Pancakes! (Again)

   Sorry everyone I forgot to put the recipe in my last post. So here you go!

Mark Bittman's Pancakes (sort of)

      1 1/4 cup flour (more  or less depending on how much flax/wheat germ you use. The       total should equal 2 cups)

      1/4 cup whole flax seed

      1/4 cup wheat germ

      1/2 tsp salt

      1 Tbls baking powder

      2 eggs

      1 1/2 to 2 cups almond milk (or any milk of your choice)

      2 Tbls neutral oil

      

      Preheat your griddle over medium heat for a large burner or medium-high for a small burner. Oil or butter griddle if you like to do that sort of thing.

      Combine flax and wheat germ in a magic bullet (or blender or whatever you use to grind flax seed) measure into a measuring cup to see how much you have and then add flour to make 2 cups total. Pour into a large bowl. Add salt and baking powder and whisk dry ingredients together.

      In a small bowl whisk together eggs, milk, and oil. Pour into dry ingredients. Now here is a trick: Pancakes are a quick bread (so are muffins and banana bread). So with quick breads it is important to do just a quick mix. Stir just until the wet and dry are combined. Lumpy is good. Because if you mix for too long something in the flour starts too bind together and gives you dense pancakes. 

       Pour a tablespoon or quarter cup or so of pancake batter onto your griddle and cook until bubbles start to form around the edge of your pancakes and then flip and continue to cook until they are as brown as you like them. Enjoy!

     

Pancakes and Family Worship Time

   
    I love to make pancakes. I also love to eat pancakes, like at least five in one sitting. At least. So I am trying to make them healthier. I am also trying to make them healthier because I am teaching my children, by my actions, that it is perfectly normal and okay to eat, at least, five pancakes in one sitting. 

   
    At first, I did half whole wheat flour, and then I did all whole wheat flour for a while until I went back to all white flour because I felt like I deserved it. And then I felt like I should never eat flour again, but then I remembered that I have no will power at all, so that would be impossible. And then one morning, (when Nick wasn't home, of course. This is not the sort of thing I could just spring on Nick.) I decided to try magic bulletting a 1/4 cup of flax and a 1/4 cup of wheat germ which turned into about 3/4 cup of ground super healthy-for-your-bodyness and substituted it for that amount of flour in my trusty Mark Bittman pancake recipe.
    Fingers crossed, Tyler and I fried them up and Holy Moly, they were delicious! Totally light and fluffy, not dense and tasting like health, as I had imagined. But, here is the kicker: even Nick thought they were amazing. After my test run on the children, I made them the next weekend for the whole fam, and Nick actually really liked them even without chocolate chips!

    I am sort of wondering why everyone doesn't make pancakes like this. I actually thought to myself,"Is this somehow not good for you or maybe even poisonous, because I can't think of another reason why I haven't heard of this before." But I don't think it is poisonous, so you should all try it.

"I'm already in school: Beathany Bear's!" (Duh)

First breakfast of champs

 

 Here she is, in all her new-school-clothes glory. 

 Dada almost couldn't find the head band she picked out on their date, but two phone calls to mom at work later and the day was saved.

Could not be more ready

 

 Second breakfast of champs 
(The proximity of Mighty O donuts to her school could turn out to be a real problem)

 Literally jumping for joy

 When she walked in to her classroom she was all business. She headed straight for the dramatic play area and the princess shoes.

So far, we all love Bethany Bear's Preschool. Everyone we've met is nice. Tyler had a super fun time her first day. She got to be the line leader and lead her class outside, ride tricycles, paint, and read books about school. We are bringing snack tomorrow and I am volunteering in the art room next month. It's like I'm the mother of a preschooler or something.
   Last week when we went to meet her classmates and teacher, a mom was saying that her daughter was turning four in November. I thought to myself, " Woah, she is way older then Tyler." Like three days later, I realized Wait! Tyler is turning four one month after that. (meep!)

We Took a Family Bike Ride to Madrona

 It was super fun, but I was pretty terrified. Seattle is full of hills! And Fox was pretty mad about being strapped into the bike trailer and even more enraged when we tried to put a giant helmet on his head, so we just left it off. And this is what Nick says to me, "It's fine just as long as we don't crash." (?!)

 Sleepy baby.

 Also that day Fox tied to eat a marker, well actually did eat a marker. But also ended up drawing a Charlie Chaplin mustache on his face.When I first saw it I called it a Hitler mustache, but then Tyler asked," Who is Hitler?" So now I call it a Charlie Chaplin mustache. Fox is weird. This morning when I sat down to write a post I put down a little piece of biscuit for him to eat, and he picked it up and put it in the brush he was holding and brushed his hair with it. Babies.

Whidby, Again!

 When we went to Leslie and Andre's wedding we had planned on coming early and having some family fun on the island and maybe even staying the night, but as it turns out we are poor planners, and I don't have a very good sense of how long it takes to get from Kirkland to the Mukilteo ferry station or of the fact that when people say it will be about a two hour wait for the ferry they are telling the truth. So we got there about one minute before the wedding started. On Labor Day we decided to try again and took the ferry back over for a little day trip.

We did some fun things like go to a store full of every adorable animal puppet you could think of (Fox puppets! So cute), buy an disgusting iced americano, immediately throw it away, and buy another at the next coffee shop, go to the beach that is pictured, and go to a park where Tyler played a shooting game with a little boy. Thankfully she has not continued that because somebody starts school tomorrow, and no guns at school!

Sunscreen hair.

Even though the water is much more freezing in Puget Sound then in Lake Washington, there are a lot more fun and interesting things to decorate sand castles with like these clam shells.

A the end of the day we sat outside and had pizza, looking across the water toward Camano Island. It was beautiful, but Ty was pretty cold. I was fine while fox was sleeping on me in the front carrier, but then I forgot he was there and he woke up.

A Few Firsts

 Fox stole from a toy store for the first, and hopefully last, time.

 Fox said sister for the first time. And then proceeded to only want whatever she happened to be holding in her hand from that point forward. He went from being semi-interested-mostly-a-little-leery of her to always wanting to sit essentially on top of her and grab things from her overnight. On a positive note he is getting inspired to walk in order to keep up.

Tyler said that she wanted to have a baby when she grows up for the first time. Then she said that she still wants to always live with us and marry Fox, but I am fine with that. It was so sweet too, the way she said it. Like she knew how important it was. Tyler is afraid of growing up. She wants me to always be just her mom. She always says that she is never going to have babies so that we won't ever be grandparents. I feel so sad when I see her worry about the inevitable. So I was so happy to hear her look forward to a part of adulthood.