  This design board gives me all sorts of good feelings, like a quart of Ludafisk.

Keep checking back to see the progress of Sarah's room.

Featuring: Artwork

A friend asked me the other day about choosing artwork for her home, she has three empty frames needing 11x14 pictures and she can't find anything she likes.  That got me thinking.

Where are some great sources for purchasing artwork?

Sure, there's Amazon.com, Art.com and several others, but sometimes you want something with a little soul behind it.  You know what I mean?  You don't want some random computer generated piece of art that doesn't evoke any feeling, you want something that makes your heart happy.

So, I stumbled upon an amazing website where you can get just that.  A happy heart.

Minted.com - it's a place where artists of every kind can sell their pieces to the public.  It's awesome!  The art prints come in TONS of sizes and can come unframed or with a frame that you can choose.  How great is that?!?!  Anyhow, I'm working on putting together a design board for Sarah's room and plan to incorporate some of the artwork from Minted.com.  I've put together a sample of some pictures I really like, check them out and then find some for your home.  You won't regret it!

 sources:  1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Let there be...mud?

In Arizona, when you have more land than your typical track home, most times you irrigate your yard with flood irrigation.  Before visiting Arizona and then actually moving here 14 years ago (wow! where did the time go??) I had never heard of flood irrigation, let alone had I ever seen it.

No - we didn't have a flood, we irrigated.  And the picture above was only after about 25 minutes, we still had 35 minutes to go.

Our neighbor behind us irrigates his jungle yard for 3 hours at a time, the most out of anyone in our little community.  Needless to say, his water overflows into our yard with the help of the gopher highways in his yard.  So before we even opened our irrigation ports, we had water.

This is what our ports look like after we opened them - almost like a small geyser erupting from the ground.  We laid down grass seed last week and since most of our land is dirt, we only irrigated for an hour, which was just the right amount for our first time.

Kind of fun seeing the water flowing in from two sides in our back yard.  It didn't take too long for the water to spread all over our yard.

Kids 2 & 3 enjoyed watching the process.  However, I regret sending kid 3 out in her brand new white shirt...

"Hey mom, look!"  Sarah had the best time yesterday playing outside and in the water.

I just loved this shot of her boots and dirty bum.  It wasn't long after this picture the poor girl was stripped down to her diaper.  I'm sure my neighbors were just thrilled to have an almost 2 year old waddling around in a muddy diaper.

And, yes, we did get a dog!  I'll post more about her later, but even she was enjoying the day!

Enjoy the rest of these photos!

"Mom!!!  Help!!!"

The three kiddos.

Wait...Lakefront property?  No, just irrigation in the backyard!

Time for some curtains for the master bedroom

Last week I showed you the state of our master bedroom.  Remember our trendy paper blinds?  How could you forget?  Just in case you did forget, here's a little reminder:

It's not like it's horrible - it just still needs some love.  I'm a big fan, no, HUGE fan of sewing your own curtains.  For me, there are some benefits that outweigh purchasing drapery panels from a store.

1.  You get the EXACT fabric you want.  No more telling yourself what the store has will be just fine.  No more talking yourself into loving them.  When you find the RIGHT fabric, you just know and it's love.
2. You get the EXACT length you want.  Funny how not all windows are made the same size.  When you sew your own curtains, YOU decide how long the panels are.
3.  You get the SATISFACTION of knowing you've created something lovely for your home.
4.  You can COORDINATE other fabrics however you want.  You are no longer TIED to what's in stock at the store or online.
5.  You can LEARN a new skill.  Sewing curtain panels is not brain science.  Or is that rocket surgery?  Whatever.  It's pretty much stitching straight lines on a machine and then doing a little bit of ironing.

So, all that being said, I've been looking at fabric for curtains for the master bedroom, here are the fabric choices I've got pinned to my bedroom wall.

My plan, at the moment, is to do valances in the bedroom with some sort of natural fiber blinds that can be pulled up and hidden behind the valances during the day.  Remember I said I wanted natural light?  Well I'm sticking to that story.

Below are the fabric choices I'm currently considering.  I like them all for various reasons and when looking at the picture above, I think any of them would look good.

What's your favorite of the three fabrics?  I'm still on the fence about them and not leaning any particular way at this point.

Our master bedroom

I have a design principal I like to share with others and that is when decorating your home, begin with the first place YOU enter your house on a regular basis.  That means, whatever room or space you enter from the outside (like maybe a mud room off the garage, or perhaps your laundry room, etc.).  When you get home each day, whether from taking kids to and from school, or coming home from work, you want whatever room you walk into to make you feel at peace or at the bare minimum, happy to be home.  More on this at a later time.

I have a second theory.  Ready?

I believe that most people ignore their master bedroom when it comes to decorating.  Shocker, right?!  Maybe not.  It's a room guests rarely enter so most of us think this:  "I'll get around to it eventually.  I'll buy a cute bedding set and it will be good enough."  I'm guilty of this, are you?

When Aaron and I designed our floorplan, we designed the master bedroom to be full of light and have an overall sense of peace and calm.  Historically, we don't spend much time in our bedroom (obviously outside of the normal 6-8 hours of sleep we get), so when beginning to decorate, I wanted to make the space feel comfortable and inviting.

Here is what the room looks like without any fluff - and yes, I'm posting pictures of windows covered with paper blinds.  Aaron bought the gray ones and somehow they are different colors - different dye lots I guess.

There is nothing wrong with the way the bedroom looks - it's just lacking love.  But we are still in the process of piecing things together to complete our room.  The chair will be replaced at some point with something slightly less bulky and more stylish, but for now, it's what we have and it will have to do.

Here is a picture where I added a few pieces of decor onto the bedside tables, and as little as they are it makes a big difference is the mood of the room.

There is a little color added with the aqua vase and the bird planter, and the vintage book bundles.  Here are the bedside tables up close.

And then here is a couple shots of my bedding which I love but is totally not practical.

So that is the current state of our master bedroom, it will change over time, of course as all things do.  But for now, I'm happy with the way it looks.