Merry Christmas!
Mason opening presents Christmas morning!For Christmas this year we got to go to BC to spend time with my family. We were there for almost two weeks, and it was great. We visited friends and family, relaxed, and ate way to much food! It was great introducing Mason to everyone, and I know my Mom was so happy that we were able to be there for so long with her! Mason is her first Grandbaby, but because we live in Southern Alberta, we don't get to see her very often. I have to admit, it was a really nice break too from all of the usual duties and responsibilities at home, and it was great to have extra hands around to help with Mason!
Mason and Olafar Nielsen (Great Grandpa). Mason is his first great grandchild! Mason really liked him and they had lots of fun playing together!
What can I say...When we got back, we cleaned up our whole upstairs and moved almost everything out of the basement, upstairs, into storage, or to the dump to get ready for drywalling the basement. It's exciting to be moving forward to finishing our basement! There are only a few little things left upstairs to finish. I really need to take pictures of our finished kitchen...here's a couple that I took a while ago (it was finally finished by the end of November!), I still need to take pictures of the island, but you can see a little corner of it on the first picture in the bottom left corner:
Mason is crawling around all over the place now, and quickly! He started to crawl just before we went to BC, at about 8 1/2 months, and while we were out there, he figured out how to pull himself up onto things. I love watching how much stronger he is becoming, and how straight his back is when he sits. I wish my posture was that good! But that comes from having good core muscles, something I really need to work on getting back!
Speaking of exercising, I'd like to share another recipe...lol...this one is for banana bread. Do you have a favorite banana bread recipe? Mine seems to change every couple of years when I find a new one that I think is even better. My favorite one right now is one that I found on the side of a bag of clearance bananas at Extra Foods. It has a nice crunchy upper crust that I love. The first time I made it, I used all white flour because I didn't have any whole wheat (crazy, I know...I am always trying to sneak some healthy ingredient(s) in!). So here it is:
Banana Bread
1/2 cup room temp butter (not marg unless you want to use block marg)
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 large, ripe bananas, mashed (you can use thawed bananas too for extra-moist bread)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional--I'm allergic so I omitted)
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan or line with parchment. You can also use a muffin tin (line with paper cups or spray with Pam).
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
In a seperate bowl, mix together flours, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture, mixing well.
Fold in bananas, vanilla, and walnuts.
Pour into prepared pan and bake 50-60 mins or until a toothpick poked in comes out clean. (My banana bread takes 65-70 mins, so just keep an eye on yours!). Let cool in pan 10 mins, then dump onto a cooling rack. Makes one loaf. For muffins, bake until a toothpick removed comes out clean, 20-30 mins.
Enjoy with a thick slathering of butter or cream cheese, and let me know what you think!
