The Best Banana Bread

One day a couple years ago I wanted banana bread. One problem... I had never made it! I don't think I even owned a bread pan! I had lived on my own for 3 years and never made banana bread. So I googled recipes, picked a random one (who knew there were so many different kinds?!) and tried it.

Not to toot my own horn but, It. Was. Amazing! I was so proud of myself! Later that year I made some and took a loaf up to Bear Lake for a family reunion. I had my family try it and my mom said it was better than when she makes it! WHAT!? I made something better than my mom?! Shut the front door! 

A few months later, I made some the day my Mom, Aunt Tricie and Grandma came to help me with wedding prep. My aunt and grandma also loved it and wanted the recipe! (Toot toot!)

So I yesterday I made some for the first time in a while and decided to add something extra. BROWN SUGAR CREAM CHEESE FROSTING! Uh.. YUM!

Now, I'm no baking expert but here's the recipe if you want to try some for yourself :)

Banana Bread

Ingredients

-3/4 cup of butter, softened

-8 oz of cream cheese, softened

-2 cups of sugar

-2 large eggs

-3 cups of flour

-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

-1/2 teaspoon salt 

-1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas (about 4 bananas) 

-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract  

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add sugar, mix until light & fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating one egg before adding the other. 

In a separate bowl, mix flour and next 3 ingredients. Gradually add to butter mixture. Add mashed bananas & vanilla. 

*I use a 9 in x 5 in bread pan and usually have a little extra batter, with that I made little banana muffins, which makes about 5 cute little muffins.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean. Shield with foil the last 15 mins to prevent browning. (Mine are usually in the oven for about and hour and 10-15 mins.) Let the loaf sit in pan for about 10 mins then cool on a wire rack for another 10. 

*for the cute little muffins I baked at 350 for about 15-20 mins. (Keep an eye on those because I didn't set a timer, I just checked every 5 mins or so and took then out when the tops were golden brown.)

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

ingredients

-3/4 cup butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)

-8 oz cream cheese, softened

-1 3/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar

-1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

-1 tablespoon vanilla extract 

*I halved this recipe because I didn't want frosting on every bite of bread, but it still made more than enough frosting.

Beat butter and cream cheese until completely combined and creamy, scraping the sides a few times. Add brown sugar & powdered sugar, beat on low speed then gradually increasing to medium speed. Add in vanilla and mix on high for 4-5 mins. Let frosting chill in fridge for 15-20 mins before serving.

The frosting tastes so good spread on a warm slice of bread. Also good on the little muffins!

Enjoy!   

A Day Of Love

Valentines Day.

I have always liked Valentines day. In elementary school I always looked forward to the Valentines party at school where everyone would go around the class and pass out their valentines. My favorite part was coming home and reading all the different cards. And of course eating all my candy!

When your a kid its all about pink hearts, picking out the best little valentines to give to your classmates and getting candy! When you grow up it seems to be all about having someone to love. A boyfriend/girlfriend to spend the day with and getting presents from. As I got older, I never really had a "valentine". But that didn't stop me from celebrating or hating the holiday. I have plenty of people in my life that I love, and I like to celebrate the holiday that way. Being grateful for the people you love and for the people who love you. Not only being grateful but showing your love for those people.

I'm not big on buying crazy expensive gifts for each other. I don't need some fancy necklace from my husband to show he loves me. In fact I might get kind of mad if he did, we ain't got money for that! I'd rather just spend the day together, go on a nice date and out to dinner.

Yesterday was a good day. We both had to work early, otherwise I would have loved to get up and make breakfast together. Oh well. Work was surprisingly very very good! I spent pretty much my entire shift sending Valentine snapchats to everyone!

When we got off work our plan was to go up to Cheesecake Factory as soon as Josh got home at 4. Traffic was awful, it took us probably an extra 20-25 mins to get there. When we finally got up to Murray the wait was THREE HOURS!!!!!!! WHAT! I was so bummed! We have never eaten there and we had gift cards to use! I was looking forward to it all day. And we drove all that way! The whole place was packed! Parking was awful, I was pretty convinced everywhere else was going to have a crazy long wait and that we were going to end up eating at some fast food place in the mall. We checked California Pizza Kitchen right next door and the wait was only 20 mins! YAY! Dinner was great! After we ate, we walked our stuffed selves around the Fashion Place Mall for a little bit. It was a simple but very enjoyable evening.

I certainly do love my husband very much and am so lucky to be married to him! He wrote me the sweetest little letter about how much he loved me. While he was reading it to me I got a little teary. He is the best! I sometimes just look at him and am overwhelmed with how much I love him and how I get to spend eternity with this amazing man!

I hope everyone had an very loving Valentines day!

25 years

Monday Jan 6 I celebrated 25 years of being alive! Quarter of a century old! Thanks again to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was a fun and exciting day up in Salt Lake.

Josh and I bought day passes for the UTA Frontrunner and Trax. Which neither of us had ridden before and we did very little research before hand, so we were kind of clueless as to what we were doing but it all worked out!

We spent the day at The Gateway & City Creek, then dinner at Tucanos. It was nice to get out of town for the day and hang out with my sweet husband!

Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

First off HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'm pretty sure every year we all think the same thing "How in the heck did this year fly by so quickly!" I know I've had this thought plenty of times this past week!

Second, I've been terrible at blogging (I think this a lot as well). So I've decided this post is gonna be a 2013 review/catch up on all the fun things I've failed to blog about! And believe me, there are some blog worthy things that have gone down since our anniversary (which was my last post)! Oops.

We started 2013 in Southern Utah with Josh's family. Climbing scary high mountains in the snow at Zion's National Park and celebrating the new year in St George. Got all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled. Celebrated my 24th birthday and went to my very first BYU sporting event!

Went to General Conference with Lissa, bought our first bikes, and took a vacation to Florida for Chelsea's graduation!!

While in Florida we spent hours at the beach, watched Chelsea graduate High school, watched Emilee graduate Elementary school, celebrated Jessica's birthday and spent some much needed time with my family! I seriously cannot believe how old my little siblings are getting! 

The rest of the summer consisted of throwing my sister-in-law Jasmine a bridal shower, celebrating the 4th of July, celebrating Jasmine & Danny's wedding, and taking a fun little trip up to Mirror Lake where I caught my first fish ever!

In September we moved Chelsea up to BYU Idaho with Lissa. Celebrated Josh's 31st birthday then a week later on Oct 4th we celebrated our first anniverary in Park City.

And for Halloween I took a much needed trip to Orlando and spent the weekend with Jessica & Lauren at Universal! To sum up the weekend in a short paragraph is probably impossible! It was SO MUCH FUN to be able to spend some time with my best friends not to mention 3 days at Universal Studios! Boy do I love these girls! 

The rest of the year was spent celebrating my cousins wedding and spending the holidays with family. Thanksgiving with my sisters and cousins, and Christmas with Josh's family!

It has been a fun and eventful year! And before we know it we'll be thinking "Wait?! It's already 2015!?" 

I'm looking forward to new and exciting things this year! New goals and new experiences! 

Happy New Year!

Anniversary Bliss

First off, "Greetings from the Romeros" got a make over. I designed this header and am finally getting around to uploading it! :) I'm pretty excited about it!


On October 4 Josh and I celebrated our FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Time is really a weird thing. This year has flown by! But at the same time our wedding day seems like forever ago!

Man do I love this guy! He's my best friend and it makes me  so incredibly happy knowing I get to spend eternity with his handsome face! :)

We spent the weekend away in Park City! It was SO much fun being away from life just him and me!
I'd been to park city a few times before but have only ever walked up and down old Main St. So doing all the fun Olympic Park stuff for the fist time was fun! And thanks to good ol Groupon we got a good deal on UNLIMITED passes!!

This thing was freakin scary! I didn't think I was afraid of heights but MAN, I was SO high up and walking across a wobbly thin rope was almost enough to make me pee my pants out of fear! My arms were killer sore the next day from holding myself up for dear life! 

Can't wait to celebrate a million more!