Blender Whole Wheat Pancakes

My kids love love love these pancakes!  So, I thought I would share them with you.

 They take a few minutes to make, but are super easy. 
For the pancakes you'll need:
   a blender
   1 1/2 cups milk
   1 cup whole wheat (you can get these in large buckets at Walmart or Costco, or in smaller amounts at
                                 stores that sell grains- usually in bulk bins.  They are also called kernals or berries.)
   2 eggs
   1/3 cup oil
   1 Tbsp sugar
   1Tbsp baking powder
   dash of salt

For the apple cider syrup:
   1 cup sugar
   2 Tbsp cornstarch
   1/2 tsp cinnamon
   2 cups apple juice or apple cider
   2 Tbsp lemon juice
   1/4 cup butter

Yes, my syrup is in a vase.  Apparently even though we had gravy at nearly every family dinner, I can't find a gravy boat in all my Granner's dishes.  Oh well, one more thing to add to the never-ending list of things to get.

Anyway, back to the pancakes.

On high speed, blend 1 cup milk and 1 cup whole wheat in blender for three minutes.  Add the other 1/2 cup milk and blend for two more minutes.  Add the 2 eggs, 1/3 cup oil, 1 Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp baking powder and dash of salt. (you can add a little vanilla if you like also).  Blend together and cook.  They make nice flat pancakes that stack up really well on a plate. My boys think a stack of pancakes is the coolest thing ever.

The apple cider syrup we usually put over our pumpkin pancakes, but we were out of regular syrup, so we made it for these ones today.  They turned out really yummy together.

Mix 1 cup sugar, 2 Tbsp cornstarch and 1/2 tsp cinnamon in a small saucepan.  Stir in 2 cups apple cider or juice, and 2 Tbsp lemon juice.  Cook on stove over med-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils for 1 minute.  Remove from heat and blend in butter.  Serve over pancakes or waffles.

Add some berries or bananas and you'll have some happy breakfast buddies.

And hopefully that stack of pancakes will be going....

going....

and gone in no time!

Pirate Summer PJs

I made these cute tank tops for my Berkeley the other day and had a lot of the pirate knit and lime ribbing left over.

So, I made some pirate pjs for my boys to wear this summer.  I took some of Brady's pj shorts and traced them to make a pattern.  I liked those ones because there is no side seam or butt triangle on them.  Just one piece for each leg.  Here's how they turned out:

That's a lot of pirate booty!  They were having a good time, but there wasn't quite enough light without the flash.

We are apparently not very photogenic today, and Brady's shirt is already dirty.

To make the shirts, I used Dana's 90-minute shirt tutorial, but mine never come out quite as nice as hers.  I think I need to tweak my pattern a little.  I made the green one first, and I think the black one came out better after a pattern alteration.  Brady's neckline is too high, and Stephen's is too low.  I think somewhere in the middle should be perfect.

I did an elastic waist and just sewed the shorts onto the inside of it instead of encasing it.

I made the new ones a little longer because I'm not super fond of the short ones, especially on boys.  They were really easy and turned out pretty cute.  I mean... Arrgh, they be lookin fine.  Just right for getting cozy at bedtime. 

If I can figure out how, I will put my pattern template and more of a tutorial on here.  These ones are about a size 3T.