@#$%^$%&^ internet service!

Whew! Got that out of my system! I have to apologise for not writing on here for nearly a month. I cannot believe it has been that long already! We've been having problems again with our Internet and it has really affected the amount of blogging I've been wanting to do. That and this month seemed really fast and busy :)

To sum up our month, we had my dads birthday, my birthday (30th!! yikes), Easter and a memorial for my uncle who passed away in January on the same weekend, soccer started for Nyla, getting the garden ready, finishing our kitchen reno (which is taking way longer than I had hoped), and of course all the other day to day cycle of things.
Hopefully, hopefully we have this Internet thing figured out and I will be writing to you again shortly :)
Have a good weekend!
Sam
P.S Did you watch the royal nuptials this morning? I didn't but I've got it recorded :)   

Can you tell I have two older sisters?

Look at those pretty little fingers :) Poor Gabe, with two older sisters, he doesn't stand a chance! But, I guess I shouldn't say poor him because he loves having his nails painted, and if its pink, all the better! 

Lately his favorite things to do are, play with this tiny micro machine train set (it used to be my husbands when he was a kid) and play "I spy" with one or all of us. I asked him to smile for a picture and this is what I got :)

And then he asked me to take another one of his "beaver smile" So here it is...

Notice the big white teeth :)  Oh, and the cute pink toenails ( because your toes have to match your fingers doncha know?!)

Last night the girls had their end of term (for Nyla, end of season) gymnastics session in which parents and siblings can come onto the floor at the end and participate and watch up close. Then at the end they do a little presentation and receive a certificate. So here's my little gymnasts ( and Gabe too of course)

Nyla looks so serious and nervous...

                            And Cady, so proud...

They had to run and jump on the red mat onto this block that I think was taller than I am!

Cady has no fear of course. And then they decided to just hang around :)

Cady practiced her cartwheels on the tumble track (a long trampoline)

 which looked like so much fun that someone else had to get in on the action!

And of course what two do, the other has to as well...

All in all a good day :)

Before Pictures of our Kitchen

I mentioned a little while ago that we are do a mini kitchen reno, so I thought I would post the "before" pictures. We live in a log house built in the late 70's early 80's and I don't think anything has been updated since then. Our plan is to paint the walls (all the green in the pictures) and the cupboards, get new counter tops (the original is a really nasty white lino that is so stained and cracked and coming apart) and new hardware for the cupboards, all on a really limited budget.

This is also on my list for Operation DD as I'm cleaning and organizing as I go:)

So without further ado here is the old kitchen ( looking very messy and disorganized because that's the way "before" pictures are supposed to look right?)

I don't mind the colour green but this was just too "minty" for me and dark and gloomy as well.

Hmmm looks like we just finished breakfast :) See what I mean about dark and gloomy? And there is even a huge french door just to the right in the picture (not shown)! But alas, this room is in the northern corner so doesn't see much sunshine except for early in the morning in summer.

Sorry for the white glare out the windows, we still have quite a bit of snow :)

The ugly hardware everywhere. Yuck could we be more ugly 70's.

And the gross counter top. This edge always catches on sweaters and nice shirts, ruining them, so I have no problem saying buh-bye.

So how about you? Any mini renos this spring? Or are you sticking to a good old fashioned spring cleaning?

Have a good day!

Update: you can check out some "after" pictures  HERE.

Spring Break!

Last week and this week are spring break for my girls (I still can't believe they get TWO weeks, we only got one when we were kids but anyhoo) so what have they been doing? Going skiing of course! I'm serious, they went skiing today and last week for a couple days. Personally, I am sick and tired of the white stuff, but who am I to judge :)

We did do something different than usual though, last friday the kids and I went to one of my favorite places on earth ( and luckily it is only an hour and a half away) we went to a little village where my dad and his girlfriend have a cottage and had a lovely weekend with no tv, video games, computer, phone or any link to "civilization" It was great!! The kids played and played and played so well together and I did some scrapbooking and some reading and just generally relaxed. On the Sunday, the weather was just glorious and the kids and I walked around the village

Gorgeous isn't it? And then there are a few cute pics of my munchkins making some goofy faces :)

Are you on spring break too? Well hopefully you are enjoying some lovely spring-like weather too!

P.S Sorry I haven't posted much this month, our internet service has been a real pain in the you know what and half the time we don't get any service :)

An update

Hi everyone!
I am so sorry it has been so long since I've posted! We've been busy busy busy around here. This past weekend we were working on our kitchen, installing new counter tops. Let me tell you, they look awesome! I am sooooo happy with our progress so far and it looks to much brighter in there. Last week I was painting away, the walls and cupboards and this week I need to finish painting the cupboard doors and putting the new hardware on. I'll be putting up before and after pictures soon, I promise.

Today was the first day of spring break for my girls and it was okay, just a quiet day at home. I had a hard time keeping my patience as there was a ton of bickering, so we'll see how tomorrow goes. It's hard to believe it is spring break when there is still at least six inches of snow on the ground! Hope everyone is doing well at your house :)

Sam

Special Movie Night and a Pizza Recipe

  Ahhhhhhhh..... It's Friday. I love Fridays, but then again, who doesn't? Around here, Friday nights are called "special movie night" and that of course means a movie, but what makes it special is that all of us are home together and we all sit down and watch a family movie together. Sometimes it is a movie we rent from our local movie store...

( Doncha just love the paint job they did?) Anyways the picture about is our local movie rental store( no blockbusters here :) . We live just outside a tiny town of about 10000 people and it is really cute and artsy.

But back to our evening, we watch a movie and I always make pizza for supper. Sometimes I make simple margarita pizzas (doesn't that sound more interesting than just cheese, it's what the family I lived with in Switzerland a long time ago called plain cheese pizzas :) Sometimes I go fancy with a more greek style (red onion, feta cheese, spinach, kalamata olives, grape tomatoes) and of course the kids always have either plain, pepperoni or ham & pineapple ( although if I make the Greek one, Cady and Gabe like to steal the olives!)
I make it from scratch 99% of the time because I have the best crust recipe ever, tasty and easy! So without further ado here is my special pizza crust recipe!

Pizza Dough   (makes one 12 inch crust, I usually double it for my family of five)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp fermipan yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Oil pizza pan (I use EV olive oil) and preheat oven to 400 degrees C / 200 degrees F.
Put 1 cup of the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water in a large bowl. Beat well with a wooden spoon.
Add last cup of flour, mix till it forms a ball.
Let rest 15 minutes
Spread oil on top of dough and spread in pan to sides. Add toppings (I usually use tomato paste and oregano as my sauce)
Place on rack in middle of oven  and cook for approx 20 minutes.
Enjoy!

These are some calzones I made a few weeks ago, and they were quite good, basically you make the dough and separate it into about four small lumps, then press into a circle, add toppings and fold one side over, squeezing the edges together. Yummalicious!




What do you do on a Friday night? Does your family have a weekly tradition? Please leave a comment below (I think I fixed it) I'd love to hear from you!

Have a good weekend!

Sam

Operation DD Part 4

       If you've been following my blog the last couple of weeks, you may have been keeping tabs on my spring cleaning efforts dubbed "Operation DD" and I assure you that I haven't stopped or given up, I'm still plugging away! Last week I worked on Gabe's room and took some before pictures which I'll share with you below, but I was experiencing some camera troubles and the darn thing did not want to take any after pictures! So I will try and take some this week if my camera has finished it's conniption :) The other room I have started on and am thrilled about is the kitchen! I am finally painting it! I've been wanting to paint it since the day we moved in three and a half years ago! Oh and we got some new counter tops and knobs to make it all nice and spiffy for anyone who wants to buy it :)








Okay I'm just noticing how bad those pictures look of what a disaster his room was, but I guess that's what you're supposed to do right? Make it look super bad so the afters look super good?  Anyways, his room wasn't too bad actually, I just had to purge some toys and tidy up and vacuum (I might have moved a thing or two around too :) I'll try and post the "after" pictures tomorrow.
Have a good day!

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!!