Bananas in a Beer Box

It has been one of those days. It is so hot outside you cannot breath and I spent my day cheering on the lovely young people strutting their stuff at the Junior Olympics at the A&T campus in Greensboro. It was awesome!! It looked like a herd of gazelles running through the desert. I must say I am quite happy my parents never made me do things like that, they were just happy that I stayed out of trouble.

So onto today's random post, because I really do not have much else planned for today's post.... Have you all looked around Pinterest and saw the little life hack pins that take up six screens? Well I love those things but I only "like" them so no one knows I think they are awesome...Okay, so one of those amazing life hacks was to keep bananas from ripening so fast. The suggestion was to not store them in a bunch and to separate them and put them individually in an empty six-pack carton.

That sounds brilliant, right?? No, it is actually not.
My fiance is a big banana fan and he eats at least one every day. So my smart self suggested we do this six pack storage and it would help them last longer. Let me just show you what actually happened to the slightly green bananas that had been on the counter before....

Yep, they ripened even faster than had they been sitting on the counter. But honestly who cares, I just went and purchased a whole new little cluster of them and replaced the old ones. I was quickly found out though when my lovely Shepherd came running out of my room with a receipt in her mouth telling of my dirty deed.

Well that's all for today guys :)
I promise we will do better tomorrow, like I said....It has been one of those days.

-Lindsey and Brittany

Beehive Bacardi Rum Cake

Hey guys!
Have you ever had one of those weekends where you wanted to have a good time then realized you have kids so that bottle of Bacardi will never actually get the chance to give you that nice buzz?
So rum cake was the next best option.
Plus I have this super awesome beehive cake pan I have been wanting to use all summer.

Here's the goods:
For the cake
1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 small box vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup white rum
2 tbsp. cinnamon
3/4 cup brown sugar

For the glaze
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white rum (this makes it pretty strong so use less if you prefer)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Cake:
1. Mix all ingredients
2. Mix for 2 minutes
3. Grease inside of a Bundt pan really well, then add a layer of nuts to the pan
4. Pour the batter inside the pan
5. Bake 50 minutes to an hour, until brown

Start making the glaze when the cake has about 10 minutes left to cook.

Glaze:
1. Melt butter in saucepan
2. Stir in water, sugar and, brown sugar
3. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly
4. Remove from heat
5. Let cool for a couple minutes and stir in the rum
6. Once the rum is mixed in well pour half the glaze on the cake
(if you let it sit too long it will separate and ruin the glaze)

7. After the cake has cooled off some invert it onto the serving dish
8. Pour the remainder of the glaze on top of the cake

Saturday Salt Dough Garden Mosaic

On Saturdays we plan to bring you tons of ideas on how to keep your little ones busy. Whether they love playing in the outdoors or they could be stuck inside on a rainy weekend day we will be providing several ideas to keep them up and active. Most of these ideas take supplies that are usually sitting around your home.

Today it was way too hot to play in the little kiddie pool in the back yard and not to mention its slightly green from yesterday's rain, so we had to keep the boys busy on the inside. I'm not one to put on the television and let them vegetate so I dug through the junk cabinet to find supplies for an indoor craft. Besides the fact it was my mother's birthday on Monday and I'm yet to give her a gift, things like this always make you look crafty yet heartfelt in your gift.
I found the article to make this craft in a stash of magazine pages my grandmother keeps for us. It is super easy and safe for the kids. I know my little one loved it and enjoyed tasting it.

Our first kid's activity is a Salt Dough Garden Mosaic:

Supplies:
3 Cups flour
1 Cup salt
1 1/4 Cups water (plus up to an additional 1/4 cup as needed)
(I ended up adding about 1/2 a cup to get it to a consistency I liked)

Go turn your oven on to 275 degrees real quick.

I recommend using an electric mixer on a medium speed.
After mixing all of the ingredients together you do not want the dough to be crumbly.
(this is where that extra water comes in)

This is also the step where you can add in any food coloring to change the color of the dough. I didn't want the dirty gray/white color so mine is blue. Well, more of a teal since I was using the neon collection food coloring.

Knead the dough until it is smooth and go ahead and divide it into pieces based on how large you want them. I broke mine into two pieces so the two little men could each make their own.
After I separated mine and put them on a piece of foil, I made them into the disk shape (make them a ball then flatten for an easy way to make a disk)The foil really helps with cleanup as well.

I was super lucky and found a bag of dollar store rocks in the craft closet.
(Which I believe every woman should have a craft closet)
I set the boys down, gave them each a handful of rocks and let the creative juices flow.

 
Transfer the foil and dough onto a baking sheet and leave them in for two hours.
Let them cool and check for any loose stones. If any did fall out then take some tacky glue and replace it. No one will know but you.

Now you have a gorgeous decoration for your porch or a heartfelt gift for that grandmother who swears she never sees her grand babies.
Thanks so much for checking us out and we will be back tomorrow!

-Brittany and Lindsey