Back to Work

Just wanted to pop on and say I'm back to work. I'll have a huge post about the transition, but I'll write it when I'm not on company time. I think I'd like to keep the blog going even though my original intention was to be done when my year was up, but posting definitely won't be as often, mostly because I won't have near as much time to spend doing fun stuff with my kidlets. Anyways, Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is enjoying their work day as much as I am.

Shadowed Cat

I was super impressed with how this picture turned out. I cut out all the pieces of for Big N to put on the orange piece of paper, and she did all the gluing. I *might* have moved a few things while the glue was still wet (if you look carefully you can see the white globs of glue), but I think we did a pretty good job for an accountant and a two year old.

Pizza Dough Cinnamon Buns

We had some leftover dough from a Friday night pizza and I had a craving for something sweet, so Saturday night at 10pm I decided to make some cinnamon buns. Now, they weren't as good as the ones I made from the Pioneer Woman, but they were pretty damn good for a midnight snack.

It was super easy to do, I rolled out the dough into a big rectangle, covered it in melted butter and then spread brown sugar and cinnamon all over it. I rolled the huge rectangle up, cut it into pieces and placed it in an 8 inch baking dish. I threw it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.

I drenched the buns in a icing made from icing sugar, milk and a little bit of vanilla, then decided to eat three of them before bed. Needless to say, I couldn't get to sleep until 2:30am because of my sugar high, so if you plan to do this, don't eat a whole bunch right before bed!

Halloween Crafts

We've been doing a lot of Halloween crafts for the past few weeks.

Here we did hand print spiders for Big N while Little N made footprint ghosts (which we mailed to a family member before we remembered to take a picture).

We made construction paper candy corn that Big N added a little more fun to since she wasn't a big fan of how our craft looked. Although thinking about it now, it's probably because she has absolutely no clue what candy corn is, oh well, no need to introduce more candy now.

Toddler Drawer Organization

Since I'm headed back to work in a matter of days, we need our mornings to be SUPER efficient, so I've started to get everything as organized as possible so it doesn't matter who is doing the morning routine, *cough, cough R*, there will be no excuse for the kids to not have underwear and socks.

Instead of buy an expensive organizer for the kids stuff that probably would end up ruined anyway, I cut up pieces of cardboard and duct taped them in the drawer as an insert. Now everything has a place. Ahhh...I love being organized.

Crinkle Cat

Using Martha Stewart for inspiration Big N and I made this crinkly cat one day during craft hour while Little N was sleeping. Big N is getting so independent in her art. She can now fold the paper herself and do ALL the gluing, she tries really hard to use the scissors herself and can so far cut a triangle. What a huge change from a year ago when it was really just me doing things and her watching. Anyways, we're going to hang this from the ceiling for Halloween but, it was just much to wet with glue at this point to take it anywhere.

World Word Art

If you remember back in March when two of my niece's and one nephew were celebrating their birthdays we made them a zebra, an elephant, and a monkey to hang in their respective rooms. So of course, now that we are celebrating the first birthday of my other niece she needed something to put in her room too. When I asked her parents they said she was really into word world these days, or at least smiles when it's on. So, we went with a word world theme and made the duck for her to put up.

At first I attempted to just use white glue to outline the duck and then had planned to paint everything on colour so it was just a subtle picture, but that didn't turn out well at all, so I ended up painting the whole thing.


Now, we just need all the kids to get healthy so we can actually deliver our present to little B.

Sock Bun Curly Hair

So I've been crazy addicted to Pinterest recently, if you haven't checked it out, DO IT, it's one heck of a time waster, especially the iPhone app, I can now keep track of all my virtual pin board needs.

Anyways, I came across a few posts that linked back to two videos, one for a sock bun and the other for how to use a sock bun to make curly hair and I'm honestly amazed. Considering I have stick straight hair, and I did absolutely nothing like the video suggested, I just threw a rolled up sock in there and took it out in the morning. And I ended up with this:
It makes me believe that if I actually used the water and perhaps a little product in my hair before putting it up there I would actually have a nice wave to my hair. Look out work, my curly hair is going to look awesome! :-)

The Princess and the Dragon

Big N has recently decided that she doesn't like dragons, so R had the idea that the two N's should play the princess and the dragon. Of course with Little N being the dragon, I'm not sure if the thought was to get Big N to like dragons because her little brother was one, or that she should just beat up dragons, but either way, the kids had fun putting together their princess and dragon hats. As you can see Big N did all the gluing on her hat all by herself, which meant it took an extra couple hours for the hat to actually be dry. Big N was definitely more interested in wearing her hat than Little N, but he did enjoy playing with the fire mouth on his dragon.
Big N is just starting to get into the make believe stage, so I think in the coming year we'll have a lot of fun pretending.

Banana Crumble Muffin Recipe

Is it bad that our family can eat a dozen muffins in one day? So, when we're running out of groceries, we go through a lot of muffins. I came across this recipe and it was DELICIOUS! Definitely one to add into the regular rotation. I did make a few substitutions as per usual. Here's what we did:

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tbsp. all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tbsp. butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 12 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Fall Wreath

Since I return to work November 1st, I needed a fall wreath that could easily change into a winter wreath without too much effort. I have a very large feeling that we'll be especially busy from November till Christmas with work starting, then an exam on December 1st, then Christmas parties galore. So, that's my reason for this haphazardly thrown together wreath.

It's an argyle yarn wreath, with the blocks out of both felt and foam pieces I had lying around the house. I didn't want to glue them on because I want to use the yarn again for the holiday wreath, so they are attached with painters tape, and the yarn around them is also just stuck in place at the beginning and end. This was the easiest way for Big N to help out too, hence why the blocks are everywhere.

It's not the prettiest thing ever, but it'll do the trick to put us in the fall spirit, and I don't think the trick or treaters will be judging me based on my door wreath. And if they are, one less candy for them! :-)

Haunted House

I came across a really cool blog post about how to paint a haunted house that looked super simple. However, the day we decided to make haunted houses I didn't have the patience to get out the paint. So, we did a similar house with construction paper. Big N picked where all the windows should go. Then we glued a yellow piece of paper behind our black house. It was super simple and Big N thought it was great.

Perfect Pumpkin Pie

It's official. I made my first pie last weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't take a picture because I was too busy eating, is it okay that I ate 3/4 of a pie in one day???

I took my recipes for the crust from here and the pumpkin filling from here. I did end up making a few substitutions based on what we had in the house. So, here's what we did.

Pie Crust

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. brown sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup of lard
1/3 cup cold water
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled vinegar

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in lard until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together water, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and vinegar. Stir into flour mixture and knead dough briefly, just until smooth. Allow to rest 15 minutes before rolling out. Pastry is easier to work with when chilled. Can be stored in refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Pumpkin Filling

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz.) can of pumpkin
1 (14 oz.) can of evaporated milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust. Bake 15 minutes.
2. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.

We're going to attempt to make an apple pie later this week, so fingers crossed it all works out for us.

Turkey Broth

A few years ago, I would have never guessed I would be the person making my own turkey broth although being as cheap as I am, I should have known better. So, with our leftover turkey bones and my trusty crock pot, I attempted the task, which was surprisingly easy.

I put all the bones, etc. left from our 12 pound turkey into the crock pot, I added two diced carrots, and one cubed onion (a lot of recipes I saw called for celery too, but we didn't have any in the house, so I omitted it), and some parsley (or what I think was parsley, it was green and not labelled). I filled the crock pot close to the top with water and cooked it on low for about 12 hours. I strained the bones out and then put the liquid in freezer bags for later use.

I'm not a broth connoisseur but it smelled pretty good, and since it's just flavoured water, I'm going to say it turned out just fine.

Wall of Fame - September

I'm behind again, but here's how the September wall turned out, not great, but a heck of a lot better than August.

Monday Meal - Carrot Zucchini Curry Soup

Now, I'm not a soup person, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually enjoyed eating soup. It started with a really good butternut squash (we think) soup at the wedding we attended on Friday, which led to my rethinking my soup hatred. I came across a Zucchini Soup recipe that was cooked in the crock pot (my favourite machine), so I decided to give it a go, until of course I realized I only had one zucchini left while the recipe was calling for two pounds of it. So, needless to say, I made a few substitutions here and there, and the soup turned out FANTASTIC. We'll definitely be making this one again.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of butter
1 Zucchini, thickly sliced
3 Carrots, sliced
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 cups of water
4 tsp of chicken broth mix
1 1/2 tsp curry
1 tsp sea salt (approximate)

Directions:

1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter, then cook the shallots, onion, zucchini and carrots for a few minutes, to soften and coat the vegetables with butter. Place in the slow cooked and add the remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on high for 4-6 hours.

2. Transfer to a blender and puree.

Paper Pumpkin

I came across this blog post at Sweet Bee Buzzings and took the author's advice and made this craft with the kids. I followed her directions pretty closely, so check out her blog for the tutorial, but it was quick, easy and the kids were amazed with the result of our construction paper and pipecleaner pumpkin.

Congratulations P&D!!!

Today, is a very big day. P&D are getting hitched! Which, in itself is a great event, what makes today even more spectacular is that R and I are attending the evening wedding, wait for it......ALONE!!! That's right after two and a half years having only been away from Big N for the one night we were in the hospital giving birth to Little N, we will be spending the night in a HOTEL in one big bed, just to us. This is a big day for us. We'd like to thank P&D for getting married in order to give us this opportunity. We'd also like to thank my wonderful parents, Granny and Grandpa, who may not quite realize what they have gotten themselves into, with children who aren't necessarily the greatest sleepers. But, LET'S PARTY!!!

Book Review - 75 Ways to Save Gas

I downloaded this book by Jim Davidson from the library thinking it would have some great insights as to how to save gas. After skimming through the initial chapters about how I should use a bike, take transportation, etc. (things that really aren't applicable to our family situation where we only own one car and one of us is always taking transportation and we travel over 100km per day to get to and from work), there were some good tips. Most of the time, I read the tip but if I didn't find it applicable, I didn't bother to read the description. We're most guilty of leaving our car idling, especially if one of the adults and the kids are still inside. As you got deeper into the book there were some good suggestions, but if I gave them all away you wouldn't read the book, so feel free to check it out for yourself (at the library).

Apple Art

I needed an activity to keep the kids entertained for a few more minutes one evening while we were waiting for R to get home from work since he was stuck in traffic. So, we cut out apples from construction paper and glued them in our construction paper baskets. We pretended they were falling from our tree.

It was a quick activity, but at least something to get the kids from loosing their schmidt before dinner.

Nectarine Oatmeal

This was another delicious oatmeal made during my not getting groceries quest. The caramelized nectarines on the top were definitely what made this recipe fantabulous! The original recipe can be found here.

I did make a few substitutions based on what was in the house, so here's what our recipe looked like.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup milk
1 nectarine
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Caramelized Nectarines

Five slices of nectarine
1 tsp. butter
1/8 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:

Mix all oatmeal ingredients in a small pan on medium-high heat, stir frequently until you get a thicker consistency or whatever your personal preference is. Place oatmeal in bowl and rinse out the small pan and reuse for caramelizing. Put butter in pan and spread around the entire flat surface, place slices down and sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Flip over after 1-2 minutes and sprinkle some more cinnamon on them, cook until tender then place on oatmeal.

Painted Paper Bag Pumpkins

We did it! We officially started decorating for Halloween. Up to now I've never really been a big Halloween fan, but having two little kids, one of whom was born three days prior to the big day, it gets me a little more excited for the event.

We filled paper bags with crumbled paper, got out the orange paint and went to town. If I were doing this craft without a toddler, I probably wouldn't have stuffed prior to painting, but I needed Big N to be interested, so the stuffing part got her away from the computer (side note, my 2.5 year old knows how to run Netflix on the iPhone, the PS3, and the computer now, all in all we're doomed for getting her to stay away from the television). After the paint was dry, we cut out faces with construction paper and glued them on. Big N was super excited to see her pumpkin all finished, I don't think she quite understood what we were doing until the face went on. Little N thought they were pretty cute too, and was very excited to get his hands in the paint (I'm not sure the carpet appreciated our adventure, but oh well).

Monday Meal - Ground Turkey Zucchini Boats

We first starting using this recipe after a visit with my parents and watching Steven and Chris. We've made numerous changes since seeing the original thought on the show and the meal has now been added to the monthly rotation.

Ingredients:
2 large zucchini
1 carrot, grated
1 pepper (any colour)
1 clove of garlic
1 onion
1 lb ground turkey
spinach
cheese

Directions:
In a frying pan cook ground turkey with garlic and onion. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise and scoop a good portion of the center out. Add remaining vegetables including some of the scooped zucchini (or any others you have on hand) and cook until just tender. Add the mixture to the scooped out zucchini, top with cheese and bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We do so many variations on this meal based on what is in the fridge and we've never had a bad experience. So, get using those zucchini, it's delicious!

Leaf Tree

While we were deciding what route to go with our September wall this month (I might have been getting a little over zealous and thinking pumpkins), we decided to make a tree. I cut branches out of construction paper and then the kids and I went to the backyard to find leaves. We found all sorts of types of leaves, and I being the great mother I am, could only identify the maple leaves, so I made up names for the rest, hoping that my two year old will not remember the names I created and tell all her friends.

The plan was to trace the leaves and then place them on our tree, but it seems that all the leaves we gathered were much too big for our tree, so we created our own leaves. I'm constantly amazed at how fast Big N is growing, she's now able to glue all the leaves on wherever she wants them to grow.

I think our tree looks pretty cute, and Big N had a great time putting it all together. Little N had a great time trying to eat construction paper. All in all a good craft for everyone.

Baked Banana Oatmeal

In my quest to put off going to the grocery store, we've been eating a lot of whole foods this week, i.e. no cheerios. I'm not a huge oatmeal fan, but this was one of two recipes that were surprisingly delicious that we tried this week. I found the recipe here, but had to make a few variations based on the ingredients in our house.

Ingredients:

2 bananas
2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 egg, beaten
1 banana, mashed
1/2 cup milk
1 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slightly grease a 8 inch baking dish. Slice one banana on the bottom of baking dish. Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the remaining ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the mixture to the baking dish and cover with the remaining sliced banana. Bake for approximately 26 minutes and then sprinkle with brown sugar. Broil for approximately three minutes.

I think the caramelized brown sugar on the top really did it for me, so DO NOT skip that step!

August Wall of Fame

Have you wondered why you haven't seen our August wall yet, because this is what it looked like.

Yes, it was very, very sad. Thankfully we were on vacation for some of August, and we did a lot of crafts that couldn't be put on the wall. Now just to make sure September doesn't look so sad.

Water Bottle Bracelets

We've been drinking a ton of plastic bottled water, bad for the environment yes, but it gets us drinking water, so it's a plus for us. So, looking at all these bottles in the recycling bin, I wanted to see if there was something the kids and I could put together for craft time one day. I came across a blog post somewhere along the line that used plastic water bottles as bracelets, so off we went to give it a try.

We cut rings out of our plastic water bottles, the one for my wrist had to have a cut down it in order to get it to fit. Then we covered the entire bracelets in paper mache. The plan was to paint the bracelets and add some funky stuff to them, however, we haven't gotten that far yet, and have since moved on to different crafts.

Meal Planning

I'm not much of a meal planner, more of an it's 4pm and dinner needs to get ready what the heck should we have type of person. But, in order to start the prepping for my return to work and to make sure we can get to next Saturday without having to go to the grocery store, I've attempted to put together a meal plan for the week. It's nothing too fancy, but hopefully it works out. Wish us luck! If there's any good recipes we try, I'll be sure to put them up.

Monday Meal - Mushroom, Spinach, Lentil, and Quinoa Salad

I came across this blog post one day while I was searching for a spinach side dish to serve with our chicken dinner. It seemed simple enough, and the biggest selling points, I had enough of the ingredients on hand to make it work. I had to make a few changes from the original post, so here's what we had.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup lentils
1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms
1/4 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups of spinach
1 clove garlic
1/2 small onion
1/2 cup chicken broth
olive oil
salt
pepper

Directions:
Add oil to pan and brown mushrooms. Remove mushrooms, add garlic and onion. Cook for two minutes. Add lentils, quinoa and chicken broth and let simmer for about ten minutes. Add spinach and mushrooms back to pan and cook for another couple of minutes. Season with salt and pepper as desired.

This was a pretty delicious side salad for a mushroom lover (R), I found it not to bad considering I'm not a huge mushroom fan. Both the kids picked at the salad and ate a bit of it. All in all, we'll add it into our repitoire.

It's Official..

I emailed work today and started the prep for my return on the first of November. The past year just flew by. I'll be sure to share my thoughts about the entire year after the next month when it's officially over. But for now, help me pray to the walking gods that Little N stays on his hands and knees just a little bit longer; walking means a whole lot more tormenting of Big N.

Welcome to Nova Scotia....

Not many people say to themselves, lets spend at least 24 hours in a car driving with a 2.5 year old and a 10 month old, but we're that family. You know, the family that pretends we can all get along for two days trapped inside of a vehicle, and I'm happy to report, with each trip we make to Nova Scotia we get one step closer to becoming a really good travelling family. Aside from a major meltdown ten minutes from our hotel after 12 hours on the road, we did really great. Big N is finally old enough to understand why we are making her sit in the car for so long and Little N is still little enough that we can put him into a drowsy milk state.
We had a great time visiting family and waking up to a beautiful view of the Bras d'or lake. We ate well, and spent a ton of time outside enjoying what turned out to be the best two weeks of summer.

Little N received his very first hair cut during our visit, and yes, those are pictures of my kids at the salon. Can you take a guess who their awesome hairdresser is?

I'll have to get some more pictures sent to me. It appears I was too busy having fun to document our vacation.

We're Home!!

After spending the last two weeks on the east coast, it is a great feeling to walk into your own home. I love my family, but two weeks in a trailer is more than enough for my liking. I was amazed at how great it felt to just sit down at the kitchen table and let the kids be free, since our house is child proof and I know exactly what every sound means, what area they are in, what they are pulling down and what they could break. I missed that feeling for the past two weeks. We had a great vacation and got to spend lots of time outside with our extended family. I'll post some pictures this week, but for now, I'm going to veg on the computer for another half hour and then go to bed, my own glorious queen size bed.

Monday Meal - Jalapeno Refried Black Beans

I found this recipe while day while searching for something to serve as a side dish with our salsa chicken, but it didn't have very good reviews. So, I made quite a few changes, and the dish turned out delicious enough we've decided it can be added into our regular meal rotation.

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil (or so)
16 oz. black beans, rinsed and drained

2 hot chili peppers
2 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preparation:

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Cook the garlic, onions and jalapenos until slightly wilted. Sprinkle in the cumin. Add in beans and cheese and roughly stir, mashing some of it together. I didn't do too much mashing because I actually don't like the look of "refried" beans, so this is more just jalapeno black beans.

Prune Flaxseed Cookies

I bought a bunch of flax seed a few trips ago at the grocery store, but hadn't found a recipe to use them with, until I stumbled upon this recipe from Canadian Living. I've had a lot of success with all sorts of recipes from Canadian Living and this one did not disappoint either, I still did make a few changes, including the addition of the prunes.

Ingredients:
1/2 1/2cup cup(125 mL) softened butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/2 1/2cupcup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar 1/3 1/3cup white cup white sugar
1 egg 1 eggegg
1/2 tsp vanilla 1/2 1/2tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour 1 1cup cupall purpose flour
3/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats 3/4 3/4cup cuprolled oats
2/3 cup flaxseeds 2/3 2/3cup flaxseeds
1 tsp baking soda 1 1tsp tspbaking soda
1/2 cup chopped prunes

Directions:

In bowl, beat together butter and brown and granulated sugars until light; beat in egg and vanilla.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, oats, flaxseeds and baking soda; stir into butter mixture until soft dough forms.

Add chopped prunes.

Drop by level tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on u baking sheets. Bake at 350°F until golden, 12 minutes. Let cool on pan on rack for 2 minutes.

Rolled Paper Frame

One day while aimlessly searching blogland, I came across this post for a rolled paper frame art. We had both paper and cardboard handy, so off we went to roll some paper. We followed the directions pretty closely, so go on over to check them out.

We spray painted the entire frame and background black, and then added a little metallic silver paint to the rolled paper.
But now we had this pretty frame with absolutely nothing to put in it. We started looking around the playroom for something we could put in it, and came across a pretty picture of a frog R had coloured with Big N one day after work. We Mod Podged the crap out of it, and came up with this stunning array.
Mod Podge and I aren't the best of friend, so I ended up using some white glue on the back to make sure the little froggie stayed put. Now we just have to find a place to put this little man. He's pretty cute. I think he might get to stay.

The $4.50 headboard

Whether this is considered a headboard or wall art, I'll never know. But, are you ready for the reveal of what this beautiful piece is made from?
It's $1.25 piece of poster board, covered in a $1 pillow case all from Dollarama. The centre is an 8x10 canvas art piece that Big N painted for me, there's actually a lot of dimension in the piece, but it doesn't really photograph very well. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, a budget basic redo.

Monday Meal - Quinoa and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I came across this recipe the other day while searching for things to do with my quinoa.

These chicken breasts were super tasty, and although we had to vary on the recipe slightly by using mozzarella as opposed to Gouda as our cheese, and I have a feeling would have been more delicious had we used the Gouda, but it definitely wasn't worth trudging two kids to the store for.

So, I won't bother to post the recipe, since I think it's delicious as is, so pop on over and check it out. We served our meal with some baked broccoli and it was the best meal of the week. We'll be adding this into our regular rotation.

Baking

Sometimes as I'm sorting through the pictures on my phone, I come across things that I'm pretty sure I was going to blog about, but then can't remember exactly what they are.

For example, this muffin is?

All gone. They may have been carrot bran muffins, I vaguely recall peeling carrots in the past week. Obviously, the recipe I had wasn't spectacular otherwise I probably would have been more careful to save it.

And these are chocolate oatmeal cookies, which the recipe I used was WAY too sugary, which still didn't stop me from eating about two dozen of them in a day. Maybe I should get more organized on my blogging adventure? Hmm....that seems like effort, not sure that's for me.

Magazine Organizer

For my niece's birthday this year, I got her a magazine subscription, and the last I heard, she loved it! So, hopefully that's still the case. Now, the best part of this birthday gift was that if you bought two subscriptions you got a third free. What's the you say, spend an extra $10 and get magazines for myself too? Why, of course, I'll take it!

And now, I find myself anxiously awaiting my Today's Parent and Moneysense subscriptions, heck, I am an accountant by trade. P.S. Both these magazines rock!

But, onto the real point, I have absolutely no where to put my magazines beside the bookshelf in the spare bedroom, and that's a little out of the way when I'm looking for something to do to pass the time during the day.

So, Big N and I got to work making a nice magazine holder.

We took a Bran Flake box, since it was about the right size, and cut off the top and cut down the sides. We added some scrapbook paper to the back and sides to cover the box itself. And just like that, we had a cute little magazine organizer.

As I was putting away endless amounts of colouring books today, I thought one of these little boxes would work great for them too, so perhaps tomorrow we will make another. A few things I learned along the way for the next round:

1. If your box is very graphic, you may want to take it outside and add a coat of spray paint first, if you look carefully you can see the coupons available on the back of the box.

2. The glue did tend to pucker a little bit, so I would probably water it down a little more than I did this time.

3. Work at not having any excess, since as you can see above a little piece of my box is missing scrap book paper, and that is because I only had one sheet of that same pattern. If I were to make it so it didn't hardly overlap with the black binding, it probably could have covered just a little bit more.

Master Bedroom Reno

After a year and a half, I finally decided to buckle down and finish the master bedroom. It was merely a matter of putting up some finishing touches to make everything come together. So, lets reminisce about how far we've come in the past year.

This first picture is from a couple of days prior to us taking possession of the house where we checked to make sure everything seemed to be in good order and my parents got the chance to come view the beautiful property with us. I'm sure they were awestruck. I mean with a master bedroom like this, who wouldn't be?
We quickly got to work CLEANING, patching holes, burning curtains, CLEANING and the room was starting to take shape. We added some paint to the ceiling and walls, put up some new trim, added new closet doors, and ta da, it was livable.

And that's pretty much how it stayed for over a year, until one day last week, I decided I wanted a room that was a little more relaxing and a little less, I just graduated from university and all I own is this bed. There was a lot of consideration over what to use as a headboard for our bed, but the lack of funds available for frivolous redo's, Big N and I got to work making this wonderful piece for $4.50. Check back for a full post of what it is made of, I have a feeling you'll never guess.

We added a mirror that was found in the clearance section of the Superstore above the dresser, although being 5'2" on a tall day, it's a bit high for my liking, but it's just right for people of normal height.

And we couldn't kick Little N out quite yet, so during the big bed move (dragging it across the room to the other wall), he got pushed against the inside wall now. The pictures above his bed are three pictures I took after my European Adventure in 2007. I still love looking at those pictures in the morning and remembering what a great adventure that trip was.
We finalized the bedroom for under $5. We pieced together the furniture over the past year, the platform bed and dresser are from the South Shore Lux collection which we got from Direct Buy. We have the same dresser in the kids' room, so some day when we are ready to get an actual grown up bedroom set, the kids will likely inherit this whole set. The night stands and lights are all from Ikea and had been taking up residence in other parts of our house. The blinds were from the rec room downstairs, and immediately after moving in and realizing the windows were the same size, I scooped them up so R had to buy new sets for the rec room, hehe oops. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results. Some day when we decide to pull up all the gross blue carpeting, I'll enjoy the space even more, but for now, it suits my needs just fine.

Chocolate Cupcakes

We were in charge of making the cake for the birthday party (do you see a theme to this week's posts?), so we decided to go with cupcakes, since they travel the best and work well for 6 kids under 3.5. I came across this recipe and thought it fit our description pretty well. Keeping in mind, that prior to starting this second mat leave I've never made cupcakes from scratch, and when I go back to work, the box variety will probably become our go to item again. But, these were simple and delicious, I'd definitely make them again. We had very few changes to the recipe except to remove the salt.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar (not packed)
1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill muffin pans with 24 cupcake liners. Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Stir until your arm gets too tired to continue. Add the boiling water, and beat, just until blended. The mixture is very watery, but turns out wonderful. Pour the batter into the liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the center of the cupcakes springs back when lightly touched. Cool and frost.

We used the same Vanilla Butter Cream Icing as posted and it was deliciously sweet.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter, just slightly cooler than room temperature

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla
food coloring, if desired

Directions:

Beat butter in a medium-sized mixing bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 3 cups of the powdered sugar. Beat in milk and vanilla. Blend in remaining 1/2 cup powdered sugar. If desired, tint with food coloring.

Coffee Filter Flowers

We needed some more decorations to make Granny's birthday a spectacular event, so we thought making her a beautiful brooch would be wonderful, until we discovered we don't own a safety pin. We came across this site outlining how to create coffee filter flowers, so we got to work putting coffee filters into bowls of water and food colouring. We had three different coloured bowls and Big N loved adding the coffee filters to the water. We left the filters in the bowls for various amounts of time, and then left them to dry on paper towels and newspaper on the floor.
We made flower shapes by taping the center of the flowers. Although we used all different colours, most of our flowers ended up pinkish, seems that was Big N's favourite bowl. We couldn't find anything to use for stems so we used our paper bowl from yesterday and made a beautiful centerpiece.
I'm sure Granny absolutely loved her decorations, because really, who else could love something as wonderful as this but a grandmother?!?

How Cute is this?

My parents came across this birthday cake at the market they frequent recently.

It has two layers of vanilla cake on the top and bottom for the bun, a layer of chocolate cake in the middle for the patty, and icing in various colours for the fixings. There's even a sugar coating on the top for sesame seeds. I think I need to host a burger party just so I can attempt to make this. Who wants to come?

Paper Bowl

After trolling through blog land one day, I ran across a tutorial for a paper bowl, it looked fancy and beautiful. I realized the bowl was nothing more than a little paper mache, so off we went to the backyard with a bowl, some cut up newspaper, and watered down glue.

The key to the bowl not getting covered in glue is to cover the outside in Pam, then apply saran wrap, then apply more Pam. When you start adding the paper and the glue, it won't stick to the bowl and it'll be easy to remove your shape holder.

Turn the bowl upside down, dip the paper in the glue mixture (2 parts glue to 1 part water) and start sticking it to the outside of the bowl. We continued this until we were thoroughly covered in glue. After drying for a couple days (since we needed to add some more paper and glue since our original technique of just brushing on the glue didn't hold well enough), we had a beautiful paper bowl.

We originally thought we would paint the bowl and add some fancy things to it, but we ran out of time. Check back tomorrow to see what we ended up putting in this BEAUTIFUL bowl.