7 years!

Today marks 7 years that I've been married to my sweet hubby! I can hardly believe it's been 7 years. In one way it seems like it has flown by. In another way, I feel like we've lived a lifetime together, with so many tribulations and celebrations! We spent Friday night at the Ritz-Carlton for a little Anniversary R&R, and it was SO nice to have some time to just focus on each other for a change. We've been through a lot of phases together, and the "financially-challenged-parents-of-small-children" phase we are in right now doesn't really allow us to always give each other the time we want or need to. It was REALLY fun to just be "us" for 48 hours!

One thing I still know for sure....I wouldn't sign up to do life with anyone else! I love you babe! Happy Anniversary and Happy Father's Day! The Mattingly/MacDonald men on Father's Day

New post blahs

I've just been very uninspired lately to write on my blog. I don't feel like I have anything really interesting to share! Recipes are about the only new thing happening around here, so I will share a new one.
I had some very brown bananas and a desire to make bran muffins, so I thought, "hey, I'll see if I can find a recipe for a banana-bran muffin!" Lo and behold, I found a delicious and nutritious recipe at allrecipes.com. I've linked you directly to the recipe, but I'll copy it here too (can I do this? copyright? who knows...). If you go to the site, they give you nutritional info. It's a little frightening if you use the butter, but if you sub applesauce, you can kiss almost all of those fat grams and almost 70 calories per muffin goodbye!

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter, softened (I used 1/2 cup applesauce)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 bananas, mashed (I only had 2, so I used 2!)
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat bran (I used All-Bran cereal)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a muffin pan or line with paper muffin liners.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and brown sugar together until fluffy. Add bananas, milk, vanilla and eggs; mix well. Stir in flour, bran, baking powder, soda and salt; blend just until moistened. Stir in walnuts. Pour batter into prepared muffin cups.
Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the cups for 5 minutes, then remove muffins and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Sunny weather....finally!

I am certainly not going to complain about the rain after last summer's horrible drought, but I am REALLY happy that the sun is finally out! So are Molly and Jack!

We went outside on Friday for hours, playing in the water table and blowing bubbles.

All Jack wanted to do was put every blessed thing he came accross in his mouth. All Molly wanted to do was take away anything he was interested in.

Molly is all about bubbles!

Jack was SO dirty, we just did the diaper thing! Can you tell he is teething?

Molly pouring freezing cold water on Jack......one day, he is going to squish her like a bug!

We had our first visit to the pool on Saturday. Molly was in heaven! She loved every bone-chilling second of it! We actually had to pull her out of the water (screaming at the top of her lungs, of course) because she was shaking so hard and her entire mouth was purple. That girl LOVES the pool! Her brother, on the other hand? Not so much. He was UPSET about it, and all I did was put his feet in. It was so cold, he probably thought he was going to lose a toe. We'll try again when it's a little warmer!