Why Clean When You Can Bake?

Forget Fabreeze, throw away the air fresheners and incense, NOTHING makes a house smell better than fresh baked banana bread. All modesty aside, I make the yummiest banana bread around. Inspired by some great banana bread my girlfriend Karma had for us a few weeks back, I decided to crack out my Grandma’s old recipe book and with a few small modifications, I have a recipe the whole family loves (including James, who despite being a human garberator absolutely hates banana bread, but loves this one). So here you go, hope you try it!

Banana Loaf:

• 1/4 cup margerine
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips (original recipe calls for nuts…but since thats a no go, we do chocolate instead!)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 ripe bananas
• pinch salt

Cream margerine and sugar: combine remaining ingredients. Place into a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350 F for 45-60 minutes.

I like to also sprinkle a bit of the sugar and cinnamon onto the top of the loaf, when it bakes it becomes this beautiful crunchy top to the loaf. Forget bread, as James says, this is more like banana cake. Yum!

Peepshow at the Rivett Household

Last week my pastor stopped by my house to drop something off. It was the middle of the afternoon, the boys were upstairs playing. I was chatting away while my visitor stood on the front steps. "How's your day going?" he asks. As I'm about to answer, K bursts down the stairs, waving and shouting "Hi! Hi!". I turn around in time to see him, wearing nothing but socks (mismatched) and underwear (on backwards of course, cause that's how he rolls). As I'm turing beet red, all I can muster in response is, "That about sums it up"

What's up with little boys and pants? I can't keep them on my kids. I thought it must be a guy thing, James has been known to do a lot of boxer only roaming (apologies to our neighbours who have likely caught this spectacle through our windows). But I've heard from my friend that she has the same issue with her daughter.

Even as I type this, K has once again stripped down to his undies. Oh, I hope this is a phase, can you imagine what my conversations with the teachers will sounds like?

Careful if you knock on my door, you never know what you're gonna see.

The (other) Ring (aka. K to the Rescue)

What is wrong with me?

Yesterday we had a busy day. We had church first thing, then two showings, dinner at mom's, and offer on the house...it was crazy. It started out feeling rushed.

8:00am: Up, shower, get kids and us dressed.
8:30am: Everyone in truck, drive to church
11:00am: Service finished, back home to clean
11:30am: Feed kidlets
11:45am: Kidlets to playground while Jimmy cleans up
12:30pm: Out of house for showings, Realtors calls with counteroffer on house (this has been in negotiation since Saturday at 2pm)
1:00pm: Out to Cochrane with dogs and boys in tow to check out spec home
3:00pm: Negotiating with Realtors
3:30pm: Dinner at Nana and Pops
4:30pm: Home to sign contracts on our house....but
4:45pm: Problem with deal, realtors go to fix...we wait
5:45pm: Problems fixed, contract signed
6:30pm: My engagement ring is lost


All the excitement about the home  selling comes to an abrupt halt when I realise I have lost my engagement ring...and possibly my mind.

Since the house is on the market we had taken all my nice jewellery out of the house with the exception of my engagement ring, which is all I wear now since I nearly lost a finger due to my absent mindedness. I don't really take it off unless I'm showering or doing dirty work, which I did on Saturday night. I was working with chicken and I took it off not wanting to get it full of chicken slime. I didn't even realize I hadn't put it back on until mid afternoon.

James had cleaned the house, and he hadn't remembered seeing it. And I didn't remember putting it back on after the chicken mess. So I'm panicking. I have gone through drawers, dug through garbage bags with chicken guts (gagging all the way), crawled on the floors, looked in pockets, and in laundry piles, in my purse, in the bathroom, EVERYWHERE. Its gone. And all I can think is that we did have two couples through the house.

Could people really be that awful. If you saw a nice ring on a counter, and no one was watching, would you grab it?

I hope not, but I've heard worse.

I'm crying, my sweet K is saying, "Its okay Mommy, we all feel a little nervous sometimes. We'll find your ring."

By the end of the night I've resigned myself to the fact that I've lost my ring, that some evil-doer has swiped it and am seriously considering tattooing a ring on my finger since I am clearly not destined to wear a ring.

At the crack of dawn, K comes into my room, pops on the lights and runs to my bed, "Mommy, I have to tell you something"
Me: "*Grumble*...(incoherent half asleep ramblings)"
K: "Mommy, look, I was tricking you and playing with my trains, and I looked, and there was your wedding ring"

And there it was. My ring. A kidlet (either mine or one of our passer-throughs yesterday) must have grabbed it off a counter and played with it and left it in the middle of K's train set. Best early morning wake up ever.

K you're my hero!

Another Mommy Moment

 I am seriously such a dork.  Sometimes I think I'm on a gag show, that Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out from behind a corner.

James and I have been doing a bit of house hunting (with not much luck, but that's another story). A few weekends ago we went to look at a bungalow in Cochrane. Nana and Pops were nice enough to watch K so that we only had C to lug along with us and he's usually pretty easy.

C's new thing is closing doors. He thinks its funny, and then he knocks so you'll let him out. Its actually pretty cute. So we're strolling through the basement, checking out the space, James and the realtor is looking at a workshop in the back, and C starts playing with the bathroom door. He closes it, I open it, he laughs. He closes it, I open it, he laughs. He closes it, I....uh-oh. Its locked.

Yep. I just let my 20 month old lock himself into the bathroom of a house we don't own or know the owners. Nice.

He's laughing, and knocking, and flushing the toilet, and I'm deciding whether to be panicked, or mortified, or a little of both.

Luckily James is an ace at opening locked doors with the inside of a ballpoint pen.

The whole situation lasted about 2 minutes. But the shame will last forever.

Who the Blog Am I?

I am struggling to find my blogging identity. Having a mid blog crisis.

OK, I'm a geek, totally thought that was funny.

But if anyone is actually reading this, you will have noticed the constant changing of my background. I'm like an aingst ridden teenager, desperately trying to find themselves, one day I'm a girly girl, the next I'm emo  (ok, caught me, like I even know what emo is, I'm so lame). I like the 'minimilist' look, but really that's just being dishonest with you all because I am not a minimilist kinda girl. I love the grunge look, but I'm still girly at heart, I'm a mommy, but the cartoon thing is taking it too far, its like a blog wearing mommy jeans.

Obviously my life is very hard when this is the issue of the day.

The point is I can't seem to settle on my background. So bear with me, maybe this one will stick. Some input would be appreciated.

Blowing Kisses

Did you ever read the book Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola? Growing up it was definatly one of my favorites. Its the story of a good italian witch, Strega Nona, who hires a guy from town to help her around her house. One night Big Anthony (the helper) overhears an amazing thing. Strega Nona sings a song and her enchanted pasta pot starts to fill with boiling pasta. When she has enough, she sings another song and the pot stops. Big Anthony thinks this is amazing, and to show off to the people of the town, one night when Strega Nona is away, he sings the song and the pot begins to fill. Everyone in the town comes to share in the pasta, they eat and eat and the pot keeps filling and they are all amazed. When they finally have had their fill Anthony sang the song, but the pot kept filling. See, the problem was that Big Anthony only heard was Strega Nona was doing, but he didn't see that she blew 3 kisses to the pot to make it stop. Without those kisses, the pot just kept boiling. It boiled and boiled until it filled the house, and ran down the hill, and it almost destroyed the whole town. At the last moment, Strega Nona comes home and stops that pot.

Great story.

So why am I telling you this story? Well, I'm convinced that someone has sang that magical song to my laundry pile, and neglected to blow those kisses.

My laundry is out of control. Its taking over my house.

Help!