Yummy.

I tried this berry smoothie on the One Mango Tree blog. It's so good for you and delish. I added a little milk to mine but Carleton said it was perfect and wondered why anyone would add anything else. recipe here. With the left over oj, I made popsicles (with the popsicle maker I got at the dollar store).






Hungry Girl cook book by Lisa Lillien. Love it. It's fun. She has fun recipes that are made a little healthier. This one's called "Yum Yum Brownie Muffins" and is way easy.



Ingredients
1 box devil's food cake mix (about 18 ounces)
One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Mix the two ingredients together. Don't add anything else that may be mentioned on the box, like eggs, oil, or water. The mixture will be very thick, so you might be tempted to add in other things to make the batter smoother. Do not do this!

Place better into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with baking cups or sprayed with nonstick spray. Place pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 12 servings.

Let's "SHAKE" "HANDS"

I found this yummy Banana-Oat Smoothie in Martha Stewart's Every Day Food. We've had it a few times and really like it-easy and healthy.

Ingredients

Serves 1

• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1 banana, cut into thirds
• 1/2 cup fat-free milk
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth; serve immediately.




I made this Little Red Riding Hood hand puppet when I was little and made it again recently for Apollo's birthday. He likes to listen to the story told with all the characters. It's fun and easy to make. I just used felt, a knit glove (they were a buck at Joanne's fabric store), ribbon, wiggly eyes (bigger ones for the wolf and smaller ones for the woodcutter and Grandma), yarn (for the hair), and brown puff balls for the wolf's nose. I found all of it at Michael's in the craft section. I used hot glue to put it all together.

A New Normal

For our first adventure alone since baby Annie's arrival, Apollo and I took a "nature walk" around our place. Apollo needed some mom time. We collected a bunch of flowers and other things on our walk and then glued them on a piece of paper-complete with Apollo's scribbles. We labeled everything and it a reminder on our fridge that things will get back to normal even though it will be a "new normal" for our family.






My friend, Ziggy, told me about a cool dollar store-I can't believe all the fun stuff they have. I bought these plastic popsicle makers along with some fat-free fiber yogurt (it sounds nasty, but hey, it was a buck). I swirled some applesauce into the yogurt to make the popsicles. They turned out pretty good. Carleton said as a kid they had orange, apple, and other juices to make the pops.






Jean Lee emailed this cool idea and said "Here's one idea you may already know...
Easter bunny (aka boo boo bunny). After you enjoy the Easter egg, you can put in an ice cube for any boo boo. Kids' hands don't get cold and the towel absorbs the water as the ice melts." Thanks Jean!