Rootin’ TOOTIN’ Good Baked Beans

Back on Memorial Day, I made baked beans (along with the blueberry crisp) for a picnic I was hosting.  I didn’t take any pictures of the baked beans as I was making them, because I had plans to show you the blueberry crisp recipe instead.  Which I did. 

And honestly, I’m not a huge fan of baked beans, although I will admit that this recipe is very good.  A few years ago, my mom asked me to make these for a picnic she was hosting, and she gave me the recipe.  Somehow I misunderstood one of her ingredients, and used Brer Rabbit Molasses instead of what she had listed (and I don’t remember what that was), and since then I have had to make these darn beans for almost every picnic for that side of the family.  They are almost like a fiber-rich, gas-inducing dessert instead of a side dish.

So I served them at my picnic, and everyone told me how much they liked them and asked if I would be blogging it so I faked them all out and said, “Oh sure, definitely, I totally planned to do that,” and quickly grabbed my camera and took one photo of the beans.  One not so great photo.  You will have to use your imagination and trust me that they really are yummy.

Here is that photo:

That’s a big ol’piece of bacon hanging onto the edge of the spoon along with the beans.  Can you see how dark and sticky the beans are?  That’s the Brer Rabbit Molasses, my friends.

And then everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they climbed into their cars to go home, and could release the building gas that had been induced as a result of these delicious beans. 

Everyone except for me, because I do not do that.  Ahem.

Mostly Mom’s Baked Beans

14 oz. bottle ketchup

1 -1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1- 1/2 c. Brer Rabbit Molasses (I use the light—light meaning color, not calories, unfortunately)

1 pkg. microwave bacon, microwaved and cut into small pieces

1 squirt prepared mustard

40 oz. can Great Northern Beans, drained—(you can add in a few smaller cans if you want w/o needing to increase other ingredients)

Grease a lidded casserole dish. Mix all of the ingredients together and place in casserole dish.  Place in 400 degree oven uncovered for 1 hour.  Stir occasionally.  After 1 hour, place the lid onto the casserole dish, tilted slightly to allow steam to escape.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 1-2 more hours. 

You can serve those beans right now if you want.  But I usually do that first step the night before the picnic, allow them to cool, refrigerate them, and stick them in my crockpot on low the next day.  If you are doing it this way, only cook them the one additional hour with the lid on, not two.

If you don’t have Brer Rabbit Molasses, use any other molasses, they just might not be as dark and gooey.  They’ll be more like my mom’s second rate beans. (Shh, don’t tell her I said that.  I’m still mad about the whoopie pies.)

I am linking this recipe with Foodie Friday!

We Love Mo

Willems, that is.

Mo Willems wrote the Knuffle Bunny books and the Pigeon Books (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!), but our favorites are his Piggie and Elephant books.

They are sweet, funny easy readers.   I probably get the humor a little bit more than Jack, who still thinks they are funny on a 6 year old level. 

Today something is bothering Jack a little bit.

It’s his first loose tooth.

He decided while reading the book, that his loose tooth had given him a lisp.  He didn’t know the word lisp, but he knew the Christmas song, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” and he began to read with a lisp.

It sounded something like this:

“That is a good idea-th!”  “That is a funny idea-th!”  “Here I go-th!”

That lasted for about half the book before he decided he didn’t really have a lisp anymore.  But it added a whole other level of humor to the book for me!

My funny Jack-th.

Summer Plans from A to Z

Meg from Whatever always puts up a summer list of the things she’s planning to do with her kids during the summer.  Hers is very cool, on a giant chalkboard that is about as tall as she is.  My list is on a piece of paper from the tablet I use to write my grocery list.   But my list has something Meg’s does not, and that is extremely cool alphabetization!

Everything is more awesome when it is alphabetized.  I think I’m going to make that my new slogan.

Anywho, here are our plans.  I’m stretching it in some places, because finding something valid for each letter was quite the daunting task, but I did it, and I hope to have them all crossed off by August 28.

A - apricot and raspberry picking

B – bowling (I signed up for the Kids Bowl Free 1x per week at our local bowling alley)

C - Catch fireflies

D - drive-in movie

E - eat watermelon, sweet corn, and lots of popsicles

F - fireworks and sparklers!

G - go to the beach (Cape May this year!)

H - Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2—can’t wait!

I - ice cream!

J - jobs and schoolwork (I am mean)

K - Knoebel’s Grove

L – Lake Tobias and Lititz Park

M – maintain my sanity

N – Niagara Falls!

O – orthodontist for Maddie (she’s excited!)

P – pool parties

Q – Quittie Park hike

R – Rails to Trails - bike it!

S – s’mores by the firepit

T – tomato sandwiches and pasta with fresh tomato sauce!

U – underutilize my yelling voice…

V – volunteer at church festival (we have the Hoop Hoop Hooray booth this Saturday night, come out and see us!)

W- water balloon fight!

X – NO x-rays!

Y – ymake and paint with homemade sidewalk paint (sorry, I know ymake is cheating)

Z – zoo in Toronto

 

So far we are into our second week of summer vacation and all is well.  We’ve started in on our summer jobs/schoolwork with only the tiniest bit of whining, the fighting has been slightly below average, I’ve only heard “I’m Boooored” about 22 times, and we’ve already crossed seven items off of our list!

Sparklers—check!

Wish me luck with Letters M and U.  They’re going to be the most challenging.

Fly Fly Away

I just love it when we find a bird’s nest, like this time last year.  But last year the nest was very accessible, even Jack could peek into it whenever he wanted to, and the polite Mama Bird obliged by flying away and leaving her babies alone for any photo opportunities we wanted. 

This nest, however, was buried deep inside one of my Knockout Rose bushes.  I only discovered it after the babies hatched and then only because I went out to snip some flowers for a vase.  Mama flew out at me and sat nearby screeching at me in a tone that could only mean, “You toucha my babies, I crappa on you head!”  So of course I had to dig around inside that bush until I found them.

It’s hard to tell but there are two of them in there.

Here’s Mama sitting nearby giving me the evil eye.  Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?

That is one EVIL eye.  She seriously scared me.

I took some photos, but not too many because the Mama (and Daddy, I soon discovered) were very protective of these babies.  Whenever I tried to take pictures, they would both fly around the fence posts/tree limbs/garden stakes near me screeching incessantly. 

See?

Ha!  No stinking mafia bird is going to scare me!  I got plenty of pictures, PLENTY!

Eventually one afternoon, I came to check on the twins, and one of them had flown the coop! 

The remaining one was such a good wittle bird.

But a few days later, Mama and Daddy must have talked him into it.  Because when I came out to take a picture, Mama and Daddy actually buzzed my head, I kid you not.  And when I found the empty nest, and then eventually found Junior on an inside branch, I figured out that they were both attending his inaugural flight and I was the enemy come to ruin it all.  They screeched at me and flew near me until I left.  I tried to take pictures from the porch, because whenever I came too close they’d get their feather panties all in a bunch again.

Do you see one parent on the bush, and one on the fencepost?

They seriously scared me.

Sweet little thing.

I checked on the little fella several times through the day and he was always still there.  I think there may have been a little chicken in his family tree somewhere.  But the next day he was gone. 

No more screeching, no more frantic, overprotective, helicopter parents.  No more sweet baby bird to spy on.

I hope he and his brother are okay out there.

Biggest Loser Results Are In!

If you’ve been reading our blogs for at least 3 months, then you know that Deb from Confessions of an Ugly Mom and I have been engaged in a hot competition, a battle to shed the (cough) baby weight (shut up), a dirty, no holds barred, Clash of the PudgeBottoms, what we liked calling Biggest Loser, Blogger Edition.

If there had been reality tv cameras around, you would have witnessed some pushing and shoving, lots of swearing, the occasional backstab, and frequent attempts at dietary sabotage.  It was a dirty, low-down, disgusting…well… actually, I have to admit… in Deb, I found the perfect weight loss partner. 

We were not at all spiteful and dirty, we checked in with each other weekly (at least) to share weight loss (or gain) and then the partner would congratulate/encourage/motivate the other partner, whatever was needed.  One time I emailed her that I had really fallen off the wagon and included a list of the things I ate.  I kind of expected her to get back to me with a “Don’t worry, Beth, you can start tomorrow, everyone has a bad day.”  But what I got was “What the heck is wrong with you?  Do you want to lose it after all that work?  Now put down the cookies and get back in the game!”  It kind of shocked me.  It was a little tough.  But it was just what I needed. 

Very bad photo taken at a Mardi Gras party back in March. 

So the results.  We really were close.  Some weeks Deb lost more, some weeks I did, there was a stretch where neither of us lost anything, but we stuck with it.  In the final tally, I lost slightly more weight percentage-wise than Deb, and I mean teeny-tiny, eeny-meeny slightly, but, if you recall, we did agree that the loser would appear on the winner’s blog in her swim suit.  And I hate to do it to her, I mean, she has just been a super partner, the wind beneath my padded wings, my cheerleader and counselor. 

But rules are rules.

So…

She’s the one in the cute tankini, holding what appears to be a blown up piranha.  And she is looking hot.  Her weight loss is noticeable, and I’m so proud of her.

We are planning to continue to lose weight with a certain weight loss goal in mind by the end of the summer, and we are planning to continue as weight loss partners.  Soon we will be so thin that other women will hate us when we walk in the room, and Vogue will complain that we make their supermodels look fat, and …well, really, we just want to go to swim parties and not be afraid to take our cover-ups off. 

It will happen, Deb.  Stick with me.

No More Pencils, No More Books

It was the last day of school for everyone, and last day of elementary school for Maddie.  She is dressed all fahncy for her graduation.

High heels!

The ceremony was simple but nice.  Some people just do not appreciate the excitement of a 5th grade graduation ceremony.

Jack and his almost twin Olivia.  Books are much more interesting than all the blah blah blah-ing from the principal.

Maddie with her best teacher ever (and that’s saying a lot because she’s had all good ones!)  She will miss her so much.

Time to party!

Yes, I still made them go to track practice.  In 90+ degree weather.  Mom is mean.

But then (surprise!) we went to Isaac’s.  Isaac’s is our second favorite restaurant.  (This is our favorite.)  Now mom is the best.

On the way home we stopped to see the cows.  Maddie always wants to stop and moo at the cows.  Cows are curious and they will usually wander over.

Not this time.

We finished the day with CoolPops.

No, he’s not tired at all.

Time to collapse.

To bed we go. Sweet dreams for all.  No school tomorrow!

Now You See It…

Can you spot the difference between these two pictures?  I’m warning you, it’s a tricky one.
 

If you guessed that Jack’s orange Crocs are missing in the second picture, then… you may want to make an appointment with your eye doctor.  My favorite tree in our yard, my beautiful weeping cherry tree, decided not to bloom or even sprout out any leaves this year.  Nothing. 

I loved that tree!

Even though this picture was taken last spring, I think Ben somehow sensed the end was near for the weeping cherry, and this is definitely reflected in his sad, little face.  Or maybe he was just tired of all the doggone pictures already!

So now it’s gone.  Dave the lumberjack put on his flannel shirt and dungarees, stuck a plug o’ tobaccy in his mouth, and got ‘er done.  I sat on the porch swing and gave him some good, solid directions like “Careful of my hostas!” and “Don’t hit your foot with your axe!” and “Aren’t you getting hot in that flannel shirt?  Maybe you’d like to remove it?”

On a more positive note, the lilac bush that was hiding behind the cherry tree will now have its turn to shine, and there are black-eyed susans to the left of the hostas that you could never really see either. 

But for now I’m not planting anything new there…

…at least, not until I find a tree as cute as this one.

My Tween

Change is necessary, and I know it, but it’s hard sometimes isn’t it? Most of us don’t deal well with change.  We like things the way we like things, we like routine and relish in the safety and comfort of habit.  Dave would be the first to tell you that I am a creature of habit.  It’s why, although I love to go on vacations, I also love to come home and get back to the way things are supposed to be.  Too much change and I feel out-of-control and will get a headache.  I love to take the Christmas decorations down, I love to send the kids back to school, and I like a certain amount of order to my day and week.  Of course, Dave would also be the first person to tell you that organization is not my thing, so it’s a routine, but a relaxed one.

I am always struggling with change as it relates to my children.  Bringing that sweet baby girl home from the hospital upset life so completely!  I just had no idea how much a 7 pound baby would thoroughly turn the house upside down, inside out, and squeezed in the middle.  I figured I might be up at night for a couple of months but that all else would go on as before, except that now there’d be a cute, little pink sweetie pie cooing in her swing watching it all. 

I remember the futility of trying to plan my day:  since she nursed that morning at 5 a.m., she’ll be ready again at 7:30, which will work out well, because her well visit is at 8:30, we’ll sneak in the feeding, head to the doctor, nurse there after the appointment, hit the grocery store on the way home, etc.  But my sweet little stinker, probably sensing a shot was in her future, pooped so explosively, up her back, in her hair…two minutes before departure time.  And at the doctor’s office, she decided she wasn’t ready to nurse, which completely blew to pieces the plan to go grocery shopping, because we all know you only take a happy, dry, well-fed baby to the grocery store.

But I got better.  I changed (because I had to), and adapted to her needs.  We figured it all out.

As the children left the baby phase behind, however, I find I am not adapting quite as easily to their grasps at independence.  When Maddie first started wanting to choose her own bedtime book, I had a little tantrum in my head.  I didn’t want to read that stupid Blue’s Clues book again, I wanted to read the nice nursery rhyme book and sing “Hickory Dickory Dock” to her!   Eventually I realized it wasn’t about what I wanted anymore.  When Ben and Jack started making preferences for foods, books, etc. I was ready, and it was okay.  But I had a hard time letting Maddie make choices, which I look back at in horror, but she was MINE, ALL MINE!  And now she was becoming less mine and more hers.  It was hard.

I think I’m having this attack of nostalgia because that baby girl is “graduating” from 5th grade this week.  Now, I realize that this is just a symbolic ceremony celebrating her movement from elementary school to middle school, she’s not heading off to college or somewhere equally horrifying, but still.

I’m not ready for middle school. I’m not ready for teenagers on the school bus.  I’m not ready for makeup and boys and peer pressure and dances and for that time when she stops adoring me and starts separating herself from me, because I know it’s going to happen!  Sure, it’s healthy to let her make choices and learn independence and responsibility or to pick her own self up when her choices turn out to be not so great.  But I’m not there yet. 

It’s not about me, though, is it?  I’ve got to step back and let her do it all, let her try new things, allow her deal with disappointment and that yucky mean girl stuff and the roller coaster ride of puppy love, although I hope she knows I’ll always be there cheering her on, or ready to help her dust herself off, or maybe sing a nursery rhyme or two to her maybe if she’ll let me? (Stupid Blue’s Clues book…you started everything.)

I’m not liking change right now. Not no how, not no way.

In the Chair

This was me yesterday.

A person gets a lot of time to think when she’s sitting alone in a chair for a long time.  Kind of reminds me of my Nautical Corner when I was a kid (my very cute, unable to pronounce “r” way of saying “Naughty Girl Corner”.  Seriously, I was adorable!).  Not that I spent much time in the Nautical Corner, but still. 

So, I was sitting in front of a huge mirror, staring at my foiled up self for way too long.  It’s not a good look for most people, but between the overhead lighting, the alien hair, and the big smock, I was definitely losing the tenuous hold I have on my wavering self-confidence.  So I got some magazines.

I mostly read the People magazines.  The Martha Stewart Living was my cover to make me look a little less fluffy and a tad more substantial and purposeful and fahncy.

And I played around with my Instagram.  I took sneak photos of the people next to me. 

This befoiled young lady with the Coke and the cell phone has terrible allergies, she coughs all night long, and she’s just feeling very tired and worn out from sneezing and sniffling all the time.  She can’t wait for allergy season to be over.

The woman below had the best workout she’s ever had the evening before.  Her instructor is awesome.  He really works the class, but he cares about them too, he walks around and will tell them if they’re doing a move wrong.  He’s amazing.  She’s sore today though!

When I was done with my Martha Stewart Living (*wink wink*) I played a little Angry Birds then emailed Dave and Maddie who were on their way to Philadelphia for Maddie’s 5th grade field trip.  Maddie was so excited that Dave was chosen to be a chaperone.  Dave was also excited…in a manly, I’d-rather-be-golfing-but-I’d-do-anything-for-my-daughter-and-I-mean-anything-even-sit-on-a-school-bus-for-two-hours-with- 75-eleven-year-olds kind of way).  He’s a good dad. 

Finally, Stacy came back and took out the foils, washed my hair, massaged my scalp (best part of my day, baby) cut my hair, and blew me out.  I’m telling you, if I won the lottery, I would pay someone to come to my house every day and blow out my hair.  I just love the sleek, silky look, so different from my own frizzy, puffy hair. 

This is not that look.

I spent a little over 2 hours in that chair.  There was an embarrassingly large butt indentation left behind (ha! I crack myself up!  --left behind!  Get it!? OMG!  Crack myself up! Will the hilarity never end!  Dude!  End!  OMG!) when I stood up.  My hope is that it went away before the next person arrived.  Although I sincerely doubt they noticed anyway, as dazzled as they probably were with my sleek, silky hair and as impressed as they must have been with the “Crochet Your Own Toilet Paper” article I left sitting on the counter next to the huge mirror.

Blueberry Crisp

We are eating berries like crazy right now!  Blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and red raspberries are all (fairly) cheap and we all love them.  Soon we will make our yearly trip to Honeybear Orchards to pick black raspberries and apricots, but for now, Wal-Mart, Costco, and the local fruit stand are keeping us well-supplied.

Mostly we just make them all into fruit salad or throw a handful on a bowl of cereal, but over the weekend I decided to make blueberry crisp. 

First, fill your entire 13x9 pan with blueberries.

I’m not sure how many cups this was, I guess I should have measured!  But I used about half of a 32 ounce package from Costco, so maybe 4 cups?  Bad blogger.

Next mix together melted butter, cinnamon, flour, sugar, and some oats, then spread the mixture over your blueberries.  Dot that baby with lots of butter, and sprinkle with more cinnamon.

Don’t worry, the healthy blueberries and oats cancel out all that butter.  Scout’s honor.

After you bake for about 50 minutes, let it cool a bit, and then serve it warm with ice cream.  Dave made his homemade vanilla ice cream, and it was (almost) better than the blueberry crisp.

And together, the crunchy, warm blueberry crisp mingled with the sweet velvety melting ice cream made for an immensely satisfying dessert. 

This recipe is actually my apple crisp recipe, and I took a chance that the blueberries would work out okay (which they did!) (and that’s also why I didn’t know how any cups of blueberries to use) (and I have to say, it was even better than the apple crisp) (how many parentheses is too many?)  I think you could probably adapt this recipe using other fruits such as blackberries, peaches, and maybe sour cherries with success…

Blueberry Crisp

4 cups blueberries (or enough to cover the bottom of a 13x9 pan)

1/2 c. butter, melted

1 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1 c. quick cooking oats

2 T.  cinnamon, divided

1/4 c. butter

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

-Place blueberries in a 13x9 pan.

-In a bowl, mix together (with fork) flour, melted butter, sugar, oats and 1 T. cinnamon.

-Sprinkle flour mixture over blueberries.

-Dot with 1/4 c. butter.

-Bake 50 minutes.

-Serve warm with vanilla ice cream!

I am linking this recipe with Foodie Friday.