Journey down memory lane...

Christmas ornament style...

It all started here:

And then we added one more...

We began the tradition of creating some of our own ...

Our children grew and went off to school, and the ornaments began coming home and continue year after year...

We've lost a few buttons and glitter and glam. Some have been crinkled, ripped or chipped along the way. But as you can see from the pictures above,

The memories we have are here to stay.

And of course, what would our tree be without....

Our annual hunt for the perfect Christmas tree

So, let me begin by giving you a little back information about our philosophy on Christmas trees. Since the coach and I have been together, (which by the way is almost 11 years, good golly!) We have always had a real Christmas tree. There was only one year that we had no other choice but to have a fake tree because we were moving one week before Christmas so it was either a fake tree or no tree at all, and that my friends would not have gone over well with a very excited 3 1/2 year old at the time!! So much to our dismay we did buy a very cheap, pathetic looking, artificial tree for one year and never again! (Said tree was swiftly donated to the Salvation Army the day after Christmas that year!)

There is nothing better than the smell of fresh pine when you walk through the door. Plus we love the challenge of hunting for our perfect tree! We could buy a perfect shaped artificial tree, but what fun is that? I have plenty of friends that have fake trees and I don't have anything against them, they just aren't for us.

Now that I have established that we are "real" tree folk, let's get down to the nitty gritty about how we come across picking the most amazing tree year after year. (There is a specific process you know!)

The day after Thanksgiving I take out all the Christmas decorations and go to town decorating our home. Then either that Saturday or Sunday we take off and begin the search. The coach and I will walk up and down the rows, children in tow, sizing up the trees. Here and there the coach will sense that a certain tree just might be the one and hold it up for me to evaluate its' potential. I stand there himming and hawing and we move on. Ultimately the coach ends up finding the perfect tree and makes the final decision. Let me tell you, every year he picks out the most devine tree you ever did see. It is always a full and beautifully symmetrical tree. I don't know how he does it year after year!

For years we always went to the same little Christmas tree stand here in town, but when we went out last year so eager to find our tree, we were utterly disappointed to find that he was not set up yet. We didn't want to disappoint the kiddos, so the search continued through several towns until we came to "the place". I could tell that this would be where we would find our tree that year, and for years to come. It is such a family friendly place. Their staff warmly welcome you at the entrance to the farm and offer candy canes! (A big hit with the little ones!) They have over eight varieties of trees at great prices and a charming shop full of beautiful wreaths, and country decorations. They also offer horse drawn carriage rides.

But the biggest hit of all....

I won't tell you about it. I have to simply show you...

This little love made it all worth while!!! And as far as the kids are concerned this is the best place on earth to buy a Christmas tree and in case you can't tell, it has nothing to do with the trees!!

Grrrrrr....blog editing

To all my lovely readers out there, thank you for continuing to visit regularly. Thank you for reading about my wacky world, and leaving comments of encouragement and support.

And lastly, thank you for bearing with me and reading my posts- with bad grammar and sometimes bad writing and all!!

When I write I just go with the flow, then I begin the process of editing. I first spell check, then I re-read and correct, re-read again and make more corrections, and continue this process until I feel it is ready to be published. But no matter how many times I do this, there are always things that could be made better.

Unfortunately for me, I don't find these errors until I walk away from a post and revisit it a few days later.

Then KABLOOWEY!!!!!!

What I thought was a great piece of writing originally, now reads like something a fourth grader threw together!! It amazes me how many corrections I will make to a post when I review them a few days later. I am embarrassed! So again, so sorry for you all to have to read these posts in their draft form!

I'm not saying that you have to go back to each post a few days later to read the "polished" version, I just wanted to let you know that as an english/elementary ed major in college, I am well aware of the writing process and I do my best to fix it!! Maybe as time goes on and I continue my writing I will discover a more effective process, but in the mean time.....

Thanks for understanding!!!

"Healthify"...my new word in cooking

I am not a gourmet cook by any stretch, however since meeting my husband over ten years ago (who is Italian and was spoiled by his father's superb homemade cooking growing up), I have learned. I can honestly say that I hold my own in the kitchen.

After I had both children and they stopped eating baby food, suddenly what they were eating and its' nutritional value became very important to me. I wanted my children to grow up with healthy eating habits that would last a lifetime.

Now please don't misinterpret what I just said. By no means are we health food fanatics. I still feed my children fast food occasionally. We do have snacks in our house for after dinner. I usually have some kind of ice cream in the freezer at all times, and we definitely get on kicks where what we consume for days on end leaves something to be desired.

But one of my hobbies still remains taking everyday recipes for things like pancakes, muffins, bread and revamping them to make them really healthy, but keeping them tasting really good. (After all what good is it to spend a couple of hours busting your hump in the kitchen making your loved ones a super healthy baked good to have them take one bite, cringe, and tell you how nasty they are!)

What's the trick here?

Compromise.

It is easy to "Healthify" as I like to call it, a recipe by not going overboard on the health nut stuff! Start out making small modifications to the original recipe and test the results on the ones that matter... your kids! If it goes well, on the next try maybe cut back on unnecessary things like sugar or swap one of the not so healthy ingredients for a more nutritional substitute. When a recipe calls for flour I generally like to use 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 regular white flour. That way my kids are getting some wholesome fiber added in and the texture doesn't become to gritty for their liking.

Another favorite addition to all my baked good recipes: Ground Flax Seed. When you add ground flax seed to your recipes you send the nutritional value of foods through the roof!! (Make sure it is ground seed not whole, that won't work as well, save the whole seeds to sprinkle on salads, Yummy!!)

In case you aren't familiar with the benefits of ground flax seed look here. There are too many to list but check it out and see how easy it is to benefit from making flax seed a part of your diet!

Another thing, don't be afraid to push the envelope when you "healthify" your recipes. Your official taste testers will let you know when you have gone to far. When that happens revert back to the last recipe that was still successful. Making extreme changes on your first try will NOT go over well, repeat, will NOT go over well with the taste testers. Start out slow!!

Here is a great recipe for banana muffins to start out with, assuming your family enjoys banana muffins of course!

I will post the original and then I will show you the "Healthified" version. (Jeez, I like my new word! It just flows of the tongue. Try it... healthified.
Ok, I have officially lost my mind now!! Where were we???)

Ah yes, banana muffins!

Original Recipe and photo: Courtesy of All Recipes.com

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted

My "Healthified" Version: Changes are in green
3/4c whole wheat flour
3/4c flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large bananas mashed
1/2c sugar
1 egg
1/3c smart balance
2 tablespoons ground flax seed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat muffin pans with non-stick spray, or use paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. Fold in flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Scoop into muffin pans.
Bake in preheated oven. Bake mini muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, and large muffins for 25 to 30 minutes. Muffins will spring back when lightly tapped.

For beginners, this is a great recipe to test out and for those experts in the field take a look and tell me what you think. What else could you do to "healthify" this recipe? I would love to hear ideas.

Have fun, experiment, and enjoy!!

Now that's what I call inspirational!!

You know those prints that were really popular a few years ago that had a beautiful photo with one word below it followed by and inspirational definition? They usually were surrounded by a black border and looked something like this?

I found one online today that suits me to a tee. This takes the cake!!!

Take a look at this, very fitting if I do say so myself!!!

I think I will rent myself one of these puppies in a few years and show up to one of the athlete's soccer games, music blasting, and horn a tootin'. And, don't forget a nice long colorful banner that identifies myself as his mom.

Think he'd appreciate my team spirit?

(I'm just kidding, I couldn't really do something like that too him, I love him too much!!)

A day late and a dollar short

Some of you might remember that my wonderful husband got me a new camera for my birthday. I was so excited I started to picture in my head all the gorgeous photos that I would be able to shoot and then post on my blog. I think I deluded myself into thinking that just because I had an amazing new camera I would be transformed into a professional photographer. (And yes I know how ridiculous I sound so SSSHHH, just pretend I didn't just say that ok??)

So anywho, I have been practicing with my camera and did take some shots of the kids decked out in their finest for Halloween but due to my lack of electronic/computer skills they have been trapped inside the memory card of my camera.

Until NOW!!!!! I finally figured out how to download pics onto the computer. Next step will be figuring out how to edit them in the software included. But that's a whole nother post!!

Without further ado, here they are the athlete and the princess on Halloween night!!!

My Zombie Soccer Player

My Angel

Wordless Wednesday

Well, almost. The athlete brought this home from school yesterday...