These muffins are from Shauna Niequist’s blog. I made them this morning on this cold snow day. They seemed perfect. All we do on snow days is cook and eat and watch movies and do our bible studies. Snow days are perfect. As a homeschooler I really can’t remember ever having snow days, but we’ve had 2 since I’ve moved to Kansas. They don’t know how to deal with snow like we do in NY.

Anyway, these muffins are gluten-free, sugar-free and delicious! I added pecans and chocolate chips, but there are so many different things you could add I can’t wait to try them again! Here’s the recipe:

Pumpkin-Banana-Anything Muffins

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl, mix together:

3 bananas, the browner the better, mashed

½ can pumpkin puree (about 1 ½ cups)

2 eggs, beaten

Then add:

2 cups almond meal

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking soda

And mix again. Then add:

1 cup frozen blueberries (or another fresh or frozen fruit)

½ cup walnuts & ½ cup dark chocolate chips
(or one cup of whatever dry mix-ins you like—nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips)

Mix well, and then spoon batter into 12 greased muffin cups, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan, and then eat these healthy lovely muffins with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea or coffee with lots of almond milk, and then feel like one million dollars for having made the healthiest muffins on the planet.

To check out Shauna’s blog, click here. She’s one of my favorite people. Her new book Bread & Wine is thrilling me to pieces and I can’t wait to write the review for it!  

I AM SO EXCITED!!! I just got asked to read and write a review for Shauna Niequist’s new book Bread & Wine. Shauna is one of my FAVORITE authors and I am thrilled that I have been given this opportunity and just wanted to share it with you! Look for the review sometime in March.

Here’s a link to her blog and a brief bio:

Shauna’s Bio

Shauna Niequist is the author of Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, and Bread & Wine. Shauna grew up in Barrington, Illinois, and then studied English and French Literature at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. She is married to Aaron, who is a pianist and songwriter. Aaron is a worship leader at Willow Creek and is recording a project called A New Liturgy. Aaron & Shauna live outside Chicago with their sons, Henry and Mac. Shauna writes about the beautiful and broken moments of everyday life–friendship, family, faith, food, marriage, love, babies, books, celebration, heartache, and all the other things that shape us, delight us, and reveal to us the heart of God.

http://www.shaunaniequist.com/

My roomie celebrates ukrainian Christmas and her family always makes peirogies for dinner. So we set out to do our own Ukrainian Christmas dinner. 

Liz doesn’t do well with onions. They made her cry something fierce.

The dough is almost the same as pasta dough. You mix it all right on the counter.

And the knead it forever and ever. It took a really long time to get it to the right consistency.

I made the sauerkraut. I have never done that before. I have also never eaten it before. It was good! Of course I made it with Guinness. Yum. Guinness makes everything yummy.

We rolled out the dough and cut circles.

We then filled the circles with a delicious mashed potato and cheese mixture.

They turned out so cute.

Liz loved making them!

We pan-fried some kielbasa. I haven’t had it in forever. My grandma used to make it for us.

Then fried the pierogies with some onions and garlic. Then everything goes into a pan all together. sauerkraut, kielbasa, & pierogies. We popped it in the oven for a few minutes to make sure everything was warm.

Dinner is served!

Merry Christmas!

For Christmas, my lovely, artsy friend gave me this sketch book. It’s called One Sketch A Day: A visual journal.

A yearlong record of sketches
because every daily drawing
is worthy of remembrance.

It has spaces for you to make a small sketch every day of the year. I love it! It has only been about two weeks, but I love thinking, planning, and executing my sketches every day.

She is doing one as well, so its fun to share pictures and see how we are growing. I can’t wait to see how much we improve by the end of the year! I’ve added a new page at the top of the blog so you can check in weekly to see the progress!

Check in here for updates: https://cragsandclay.wordpress.com/a-sketch-a-day/

As I sit here at the cusp of the new year, I think back to my journey through 2012.  I helped plan, and went to a ton of weddings. Was mostly gluten-free for the entire year. (Some weeks were better than others) Lost 20 pounds. My bff moved to Kansas. So then I did too. I tubed down a river. Worked at 5 different Starbucks. Read the entire chronicles of Narnia twice. (At least)  And welcomed a few babies into our circle of friends!

It was a busy year. It flew by.

Weddings, babies, adventures…
I moved to Kansas.
I saw wild buffalo.
I went to Dallas.
I went to Ohio… twice
I went to North Carolina… three times

2012

I made so many cupcakes this year…I wish I had counted them…lets say it’s easily over 500

My cute sister got married

My beautiful friend Liz got baptized…and then moved to Kansas

I ate poutine for the first (and not last) time

Went to Ithaca for the first time… Gorgeous

Climbed a mountain

Bought a new car (Caroline)

I have the best friends in the whole world I love them LOTS. They made this for me when I moved and it now hangs in my new room in Kansas. Reminding me of how great they all are!

My lifelong friend Allie started her battle with cancer at the very beginning of 2012. At the end of the year, she WON and is now cancer free!

I went to the Indianapolis speedway

Went up in the St. Louis arch

Moved to Kansas!

Saw this guy

Almost got run down by these wild buffalo

Tried wearing lipstick

Met this guy

And…my Papa is the cutest 🙂

Happy 2013

Here’s a quick rundown of all the fun things I made for Christmas gifts this year!

Stashing through the snow tree ornaments. For the mustache man in your life… These were so fun and so easy. I’ll definitely be making more for next year!

I made LOTS of scarves this year. I discovered how easy it was to make infinity scarves and went a little crazy. Everyone got one this year. Hurray for warm necks!

I also made a ton of bow ties. For all my hipster friends of course. I doubt any of them will actually wear them in real life, but it sure was fun to make them.

Ethan was a willing model for my very first bow tie.

The map head acted as a model as well. Doesn’t she look fabulous?

Colton was my final mode. Ain’t they cute?

I made these paper bag envelopes to wrap the ties in. They came out so great and they were super easy.

I made these mittens out of an old sweater from goodwill. They didn’t turn out perfect, but its a great idea and I’ll definitely be creating more things out of old sweaters! Great way to re-purpose!