STAYCATION | OATMEAL BANANA MUFFINS

While our kitchen is busy being destroyed, we are busy enjoying a "leisurely" stay at my gracious generous parent's house, only about five minutes away from ours.  Seeing as they are my parents, and I think they are awesome, the transition has not been hard for me at all.  Now don't get me wrong...every time I take a drive over to see how things are progressing at the house I get a pit in my stomach where I a)have an intense urge to CLEAN THE HOUSE {bc it is a dusty mess}, b)wish Stephen and I could just lay around in our den and watch all our fun recorded "shows", c)long for family evenings in our house and "normal" life.  BUT, the kids are happy, new place equals new toys and adventures, I have a live-in gourmet chef {cross that off my daily to-do list}, and we have the same if not more room here as we do at our own house.  To top it off, I think my parents have been here for a total of 4 out of the past ten nights {they are road warriors and are always going somewhere}.  So, we are a little over a week in and everything is running smoothly! {ask me again a week or two from now....! ha!}.

{pointing to the turtle hiding in the mud to stay out of the cold}

Jacob's new trick:

me: "smile Jacob!"

Jacob:

me: "Jacob...smile!"

me: "a reeeaaaal smile!"

Stinker

While I may not be making dinner every night, I am still cooking for the kids and having other "adventures" in the kitchen.  {I love it too much to quit cold turkey}.  I am painfully attempting to get the kids to eat REAL food, not just "kiddie" food, for dinner every night.  It's really hard.  But each day they are eating better and better and I've realized it just takes time and patience to get the kids to try new things and not go to bed hungry {because they have done a lot of that recently, too}.

{they don't seem to be low on energy...}

We've been experimenting with different green smoothie recipes, trying to find our perfect fit.  We've also made some killer "pink" smoothies {aka no green stuff}...in one I added a dollop of peanut butter and it added just the right amount of "umph" to it.  Delicious.  I used our left over "green stuff" to make kale chips...which the kids did not/would not eat but my mom and I devoured.  I also whipped up these delicious muffins found on Pinterest...they are flourless and sugarless and those words immediately caught my attention.  I do not usually stray from either but if you can be both delicious AND healthy, I am on your team.

Flour-less, Sugar-less Oatmeal Banana muffins

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees.  Pulse oats in a food processor until ground.  Add remaining ingredients and pulse until smooth.  Add chocolate chips or almonds if desired, fold in gently.  Pour into greased muffin pan.  Bake at 15-18 minutes or until set/done.

I didn't do the entire 1/2 cup of honey and ours were perfectly sweet.

Enjoy!

{these little sure piggies did!}