Why Morning Glories? (purpose + recipe)

When I switched my blog name a few years ago, I knew there was a Morning Glory flower. But, I had no idea there were Morning Glory muffins! Recently I discovered them and these muffins, so unusual, were delightful! I decided I must have the recipe and make them, since after all, my blog name is Morning Glories. However, upon searching for a Morning Glory muffin recipe, I found 5,976 recipes and they were all different! Okay, maybe not that many, but I didn't find a single recipe that was the same.

So, I improvised, or mixed and matched what I liked best and crossed my fingers! Turns out, these muffins were delightful too! A hit in our house, means surely a success in yours! So I'm going to share it with you!

But before you go thinking I'm a food blogger (that's really my sister, Mary), I wanted to share a little about why this blog is called Morning Glories. Like I said before, I changed this blog to Morning Glories a few years ago. I was just in the mood for a change and wanted to take our family name out of the blog title and web address or url or whatever it's called. So I thought long and hard about why I was blogging and what my purpose was. I even had blog name rankings with Hubby! Finally, I came up with a title that just fit. I wrote about it when I first changed the blog to Morning Glories, and this explains it all . . .

Why Morning Glories?

When I was little, not even that little, my mom would always come in and wake us up in the mornings. She would, in a very sing-song voice come into my room, open the blinds right beside my bed and say, "Rise and Shine, Morning Glory!" Occasionally, on my grumpier mornings, this would annoy me. But, more often than not, I loved being her Morning Glory. It wasn't about the name she called me, but it was that she had a name for me (one of many) and more importantly, that she loved me--I always knew it and I still do. The care she took to greet my sister and me with cheerfulness and sunshine in the morning was not lost on me. So, Morning Glories is a tribute to my mom and that place of love she created for me!

It's in that same way, that Chad and I want to raise our children--to grow them up (not as flowers, but like flowers grow). We have been blessed to both be raised in love and to love the Lord. We want our children to know our love for each other in our marriage and our love for them, and we are confident they already do. And just as importantly, we want our boys to know of our love for the Lord. Our purpose in our marriage, in our family and in our lives is to glorify the Lord. The word, glory, means adoring praise or worshipful thanksgiving. And, while life is not about glorifying the Lord only in the mornings, starting our day giving glory to Him is what our family is striving for.

A recipe for your morning

I've written down this recipe, because it was successful and delicious, but there are so many ways to make these muffins. See what you think!

Morning Glory muffins

Ingredients
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs + (1 Tbsp of ground flax seed and 3 Tbsp of water = 1 egg), so I used 2 eggs and this substitute for an egg
3/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 -8oz. can crushed pineapple (undrained)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup golden raisins
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In a different bowl, combine the eggs, oil, vanilla and pineapple. Stir this into the dry ingredients. Add the coconut, raisins, carrots and pecans and stir to combine. Fill lightly greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes!

Enjoy! And thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy that too!

My morning glories

Well, the start of the school year approaching and all that comes with it, has sent me into hiding. My hubby and biggest encourager, reminded me it was time for a new header, so I finally got to it! As you may or may not know, every year for the past 7 years, we make a trip to our local sunflower patch. So every year, this little space gets fresh photos of the boys and how they've grown since the previous year! I enjoying perusing and reflecting and so this year, my post title is this blog's name, a perfect blend of my blogging goals. If you don't know why Morning Glories is in fact Morning Glories, you should read this, where I lay out just why I chose this name!

 

But back to it, this may have been our quickest sunflower photo shoot on record. The rain clouds were quickly heading our way, and for some very strange reason, our boys were cooperative and eager to smile for Mommy! They actually look forward to the trip and love being to run around in the sunflower patch! This year, we moved back to our original patch, because some of the sunflowers had been turned to corn fields. But no worries, as I mentioned in last year's sunflower post part 1, it's a tough call on whether this yearly shoot is more about the sunflowers or more about the boys. I think both!We didn't have our back to school haircuts yet, so these boys are shaggy, but I love it! 

Charlie has the best hair--so dreamy and surfy to me. Think he'll love it when he's older! He was the one most "on cue" for our outing!

 And Luke, he is looking way too old!! Such a sweetie!

Miles was off and running as usual, and just like last year, when I couldn't even get an individual photo of him. Thankfully this year, I snagged one!

And here's Baby Way, making his 2nd sunflower appearance. Yes, we took him when he was 10 days old last year! Look how much the little cutie has grown!!!

 

 Love this photo of all of my boys. What a blessed woman I am!

 

Soaking up the last few days of summer with my family! I love this season!!

time for a change. . .

So March is here. Once again a new month--a perfect time for a change! I've been contemplating a blog name change for a while now. A few things have led me to this. One, I've been blogging for about 4 years with the same name. Time for something new. Another reason is that I didn't really want our name in our title. Our blog has been linked to several others through friends and other blogs and through my photography, so I just wanted to take our name out of it. I don't mind it being in our blog address for now, because often people just click on a blog name or through their Reader and don't even remember the blog address.

But my main reason for changing our little blog title is to recommit why I am blogging. I started this as a journal for our family, a place to keep records for our boys and us, and also to keep friends and family updated on the goings on of our lives. The everyday stuff and the milestones. But, I feel like our little blog has evolved some, and I'm realizing I'm sharing lots more about who our family is. I want to make sure that I am clear on what our family stands for. Or who. So, Morning Glories, came to mind.

When I was little, not even that little, my mom would always come in and wake us up in the mornings. She would, in a very sing-song voice come into my room, open the blinds right beside my bed and say, "Rise and Shine, Morning Glory!" Occasionally, on my grumpier mornings, this would annoy me. But, more often than not, I loved being her Morning Glory. It wasn't about the name she called me, but it was that she had a name for me (one of many) and more importantly, that she loved me--I always knew it and I still do. The care she took to greet my sister and me with cheerfulness and sunshine in the morning was not lost on me. So, Morning Glories is a tribute to my mom and that place of love she created for me!

It's in that same way, that Chad and I want to raise our children--to grow them up (not as flowers, but like flowers grow). We have been blessed to both be raised in love and to love the Lord. We want our children to know our love for each other in our marriage and our love for them, and we are confident they already do. And just as importantly, we want our boys to know of our love for the Lord. Our purpose in our marriage, in our family and in our lives is to glorify the Lord. The word, glory, means adoring praise or worshipful thanksgiving. And, while life is not about glorifying the Lord only in the mornings, starting our day giving glory to Him is what our family is striving for.

So, when I was thinking of a new blog name, Morning Glories, just seemed to fit us.

Hope you like the name change and if you don't, I hope it grows (I just had to) on you! I have no idea if this will change in your Reader or not, you may have to do it manually, or not. If I decide to change our blog url, then I will let you know! And, finally, since you read through all of that, here are a few pics, you know, since words can be boring alone and pics spice things up! Little Miles was baptized a week ago and it was such a special time. Just another step for our family to dedicate him to the Lord and to declare that we will raise Miles up to know Him!

Sweet Mimi loving her grandson!