tea party!!!

We’re all (mostly) sickies today and thought it best to stay home for church this morning – no need to share runny noses and coughs with our friends. So LL and daddy had a Sunday morning tea party and brunch.

Cheers!

homemade Lara (type) bars

I finally got around to making Lara bars (or something like them) thanks to my momma for hanging with the little lady this morning. I had extra apricots and almonds that I wasn’t convinced I’d finish off if left as is, so I decided to pick up a bag of chopped dates along with some other simple ingredients to give it a go.

I gave the apricots (about 1/2 cup) a rough chop and threw them, along with the dates (maybe 1/4 cup)  into the food processor until it turned into a paste, which looked like the image below.Time for almonds! After they were evenly chopped in the food processor I added a bit of flax seed meal and a handful or more of pumpkin seeds. After a few quick pulses, I added the nut mixture to the fruit paste. Then I had some fun. I attempted to use a piece of plastic wrap to keep the puree from sticking to my hands, but then decided it’d be more effective to just get messy. I squished and squeezed and pushed it around until everything was well incorporated together.Then, I formed it into a log and cut it into even pieces. I actually ended up cutting it into six bars as apposed to four as shown. (These babies are hearty!)And then shaped and wrapped them into bars with the plastic wrap that I wrapped them in while Grandma Marty and LL were playing salon in the other room. 

Isn’t she lovely?

Oh, a bit of this was going on as well…I couldn’t wait. They were very yummy! I’m sure LL will enjoy a bit of these later. 

saturday morning waffles.

We haven’t started any regular traditions just yet with Saturday mornings (which I’d like to change!), and actually just ordered Noel Piper’s ‘Treasuring God in Our Traditions’ (I’ll let ya know what I glean from it). But every once in a while, we’ll bust out our mixing bowls and make a little bit more special Saturday morning breakfast.

This morning Daddy decided to make wheat waffles for us all (THANK YOU Daddy!) And it went a little something like this:

Momma’s waffles

Daddy’s waffles

LL’s waffles

and W’s waffles waffle experience

 

Saturday Morning Waffles: 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour | 2 tsp baking powder | 1/2 tsp salt | 1 Tbls sugar | 1 1/2 cups  vanilla almond milk | 1 egg | 1 tsp vanilla extract | 1/4 cup apple sauce | swig o’ oil. (or something like that) 

I think some whole wheat germ and flax seed meal was attempted to be put in, but mom forgot to put the wheat germ in the fridge, and we weren’t sure how it’d be after being out for say… months, and the flax seed meal (in the freezer) could not be found.  If you’d like to add those things in or substitute a different sweetener, I’m certain you could!

If you all have any Saturday morning traditions, we would LOVE to hear them… the Asayplacey is currently taking fresh ideas!

 

enjoying the mail.

We LOVE mail! And stickers. And surprises…like things that pop-up.

cardboard heart cards!

Happy February 14 everyone! It’s fun to wake up on days when one of the first things you see is this:

I can explain. Simply put, Daddy loves us. Yes; we would have known even if we would have woken up to dirty dishes without flowers, but we are extra grateful we didn’t! He made us each a special valentine card by cutting heart shapes from cardboard and writing a little note on the back, AND gave Linley and me flowers. What a sweet man, right?! These, and most other special cards go in LL and W’s ‘boxes’. We currently do boxes instead of scrap books or photo albums. So. Much. More. SIMPLE. This is what daddy wrote to our little loves. 

And what daddy wrote to momma is for momma’s eyes, because momma is really mamacita (or as LL likes to say, ‘mommy-citi’.) We love you daddy and are SOO blessed that you are ours!

heart stamped valentines!

LL and I seem to share a love of crafting, so to enjoy a morning together during W’s nap and bless some certain family members with a fun handmade valentine, LL put daddy’s old undershirt her paint shirt on and went to town making heart stamped cards!

I had made this heart stamp from a used toilet paper roll last month and have been very much looking forward to watching LL use it.

While I was getting the paint ready, LL became a bit anxious and slurring her words said something that probably meant, ‘paint now? please paint now mommy? pleeeease?!’ 

So we began as soon as I had the paint ready and showed her how to use her new stamp.

And then I got smart and put some newspaper down. It was (usually always is) a good idea because after a couple of minutes she decided that other things were fun to stamp also.

Then I gave her this love birdie stamp to try. She got super excited and may have gone overboard with the birds.

That’s okay. We like birdies.

It wouldn’t be an LL craft experience without acknowledging (and maybe whining a little) about having dirty hands. She’s so proper. (It’s good to know the context behind the photo below. Without it, this could look not so pretty!)Needless to say, we both seemed to have had lots of happy feelings while using our handmade heart stamp and even had a pretty decent yield! (I may have ‘helped’ toward the end when attention spans began to wane…)

Here’s to a joyful Thursday February 14 everyone! Heart stamped cards are headed your way grandpas and grandmas!

 

 

 

 

 

whittaker 5 months

because I’ve been so slow in posting anything beyond Christmas, here is a nugget of goodness to tide us over: Whittaker!

He’s the sweetest, and my favorite 5 month old; I could eat him up he’s so scrumptious!

Until there’s time for more…If you need a reference for how he stacks up to his sister at five months check THIS out.