Freaking Good Muffins

Recently John asked me to make him some healthy muffins to take to work. In my quest to fulfill his request I came upon a recipe for Carrot Bran Muffins. The title doesn't make one's mouth water, but they definitely filled the healthy requirement. With any recipe, I like to take it and make it my own. I am not much for following a recipe to a T. Sometimes this works out well for me. Sometimes it ends up in the trash. This time it paid off. The following recipe turned out to be a Mitchell family favorite, or as John declared "freaking good muffins."

Freaking Good Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup wheat flour

1 cup wheat or oat bran

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup sour cream 

1/2 cup applesauce (or 1/4 cup oil + 1/4 cup applesauce)

2 T molases

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup shredded coconut

3/4 cup craisins or raisins

Preperation

1. In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Combine the eggs, buttermilk, sour cream, applesauce, and molasses; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in carrots, coconut, and raisins.

2. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.

NOTE: I usually double the batch and freeze what we can't use right away. John takes them out of the freezer in the morning before work, and they are ready for him to eat by lunch time.

Leprechaun Slime

We’ve been learning a little about Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day ,and I found this cool idea on Pinterest (can you tell I love Pinterest?) to make Leprechaun slime. This is of course doesn’t really have anything to do with St. Patrick’s Day other than the fact that it is green, but it was fun anyways.

First we mixed 1 tsp. Borax into a 1/2 cup water and stirred till dissolved. Then in a separate bowl we mixed one 5.5 oz. bottle of clear glue, 1 cup water, 4 drops of food coloring, and lots of glitter.

This process in itself was fun for the kids, but the real fun began when we added the Borax to the glue mixture. It went from soup to Jello instantly!

The girls thought this was way cool! They couldn’t wait to stick their hands in and see what it felt like.

Lori and Audrey were so excited about it that they put the slime in little containers to take with them to science class the next day to show it off.

Fun times learning science!

Spring Flowers

We have cabin fever here at the Mitchell house so I decided it was time to bring a little spring into our world. I found these super cute flowers made from egg cartons and paint on Pinterest and decided to give them a try. You can find the original idea here.

First we cut flower shapes out of egg cartons and then dipped them in paint. We then made imprints of these onto our paper.

Next, the girls painted the egg carton flowers and glued buttons in the middle of them.

Finally the girls glued their flowers onto the previously made prints and drew stems. Ta da! Spring flowers!

Snow Volcanoes

I’ve also been stuck in a rut with school. We’ve basically just been going through the motions and not really doing anything interesting. The girls have been bored and so have I. I think cabin fever has set in. So to shake things up a little I looked to Pinterest for some inspiration. There I found Snow Volcanoes. Sounds like an oxymoron but really it’s just your regular old baking soda and vinegar volcano done in a jar out in the snow.

First we put a water bottle in the snow, and the kids packed snow around it to make it look like a volcano. Then they put in a couple spoonful's of baking soda, couple drops of food coloring, and a couple of squirts of dish soap.

Finally we added the vinegar and stood back to watch the fun.

Girls insisted we make a pink volcano.

We had fun and it definitely put a little spark back into our school day.

The link to the site I found this idea from is here.

Hooked on Crochet

I’ve been feeling stuck in a rut lately so I decided it was time to learn and do something new. I’ve been wanting to learn how to crochet for a while so I decided to teach myself how. Thanks to the library and Youtube, I finally go the hang of it. These are some hair bows I made for the girls.

Here’s a close up shot.

 I got the pattern for these here.
I also made this necklace for myself.
Not perfect but not bad for my first try. I got the pattern here.
I am totally hooked on crochet! Pun totally intended!

Fall for Some Fun

Well it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Sorry about that! I can’t seem to remember to get the camera out! Here are a few highlights from the past couple of months when I actually remembered to get the darn camera out!

Lori started cheering for Upward again. This time she is cheering for flag football. John and I decided this will be our first and last fall outdoor sport the kids do. The games started out warm but got really cold by early October. It’s a miserable hour for those of us sitting on the sidelines. The picture above was from Lori’s first game on September 1.

After Lori’s game we headed to hang out with our friends who happen to live across the street from some way cool people who let the girls and I ride their lovely horse Norah.

One weekend this September, Audrey came home from spending the night at Grandpa and Grandma’s to announce that she no longer needed training wheels on her bike. Grandpa had taught her how to ride without them. And she has been riding without them ever since.

This past weekend our family went to our favorite local pumpkin patch/apple orchard. Our realtor has a client appreciation day out there every year so we get in for free! Here are our favorite things to do there:

Play in the giant Corn Pool;

Jump on the giant jumping pillow,

Ride the pedal tractors (these were new this year, big enough for adults to ride too!)

Slide on the big slide,

Pretend to be a fireman (the other two refused to do this),

And pick out pumpkins to bring home and paint!

Here we are making applesauce from the apples we bought at the orchard.

Lots of Fall Fun!

Fun at the Iowa State Fair

The state fair is a bittersweet time for us. Sweet in that we have lots o fun there, but bitter in knowing that the fair means summer is almost over.

We always begin our time at Little Hands on the Farm. The girls enjoy pretending to be farmers, mostly because they know they get to pick a treat at the end.

 

In front of the largest pumpkin.

Cotton candy fun!

I think the cotton candy was the highlight.

Natalie’s got a bigger beard than Grandpa!

Can’t forget the big slide. The girls had so much fun they rode it twice!

Last but not least, the girls had some fun on the rides.

Fun times at the fair!