Banana Bread Recipe

Being the Disney loving family that we are, it's no surprise we have more than one Disney cookbook in the house!  Over the weekend, I made the Banana Bread recipe from the Cooking with Mickey cookbook.  This recipe is for the banana bread that was served at the Monorail Cafe at the Disneyland Hotel (which was closed back in 1999).  It was a little more dense than other banana bread recipes I used, but it was still just as tasty! The recipe is included below.  Let me know if you try it and how you like it! 😃

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons of water
• 2 cups bananas, mashed
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped  (We didn't have any, so I made this without nuts.  Still good!)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda.  Set aside.
3. Melt butter on the stove or in the microwave.  Mix butter and sugar until well blended.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.  Add bananas and vanilla.  Fold in flour mixture and walnuts and blend until all flour is moist.
4. Grease 2 loaf pans and divide batter equally between the 2 pans.
5. Bake for 1 hour or until center of loaf is firm and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Literacy Activities

I don't think I've been on Pinterest as much in the past few years as I've been on it the past couple of weeks.  Marshall is constantly wanting to do crafts and he loves to learn, and I'm running out of ideas to keep him interested and busy!

This first activity I found is super quick and easy, and you probably already have all the materials at home.  All you need is a paper towel tube (or a few toilet paper tubes), blank stickers, and a pen or marker.  I used these leftover circle stickers from a yard sale. We quickly realized that these stickers didn't stick very well to the tube, so I put clear tape over each one as Marshall matched the letters.  I probably more tape on than necessary, but I wanted to be sure it was secure.  This paper towel roll has now held up for several weeks of playing, and I think it's from the extra stability from the tape. ha!

On the paper towel tube, I wrote all uppercase letters and on the stickers I wrote lowercase letters.  The idea is to match the uppercase & lowercase stickers.  You can go in alphabetical order if you want, but you honestly don't have to.  Marshall didn't, and I think he had more fun doing it in his own order.

Marshall has loved spelling ever since he first started learning letters.  If he hears a word in conversation, on the radio, on TV, etc., he'll ask how do you spell it. It can be the most random word, but he'll want to know how to spell it!  Last summer, we really started working on sight words, which he picked up in no time--it amazed me how quickly he was learning.

I also made this activity from things we had around the house and in our craft bin: paper, markers, letter beads, pipe cleaners.

I wrote out a bunch of sight words that he already knows, as well as some words that he's been working on.  He chooses a word to do and then looks through all the beads to find the letters to thread onto the pipe cleaner.  The most time consuming part of this activity was when I went through a jar of assorted beads finding all the letters to begin with! haha.

Hopefully these are some ideas you can do while we're all at home for the foreseeable future!

My 2020 Planner - Re-purposed!

In the midst of all the "Coronavirus Crazy" going on right now, I've seen several posts on Facebook (mostly memes) joking about why did we even bother with buying 2020 planners this year?  Schools are closed, meetings and events are cancelled, so what do we even need a planner for anymore?

Well, instead of just leaving mine sitting on the kitchen table collecting dust --and dust is really attracted to our table for some reason-- I've just re-purposed my planner for this current time we're in!

Since I'm working from home and Marshall and Mace are home each day now, I've had to figure out some sort of schedule to make our days flow smoothly.  I started off by trying to set specific times for everything, but I realized that everything mostly just depends on when they each wake up, when Mace goes down for a morning nap, etc.  Now, we just have an "order of events," if you will.  One thing that's always included is Marshall's favorite: CRAFTS!  

I've never seen a kid who loves crafts more!  We have a huge tote in our downstairs closet with all of his craft supplies, but because of the awkwardness of the closet, it was just annoying and cumbersome pulling the container out every day.  Now, here's where the planner comes in.  I plan out which crafts we're going to do each day, and what supplies we'll need.  Then, before the week starts, I gather all of those supplies and store them in one of these photo boxes, which I love for both photo storage and craft storage.  It's such a simple concept when you think about it, but it really helps with not only preventing me from pulling out the huge craft tote every day, but also just having a plan set before the week even starts.

(In this picture of my planner, you may notice I didn't have a bulleted list of supplies for Monday.  I knew ahead of time that that would be Monday's craft, and while Marshall was painting, that's when I gathered all the supplies for the rest of the week and put them in the box.)

Welcome!

This blog has been in the works for a while. A long while.  To be exact: I created an Instagram account for @momwifedisneylife in July 2019, with no idea of the exact direction it would go.  The phrase "Mom, Wife, Disney Life" popped in my head one day out of the blue, and the way it flowed and rhymed nicely just always stuck with me. 

I didn't want to intertwine post ideas for this blog with the posts of my personal blog (that I know I'm slacking on...), even though most of them would probably be able to go on either blog.  Everything on this blog will fall under the category of "Mom," "Wife," or "Disney Life."  Three of my favorite things.

For example:

• Some of the upcoming "Mom" posts will be about the fun crafts and activities I've done with Marshall and/or Mace.  And we've done A LOT in the past two and a half weeks of being home due to the coronavirus.
• "Wife" related posts will be things like recipes I've tried, or just some life hacks here and there.
• And, I'm sure you can guess what you can find in the "Disney Life" posts.  Some posts will be from personal experiences (because our external hard drive started freaking out and I never got to finish posting about our trip to Disney in 2018!), or things that may be on my Disney bucket list!  In our family group text this morning (Mom, Dad, Abby, Matt & me), we were all talking about Disney, and I said, "Let's face it.  I already have an imaginary trip 80% planned anyway. 😂") That statement isn't a lie! haha.  I just love Disney THAT much.

So, even though it may take me a while to get this up and running, I hope you'll stick around for the ride!