Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins - ONLY 3 Ingredients!

     

     The name says it all, and 3 ingredients makes it even better and better for you! I think these muffins are great and you can even freeze them for later in the week for school and they are as moist as if you made them fresh!! My Daughter LOVES them! My son on the other hand, is a picky picky eater. I told him that they were chocolate chip muffins and he sat down and began enjoying them. My husband then comes in and I began telling him all about it and what was in these tasty and effortless muffins and all of a sudden my son chimes in. I don't like these. (he had already eaten 3/4 of the muffin) So as a parent of a picky eater, I turned to him and told him, you eat everything that is in these muffins and the only reason you don't like them is cause you heard me telling daddy about the recipe and to finishing his muffin. He did with no problem but from now on I have to make sure he doesn't hear anything I say because he swears he does not like chocolate chip muffins now, only blueberry! As long as you don't have a super picky eater your children will love them and they are a perfect treat!

Whatcha Need:
-3 or 4 bananas ( I used 3 & I thought it was perfect)
- 1 box of yellow or white cake mix
- 1 cup of Chocolate Chips
-1 cup water

    Heat oven to 350 degrees,  peal all of the bananas and place into a bowl, mash bananas, add box of cake mix, 1 cup water  and cup of chocolate chips. Mix well and fill, well sprayed muffin tin. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes or until browned on the top.

I did not use a regular muffin pan for our muffins, I used a little mini muffin pans. I made two batches of these and froze one set for the next week. When we took them out they were still just as fresh! I think I will be making some more today for the kids for school these next few weeks! :) for breakfast & Snack!


 

Seasons Fun Checklist for the Family!

     The first day back to school is tomorrow! can’t believe how quick Summer has flown by. I’ve really enjoyed having my son home and getting to spend time together and him having some relaxing time and getting to do some fun stuff he wants, like build Legos, play outside all day and get dirty,and of course have time for his video games.  My daughter is starting school this year so I wanted to make this Summer a fun one. Before school was even out for my son, I was making a list of all the stuff we can do, boating, beach days, ice cream runs, etc. I was looking on Pinterest one day (don’t even say anything, yes everything comes from Pinterest nowadays) and I saw a fall checklist and though that would be great to follow up after our Summer List. So I decided to make a board that would go into our kitchen and every season we would make a checklist that would consist of all the stuff we wanted to get done during that season. My kids loved the idea and I had the perfect place for our board to go.
     Our kitchen is all wood, with a country décor, and a olive green and maroon décor to go with the wood. I decided that our board should go along with the décor of the kitchen and every season we would just use chalk colors that go along with that season.  Here is how we made our Seasons of Fun Checklist:

What we used:
-1 piece of Plywood ( my husband is a Carpenter, so there is wood  and pieces lying all over his shop.
-Trim
-Nails
-Hammer
-Chalkboard Paint
-Paintbrush
-Paint (in your desired color for the trim)
-Chalk
     Choose your wood to be your desired size. I painted the plywood first with the chalkboard paint, and then the trim with the color paint you have chosen. Nail the trim to the edges of the Board to create a framed chalkboard. Make out a list of “to do’s” with your children. Mine really enjoyed coming up with ideas to do over the summer. We also explained that just because they are going on the list does not mean that all of them would get done. This takes the pressure off the big stuff that kids add to the list like water park, which some may not have a water park near, the money, and/or the time.
     I wanted to add a little more decoration to our checklist so I decided to go through all the family portraits that we have had done and all the kids pictures we have bought and took out wallets from the time they were born all the way up to now. I placed them in order from birth to now and modge podge the pictures of the kids down one side and then family pictures of my husband and I and the kids on the bottom. I am very happy with how our checklist turned out!! Get Creative when you make your Checklist and decorate to your style.

Disney - Where Dreams Began & Ours are Booked!

   
     Disney—where dreams began!! – That is absolutely the truth! Our children, just like us watch those timeless Disney classics, and learn to dream and believe just as we did. I still to this day at 26 years young enjoy Disney movies; old ones, new ones, anything with Disney on it. I have been to Walt Disney World 3 times in my life, once as a child and then, so far, twice as an adult. We absolutely love Disney! We went for my honeymoon, & we took our First Family Vacation in 2011 and of course we went to?? Yep, you got it. Walt Disney World! :) At that time, my children were 6 & 3. My daughter didn’t do a lot and my son did as much as he could handle before he was completely exhausted! We were only there for Four Days and tried to cram 3 parks into those Four Days and Downtown Disney.. Well we recently decided we are going back, but this time our trip is going to be a whole lot different than it has ever been and were going to have BLAST!!
     This Walt Disney World Vacay when we started planning, we thought was going to cost a small fortunate. We started out planning for it to be Our Family of 4 ( Husband, Son, Daughter,& Myself) & my momma (aka. Yaya). We wanted to stay at a hotel and got to thinking one room or two and then with all the other options of park hopper, waterslides & more, all week tickets.. only 6 day tickets, dining,.. and on and on.. the price kept going up and wasn’t coming down. So we got to thinking well should we try to stay off park property! Now this is where I draw the line!! If I am going to Walt Disney, I want the whole Walt Disney Experience, and that means everything, so I had to get to thinking of ways to save some money. My husband and I discussed it one afternoon and he said we need to get a Camper and go down there and enjoy Disney as we normally would, and of course how adventurous! I was immediately excited!
    I started checking out prices right away at Cruise America and at the Ft. Wilderness Campground on Walt Disney Property. We live in Alabama, out in the country and on Perdido Bay, we spend a lot of our time outside and on the water anyways and we love outdoor activities. The more I got to looking at everything that was offered at Ft. Wilderness I was hoping that it would be cheaper to take the trip this way. We did some brainstorming on what we should do and it was going to be very expensive to pick the RV up locally and drive to Orlando and we were not trying to make the trip cost anymore then if we were getting two hotel rooms.  *LIGHT BULB*  Lets see what it cost to pick up the RV in Orlando and we will get a rental car, drive down and pick up the RV, drive to the park & RV for a week in Disney! It was an awesome idea & now I just had to hope that we could save some money of some kind by doing it like this. My fingers & toes were crossed! I knew this would be such an exciting and bonding experience for us all! So I checked all the prices and it turned out we would save about $590.00 doing it this way instead of getting two hotel rooms.. Our package includes: 7 nights, 8 days at Walt Disney World Ft. Wilderness Resort, We chose the Magic your Way Package with Dining, 6 day park tickets, no park hopper, and no waterparks and more. This savings includes adding RV, car, and estimating gas. The original plan was everything listed minus RV, car, and gas and I was going to be spending MORE…way more.
     I couldn’t have been more excited about our new plan and our Disney Adventure that we were going to be going on. The Ft. Wilderness  Resort is absolutely beautiful and has a lot to do there. It has everything that any hotel would. My mom was very worried about the space.. and us all being crammed together..and not happy if it rained and we were all stuck together.. However, as I explained to her, there are many places we could take shelter and not have to be all cooped up together..I think we will all be fine. Luckily my husband likes his mother in law C: and my mother likes my husband.

     We told the kids about our new plans for our Disney Vacation and showed them all the pictures online and showed them the RV and they were just as excited as we were.  At the Ft. Wilderness Campgrounds there are all kinds of activites for the children to do and places for them to play and run off some of the excitement they will have. We also get to see the boat show every night and will be able to see some Fireworks as well! I think it will be such a great experience for us as a family. My husband did not travel or go on any type of family vacaitons when he was younger.. it wasn’t something they did and I traveled a lot and went on lots of vacations. So its important to me that we do that he gets to expeience stuff too. I think we are all so excited because this  is something I have never done either. So its new to all of us. This will be our last trip to Disney for a while. We want both our children to enjoy Disney at different ages and stages in their life.. They will be 8 & 5 when we travel this time and I think the next time we go the kids will be 12/13 and 9/10 years old.  We want them to experience different vacations each year in between! Now if I can afford to go to Disney every year that will be something we do!
    I must say that yes Disney can be a expensive vacation if you make it that way. In order to plan the perfect trip look at all of your options. Consider everything. It could save you a lot of money if you do take the time to look. If you don’t have time to look around, take a afternoon or morning, if you prefer and visit a travel agent or your local AAA office and get information on a trip.
    I think this trip is going to be the best one yet because we know what were planning for, we will be there a full week, and we are going to have an amazing bonding time!! Look for more updates and ideas that may be just right for you and your family as well, when traveling to Disney!!

Walt Disney World – We can’t wait to see you real soon!

Birthday Party for 2!

      After Planning for several months it was time for the kids birthday parties…They were so excited when they came that morning to drop the water slide off.. Justin & I had got up early so he could get started on the the kids swing set, which by the way he put together in 5 hrs… I read the reviews and some said 10 hours, and 2 days.. Etc.. & it was mainly just him.. I helped here and there but I had a birthday party to get ready for., so he did it all. A water slide is such a great route to go especially during a hot day the kids have a blast and it keeps them all cool.. Last year I got a regular water slide but this year because we still have some little kids in the family that are scared of the water slide, so I got a combo blow up that was a Water slide and a Bouncer. ($200 for 10hrs)










     We did both the kids birthday’s together because we were going out of town a few weeks later. My Son choose to have a Lego Theme and my daughter wanted The Little Mermaid. For their decorations I choose to order table clothes, goody bags, Stuff for the goody bags, Cupcake candle, plates, and napkins. I only bought the themed plates and napkins for the kids to have during cupcakes and went to dollar tree and bought regular paper plates, napkins, and plastic cups for everyone. You can cookout at this type of party if you choose to do one, I did the party at 2 so everyone ate Lunch before hand and we had snacks, cupcakes, juice boxes, and water. I made the kids cupcakes, they turned out so good and were really easy! Anyone can have amazing cupcakes, but its even more amazing to have cupcakes that are amazing, were easy, and didn’t cost a fortune!

Your Going to Need:
*Cake Mix & whatever is needed to mi cake mix (I.e. oil, eggs, etc)
*Icing
*Sprinkles


     I used regular white cake mix bought at your local grocery store, mix and bake as stated on the box for cupcakes. Choose some decorative cupcake liners that go with your theme just to add a little more décor to your party, and they don’t cost much. Choose your icing and if your adding color, go ahead and mix and ice the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes are made pour your sprinkles into a bowl that is big enough to dip your cupcake into. Once you have the sprinkles poured grab your cupcakes and start dipping into the sprinkles to fully cover the icing in sprinkles. This gives the cupcake a awesome effect and you can do this with anything, ( candy, cookies, coconut, etc.). Once finished adding sprinkles, I stuck the cupcakes in the freezer for about 3 min to harden the icing and then I could cover them with non-stick aluminum foil and it would not ruin them. Also don’t forget to add the cupcake toppers (if you have them), these cupcakes are cool enough that they don’t have to have toppers. ENJOY.

The kids truly had an amazing time and enjoyed everything. Even though I have a boy and a girl it worked out great to have their birthday one time with a Giant Water Slide! They are getting much bigger and are going to start wanting bigger parties so I am trying to make sure I enjoy the kid parties now.

Updates...

      Hey Ya’ll… Well Another Month has come and gone, just like that. Its crazy to me how quick, time flies now that I’m an adult. As a child it seemed that Summer was so long, that it always took so long to go back to school, until your birthday came, or until time for Christmas. Now as a adult I can barely keep up with what the date is. I’ve been meaning to sit down and blog everything that is going on and the cool stuff that we have been doing this Summer, but because the kids are home I find my self not sticking to my “normal” schedule and at the end of the day wondering what happen?!?! So back to schedule & Scheduling the fun things in too and getting things on a good schedule for the kids.. I have always felt that schedules run so much each and you would think with me wanting to keep everything organized all the time that I wouldn’t have falling off track but hey it happens… especially after Birthdays, Vacations, Baseball All stars…etc! Hope Everyone is having a wonderful Summer!!!

No Smoking - A Month & a Week!

WHOOO HOOOO! Its been a Month & A Week since I had a cigarette.. I can't believe it myself. I really though this was going to be an absolute world ending thing. Everyone hears all the time about how horrible it was to quit smoking. The horror stories of gaining weight, irritable moods, fighting & arguing with Significant other all the time, that can be very scary and not motivate you to quit smoking, but my experience is the complete opposite.
     My husband & I decided to quit together because it just wouldn't work if one of us was smoking and the other was trying to quit. We did think that we would need something to help us quit & as previously blogged, we chose the Max Vapor Pros's.... I must say that thing is awesome... and it cures my need for a cigarette, when that craving is there, or the stress has risen. I haven't gained any weight, in fact I've wanted to get healthier and start working out more. I guess when the first step is taken to better yourself you look at the bigger picture, and all the ways you can better your life. Irritable moods... well my husband would say there was a week, where I was intolerable, however I would disagree ;) I don't feel that him or I had a bad week at all, and were in horrible moods.. Now I will admit, there were days where I really wanted to just be left alone & wasn't in the mood to do anything but I don't feel that my mood had any effect on the family or others.. He would disagree. My husband and I did have a few moments of bickering, but no real crazy fights, nothing out of the normalcy for married couples.

     It is so important to quit smoking! I should have honestly never started smoking, and I have no idea what I was thinking. I do believe that having something such as the electronic cigarette, The Max Vapor Pro, was very helpful to many and to not smoking. It gives you everything you need to give you the same effect of a cigarette with out all the additives, only the nicotine.

Please Save your Life & Quit Smoking. & if you need help to quit or want to check out the Max Vapor Pro, you can visit their site at Save A smoker.