Adventures in Bennionland

Now this is living! Many of you know and love my sister Lyndsy (aka Noonie, Petunia, Lyndz, Inka). But none of you know and love Noonie as much as my two boys!

When I announced bright and early this morning that we were headed to see her, I got grins larger than heads! Of course I had to spend some talk arguing about how she no longer lives in Santa Barbara – though Will was determined to prove me wrong.

So we drove up to visit Noonie at her new apartment. We had a great drive up – singing songs as we listened to Anne Murray, Raffi, and Wiggleworms! The boys were so excited about the trip that the drive didn’t really bother them.

We had a wonderful time with Lyndsy – though the boys by that time were quite done with being in the car and quite hyper! I think they about scared the crap out of her cats…on purpose….many times!

The best part of the visit (from the kids’ perspective) was that Noonie had brought toys out for them – the CAT toys! And the boys loved them. Walker played, almost the whole time, with a toy that looked something like a cross between a pom-pom and a fishing pole.

And both boys liked the scratching post! Hilarious!

Noonie and I got a little big of bonding time, over Taco Bell and The Office (sweet!), while the boys took naps.

Noonie’s apartment is quite cute. She & Jon have two bedrooms, a nice kitchen, a fantastic bathroom, and a balcony!

Will capped off the trip by taking photos of the apartment. Most of them are really white and you aren’t quite sure if it’s a cat, the carpet, or his hand. He did get a couple of good ones – including this classic Noonie one:

It will be fun when we can head back up there – with a little less time on the road and maybe Eric too so we can tag-team the twosome

Thanks for the adventure, as usual, Noonie!

It was a dark and stormy night…

Oh wait! Not it wasn’t!

It was a gray and gloomy day! So what do you do when the days are gray and dreary?

You do housework! And there is nothing better than two super helpers!

It’s official! Starting today our family is gluten-free (GF)! We, we sort of started yesterday night with our taco night but since the boys had soup for lunch and treats at their church class it kind of blew any effort made at night.

As I type the boys are enjoying their second serving of the GF cinnamon raisin muffins that I made. I am thrilled that these turned out so well, but I think that it helped having a good mix rather than trying to make them from scratch. I used the Whole Foods brand, 365 Everyday Value.
Having products like this, that are ‘value’ priced is helpful since GF shopping can be quite expensive. To give you an idea, just this muffin mix, which has no flavor, requiring you to add your own, was $3.49. For a similar product (15.5 ounces, yields 12-16 muffins) it would be about $2.99 (or if you are frugal, $.55 for Jiffy).

Eric and I spent Saturday and Sunday with help from Papa Paul & KK, getting our kitchen GF ready. Every book we’ve read (and we’ve read lots) has suggested having separate cookware for GF foods vs. gluten-full foods. Since Papa and KK are letting us live with them, we wanted to make it convenient for us without stepping all over their toes.

On Saturday we went through ALL of the cupboards and labeled things with stickers that said ‘no’ on them if they have gluten in them. We also bought a new mixer, new bowls, new tupperware, and a few other cooking tools all in red to use for only GF cooking.

After we went through everything then we went grocery shopping. Whole Foods is in Pasadena and offers the most GF selection of the stuff we want. Traders Joe’s, Vitamin City, and Sprouts are all closer but they offer a smaller selection. They’ll be good for quick stops to get more pasta, rice flour, and xanthan gum.

Then I spent all afternoon, while Eric tried wrangling the kids, cooking! I made 64 GF chicken nuggets with flax seed, 15 GF muffins, four one-quart bags of GF noodle & veggie soup, and GF taco meat. I know that this change is going to be hard on me with regards to lunch, since we are used to sandwiches of all sorts. Given that one loaf of sandwich bread is $7.99 that’s not going to be an option any more.

Here are the fruits of our labor:

Honestly – I had a blast! I’m an organization freak so by the time I was all done organizing I was hyped up and ready for a club.

And the best part, the GF muffins were actually good and the boys devoured them this morning!