Pulled from Pinterest: Banana Oatmeal Bites

This is quickly becoming my go to snack.  I have made it several times in the past two weeks because 1. we always seem to have an overabundance of bananas in the house and 2. I need a good snack that I am not going to regret the next day.

The little guy loves this snack and Maddy is okay as long as it has chocolate chips.

You can find the original blogpost for this recipe here.

Ingredients:

2 large old bananas

1 cup of quick oats

**Optional: handful of chocolate chips, raisins, or walnuts, cinnamon, honestly – anything you would want to eat in an oatmeal cookie

Smash bananas and mix together ingredients.  Place on a greased cookie sheet (I line a tray with foil and then grease it because I don’t like scrubbing pans)

Bake for 15 minutes at 350 or until golden.

These are wonderful right out of the oven and a great treat for breakfast the next day.  They don’t last more than 24 hours in my house.

Happy Eating!

Advertisement

Family Night: Easter Edition

Hi All!

Fridays in the Johnston house are reserved for family night.  I’m looking forward to sharing some of the interesting things that we do.  I am committing to do more creative things as a family.  Pizza and the Magical World of Disney Junior are okay, but not every week.

With Easter approaching I wanted to do something fun and themed for Maddy, so we had an Easter party! We decorated the dining room for our egg coloring festivities.  We did the traditional egg coloring and then to keep the fun going a while longer I purchased paper eggs and a paint set.  She will spend days painting eggs.  Everything fits on a cookie sheet so the mess is contained and transportable from the dining room to our art space.

After the eggs were done, we made “Resurrection Buns.”  I have seen the recipes for resurrection cookies where you mix up dough and bake it overnight, but that just freaks me out because if it doesn’t work you waited all night for nothing.  I found a recipe for a different bun version here and since it was easy, fun, and worked I wanted to share it!

For this project you need:

1 Package of Ready-Bake Biscuits

Marshmallows

Cinnamon & Sugar

Butter

Preheat the oven per the biscuit package instructions.  Take out the biscuits and flatten them out to about five inches across.  Brush or spread the butter on the biscuits and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Place a marshmallow in the middle of each biscuit and fold over the biscuit pinching it tightly.  The marshmallow represents Jesus in the tomb!  Place the biscuit folded side down on the tray (or on its side like a crescent) and spread butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.  Bake according to the instructions and then remove to cool.  Once they are cool you can tear into them and see that the marshmallow has disappeared and the “tomb” is empty!

My one tip to making sure you have an empty tomb is to make sure the biscuits are folded and pinched very tightly.  If they open up the marshmallow expands, but does not fully disappear so you may find yourself in the kitchen secretly scooping out the marshmallows…two worked perfectly and two were not.

Before we let Maddy enjoy hers Michael took some time to read the Easter story to her.  The book we use for family devotions is Jesus Calling.  You can find it here.

Happy Easter!  If you get a chance to try this recipe please leave me a comment!  If you have any fun Easter projects or traditions you use in your family, please feel free to post them here too!

Until next time…

Must Read Book: Jesus Is _________.

Hi Friends!

I like to read, but I’m going to keep it real.  I don’t read a lot of books…blogs yes…books no.

But this book I had to read…

I’m not sure if it was the massive amount of buzz it had in my twitter feed, the mod cover, the snappy title, or what that made me have a burning desire to hunt this book down.

Actually, I know it was God pressing in my heart that I needed to learn something…

But this chick does not venture through more than one store, dragging her husband along the way, to find many things…especially a book, but I did!  And even more surprising – I read it!  And wrote notes in it!  This is serious.

I don’t even know where to start about how simple a read it was.  If you are new to the whole “Jesus thing” or if you are a “seasoned saint” there is so much to learn here.

As I grow older…look at me acting like I’ve wisdom beyond my years…I’m realizing that the box I put Jesus in through my life was beyond ridiculous.  I judge…a lot.  Sometimes I still do…hey! no one is perfect.  But God used parts of this book to help me see how amazing the love is that Jesus has for each of us.

One of my favorite parts of the book talked about reaching others.  Jesus’ message is simple: God loves you and wants a relationship with you.  People: we complicate it!  We throw up all of these restrictions and weird rules in order to reach Him and to reach others for Him.

We say that Jesus wants everyone to come to Him, but then when someone shows up at our church that may not fit our happy church mold we don’t welcome them.  We assume the position: God wants you; just not at my church.  If you want Jesus you are going to have to shape up before you go forward and accept Him – I know your Facebook profile, I follow your Twitter feed, and there is no way you can say you want Jesus and really be serious about it!

Seriously!?!?!  Now if there was ever a moment for us to as Christians say WTF (what the faith?  yes I used it…judge me) then this is it! Jesus hung out with the lowest of low; why?  because they need Him!  We all need Him!  But who understands sin better than a sinner who isn’t pretending to be a saint?

Judah Smith, simply reasserts what Jesus told us so long ago.  In order to be an effective witness and reach people we need to follow this order for being witnesses to others:

1. Belong     2.  Believe     3.  Behave

I admit that I have often switched up the order when I’m trying to reach others!  Sadly, I’ve missed opportunities because of that…

So I’m not going to summarize the entire book for you.  Just know that it is an easy read, and it is a read that anyone who has been a Christian for a while needs to read. So often we get wrapped up in our little bubble and forget that Jesus told us to be witnesses…and that does not mean stay in your Christian circle and ignore everyone else around you.

If you want to learn more about the book you can do so here.  If you want to order the book you can do so here.

If you’ve read it, what did you think?

Mother’s Day: A History

Happy Mother’s Day!

I thought you might enjoy a brief history of Mother’s Day from History.com …

Mother’s Day is a holiday in honour of mothers that is celebrated in countries throughout the world. In its modern form the day originated in the United States, where it is observed on the second Sunday in May. Many other countries also celebrate the holiday on this date, while some mark the observance at other times of the year. During the Middle Ages the custom developed of allowing those who had moved away to visit their home parishes and their mothers on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. This became Mothering Sunday in Britain, where it continued into modern times, although it has largely been replaced by Mother’s Day.

Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, whose mother had organized women’s groups to promote friendship and health, originated Mother’s Day; on May 12, 1907, she held a memorial service at her late mother’s church in Grafton, West Virginia. Within five years virtually every state was observing the day, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday. Although Jarvis had promoted the wearing of a white carnation as a tribute to one’s mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased. Over time the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. What had originally been primarily a day of honour became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts, however, and, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being.

Pinterest Inspiration

Happy Friday!

Today I wanted to share some Pinterest inspiration.

<img src="http://

Source: octoberafternoon.typepad.com via Chrissy on Pinterest

” alt=”Amazing Layout from the October Afternoon Blog” />

This layout is by Jaime Warren. I love all of the layers!

If you haven’t yet discovered all of the fun that can be had on Pinterest I encourage you to check it out! You can always follow my boards here!