Weekend Fun

      Did you have a good weekend?  We did! On Saturday we had Cady's birthday party here at home. She invited six of her little kindergarten friends and of course there was cake and ice cream and presents. She had a good time but was a little overwhelmed ( it was her first party with friends, we usually have a party with all our family and relatives before they are in school.) so thankfully I had planned on it only being two hours long. They had a great time, Nyla helped out a lot and Gabe, well Gabe didn't quite understand the concept that all the presents were Cady's and he wanted to open them all! He was quite upset and would go into a corner and cry pitifully, it broke my heart! We had a nice long snuggle after the party, he and I, while the girls played littlest pet shops for a bit.









     Then daddy had the idea to go down to the park close to our house and check out if the lake was frozen. So, we bundled up, hopped in the truck and went down there to check it out, little realizing how freaking cold it was out! It wasn't so bad on most of the trail that was in the trees and bushes, but as soon as we were in the open and especially down by the water, it was super windy and FREEZING! Seriously, I think it was about -26 out. It was pretty neat seeing how much everything was frozen (our lake doesn't actually freeze over, as there are a few dams further down.) there was a good portion that was frozen solid close to the shore as you can see in the right side of the picture below.








    On Sunday, Pat took the girls up skiing while Gabe and I had a quiet day at home, which was really nice. I had one of those days where I could think of a million things I COULD do, but alas got nothing done. Well, not really nothing, I did a few loads of laundry and read a few chapters of my current book ( I'm reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon) That is definitely my favorite part about winter, snowflakes falling outside, nice warm fire inside, curled up in a cozy blanket, drinking a cup of tea (or hot chocolate if you prefer) and reading a good book. What's your favorite part of winter? Do you have fresh snow too?

Operation DD Part 3

Whew! What a job this is turning out to be! But it feels good to get things done and organized. The last week or so I've been working on our paperwork system and where to store our craft stuff. Here is a picture of my "storage albums" I think I mentioned awhile ago about doing the Library of Memories, well this is a part of it and I've actually been working on my system for quite a few months. Anyways, this is all of our printed pictures for the last ten years, yes I said ALL and I said ten years! Amazing isn't it? Well it is to me, although, I have been quite lax in printing pictures for the last few years  (there are maybe twenty pictures in each of 2008-2010, but hey no body's perfect right?) So, since January I've been organizing and printing off all our digital pictures, which has been a challenge to say the least! 

Top shelf has a couple storage binders, my category drawers and my cold storage box. Second shelf has all my storage binders from 2002 to 2008. Bottom shelf has some of my cardstock, my scrapbook magazines and a few other crafty books.

Ever since I stopped doing daycare in our home, I've been trying to figure out where to store our kids' craft stuff. Well this is a cupboard in our kitchen, right close to our dining table where they now do most of their crafts and colouring.

The top shelf has (L to R) box of our tea party cups (we like tea parties :) pencil crayons, crayons, and markers in labeled bins ( I LOVE my label maker!) and the bottom shelf has our work books and craft idea books, big bin has colouring books, to the right of that is bins with the girls beads, then next is paper. The very front has a container with foam stickers and a bin with other miscellaneous craft stuff like glue sticks, glitter, scissors, hole punch.

The only problem is that although this cupboard is great, this is only the basics and only about a third of all the craft supplies we have collected :) the rest are in boxes in the basement that I still need to go through and probably give half away to Cady's kindergarten class.

Then last but not least is all our grown up paperwork. In the fall, I found the Power of Moms website and it has been great, they have a system for organizing all your paperwork and it sounds fantastic enough that I gathered all the various boxes full of paperwork stuff and started organizing. I'm still in the process of organizing it all ( I used to be really organized with this kind of stuff and I'm not quite sure when I lost control of it, maybe sometime during the 3 moves in 2 1/2 yrs tee hee) so I shall post some pics when I have sorted it all out.

Well, that is all for now, I hope you all are well and maybe I've inspired you to start "spring cleaning" a little early this year. :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Ten things I love about You!

(in no particular order)

1.  You always make me laugh (even when I don't necessarily want to!)

2. You are always there for me (and our kids) steady as a rock.

3. You are my best friend.

4. You always listen to my crazy ideas and you bring me back down to earth from the more wild and crazy ones.(even though sometimes it drives me crazy trying to get you to take a chance)

5. You are so patient both with me and with our kids

6. You always have some kind of story or nugget of gossip information or a funny/raunchy joke to tell me at the end of the day.

7. Your smile ( although the one above is a little overboard :)

8.Your ability to get along with just about anybody.

9. The fact that together we produced three of the most wonderful kids in the world!

10. Your love of animals

Happy Valentines Day Honey and to all the rest of you out there too!!

Happy Birthday Pat!

Last week we celebrated Pats 30th birthday. Happy Birthday honey!  I keep teasing him that he's my old man but I'll catch up in a couple months :) That cake looks pretty pathetic but rest assured we loaded it up with whipped cream on top. It was a chocolate oatmeal cake and it was yummy!

Here's our sick Nyla, she was sick all last week and now Gabe and Cady are feeling it too.

Last week the younger two were feeling fine and they enjoyed all the fresh new snow we got :)

And they were so cute snuggled up reading "Brown Bear" together.

While I got some more organizing and scrapbooking done. Here is one of the four pages I did, it's about making cookies with Nyla in 2005!! Now, some might say that is pretty far behind, but last year I took an online course called Library of Memories with Stacy Julian and it was fantastic! I will have to do a post about that soon, but the basic idea is, you are not behind and you don't have to "catch up" with scrapbooking if you are organized properly.

How is your winter going? Are you enjoying some new snow? Or are you (like me) enjoying the excuse to be indoors and get some crafty things done? Do tell!

Organizing, weight loss, and a sick kid :)

    Been busy still doing the organizing and stuff, as well as, I started a weight loss program and so far so good! I haven't been posting much as we've been busy and I've been being a good mommy to Nyla as she's been sick since saturday. The doctor even thought she might have pneumonia, so we had to get her chest xrayed as that's the only way to tell for sure. But all is well and she is feeling much better today and no pneumonia so we're all good. Can't do a really good post yet as I have to go make dinner but will catch up later this week. Hope you all have been able to dodge the sickness bullet so far this winter!

Operation DD (Declutter and Decorate) Part 2

     Well! This has been a lot more work than anticipated! But, it feels fantastic to get all this done. If you haven't read part one of this series, you can check it out by clicking on the tab in the right.
 
     First off, here are some pictures of our master bedroom after the first part of my mission ( the decluttering that is) I also rearranged a bit and I'm trying to figure out what I'd like to do on that big open wall, hence the pictures stacked against the wall.

Don't you love our Valentines quilt :)

Can't wait to add some colour to these rooms or something to break up all the wood!

I've tried with bedding and light coloured tables, but what do you think?

Still have to clean my camera lens I see!

And on to my next project I worked on yesterday, the girls' room!

I forgot to take before pictures (oops) but I'll give you a mental picture. Clothes strewn all over the floor, closet, beds etc, paper littered everywhere, barbies and littlest petshops everywhere, basically it was a pig sty!  I purged like crazy with their clothes and toys, took all the barbie stuff out of there (they hardly ever play with them except in the bath) rearranged the room, took out two large pieces of furniture (a desk and dresser) and it feels so wonderful in there now, so relaxing and not overwhelming.

This is looking from the door to Nyla's side.

From in front of the closet to Cady's side.

From Nyla's bed to door.

And the closet of course, still have some laundry and a bit of purging to do. Nyla's stuff is all to the right and the turquoise (her fav colour)  bin has her pj's and Cady's is all the the left with the pink bin (her fav colour)

I'm hoping to bring some more of their favorite colours into this room with some accessories etc, but so far, what do you think?

Oh and here's my list

Girls' Room

-PURGE CLOTHES!!

-maybe get rid of dresser?

-rearrange

PURGE TOYS!!

- place to hang art work

- hang reading lamps (1 is done)

Operation DD (Declutter and Decorate) Part 1!

      WARNING extra long post ahead! You might want to grab a snack and cup of tea before you jump in!

 Well, I've been a bad girl and haven't posted for more than a week! Oops! Well, back on track then, this morning I sent Gabe and Cady outside to play in all the  fresh new snow while I continued on my new project, Operation DD (Declutter and Decorate)!

Of course when they came in, they NEEDED hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles!

On to my Project!

   I've been really inspired lately by reading a few of my favorite blogs, like Erin's Sunny Side Up  and Sarah's Clover Lane and The Nester's Nesting Place. All these women are mothers of at least three kids and they all have beautiful homes that I just love looking at pictures of to get inspired. Now, the one that really hooked me the other day was a series on Clover Lane called Declutter: 40 bags in 40 days. Basically, last year she made her Lent Resolution to get rid of 40 bags of  "stuff" (be it garbage, Goodwill, etc). So although I would love to do this for Lent, the fact of the matter is, my house can't wait that long to be decluttered! Not because I am super duper gung-ho to do this (it ain't going to be pretty people) but because our house is actually up for sale and has been for awhile. 

The other thing I admire about Sarah is her house is so nicely decorated and tidy and she has FIVE kids! Four of which are boys! And reading through I found out she does it all by herself, painting and everything. She does these all in small increments so that they don't get overwhelming, which is exactly what I need to do.

So, this week, I walked around and wrote up a list of things in each room that needs to be done. And I started my project in our Master bedroom. Usually that is the last room I deal with, so it was pretty bad.  These are the "before" pics

I almost forgot to take a before picture and had already started stripping the bed!

The blue thing on the bed is a recycling bag :) and apparently I need to clean my camera lens!



One end of the hallway where I put the decluttered stuff.



And the other end.

And so far I've gotten rid of 7 bags/boxes of stuff from that room alone 2 bags of garbage, 1 bag of recycling, 2 bags/boxes of stuff to Salvation Army (we don't have a Goodwill) and two boxes of stuff that belongs elsewhere in the house.YAY, it feels soooo good! The decorating part will be challenging as this is a log house built in the early '80s with a LOT of wood panelling and ugly carpets but here is my list so far:

Master Bedroom
- Clean out closet 
-take old computer out of closet
-Paint non log walls and ceiling?
-Unify picture frames
-Declutter!!
-paint dressers
-paint window sills
-figure out some kind of headboard.
- weed out unwanted/unworn clothes
-larger shades for lamps?
-rearrange room
-change plugs and light switch covers ( hubby can do those ones, I don't mess with wires and such :)

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me and wish me luck on my next endeavor, the upstairs bathroom!

PS I'll try and post "after" declutter pictures next post!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Gabe and I made these this morning for the girls' school hot lunch. This is our favorite recipe to use up over-ripe bananas.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins    

2 Cups    Flour ( I use 1/2 all purpose and 1/2 whole wheat)

1/2 cup     packed brown sugar                                          

1 Tbsp        Baking powder                                                

1 Tsp        Baking soda                                                       

              1/2 Tsp     salt                                                                                   

3/4 cup    chocolate chips                                                 

2 cups     mashed very ripe bananas ( about 4 large)       

     1/2 cup     soft or hard margarine melted                               

                                       1/4 cup    milk
                                         2           eggs
                                        1 Tsp     vanilla

-Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C). Grease 12 large muffin cups. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.
- In small bowl, blend bananas, margarine, milk, eggs and vanilla. Add to flour mixture, stirring only until just blended. Do Not Overmix! Fill muffin cups.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Let stand several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool. Makes 12 large muffins.

My family loves these and I usually have to double the recipe or we don't have any for the next day!
Have a good Thursday!

Making Bread

         Yesterday, Cadence and I made some homemade bread together and it was sooooo yummy! I love everything about homemade bread, the relaxing monotony of kneading, the yeasty smell of the dough rising,  the heavenly smell of it baking in the oven, and, of course, the delicious taste of it fresh out of the oven with a dollop of butter. Mmmmmmm...




     I have always loved making bread, but I've  been pretty sporadic about doing it. Then, last summer, I read Independence Days by Sharon Astyk, and I decided that I wanted to commit myself to only making homemade bread and not buying any. And so far so good, from September till now I think I have bought a loaf of  bread only three times! And you know what? Besides the obvious benefit of fresh, healthy (I only make whole wheat) homemade bread that my family loves, it has helped cut down our grocery bill, and it reduces our plastic consumption. Such a simple thing has so many benefits!
      
     Now, don't get me wrong, I don't always have the time or inclination to make it by hand so I do have a bread machine. I set that baby up to run at night when we're all sleeping so that we wake to the yummy smell and taste of fresh bread in the morning.

       The recipe I use when I DO make it by hand, I got from the book I mentioned above called Independence Days (ordered it from amazon.ca) and it is so super easy and only has six ingredients, ww flour, salt, water, yeast, honey,and oil. I buy all the ingredients in bulk (which helps our grocery bill) and I buy as much as I can locally (which helps our environment).
    
     What are some things that you enjoy making from scratch? What are some ways you are helping the environment or cutting down your costs of living? Leave a comment below and let me know!

    P.S. One thing that keeps me motivated is comments like this from Nyla last night (she is my pickiest eater) "Mommy, can you always make homemade bread? It tastes sooooo much better than the kinds at the store and I like smelling it cooking when I get home from school."

A very sad day

It is a sad day for me and my family as we just found out my uncle Mike passed away.  About a week before Christmas we had heard he had a bad snowboarding accident and had broken his back and a few other injuries. He had a few surgeries right away, one was to put rods in his back and he actually ended up standing and walking around so he was able to go home for Christmas. It is all the more sad that he has passed as he was doing so well and seemed to be healing very well, but on wednesday he had some appointments and the doctors told him he had a blood clot and they gave him blood thinners and sent him home. This morning he was gone. I don't know all the details yet, but suffice it to say it was quite a shock as he had been doing so well. Please send a prayer out for him and his family as he leaves a wife and three young kids behind. Uncle Mike, we love you and you will be greatly missed. 

This is the best photo I have of my uncle Mike and his family taken almost seven years ago at our wedding.