Long weekend Fun

We have been having a great long weekend!

Friday was lovely - I went to Spanish banks at low tide with Tyler, Toby, Jody, Jess, Ryan and Kepler; it is so much fun to walk there in the sunshine and the dogs had a blast.  We then went to Steamworks for dinner (sans children :))

Saturday we did some planting in the front garden - peas, lettuce, sweet peas, and onion sets.  Loic "helped" me by watering the grass, the car, the driveway and himself.  He then proceeded to soak both himself and me in the process!  He had a great time helping me though and I am glad that he likes the garden.

The Easter Bunny came to our house this morning and left Loic with a basket of goodies and he was very excited.  It was Rob's sleep in morning today (we alternate) so I took the kids to my parent's house for a pancake breakfast and an easter egg hunt :)  He was thrilled!

Egg hunting at Grandma and Grandpa's!

We then came home and had to wake up Rob because Maelle needed a nap and we did another little egg hunt with Loic in our yard:

Egg hunting at our house!

The weather was perfect today.

Today was also Jeffree's 25th Birthday!!  My mom had cake and cupcakes for him and I brought a box of apples and carrots.  It was nice, I still can't believe he is 25 and sound.  Good boy Jeff.

We then hosted Easter dinner here for 12 people and we had a lovely evening.  Everyone brought something so I didn't have to do too much (my favorite kind of dinner party!).  My mom brought a ham and some appies, I made cauliflower and cheese baked pasta and a nice asparagus dish, my aunt brought two salads and Linda made a bunny cake:

Happy Easter!!

We are off again tomorrow, yay 4 day long weekend!!!

-E

It is my Last night... (plus photos)

I head back to work tomorrow after over a year off.

I cannot believe how fast this past year has gone.  Maelle will be one (!) next week and I cannot quite wrap my head around how much of a big girl she has become.  She is now pulling herself to stand on everything and is into *everything*.  We had to figure out how to block her from climbing onto a shelf of her change table - I thought I had lost her in her room the first time she did it!!

Now here are a few pics from the past few weeks:

 Dog walk in Maple Ridge with our friends (Tyler and Toby LOVE this walk)

Loic and his buddy Ben had a great time playing and throwing rocks in the water and climbing up and down the river banks

 A bad picture showing baby up on her shelf - we had to buy some big bins to take up the space she liked to climb into!  The issue is she can't get down once she gets in!

 Funny face Loic building Lego at Grandma's house (she has awesome Lego at her house)

 Swinging on a sunny day last week, she either laughs, looks at the ground or tries to find her brother!

 Standing!!

 At the farm today, she LOVED this goat

Her birthday Tutu!!  And sparkly hair clip!!  I am pretty happy to have a baby girl to dress up like this for her birthday (while she still lets me)

-E

3 new recipes (and daycare update)

Daycare update:

The kids have started out at their respective daycares.  Loic loves his; no worries there!

I love the woman who runs Maelle's daycare - she is really kind and loves babies.  Today I left Maelle there for a few hours and she was supposed to take her morning nap there.  However, Maelle had other ideas!  She ended up taking a nap in the daycare woman's arms (which is good because yesterday she didn't want to be touched by her at all).  She naps super well so I am not worried about it and tomorrow we will try a bit harder to get her to nap there meaning I will tell her daycare provider to let her cry for a few minutes which is all it usually takes in a new place.

Recipes from this week:

I have made a few good recipes this week and wanted to quickly write them down before I forget them.

Quick orange dijon oregano marinated chicken 

In a bowl put:

1/4 cup of honey
3 tablespoons of dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
dried oregano (I just a palmful-ish)
2 tablespoons of orange juice (freshly squeezed)
rind of one orange
1 clove of garlic, minced

Mix well.

Then I put four chicken thighs in a pyrex dish and poured over the above marinade.  Make sure the chicken fits tightly in the baking dish because otherwise the marinade will burn and not coat the chicken.  I let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to marinade then baked until done.  These were really, really tasty!

Soy, hoisin and sesame and hoisin pork

The same method as above actually!

In a bowl I put:

Soy sauce
Hoisin sauce
two cloves of garlic, diced
fresh ginger, grated
brown sugar
splash of water
a teaspoon or so of sesame oil

I didn't measure anything!!  I just put what looked good in a bowl, poured it over three pieces of pork (any cut will work, I had boneless chops I think) and then baked it right away.  These were really good over brown rice and steamed broccoli.  Both of my kids love broccoli (seriously) so we tend to eat a lot of it.  I even sent it in their lunches today!

Asian cold noodle veggie salad

I was inspired by this recipe Asian noodle salad but I changed a few of the ratios, it was a bit too strongly flavoured with the vinegar and next time I will use a bit less.  I also didn't use all of the dressing so have some left over for lunch tomorrow.

Dressing:

1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
3 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons soy sauce
3 teaspoons of sugar

Salad:

I cooked rice noodles (sometimes called rice sticks) in boiling water until cooked then ran them under cold water to cool.  I then added:

2 diced green onions
2 thinly sliced carrots
2 thinly sliced stalks of celery
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced

I then added the dressing until I liked how it tasted then put it in the fridge for a bit to let the flavours merry :) Tasty!!

-E

"Come back later Mama!"

At least one out of the three of us will be fine when I go back to work next Tuesday!

The kids are doing early entry hours this week so they are both going to their daycares (only a block apart) a few hours here and there to get used to the places.  Today, Loic was supposed to go from 9-11 and when I got there at 11, the group was heading outside to play.  He told me: "Not now Mama!  Come back later to get me!" so I did :)  The teacher said he was awesome and chatty and very easy going, which he is.  The one thing they will have to work on is getting him to eat - he does not eat well while distracted - and that can lead to grumpiness.  They provide two snacks a day and I send him with lunch; the snacks are great too, which is nice.

Maelle goes for an hour tomorrow with me.  She is in a 'no one can hold me but my Mama' phase so I am expecting some tears from her.  Then on Wednesday I will leave her there for her morning nap.  I am kind of dreading leaving her at daycare.  I know she is a very happy, well adjusted baby but she is my baby.  I am still going to nurse her - my plan is to nurse her before I go to work, as soon as we get home before dinner, and before bed.  Plus I will nurse her if she wakes up at night.  I am trying to get her to drink some milk but she isn't totally into it, which is fine, she likes to drink water.  She eats basically everything so she gets cheese and yoghurt (and basically all other foods offered to her :))

She can now crawl up stairs but not down so she is a going concern!!

-E

Garden update

Today it was really nice and sunny out and my front raised beds are all ready to go so Loic and I did some planting.  I will have to take some pictures soon.  Loic alternated between 'helping' me, driving his digger around the yard and wearing a tomato cage....

We planted peas and radishes and took up 3/4 of one bed.  I am slightly OCD about seeds in rows (which the peas are in this year) but Loic did a pretty good job of planting his peas, phew.  We put in radish seeds as well but I just spread them out in a large square area.  We planted two types: an easter egg mix and some regular red ones.  I then covered the whole bed with a plastic cloche - I used some tomato cages on their sides to raise it up off the beds and it worked quite well.  We shall see what happens soon!  I also put in another dwarf blueberry - my front yard is beginning to look like a blueberry farm which is good considering both my kids will gladly eat their own weight in berries daily if I let them!!  I have three baby blueberry plants to move around too but haven't sorted out exactly where to put them quite yet.

The dogs had a nice time sitting in the sun today after our walk.  Loic and I were playing and the two chihuahuas sat in the sun while Tyler played with a toy.  I am ready for it to be sunny out again!  Although, the sun makes my house look really, really, really dirty :)

I shall leave off with a cute baby in the tub:

-E

Bark mulch

Today the kids and I went to the barn, like we normally do Mondays, to ride the pony and visit with our friends.  I am sad that once work starts I won't be able to do this fun Monday outing.  We will make a point of going to the barn on weekends now.

Today, I rode the pony and when I was done, we put Maelle up on the pony in front of me and she *loved* it!  She started out by grinning then after a few minutes was laughing.  My friend led the pony so all I had to do was hold Maelle in front of me :)  I don't have a picture because I was on the pony holding the baby, Erin was holding the pony, my mom was riding Jeff and the boys were off at their 'job site' aka another pile of dirt.  Not that I would have trusted them with my phone!

Before we went riding, the boys spent a good 30 minutes playing on a pile of bark mulch.  Yes, they played on a pile of bark mulch and loved it!  At one point they fell OFF of the pile and landed at my mom's feet, all wrapped up in the tarp, and while that scared me they asked to do it again (the answer was NO).

Gloves?  Check.  Hat on backwards?  Check.  Binoculars to view dinosaurs?  Check.

-E

Random iphone pics

While I sometimes think that we need to take our nice camera out more often, I am happy that my phone has a camera so that I can capture daily life.

Loic and Ezra riding Teepee on Monday

Maelle thinks blueberries are AWESOME - she yells at us from her high chair when she runs out!

This is a blurry pic but it is of Ryan sitting ON Tyler - these two are such nice boys!!

Such a big girl these days.  She is getting molars and has a bug of some sort, no fun at all.

-E

Car update (take 5) and swim class! And a recipe

My car is still leaking.   I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this point!  I am taking it in tomorrow to have it looked at in preparation for Honda to take it back next week....for the fourth time?  At least the dent in the bumper and side of the car is gone!!

Tonight was Loic's third swim class.  There were two kids in his first class and since then it has only been him.  His teacher is great and tonight he was so very proud of the fact that he dunked his head under the water and wasn't upset.  They swim, play games and end the class in the hot tub :)  It is pretty darn adorable.  He was so so pleased with himself tonight!  Oh and yes, he does talk her ear off the entire 30 minutes.  And he points at things and asks close to 100 questions.  Adorable.

I made a roast chicken on Tuesday night and with the leftovers made a new recipe last night (I also made a big pot of chicken stock with the leftover carcass).  I found the recipe I adapted on the Pioneer Woman site: Pioneer Woman Chicken Pasta

The Pioneer Woman started out with raw chicken breast and she cooked it but I figured my leftover roast chicken would work just as well.  I also added in peas to make it slightly healthier.

Here is what I used:

-leftover roast chicken (just under half a left over chicken)
- 2 tablespoons of butter
-3 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 cup white wine + 1/4 cup of chicken stock (the pioneer used 3/4 cup of wine but I only had a 1/2 cup of white so I added stock)
- 1/2 cup of cream (I used half and half)
- 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese
- a lot of fresh parsley, chopped
- about 2 cups of frozen peas
-salt and pepper

It was super easy.  I melted the butter, sauteed the minced garlic for a minute, added in the wine/stock and cooked that down for a few minutes.  Then I added in the cream and whisked it all around for another few minutes.  Then I added the diced cooked chicken, the peas, the parsley and the parmesan.  Once the peas were warm I added in 454g (one box) of cooked bow tie pasta.  I mixed it all around and we ate dinner!  It was quick and really tasty.   Oh I added salt and pepper before serving.

Enjoy!

-E

Stylin'

Last night I walked up the Jess' house with Tyler after the kids went to bed.  It was pouring out so I wore my stylish rain hat.  Jess offered to walk me part way home and she wore her own matching rain hat:

Stylin' Ladies

While Jody mocked us, I know she was just totally jealous of our awesome hats.  Right Jody?!

-E

Garlic and car update (#4)

Here is a pic I took today of my baby garlic:

Planted October 2012

Grow Garlic grow!!  I can't wait to see what it produces by July.

In other news, my car is (still) at the shop.  Honda actually did a good job last Monday of listening to my concerns and they took the car for 4 days to actually fix the leak, free of charge.  I did have to take Rob with me to help make my point, but whatever.  Then, on Thursday, Rob got a phone call from Honda.  On Thursday, a delivery truck backed into my car while it was on the lot at Honda.  It damaged the rear bumper, light and body panel.....good times.

After the damage happened, Honda rented me a courtesy car (free of charge to me) and they are having my car fixed (also free of charge).  Who knows when I will get my car back now?!  At least the leak is fixed?!? :)

-E

11 months old

Maelle is 11 months old today.  Where oh where did my baby go?

Ack she is so darn cute

-E