One Navy Wife's Scrappy Point of View

Life as Mom has a recipe swap going on every Thursday and today is all about yummy summer desserts! One of my favorites has always been banana pudding. I remember my Grannie making it often when I was little. This recipe is very similar to the one she used to make, but just a tad fluffier.

Creamy Banana Pudding
(makes 15 servings)

1/4 cup lemon juice
6-7 medium banana, sliced
3 cups 2% milk
2 (4oz) packages vanilla instant pudding
1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk
16 oz. Cool Whip, thawed
1 (16oz) package Vanilla Wafers

Drizzle lemon juice over banana slices. Whisk milk and pudding in large bowl for 3-4 minutes or until blended and slightly thickened. Add condensed milk and mix well. Chill 5 minutes. Fold in whipped topping. Layer Vanilla Wafers, bananas, and pudding mix alternately in large serving bowl until all ingredients are used, ending with pudding mix. Store, covered, in fridge until serving.


If I am taking this to a potluck or serving to friends, then I add some decorative touches to the top with extra Cool Whip.

I've been very unmotivated to blog lately. I guess that's because there just isn't that much going on here these days. T is in school until next Thursday (why on earth do they need to be in school that long!?!) and then we are headed to SC for a couple of weeks. Once there, we have a bunch planned-C has a reunion to go to with his fraternity and we are going camping with my mom and sister for several days. I am hoping to meet up with a couple of friends while we are there also. And of course, we have to see family so it will be never ending. Oh, the joys of going home.
I found this cool blog that is listing some things to do with your kids throughout the summer. Life as Mom has done all the research stuff and is listing it all on her site for others to use. It looks like it will be fun, as well as fairly educational for the kiddos. She will have a different theme posted each Monday through Labor Day. Go here to see what she has already posted. At the very bottom, she has posted the theme for each week. Next week will be great since we are going camping right after that.
Well, that's about all I have for now.

I have been away for a couple of weeks so I didn't get to finish my spring cleaning project. With Simple Mom. Once I get caught up on laundry and other stuff, I am going to continue the process.

I posted this on FB, but wanted to post it here too. The reason I have been away from home. He had a massive heart attack while getting ready to go camping with my mom and sister on Mother's Day, which was also my sister's birthday.

Kenneth Allen Winham

5/12/2009 12:47 AM

Mr. Kenneth Allen Winham, 60, died Sunday, May 10, 2009, at Aiken Regional Medical Centers.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Harvest Baptist Church with Rev. Glen Davis officiating. Interment will follow in Aiken Memorial Gardens.

Pallbearers will be Ricky Woodward, Dewey Toole, Bobby Timmerman, Joshua Barron, Cameron Baynham and Joseph Baynham. Honorary pallbearers will be S.C. Highway Department maintenance employees in Aiken.

Mr. Winham was born in Louisiana, a son of Lila Mae Reese Palmer of Shreveport, La., and the late Morris Allen Winham. He moved to Aiken in 1969 and was a supervisor with the S.C. Highway Department. He was also a member of Bethel Baptist Church.

In addition to his mother, he is survived by his beloved wife, Phyllis Funderburg Winham; two daughters, Becky (Caleb) Risinger of Middletown, R.I., and Bonnie Winham of Aiken; a son, Michael (Terri) Winham of Louisiana; two grandchildren, Teddy and Kelsie Risinger; three sisters, Dorothy (Richard) Rouse of Ft. Worth, Texas, Marsha Miller of Owensboro, Ky., and Joyce Welch of Ft. Worth, Texas; and a brother, James (Thelma) Winham of Johnston.

Memorials may be directed to the Aiken Heart Association, 1003 Hammond Road, Aiken, SC 29803.

Mr. Winham's online guest book may be signed at www.shellhousefuneralhome.com.

Pasted from <http://www.aikenstandard.com/obits/winham>

I never would have thought that it would take me 2 days to clean the living room, especially considering that the only thing that really needed decluttering/cleaning was the bookshelves and movie cabinet. I do need to switch out some toys for K, but those are in boxes in the garage so they will have to wait until we can get them out. But, the bookshelves are now decluttered and the movie cabinet is looking better. I put all of our DVD's into a case and tossed all of the individual plastic cases. I am hoping that we can get C's dad to put most, if not all, of our VHS movies onto DVD for us since he has one of those nifty little machines that does that. And then, the movie cabinet will look awesome!!
Here is a before pic of the bookshelves:

And here are the after pics:

I left the bottom 2 shelves on each one open because K likes to pull anything on those shelves off. I am going to get some baskets to put some toys in for her so they are not out in the open and it looks nicer.
And I have a nice little box of stuff for the thrift store. I hate doing yard sales so I am not even going to bother with trying to do that. I suppose I could try to sell some of the books on ebay or another used book site, but I don't know that I want to do that either. I don't have the patience to list each one, much less that much uninterupted time.
Today and tomorrow (and maybe the day after!) I am working in the kitchen. I did unclutter some of that before we moved, but I think I can overhaul it some more. We'll see. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any before shots yet. But I still have a ways to go so maybe I will get one or two at least!

I decided to do some spring cleaning with Simple Mom. She has a pretty good way of doing things and it just might make life a little easier along the way too.
Here are some photos of what I have gotten done so far today.

before
after

before
after

before
after

I am pretty much done with the downstairs. It isn't anywhere near done, but it looks better. Not a lot in my giveaway box, but that is only because I have mostly paper clutter downstairs. I should have more later this afternoon after I have gone through the upstairs bedrooms. I'll post more on that this evening.

K is finally getting some hair to play with! Unfortunately, its so thin that it barely stays up! She is a cutie anyway.



C and T went fishing this past weekend and caught the most fish they have ever caught together. T even caught most of them himself. When I told him that he had to help his daddy clean the fish, he informed me that was "only for when it was a contest and they had not been having a contest." Crazy kid. He went off to play and when he came back to find the fish already cleaned, he was upset that he didn't get to watch/help.



The weather is finally warming up here in New England! Yippee! The sad thing is that the temp was only in the high 80's this past weekend and some of the kids were complaining that it was "sooo hot". C and I had a good laugh over that. Being from SC gave us a pretty good tolerance for heat, I guess.

That's about all that's going on around here. Just waiting for school to get out for the summer. We found out that T's school is being closed at the end of this school year so he will be going to a different school next year. 4 schools in 2 years is not such a good thing, I don't think (we will move again in Feb/Mar next year). Thoughts of homeschooling have crossed my mind, but I'm not convinced that I want to go that route-T just doesn't learn that well from me/us well anymore. Unless, that is, its about something totally useless, like fishing or how to store worms for fishing. We'll see what time brings.

Here are some Easter pics of the kids. It was pretty chilly that day so they didn't get to spend too much time outside, other than the walk we took at a local park (where we nearly froze to death!).


T refused to wear a coat to church that morning so he complained the whole time, of course.
I can see a very faint glimmer of warmer weather on the horizon. It's been in the 50's the last few days and may hit 60 this weekend. But according to the weather channel, it's gonna rain just about every day next week. Blah! At least it has been sunny so T has been able to go outside for most of his Spring Break this week!
That is about all that is going on around here. C is pretty busy with school work and T is also so we don't have any big plans coming up. Hopefully, we will sit down and plan our summer in the the next week or so. Warm weather can't get here fast enough!!