Errata Corrected

Sorry about the recipe at the end of the blog. I was trying to do two columns, then I aligned right and everything smashed together. I didn't catch it in the preview, cause I didn't do a last preview. When I read my blog and saw it all smashed I thought that I had lost the second column ingredients, so I shoved them in at the end. So who could tell how many bananas actually go into this recipe. Is it three twice or is it just three mashed bananas. You actually should say smashed bananas in a high-falutin English accent. My spell check doesn't like the way I spelled falutin. How do you spell that word. I don't want to look it up. So anyway, here is the recipe. Everything will be in one column so there will be no chance of messing up again.

Sour Cream Banana Bars

1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup softened butter (not melted)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (three large bananas) (don't forget the accent)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Turn on your oven to 375. Mix the sugar, sour cream and butter. Get them nice and blended.Add the eggs, banana, and vanilla. That has me thinking does everybody need
more Mexican vanilla. I still have a stash. I should have sent some out with Seth. Oh well. Noah and Becky are probably coming here for Thanksgiving and we can send some back to Utah with some. I should have sent some with Shelley when she went to Ethiopia for the first time. Now I'm feeling guilty because of my vanilla stash. Back to reality. The Mexican vanilla is good in this recipe, but so is any other vanilla. Add your flour. Mix it in well. Add the baking soda and the salt. Last of all stir in the nuts. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. When it has cooled frost and enjoy. Oh I'm sorry I forgot to tell you to bake this in a jelly roll pan. PLEASE READ THE RECIPE BEFORE YOU START PUTTING THIS TOGETHER. (So you can get the jelly roll pan part.) Hope this is not too crazy. Well maybe a little crazy, but not so crazy that you can't make the recipe.

Not So New Toy and Mom's Party

This is our not so new toy. It is called a "Red Dragon" and it shoots out flames that are very effective at killing weeds. I asked for it for Mother's Day a few years ago and and then it got shoved into the back of the garage and I forgot that we had it. However in our fervent battle against the weeds in our yard we found it and promptly put it to work. It makes a loud roar of a sound and the weeds end up decimated. Unfortunately we can only use it on stone, brick or dirt. If we use it on the weeds in our wood mulch Smokey the Bear would be right on us telling us not to start wild fires. It is a fun tool, but hand weeding has still not been eliminated.

The weeds did not have a chance.

It was great to see them wither away and die into a heap of cinders.

I'm starting a contest. The contest is for the longest root on a weed. This is the weed root we are entering. It was a red root weed (Say that five times really fast). Seth is the person who pulled it. We didn't measure it but it was the longest one that we have had this whole summer.

Now for the party. The yard has never looked so fine. It was just beautiful.

I love this window box.

My hydrangeas are blooming, and they have been blooming all summer long.

Rachel weeded the curvy bed for me. She worked so hard to help get the yard looking so pretty.

More of the curvy bed. We've had so much rain lately that I don't have to fill any of the bird baths.

These little flowers are right next to the street, underneath my mailbox.

The patio is all ready for my guests.

We had fruit kebabs, a cheese tray with french bread, cut vegetables with dip, sour cream banana bars (the recipe follows) and mango sorbet. Plus punch and water.
Now you see the other end of the food table. This was not the glamorous end of the table.

I had such a good time hosting the party. We talked and laughed and ate ourselves silly. When the party broke up we were surprised that the three hours had gone so fast. It came together cause I had lots of help. Maurie shopped, Rachel helped me prepare the food and Kate arrived early and helped pull everything together. It was a lovely evening and the only thing missing was that all of you were not here with me.

And now for that recipe. Sour Cream Banana Bars is a family favorite. The recipe makes a lot, but still they go fast because they are so delicious. One tip, you have to make the frosting. The frosting just makes this a real treat.

1 and1/2 cup sugar 2 cup flour
1 cup sour cream 1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup softened butter 1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 and 1/2 cups mashed banana Browned Butter Frosting
(about 3 large) (below)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon slat
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Brown Buttered Frosting (below)


Heat oven to 375. Grease and flour a jelly roll pan, 151/2 x10 1/2 x1 inch. Mix sugar, sour cream, butter and eggs in large mixing bowl. Beat for one minute. Beat in bananas and vanilla on low speed. Beat in flour, salt, and baking soda on medium speed. Scrape bowl and stir in nuts. Spread dough in pan. Bake until light brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool and frost with Brown Butter Frosting. Cut into bars about 2 x 1 1/2 inches. makes 4 dozen cookies

Brown Butter Frosting

Heat 1/2 cup butter over medium heat until delicate brown; remove from heat. Mix in four cups of powdered sugar. Beat in 2 teaspoons vanilla and five to six tablespoons of milk until smooth and of spreading consistency.

We love these treats and we think that you will too.

Summer Fun

Rachel took this picture because she believes that it looks like a face. You have to look hard with your eyes in a squint. Oh yeah, now I see it.

When my kids were little I would tuck them into bed really tight. They were very snug and I called it making a pie. The other morning Maurie wanted to have me make him into a pie and so I did. I still have my skills.

The boys were decorating there very own cupcakes. Sean went for chocolate and mustachios.

This is Jack and his creation.

Ewan has an ocean theme. Very creative.

Liam with more ocean theme. What else are you going to do with the Swedish fish?

I got my pictures out of order. Jack and Liam are making the cupcake batter. They helped make three different kinds of batter. We had chocolate, yellow and carrot.

Now for some pictures of the yard. The front flower bed withe window boxes in the background.

The orange section of the long bed.

My herbs are doing very well.

If you look close you can see some baby green tomatoes.

Here are some green peppers.

This is Seth's foot by a zucchini. The foot is so that you can get an idea of how big the zucchini is. We picked all the zucchinis last week. We gave some away,some went into the best zucchini bread ever and I still have three more to do something with, I'm not sure what.

Here is Seth's zucchini plant. The great producer.

The turtles with the stones finished underneath. Please pay no attention to the weeds. I'm going to pretend they are not there.

It's madness. Everything is growing like crazy.

This is Rachel's statue. The girl is lying down reading a book. Of course it's Rachel's statue. That is huechera growing up all over her.

The patio. Please notice the party lights. Maurie bought them ages ago, but Rachel just put them up.

The bench area under the lilacs. That one chair in the middle is supposed to be back by the fire pit, but it wandered up so it could be cool in the shade and have a nice friendly conversation with more mature benches.

The Karl Forester tops have turned golden.

This my Mother's Day present. It's getting giant big.

This a picture of normal Seth.

This is a picture of husky, muscular Seth. What makes the difference, you ask?

Twenty five t-shirts. Yeah the boy put on twenty five t-shirts. Next it will probably be socks. What can you put twenty five of on? He did have some help getting all the shirts on. Why does my son need twenty five of anything?

Our Yard

Who is this man? Why yes it is Peter Schickele, better known to us as PDQ Bach. We went to one of his concerts in Chicago last week. It was hilarious. We laughed and laughed. He has gotten really old. He is 77 and he walks with a cane but he is still very funny and the material e presented was all new. None of the old stuff. We enjoyed the concert.

NOW FOR THE GARDEN

The yard is looking so good. I wish that you all could come and visit and see the lovely results of Maurie's planning and labor. Of course if you all came to visit I would have to put you to sleep on the blow-up mattresses and I don't know that the yard is pretty enough to put up with our sleeping arrangements for large groups. Sooo, here are some pictures of what the yard is looking like as of this moment. Rachel took these pictures just a few minutes ago.

This the flag bed. Of course it is named the flag bed. It is filled with lavender, dahlias and marigolds. It is raised up a little over a foot. The front walk curves in front of it.

This is the other side of the front of the house. You can see where the walk straightens out to go into the front door. On this side of the walk there are ferns, geraniums, petunias and hydrangeas.

This the very front of the curvy bed. In early spring it is filled with yellow and pink tulips, but last week Rachel trimmed off all the spent growth and then Maurie planted these pretty pink begonias. This flower bed has a bird bath, barbury and chrysanthemums that bloom in the fall.

Here are some metal sunflowers. They always bloom no matter the temperature.

Jenny remember that lattice that the guys wrestled with last May for the Open House? Here it reincarnated as a screen that covers up our air conditioning unit and the little shed that hols all the cushions for the table on the back patio.

These are the window boxes that hang under Rachel's bedroom windows. You can see the ferns trying to reach into that space. When we first planted them we worried every spring if they would come back, but now they are so firmly entrenched in that part of the flower bed that we worry now about them taking over the hydrangeas.

This is the beginning of the long bed out by the street. You can see the bottom of the mailbox. This is the pink section.

More of the pink section with the crazy bird.

Rachel loves this iris and so of course there is a picture of it. This iris is not in the blue section of the long bed, but it is so beautiful that we don't care.

This blooms properly in the blue section of the long bed.

The red section with an allium out of place. And again we don't care.

Another beautiful iris. This one is blooming in the right spot.

You guessed it. The orange section.

The yellow section follows right after the orange.

This is another metal flower. Sorry that it doesn't stand out against the fence. I asked Rachel not to put it in but she is an artiste and her work is not to be questioned.

We have all kinds of columbine in our yard but I love this blue. It is my favorite.

The poppies bloom out of place too in our rainbow long bed. But Maurie loves poppies and they are the only flower that is still coming back every year. He planted these thirty years ago.

Around in back on the patio is this small bed that id filled with herbs.

Here is another section of the same bed. You can see the basil, rosemary, cilantro and more.

One of the containers. It is in the little seating area just off the patio,

Another container just on the other side of one of the benches.

In the far back yard by the fire pit another container has been filled with geraniums and that little blue flower that you see in so many containers.

This is Titus the tortoise. He is standing right in front of the big container.

Right next to Titus is Timothy. He hasn't had all of his rocks placed yet, but soon. He is a an exact but smaller version of Titus. The grandsons play on them.

Across the back yard has been planted with arborvitae. There are twenty four of them and they will grow tall enough to shield us from our neighbors and hopefully give us back our sense of privacy. Our backyard use to open out onto a field, but no more.

Shelley, here is that flower bed that you cleaned out in March. The petunias will fill it nicely. The water in the bird bath looks a little manky, however.

This is our orange blossom shrub. It always reminds me of Miles and Gigi because we cut all the flowers of fto decorate at the church for their wedding reception. The blossoms smell so good.

Here is another view of the lattice. I think Seth will be painting it all white as soon as school is out. Lucky Seth.

Here is another rusty metal flower. I think this one is supposed to be a rose. Illinois is rotten at roses. It is too wet and the air is too humid.