Recipe Monday

One of my all time favorites...if you've visited my house in the last couple years, you probably had Lemon Blueberry Bread. Scrumptious. Absolutely scrumptious. I found this recipe in a Vera Bradley Holiday catalog a few years ago. The staff members submitted their favorite recipe and this happened to be the one submitted by Becky Bennett, Vera Bradley Product Development. Thanks Becky! It's become a staple at my house.

Lemon Blueberry Bread

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
6 tblsp butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp lemon zest (usually 1 lemon)
1 cup blueberries, tossed with 2 tsp flour

Lemon Glaze:
1/3 cup sugar
3 tblsp lemon juice

Heat oven to 350. Grease 5x9 loaf pan. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, beating well after each addition (begin and end with the flour mixture). Fold in the lemon zest and blueberries. Pour into loaf pan. Bake 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Pierce the warm bread with a fork. Pour the warm glaze over the top. Cool in pan for 30 minutes or longer.

Notes:

I usually double the batch and split between 3 small loaf pans (see below). That way we have some for now and later!

Enjoy!

Night Time Reading

One of the most special times as a parent, in my opinion, is reading to your children at night. Nate likes to join us when we are reading books to Lila before her bedtime, even though the books are way below his interest level. Usually Nate pays more attention to the book than Lila does, but that's ok, she'll get there some day.

Faces

No earth shattering news in our neck of the woods today. We are all recovering from a bad cold and I hope we can all make it through without a visit to the doctor. Here are some of my favorite faces to wake up to everyday.

Nate's face is a little puffy here - it was taken when he was on steroids. But still awesomely cute if you ask me.

I can't remember if I posted this one or not, but if I did, it's worth some more air time.

Eating peanuts - painful. It's a pattern.

I love the look of concentration on her face - Lila is getting very good at playing with her toys. Hope your weekend is fabulous! Happy Friday!

Need Sleep

Me: Nate?

Nate: Yes?

Me: Why do you always call for Dad when you need something in the middle of the night?

Nate: Well. I don't want to wake YOU up...(reaches up and puts his hand on my cheek)...I know you need your sleep, Mom.

I guess I've been talking about sleep or lack thereof, a little too much lately.

Fourth of July Festivities

Mimi & Paka joined us in St. Louis for a fabulous 4th! We started off our weekend by attending the VP Parade downtown. Here's my #1 cutie patootie in his stars and stripes.

And here's my #2 cutie patootie in her red, white & blue. I never got a picture but she had bloomers that said "Lil Fire Cracker" - sooooooo cute! I never knew what I was missing with girl clothes!

Mimi and her first grandson. Nate was in heaven to have Mimi here for so long (and Paka too!)

I wanted a family photo since we were all dressed up in our patriotic garb. Sometimes with Nate you have to take a silly one before you can take a serious one. So Nate and I were playing along, but Lila & Scott were not so much.

I think this is our first picture as a family of 4 - besides the horrible horrible I'm not letting anyone see picture that we took in the hospital.

Mimi & Paka - taken by Nate!

Just because you can't have enough photos of red, white & blue baby.

I was able to accomplish a big item on my to-do list while Mimi was here - we went shopping for a new table for our living room. When I get it all put together, I'll post some pictures!

Patriotic themed outfit #2. This shirt was Nate's and I paired it with a skirt to make it girly and wahlah!

On the actual 4th, we cooked out and did some small fireworks in our yard. The spectators...

Nate was the chief firework performer...

I think Nate wanted to light the yard on fire...AGAIN.

Paka was Nate's assistant because he is lighter challenged - as in we don't let him have a lighter.

I hope you had a wonderful 4th!

Recipe Monday, I Mean Tuesday

I'm recovering from all things patriotic today, so while I get my pictures and thoughts together, I wanted to give you a taste of the great 4th of July dinner we had last night. These little ones were lovely! And yes, that is really a picture of my very own cooking. More to come!

Cherry Cream Cheese Tarts (Paula Deen, Big Oven)

2 8 oz packages cream cheese, sofftened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
12 vanilla wafers
1 can cherry pie filling (or other pie filling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place paper cupcake liner in each cup of muffin pan. Beat cream cheese with handheld mixer until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla, beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Lay a vanilla wafer, flat side down, in each muffin cup. Spoon cream cheese mixture over wafers.

Bake for 20 minutes. Allow tarts to cool completely. Serve with cherry filling on top or pie filling of your choice.

Yummy! Enjoy!

Green Eggs & Ham

Nate loves Dr. Seuss and his favorite story is Green Eggs and Ham. He has been asking to make green eggs and ham but I just didn't really know how I was going to do that without making a total mess of it. Well thank goodness for Paula Deen.

Nate got a kids cookbook for his birthday and lo and behold, Paula has a recipe for green eggs and ham and of course it is quite easy. Scott helped him make them yesterday morning and they turned out really good! I think he liked the ham better than the eggs.