Seven Quick Takes

1. How was your weekend? The highlight of ours was going to the beach. The low point was taking our portrait for the parish directory. Turns out if you wake your kids up from their naps and immediately stick them in front of a professional photographer, you won't get the best results. But on the upside, after that we discovered a new-to-us, delicious pizza place directly between the church and our house.

2. We got to have four more swim lessons with Adam's Aunt Gail before she flew back to Florida. I can't believe how much Claire learned over the last two weeks. It almost feels like magic. We definitely plan on going back to Swim Guru next summer. Want to see?

Maggie learned quite a bit too, but she didn't do it willingly, so I won't subject you to a video of her!

3. Continuing with the trying-to-spend-practically-nothing on groceries, this week we went to Target because we were out of night time diapers and for $102.64 we picked up the following:

Produce - spinach, bananas, strawberries, grapes

Pantry - baguette, raisins, vanilla ice cream, box of Annie's macaroni, three jugs of lemonade (on clearance for a party we're hosting this weekend)

Toiletries, etc - two boxes of overnight disposable diapers (because you got a $5 gift card if you bought two)

Oh, and a chocolate bar. Because I let Claire walk while Maggie sat in the cart and by the time we got to the check-out it was a necessary purchase...

4. The vanilla ice cream is for an apple crisp I'm planning to make with more apples from our backyard tree. I also tried Janssen's watermelon frosty and peanut butter banana fudgesicles this week. Both recipes have no added sugar and were approved by all four of us!

5. I spent 2013 perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe. (I think these ones are the best, for my preferences at least, but browning the butter can be a little tricky. These ones are really good too.) I have declared 2014 the year of the lemon pound cake. I really, really like lemon desserts. Lemon pound cake is so versatile - awesome with berries in the summer or the perfect thing with a cup of tea in the winter. But my current recipe isn't lemon-y enough. Back to the drawing board.

 

6. I seem to talk about food a lot, huh? Is a fourth food-related take too much? Oh, well. You know how when you open a new jar of natural peanut butter and the oil is separated and it's really annoying to stir? Well, you can buy these peanut butter mixers that make that task a million times easier. The Model 800 fits on the Kirkland brand jars. Also, in cool kitchen gadget news, I finally bought some of those reusable squeeze pouches for all of that applesauce I made, rather than shelling out $0.40 a pop for the ones at Costco.

7. What are your plans for the weekend? We are going to an ice cream festival and hosting a barbecue for our newlyweds small group at church. Hosting parties always motivates us to get stuff done around the house. We've been hanging frames like crazy all week.

Happy Friday! Go see Jen for more quick takes.