Spotted banana's + two girls = BANANA BREAD!!

We had a bunch of banana's that were spotting quite badly. I froze one bunch into little chunks that we will throw into smoothies during the week. The other spotted bunch I decided would be great to make into banana bread. Actually, it was Emily's idea. So she and Sarah (with my guidance) made a double batch of banana bread. It was a great way to use up those banana's, teach a little math, and use some teamwork ("no, its MY turn to put in the next ingredient!")

They had fun and the bread turned out wonderfully. We did try to make this batch of bread healthier. We used sucanat instead of white sugar, and used half whole wheat flour/half white flour.

PS
I DID have some of this bread. Yesterday I was at my holistic doc's for a consultation. I asked him if it would be alright to have a breadstick at the Pizza Factory (along with my salad bar) when I go out with friends for lunch this coming Tuesday. He said to go ahead and enjoy the breadstick, since everything else I'm doing is raw. Well, I figured since he said that, it wouldn't hurt to sample this homemade banana bread. This is my first cheat all week. I had about 1.5 pieces....once I was into my second piece, I decided it was too sweet. Strange how my taste buds have changed since going raw all week.

More pics from my and Emily's CA trip in May!

Sets of best friends! Emily and I, with our best friends, J. & J. (sorry about not typing out their names, I don't know if they would want me to!) We were celebrating Emily's friends' 10th birthday by having dinner at The Old Spagetti Factory, and then we went to the Snatam Kaur concert after.


We had a little party for J. Emily and I gave her a bunch of $1 bills and some little necklaces. Those girls were sure red after having been in the sun and pool most of the day!


J. and I in her living room, just a few minutes before she took us to the airport to go back home. We had such an AWESOME time there. It was nice to spend a week with J. and her family after having not seeing them since they moved away last December.
I wish I'd known J. was pulling this silly face, I would have too! What a nut! :-) I love ya, J.!! Miss ya!

Experiences with the angelic Snatam Kaur!

My sister Jodi says I need a T-shirt that says "Snatam's biggest fan!", and my mom says I'm a "groupie"....maybe I'm a little passionate about her music, and that's okay. Since June of 2007, I've followed Snatam Kaur and the Celebrate Peace Tour to three cities around the country. I was introduced to Snatam's music a couple years ago, when I was going through a very hard time in my life. My health wasn't at its best and I had some strange medical things happening. I attended a kundalini yoga class at my church, and that is where I first heard the music. What can I say? It struck me to the very core, and impacted my heart and soul. I didn't think much about it again, and didn't know who the musician was, until I was at lunch at a local Thai restaurant a few months later. That's when I heard Snatam's music again. The restaurant owner happens to sell the CD's there, so I bought my first one. Since then, I've bought all Snatam's other CD's and have attended three concerts, plus a two hour kundalini yoga class taught by Snatam herself! She is truly an earth angel and resonates such love and peace to all around her. My hope is to bring her to my area on one of her next tours in the Southwest.

This one was in Olympia, Washington in June 2007, before the Kundalini yoga class (the concert was the following evening).


This one was in Sedona, AZ in Nov. 2007. Jason and I went to this one together, on our little weekend getaway.


This is the most recent, in Sacramento, CA, May 2008.

Emily and I had flown to Sacrament to see our friends, who had moved from here to there last December. This is Emily and her best friend, J.M., with Snatam. They also got the autographs of most of the band members.

Sarah's pictures from when she turned 5!

I had better not to forget to post some of Miss Sarah Jane from her 5th birthday in April. These pictures were just magical. Five is such a fun age....not quite a little kid, but still young enough to be completely uninhibited! She just needed some wings and would have been a fairy....







Sarah has got to be one of the funniest five year olds I've ever known. Honestly, she's got personality PLUS! I LOVE YOU, SARAH JANE!!!

(and for anyone wondering, I will be posting Maegan's new pictures when we get them done in August. Holy Cow! She'll be a TEENAGER!!!)

Emily Anne has turned 9!!

Emily celebrated her 9th birthday this week. Because we homeschool and the girls don't get typical school pictures, we've chosen instead to do pictures on their birthdays each year. We used to do studio photography at Sears, but no more! My friend (also named Amanda) has become our personal photographer and does a fabulous job! She is actually the one who took those family photos as well (in my first blog entry) .

So, here are a few of my favorites from Emily's recent birthday photo shoot! What a pretty girl!! (and SO sweet, too!)






Hugging my birthday girl! I LOVE YOU, EMILY ANNE!!

Today is day 4 of a 21 day cleanse, my longest one yet!

I've decided that becoming healthy (or I should say, healthier) is definitely a hobby of mine. For some odd reason, the past several years of my life has led me to the path of nutrition, natural healing, and essential oils (more on that another time). So today marks 4 days into a 21 day cleanse. This is the first one I've actually done under the direction of a doctor. All my other cleanses were done by my own accord, the last one being a full week cleanse using "The Master Cleanser" (nothing more than a spicy lemonade concoction). Last week, my holistic doctor and I decided that it would be a good thing for me to do an extended cleanse, for at least 21 days. He sent me home with a large sack full of "stuff"....powders of all sorts and a bunch of supplements, to be taken periodically throughout the day. In between ingesting all that, I'm allowed only RAW fruits and veggies. I'm not really noticing any differences in my health, yet, but then again it is only day 4! However, I am happy to report that I've lost about 3 pounds already. Geez, if I can keep this up, I may just lose the weight I want to lose. I know, I know....the hard part would be to maintain that weight loss after the cleanse. But, if I am able to lose that much weight (roughly 15-20 pounds would be my guess), then it may motivate me to do what it takes to keep it off. That would probably translate to eating raw and super healthy most of the time.

All in all, it really hasn't been that bad. My mom asked me yesterday "how can you stand not eating normal food for so long?" I told her that its a matter of me being in control of my food, rather than my food being in control of me. It does give me a certain sense of empowerment and fulfillment to know that I can be in the presence of certain foods and not fall prey to the temptation of French toast, ice cream bars, hot dogs, chips and cupcakes (all things I've been around but haven't even had a crumb of in the past few days).

Along with this, I really want to start exercising again. I've started my morning walks again this week (roughly 2 miles), and I've spent some time on the rebounder. I really would like to fit in time for some yoga and weights.

I'll update more on this as I go along.

Going to try this blogging thing, again.

Well, blogging seems to the be cool thing to do these days. I think I tried it (at another site) a couple years ago, but I always forgot to post on it. Hopefully I'll remember better with this one. I'm limited on time at the moment, but just wanted to put something in here for today.

This, is us! My family! Daddy, me, Maegan (almost 13), Emily (9) and Sarah (5).



That's all for now! I've got to go cut up some melon to bring to our friend's home where Emily, Sarah and I will have lunch and swim for a couple hours. (Maegan is currently at girl's camp, otherwise she would be with us, and of course, dad is at work! Poor guy!)