Slice of Heaven

Surprise!!! New Friends!

Heather's parents have had some missionary friends of the family visiting this past week with them, and they have 3 girls...the boys have had a blast having friends next door all week...but I wasn't so sure about this in the beginning. Not because they are girls playing with our boys, but because I wasn't so sure how Eric and Bay would feel about the children being girls and NOT boys. Quote from Eric when I told him that the family had 3 girls, "Mom, I'm okay with girls". So there you have it, in 4 more years I will take that in a totally different way, if you know what i mean, but for now, it's great! They have made fast friends and have had a blast playing outside or in, and will miss each other. I am amazed at how quickly children of this age can connect. Pretty neat!

Banana Crunch Muffins....mmmmm.if you could only smell these as I pulled them out of the oven! A friend of mine told me that I need to make a separate cooking blog. Good idea, maybe someday I'll do that, but for now, it's just going to be part of this one :) If you like bananas at all, then you need to try this banana muffin recipe. They are by far the very best muffins I have ever had, even way better than those gourmet muffins that are impossible to duplicate. This is a Barefoot Contessa recipe, one of my favorite cooks. Are these good for you? No way, but man are they good :)

Makes 2 dozen large muffins.
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar (this is reduced from the original recipe already!)
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 t. vanilla extract
1 cup mashed RIPE bananas (2-3 bananas)
1 cup medium diced RIPE bananas (1-2)
1 cup granola (any flavor)
1 cup grated or shredded coconut ( I do not use sweetened coconut, but if you did, I would pulse it in the food processor first to make it into ground pieces of flake, the whole flakes would be too much)

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the melted butter and blend. Combine eggs, milk vanilla and mashed bananas; add them to the flour mixture. Scrape the bowl and blend well...DON"T OVERMIX.
Fold the diced bananas, granola and coconut into the batter. Spoon the batter into the paper cups, filling the cups to the top. You will have PLENTY of batter. Bake for 25-30 min. or until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from pan and let me know how you like them!


What????!!!! Is that Heather with a vaccuum???? Yes, Dennis thought he was being funny in catching me with the camera actually vaccuuming. If you know me, cleaning is not my forte, and so I think it is pretty funny that he actually had to prove that every once in awhile I will get that dreadful invention out and use it :) Please ignore the Christmas garland still up on my curtains!