Hula Hoop

Alayna has been practicing a lot.. Today I realized she really can hula-hoop!

Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze

Paul's co-worker directed him to the BEST gluten free recipe for banana bread. It was perfectly dense, moist and delicious.

I was directed to a divine sounding* recipe for coconut banana bread with lime glaze.

*sounding - because I will never actually make the recipe to know if it tastes as good as it sounds.

And so I used both to make our own Gluten Free Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze recipe. And our version makes two loaves!

Yes, there was only half of one loaf left to take a picture of.

We really did consume it that quickly.

Gluten Free Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze
adapted from Gluten Free Mommy and Our Best Bites

Ingredients
1/4 C Quick-Cooking Oats (I just ground some old fashioned oats a little)
1/4 C Almond Flour (I used the pulp left over from making almond milk, dried it and ground it down to powder)
1/2 C Sweet Rice Flour (aka glutinous rice flour - which contains no gluten)
1 C Tapioca Flour/Starch
1 C Rice Flour
2 Tbs Flax Meal
3/4 C Brown Sugar
3/4 C Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Xanthum Gum
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt

6 Tbs Butter, melted and slightly cooled (to avoid cooking the eggs)
2 Eggs, whisked
1/2 C Yogurt, Plain or Lime flavoured
1/4 C Milk or Lime Juice
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3-4 Bananas, mashed

3/4 C Shredded Coconut

Topping
4 Tbs Shredded Coconut

Glaze
3/4 C Powdered Sugar
2 1/2 Tbs Lime Juice

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients. Add wet mixture to dry mixture until just combined. Stir in the 3/4 c coconut.

Pour into two (2) greased/sprayed 9 x 5 loaf pans. Sprinkle each with 2 Tbs of coconut for topping. Bake for 55-60 minutes, covering after 40 minutes when the coconut topping is toasty. Cool the bread for 10 minutes in the pan than remove.

Whisk together powdered sugar and lime juice and drizzle/pour over both loaves. Cool another 15 minutes. Slice and devour!

Big Brother

Cavell is a wonderful big brother. Before Lex was born, Cavell and Alayna took a class at the hospital for big brothers and sisters. They were able to see the delivery room and the nursery (with a new baby). They were able to make their own hand prints with the "one sided ink" the hospital uses for baby's footprints.

They were taught about washing their hands before touching baby and how to be gentle and soft with the baby, especially baby's soft spot. Then they practiced holding a baby using a realistic doll.

It was very neat when Cavell asked to hold his new baby brother. He sat down and got his arms ready. One on the armrest to help support Lex's head and the other held up to immediately wrap around Lex and hold him.

Announcing Alexander Lee Jensen

Born April 13, 2007

7lbs 2 oz

20 inches long

Blue Eyes

Cleft chin

Wise perspective on life

Stacy wanted to make sure she had a picture of herself in the hospital not wearing a gown. So in the middle of her contractions, she stops in the lobby, refuses the cute little 'ol lady with the wheelchair, and poses for a picture.

More pictures will follow as well as the story of the "explosive" event.

Showing off - again

Yes, I knit another shawl. The Aquila. That is Latin for Eagle. It's something about eagle feathers on the edges, and water and the droplets on the water from the wings, I think. The instructions were in Finnish, but I knew enough about knitting to figure it out from the charts. It only took me one month!

Our Easter

Let's start with the fun hairdo. We found it here, and Alayan HAD to have her hair done like that.

Egg-Tails! haha

Taking turns to dye the eggs.

This was Cavell's first year to participate in this step. There was a lot of jumping and running around, but he was very careful when it was his turn with the eggs.

Alayna was a pro this year.

Before we started, Alayna kept saying we were going to paint the eggs. She really thought we would use brushes and make designs. She used crayons instead.

Cavell loves to try anything Alayna does and enjoyed using the crayons as well.

Eggheads!

Easter morning involved a special breakfast.

Overnight Apple French Toast.

drool . . .

I found the recipe here. Unlike the original poster, we made the apple syrup. When it was baked we could see why she doesn't, but the syrup was too yummy not to consume.

We used our successful bread recipe, adding 3/4 cups of raisins. To try and get the swirl of real cinnamon raisin bread I folded a 1/4 c sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon mixture in before putting it in the pan.

Because it was wet outside, we had our egg hunt inside. Both children were very excited to start. It was hard to get a picture of them.

Alayna was an egg finding machine! Egg after egg. I remembered quickly how difficult it is to take pictures of children finding eggs. Lots of blurry pictures of their backs. Alayna was just too fast for any pictures.

Cavell would find an egg and get excited. He would finally put it in his bucket while we encouraged him to find another. Then he would take the egg out and put it back to look for another. By the time we got him to keep the egg in his bucket AND add another, Alayna's bucket was full. We had to stop her from looking in the other half of the room.

After a lot of coaching, Cavell did find the rest of the eggs. Following, large quantities of chocolate were consumed and Conference was watched. Overall a wonderful day to spend together as a family.

A Little Exercise

Even during my pregnancy I have tried to maintain my fitness level.



But, when that weight becomes easy, they tell you to up the weight.




I currently bench double Alayna's weight right now. But, the balance is very different between a barbell and a 6 year old. Since I'm not supposed to increase my weights during pregnancy, I've just been increasing the reps. I look forward to getting back to the gym post-pregnancy and recovery and seeing how much more weight I can actually do.