Monkey Party

Monkeys monkeys everywhere.  We hunted for bananas hidden around the room, spread PB on them and decorated them with yummy treats. We read monkey stories, ate monkey cupcakes, played with 'monkey dough' and Toby ate cake for the first time.  

Too fun.

Having a themed birthday may just become my new addiction...

 Loved decorating for this.  Will include a link to tutorials here later.

Advent Part 2

A few posts ago I wrote about the Christmas Advent Journey we've started this year.  I have been busy shopping, creating, planning and conspiring since then.  So far, I've compiled my 25 days of Christmas activity list (but it still needs some fixing), I've found a bunch of fun gifts to include and started collecting supplies for all the fun activities we'll do.  I also found a bunch of used Christmas kids' books (to wrap up for each day) and splurged on one new one.  I think we'll buy the kids one new Christmas book every year.  

But the main thing I needed to do asap was actually make our advent calendar boxes.

I found a bunch of cheap (1-2 dollar) boxes from the dollar store, found some christmas cookie tins from Value Village and Salvation Army (as well as some in the back of our tupperware cupboard).  I also had some old jewelry boxes my mom donated.

I got some gold spray paint from Michaels and hosed down the tacky boxes from the dollar store and bought a few sheets of scrapbook paper.  Then I went to work making some cute/scrap book style numbers for each box.

And presto, here is our advent calendar:

They were super fun to make and will be even more fun to fill.  I hope these will bring about a lot of fun family memories.

Back to the workshop I go.

[I plan on including daily/weekly collages of all our December activities!]

Next up: a birthday party for Toby who turns 1 in a week!

'Tis the Season

Went to the pumpkin/apple tree farm today.  It was fun for the most part.  The drive was long, but I think the boys had a great time!  Wagon rides, playgrounds, animal petting zoo, apple picking, apple-cider-slushie drink, sunshine, dirt, pumpkins- how could they not like it?  I wonder sometimes though, if it's illegal to text while drive, how is it also not illegal to dangerously toss toys, food scraps, and other things back at your children in car-seats in order to avoid the inevitable energy crash that ensues on a long drive?  Yikes.  I was swerving along trying to placate escalating children with snacks and distractions on the way home.  Worked up a sweat, but we made it.

Anyways.

At the end of this random adventure I get to update my open shelves with some cutey pie pumpkins in honour of our upcoming 7th year wedding anniversary (they were part of our table decor).  Oh.  And we picked and ate apples. Yum.

 What am I supposed to do with those things?!

 The goats were eager to make friends but Toby wasn't game

Toby LOVED the wagon ride! 

White pumpkins: thanks for filling in my open shelf decor!

 Like.  A lot.

 Reminds me of our wedding day.  Sigh.

[My Ghanian Quilt] the Journey Continues...

This post has been in progress for awhile but with the chaos of our living space right now, it's been back-benched.  So here's the story of my quilt.  

Rewind: 3 years ago.  No kids, no home, no 'jobs' and we were doing missions work in Burkina Faso, West Africa.  During our time there we had a mini 'family vacay' down to Ghana.  Funny, things on the map always seem so close.  Case in point: "Ghana is right next to us let's visit the coast!"  Ha ha, 12 hours later (felt like the longest bus ride ever) we arrived in beautiful, colorful, loud Cape Coast.  I was forever admiring Ghanian cloth before this trip and everywhere we went during it.  If you've ever been to Africa you know that cloth is pretty significant.  You buy cloth then have a tailor make clothes specifically to fit you.  Burkina cloth was nice but Ghanian cloth, well, that 

was something else.

I have always wanted to make a quilt so decided to buy a bunch of different colours of Ghanian cloth to make it into said quilt as a memory of our trip.  However, shopping turned out to be quite the ordeal.  Sweaty, busy, loud, pushy, aggressive marketplaces.  Hot sun, indecision, walking walking walking. Not like shopping for cloth here.  

We had a lovely trip at the coast and finally did find all the cloth I wanted to (phew).

We then carted those cloths home through 5 European countries and stored them until we were back in Canada and bought a home for them to reside in.  

I didn't have a sewing machine which delayed my project and then I had this handsome project delayer:

Finally, when Silas was almost 8 months old I just threw caution to the wind and as I often do, dove headlong into this outrageous quilt project.  I didn't research, didn't plan, just started cutting. 

My grandmother donated me her mother's old, quality, swiss Bernina sewing machine (affectionately known as 'Bern') and I was off.

That was 2.5 years ago.  YEARS.
And it's still not done.
I finally cut it and sewed the top of the quilt together, bought back material and filler, and basted the whole beast together.  You might have remember a post with me displaying what the quilt looked like at that point.  

Through one maternity leave and entering into another one the quilt was finally 'almost' complete but then I had another cute project delayer:

Funny, having not researched I didn't realize that all of the above, which took me over 2 years to do, was actually the FASTEST part of the project.  [So funny].  I put it in my calendar "stitch whole quilt together" on one evening.  I had no idea that the actual quilting begins now.

Oh.

So back in November before baby boy the second arrived, I had a King sized quilt that still needed to be sewn together.  Oh boy.  I could send it out to get someone to do it, do it by machine (which would be tricky since it's so thick) or do it by hand.  Well, even though no one hardly does this anymore, I opted for the less convenient, most time consuming, and ridiculously tedious job of hand stitching/embroidering this gigantic memory blanket together.

Once I resigned myself to how much work this was going to be and stopped focusing on the end result, I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying the process.  Stitch by glorious stitch I am making my way.  I get to sit.  I get to think and pray.  I get to enjoy the bliss of seeing my dream project come together.  Me.  Who often enjoys getting much done in little time, the queen of efficiency, this fast-talking, multitasking mama is enjoying the slow pace of hand sewing.  Crazy.  I am realizing that a lot of things in life are like this quilt: garden growing, child-rearing, relationship building, character change, spiritual development,  all of these happen little by little.  One square a day, stitch by stitch.  And here's the kicker: the process needs to be experienced and enjoyed every bit as much as the end result.  I am learning a lot through this memory making.

 So here it sits.  Like this.  And most evenings or nap times, if the blinds are open and lights are on, you will see me sitting here stitching away.

 *Special shout out to all the grandmas, omas and nanas that helped me along the way: my great 'grandma' Carole for her sewing machine,  Oma Brink helped me baste it together, my mom: Grandma helped me figure out Bern, and Nana purchased my fine quilting frame.  

Chocolate, Chicken and Cupcakes

The following are more chronicles of a martha 'wanna-be.'

Recent hostessing foodie goodness, household makeover accomplishments, and other adventures.

Enjoy.

First stop: chocolate cake.  Ummm.  I had made this cake once before and was craving it something fierce.  We were expecting company (and by company, I mean 2 other adults) and I figured that was enough to warrant this cake.  However, it was HUGE. We had oodles of cake left.

Which we ate.

Within 3 days.

How many calories was that?

Not too bad right?  The icing only has chocolate and cream-cheese, the cake has buttermilk....

It's called "Died and gone to heaven chocolate layer cake"

aptly named

(Recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry cookbook)

Next up:  finishing previous pillow project.  Yup, that's right.  DONE.  All the pillows are covered, zippered, and in their new locations.  I had numerous fights with Bern, my reluctant old sewing machine...but we still conquered the pillows!

I followed an awesome 'hidden zipper' sewing tutorial online. 

Onwards to more cupcakes and some 'favors' that I made for a weekly women's group.  I hostess a table at our Church and brought some fall pumpkin cream-cheese cupcakes as well as some chocolate sash gifties.

Fun.

I've kind of decided that making wedding favors for a living would be a blast.

Any takers?

The recipe was from martha online- simple, fluffy, soft, lip smacking.

Cream cheese frosting from joy the baker, her cinnamon frosting from her red velvet cupcakes.

Gifties:

Not the best picture...

Final hostessing endeavour: enter J.O.  Jamie Oliver- new favourite cook book author.  (Thanks to the Searles) I've ordered every cookbook from the library.

Chicken.  Amazingness. 

However- handling dead, pale chicken, not so amazing.

Recipe: Sweet and Sour Pot Roasted Chicken

Coarsely chop 2 red peppers, 2 orange peppers, 4 red onions, 1 ripe pineapple

Place in bottom of roasting pan with a couple 'glugs' (as he calls them) of olive oil

Mix in salt and pepper, crushed fennel seed

Stuff chicken with chopped parsley and grated ginger (3 thumbs or so)

Season chicken inside and out with pepper and salt

Put chicken on veggies.  Pat with olive oil

Shove in oven- 375 for 1.5 hours

(served with rice)

BEST PART: after cooked, take half of veggies and put in blender with 6 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and 2 tbsp of salt.  Blend.

Chop up chicken- serve veggies and chicken over rice with veggie sauce.

SO good.

Oops- didn't take a picture of the end result.  But it was epic.

Couldn't find the recipe picture on his site- but there's other great recipes on it.

Next project:  It's a surprise.  However, some hints:

-crochet

-bright colours

-stuffing

-button eyes

-nieces and nephews...

Christmas projects have officially started!

p.s. Silas has a tooth that's just about up!

p.p.s for the interest of my readers: I'll be taking a photography course starting next week.  Hopefully that will make the blog pics better.

Household Projects etc.

Not sure what motivated all this, but here are some of my latest projects around the house.  


1. mmmmmore cupcakes.  
This time around it was cookies and cream cupcakes.  I overbaked them a touch, but they were otherwise yummy.  The bottom had half a cookie in it, the dough had chopped up oreos in it, and the top was a cream-cheese frosting.  
calories?  ha ha.  don't ask.

Recipe from Annie's Eats blog.

2. Gardening

Went and saw Brian Minter speak at our Church/community gardening event.  He is a gardening guru and got me inspired about winter gardening.  

Oops.  Went to the gardening store and spent 100 bucks.  But now we have a beautiful front plot (although, there is more to do) and I made this lovely winter bucket ALL BY MYSELF.  All the plants should survive the winter.  

Finger's crossed.  (psssst don't tell them that I killed the three flowers I planted in the summer...)

3. Sewing

My grandmother gave me HER mother's sewing machine.

Introducing:  my very own Bernina.  (Bern for short)

She's old.  She's solid.  She's a bit sassy...She's swiss. She's a hard worker and was a movie star sewing machine back in her day.

Mom came over and helped me figure her out.  She is a bit complicated and needs a bit of tender love, but we're figuring each other out.

Here's what we've accomplished together so far:

Amazing isn't it?  I mean, I am a terrible sewer.  Terrible.  The first two minutes alone with Bern, and we were already fighting.  She was groaning and whining.  I was grumpy and a bit rough with her...

But then.  There was a moment of understanding and, look what we accomplished!

Hello beautiful little pillow cover!  I carried this little gem from room to room trying to find a perfect location for it.  

I know.  Weird.

But here's the catch.  

I have a LOT more to re-cover.

It's okay.  Bern and I will do it.  (Right Bern?)

Oh....and did I tell you, Bern, we're going to sew a quilt together too?

I bought all these fabrics in Ghana well over a year ago.  The plan was to make a quilt to remember our trip  by.

We'll see how long this takes me to accomplish...

4.  re-decorating?

We have a family room attached to our kitchen.  It was getting over-crowded with furniture.  Not kid friendly.  New plan:  playroom!

So we painted a fun chalkboard on the wall (thanks Jackie for the idea and the paint)

And, I removed some furniture and put a nice reading chair (whose cushion will be re-covered soon), some fun flooring, and I will be putting up a toy organizer, possibly a bulletin board and some educational letters on the walls/maps etc.  

Any other fun ideas for a play room- pass them along!

So.  Yes.  Lots to do...

(And that's not even mentioning my continued scrapbook project of our Europe trip, the knitting project I'm starting, and card making....oh, and trying to cook like Jamie Oliver).

Random Happenings

What's new?

This is what we've been up to:

1. Helping out with a missions event at our Church.  Jason's making a promo video, I'm doing some graphic design type of stuff.

2. Re-organizing our home.  I want to turn our family room into more of a 'play' room.  We're planning on some chalkboard paint, some kiddie style floor mats, some toy bins...etc.

3. Hanging out with friends who have more kids than us.  Moral: ENJOY having ONE right now.

4. Going for walks and adventures with Silas.  He loves being out, socializing, 

and going for hikes in his new baby backpack.

5. New favorite photo of Silas (pre-cry):

6. trying new cupcake recipes such as this mocha cupcake with espresso/cream cheese buttercream frosting.

7. Getting ready for the busyness of fall.  I'm trying to be out and about a bit each day for Silas' and my own sake. Ex: tot romp at the community centre, swimming lessons, stroller fit classes, and co-hostessing a table at a weekly Church women's get-together.

8. Silas is very chatty these days saying 'ma-ma-ma-da-da-do' and giggling, randomly.  He's trying to get more mobile too, looks like he's crawling backwards?

9. I'm running more these days.  YES.  I love running in the fall.

10. I need to stop having cream in my coffee and having full-cream-amazing-yogurts because, well, it's going to catch up with me.  (I've enjoyed not having to watch what I eat due to being pregnant and then bfeeding Silas...sigh...back to being careful)

11. Went through the  US border crossing as the driver for the first time.  Phew.  Was nerve-wracking.  

12. We'll be hosting some people from India in our home for a week!

13. Not sure why I'm numbering these items.

14. Need to clean the house, but I'm blogging instead.

15. New favourite quote (thanks Jackie for this one).  Parenthood: the days are long but the years are short.  SO true.

Creative Inspiration

I'm getting restless at home.

Really restless.  

So Jason is encouraging me to dream a bit. What would I LIKE my life to look like?  What would I want to do if there were no obstacles?  What dreams do I have?

Tough questions.

Not sure where this soul searching will lead but lately I've been feeling very creatively inspired.  Maybe my future will have something to do with creativity?

So here are my recent creative projects/interests that have me excited about life again:

1. Baking

I've always loved baking, do it all the time.

In fact, I have a sick love of feeding people.

I thought this cupcake craze was silly.  "if EVERYONE's doing it, then why should I?"  (I said that about iphones too).

But I decided to jump on board and made some baby girl cupcakes.  So yummy.  So fun.  Red velvet.  Ooooh, may have to make this a habit now.  Plus, I've been reading a Cupcake blog.   That and watching the Master Chef show has me in the kitchen again.

Recipe from Joy the Baker blog.

Fresh from the oven.

um yeah.  They were delicious.

In hindsight: no gel topping.  They were prettier with just plain white cream cheese frosting.

Delivery was stressful but successful. I know why they're always freaking out on cake reality shows.  

Mmm.  Cupcake project was fun.  Next on the list: Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes.  Mouthwatering title.  I know.

2. Card Making

I'm always making cards but sometimes I lack inspiration.

But then Martha rescued me.  Her website is amazing for ideas.  

Here are some of my latest creations since September is THE busiest birthday month for me:

Yarn. On paper.  Who thinks of this?!  It's all Martha.

3.  Sewing (?)

So, I don't have a sewing machine.  But I can sew, with a lot of assistance.  

I have a million cushions that need recovering.  So, in my enthusiasm, I went to the fabric store to buy fabric without bringing any reference colors along.

Big mistake.

Thought: "I can just wing it, no problem, I have a good eye."

Ummm, nope.

Since you can't get small swatches of fabric for free these days (arg) I ended up buying three kinds of fabric, NONE of which match the rooms I want them in.

Dummy.

Not sure what to do now.  I LOVE this one fabric and I want it on some cushions in our bedroom but the wall colour is a lighter green.  What to do.... Buy new fabric?  Or re-paint room?

Here's the fabric:

4. Dream Photography Project

Here's the idea:  

a. get good at photography

b. since I think Silas is THE cutest kid, and needs to start his modeling career, he will be the subject

c. I like making cards, especially ones with funny sayings

d. all together = greeting card line named _____________ (insert snappy title).

Here's a prototype (although, take into account point a above)

says "it's ok to cry."  would be a sympathy card? 

Fun projects.  See where this all leads me...

p.s. Just cause he's cute, here's two recent Silas pictures

Warning, graphic picture ahead (many Cheerios lost their lives in this incident.  Graphic images of gore and victimization ahead):

I swear, I didn't colour coordinate him with his soother (okay, well, maybe subconsciously):