Chocolate Banana Bread Protien Muffins

I've been dealing with ravenous boys every morning for months now. They usually start out with a go-gurt type yogurt in the mornings, then move to either a bowl of cereal, or cheese stick, and are always begging for more to eat. (Sometimes even after their third and fourth bowl of cereal) I know I'm totally not alone here, as I have had all my friends tell me their kiddos are exactly the same.

So, I had been tossing around the idea of banana bread protein muffins with my husband for a few weeks and we weren't sure how to go about it. We were in NO WAY looking to make Paleo, or Sugar free, or basically anything considered a "health food." We just knew our boys loved nothing more than mom's chocolate chip banana bread for breakfast, and thought we could maybe fill their bellies a little more if we somehow accomplished that same flavor, but with more protein. That is how I came up with this recipe.

It's still a work in progress, but this first trial run wasn't bad at all, and the boys ate them up this morning and were of course, asking for more.

Give it a try, and see what you think. They'd also be super easy to have a little assistant chef help you with. I made a batch last night (Sunday) that I hope will last us the whole week.

Tip: I stick my bananas in the freezer for weeks before pulling them out to thaw and make banana bread. I think this gives my Banana Bread a little something extra, but I could be crazy. (It's been said before)




Recipe:

1 egg (beaten)
1 cup sugar
4 over ripe bananas
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup chocolate protein powder
2 tsp cocoa powder (I used dark choc.)
1 tsp. Vanilla (I love Mexican Vanilla)
Dash of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup melted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees, and line a muffin tin with paper cupcake liners. (You could also just grease with spray or butter) I did the liners and then a light butter spray. Put all the ingredients in a mixer and mix on low speed until well blended. (Could also totally be mixed by hand)

Pour into muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full. Place in oven and bake approximately 45 minutes at 350. I checked mine every 20 minutes, then 5. Once a toothpick placed in the middle of the cup comes out clean, they're done. Just cool and serve. Or serve hot with butter, that's a winner also.

Please let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments if you try it. I'm hoping I had two little boys that weren't starving at school all day waiting for lunch. ;)

Boppy Cover DIY

I absolutely love my Boppy Pillow for Nursing, for baby propping up, for impromptu photo shoots, the list goes on. I also love making super adorable covers for ours, and others. I once tried to make one on my on, without a pattern. My friend Heidi will tell you, that was a fail. It was my first ever Boppy Cover and I thought I could totally handle in on my own, without a silly pattern, like I do most of my sewing projects. WRONG!



So, the next time I decided to take on Cover creating, I searched for help, and found it here. I sent the PDF over to Office Depot, had two copies printed on a firmer card stock, then brought those babies home to get started.















Now, obviously my pattern has gotten some use, but it was super easy to assemble, and is a great pattern. I do not really like having my zipper on the back of the pillow, I prefer it at the top of mine, so I use the front pattern piece for both pieces of my fabric. After cutting, this is what I am left with.













I then start with the piece of fabric I have chosen as my front and get to pinning on my zipper. I choose the approximate placement and get started. I like to use "invisible zippers" in the 20"-22" range for my covers. But I have seen them done with regular zippers and those look great too.

the zipper needs to be face to face with your fabric when pinned, as shown. The underside of your zipper should be facing you as you sew. I start with the zipper unzipped a bit, as shown here. Once I reach the zipper, I lift my presser foot, and zip it up to the beginning, and get to sewing the rest of the way. I stitch very close to the metal zipper edge, and for that you need to make sure you are using your zipper presser foot. Don't be like me and constantly forget that step, its just annoying and messy.



After you have your zipper attached to the front of your cover, you will want to place your back fabric piece, and pin it to the other side of the zipper, as shown.

When your zipper is pinned, you can get started sewing. Start at the end without the zipper, and work your way toward it. This time, have it zipped all the way, and when you get close, zip it down past where you have already stitched. Continue to the end, and your zipper is done!

Not the best picture, but just trying to show how close to the metal part of the zipper I stitch.

After the zipper is attached, I go to each end and stitch across, like so. This is important, and helps prevent your zipper from popping out of your seam later.

Also, it helps to have a super cute assistant at your feet while sewing. Just don't let them get too close to the presser foot, that could be disasterous.



Now that your zipper is completely attached, lay your cover flat, and make sure you brush out any bumps or bubbles. Then start pinning all the way around.



I pick a side that I am going to stay true to, usually the front and make sure I pin to it, all the way around. occasionally, I need to trim the back piece to make it fit better to the front.

Make sure your zipper is open enough to flip your cover right side when you're done with your seam. You'll be mad as heck at yourself if you forget. (totally not speaking from experience here)

Sew around the entire pillow. I follow the edge of my front piece to the edge of my presser foot the whole way around.

Once your seam is done, all that is left to do is flip it right side out and stuff it like a turkey.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and would love to see any covers created using the pattern above!

Kid's Travel Pillow Case

So in true Four Mom fashion, I'm super late getting this blog up. But, it's still Friday, and I'm writing it, so that counts!

Our youngest son is in love with all things Rocket Ships. On one of our many trips to the fabric store, he picked out this adorable fabric, and asked that I make him a pillow. I'm on it OD BEAR, momma's got you.




I started by washing, preshrinking, and then ironing the fabric. And grabbed a couple scraps I had and did the same with them for the trim.

Once everything was washed and ironed, I started measuring an old case I had. I came up with these approximate measurements.

Large Edge Panel: 10"x13"

Trim: 1"x13"

Pillow Body: 15"x13"

I then got to cutting.




My trim piece


Edge Panel




My finished pieces. Once the trim pieces were cut, I folded them exactly in half and pressed them with the iron.

I then took my two edge panel pieces, and pressed them exactly in half.

Once that was done, I pressed the edges on the panels folded over once, to create a finished edge. Now here is how you get super scientific with your measuring when you lose the fancy seam ruler you usually use.




That's right, this Boy Mom used what she had ample of in her home. Legos. Hey, it worked, and I didn't have to scream too much.

After pressing the edges of the panels, I pinned the trim pieces inside the folded edge panels.







Next was a quick seam to hold these two pieces together.

My two finished edge pieces.



Next up, was to pin these to my pillow body panels.




Again, my super accurate Lego was used to make sure the edges were pinned the same width on each panel.



Then a couple quick seams to attach the two pieces.

After your two panels have the trim attached, your ready to pin them right sides together and finish your pillow case.




Now I need to apologize because I lost a bunch of pictures somehow. But, I chose to do about a 1/2" seam all the way around the three edges that needed to be sewn together.

After that all that was left was flipping the case inside out and stuffing the pillow in there.




I love how this turned out. It is fit perfectly to the pillow, and my little man loves it.







This project was very easy, and done quickly. Both of those things make me endlessly happy, because with 4 kiddos time and patience are not things I have a lot of. ;)

Fall Foliage

I'm ready for FALL!! Like really, really ready. It's still pretty warm here, the leaves aren't changing yet, they're only sort of falling off their perch, I need things to speed up a bit. Despite Mother Nature's reluctance to make this happen, I wanted my front porch looking
Like it was 50 degrees and windy everyday. Glad I have Pinterest for that. I had seen a post on turning $1 pumpkin candy buckets into planters and I was ALL IN! So, here they are. These took about 5 minutes, and I am in love with them.

The supplies:






Two buckets and one can of Metalic Spray paint from Rustoleum.







This project was as simple as, pull off the bucket handles, and paint. That's it. Leave to dry, then plant away.

Here's the finished project:




















I seriously love these, and Pinterest of course for the inspiration. So cheap and easy. This project with the flowers only cost $12. You can't buy one plant in a nice planter for that cost, and these are so cool for a porch where small kiddos live.

Fall Foliage

I'm ready for FALL!! Like really, really ready. It's still pretty warm here, the leaves aren't changing yet, they're only sort of falling off their perch, I need things to speed up a bit. Despite Mother Nature's reluctance to make this happen, I wanted my front porch looking
Like it was 50 degrees and windy everyday. Glad I have Pinterest for that. I had seen a post on turning $1 pumpkin candy buckets into planters and I was ALL IN! So, here they are. These took about 5 minutes, and I am in love with them.

The supplies:



Two buckets and one can of Metalic Spray paint from Rustoleum.




This project was as simple as, pull off the bucket handles, and paint. That's it. Leave to dry, then plant away.

Here's the finished project:











I seriously love these, and Pinterest of course for the inspiration. So cheap and easy. This project with the flowers only cost $12. You can't buy one plant in a nice planter for that cost, and these are so cool for a porch where small kiddos live.

DIY Baby Paper

Ever since blessing us with her presence in mid February, Miss Quinny has let one thing be known: SHE IS THE BOSS. We have a high maintenance girl on our hands guys. Most days I can be found sitting in the recliner, all day long holding the Princess. I am so okay with this on most days. But, then there are the days where I have to get things done. Other than make up catchy little songs with Q's name as the chorus. So, needless to say, we were in need of something to help entertain our little lady.

We started noticing that Q loved to hold the wipe bags while getting her diaper changed, as I am sure most other babies do. My husband starting keeping an empty one around for such occasions, and then my light bulb went off. Baby. Paper. Now I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this awesome secondary use for wipe bags we would have otherwise thrown away. But I thought I'd share with you all how I went about creating a toy at NO COST for our sweet Quinny girl.

I started by gathering supplies:

* Fabric Scraps from some Boppy Covers I had made
* The empty wipe bag
* Scissors
* My sewing machine




After I had everything together I cut the ends open on the wipe bag.



I then cut the bag at the seam on the back, to open it up completely, and lay it flat.



Next, I peeled the lid piece off the top, to reveal just wipe bag, and nothing else.



After that, I started folding.


First in half.


Then in quarters.

Next I roughly measured the piece I had, and started cutting my fabric. No need to be exact here, just wanted it to be a little bit wider on all sides, then my piece of "baby paper."


This can totally be cut with just scissors, I had my rotary cutter and mat handy, so I just used that.



After the first piece was cut, I used a super scientific method for cutting the second. I laid the first over it, and cut around. I want this piece to fray as we use it, and wash it, so there is no need for perfection here.



Now I have my two pieces, and I am ready to sew.



This next part was a little tricky. I did not want the "baby paper" to ball up and get all puffy inside this toy. So I decided to quickly sew around the edges of the plastic bag. This proved difficult, as my sewing machine didn't like it much. Take this step or leave it, it is up to you, I found it to be worth the effort of taking my machine apart a couple times.



This is what the inside looked like after finally getting my seam around most of it.

Next I laid the inside on top of the bottom piece of fabric.

 

Then I laid the top piece over that.

 



 I then pinned all around, making sure to grab the paper again in some places, not all. As long as your seam hits the baby paper in some spots, it should stay in place.

 

After that, all that was left was a quick seam around. I chose a zigzag stitch, but that was just personal preference. Any old stitch will do.



End result:



And of course, one very happy baby! She has been laying at my feet playing with this thing, the whole time I write this blog! Mommy=1, Quinny Still= 9,999. Hey, I least I got this one win.



Hope you all enjoyed this project.This one was super quick, and very easy! If you decide to try it, leave me some pics of your creations in the comments.