A good friend of mine posted this as her Facebook status today and I feel like this message is a really important one, and one that needs to be shared. Halloween is a fun time of year for everyone, so as adults let’s ensure that happens for all the kids!
“With Halloween upon us, please keep in mind, a lot of little people will be visiting your home. Be accepting. The child who is grabbing more than one piece of candy may have poor fine motor skills. The child who takes forever to pick out one piece of candy may have motor planning issues. The child who does not say trick or treat or thank you may be non-verbal. The child who looks disappointed when they see your bowl might have an allergy. The child who isn’t wearing a costume at all might have a sensory issue (SPD) or autism. Be nice. Be patient. Its everyone’s Halloween.”
And since we’re on the topic of fun and safety at Halloween, have you considered how to keep your home safe and secure? Burglary cases sky-rocket on Halloween night – it provides the perfect opportunity for masked robbers to blend in with the crowd of trick-or-treaters. Home alarm services can install security around your house, including CCTV, motion lights, motion sensors and alert systems which can help to deter burglars, but keep your back door and windows locked anyway if you’re going to be spending a lot of time at the front door.
Additionally, we live in an age where we are fortunately more aware of food intolerances. Many children have intolerances to nuts, dairy, gluten and sulfites, so make sure your treats are suitable for all. Don’t be tempted to make anything homemade either – as nice a gesture as it is, parents simply can’t be sure what might be in your homemade treats and will likely throw it straight in the bin. Stick to wrapped sweets and make sure none of the packets have holes in or they’ll get thrown away too.
dear hubby has taken on the sunday dinner responsibility around here. since buying a bread maker from a friend a few months ago, he has started making his pizza dough in the maker. it’s easy for him, as long as he just has to plan it ahead of time. this past weekend, dear hubby made a pizza that was one of the best he has ever made; a butternut squash and ricotta cheese delish pizza pie! i found the recipe on pinterest, but THIS is the site it’s originally from. the directions are so nicely and clearly spelt out there, tha i am not going to re-write them here. so, go check it out!
this time of year squash is bountiful, fresh and local for us, so we’ll be eating various foods made with it. in fact tonight for dinner for the kids, squash soup. dear hubby and i will skip the soup and go on a long over due date night! happy friday everyone!
i came across this perfect fall, thanksgiving muffin recipe on pinterest. i’m not the biggest pumpkin flavour fan, but there was something about these muffins that made me want to try them. so, i did.
the recipe for the maple pumpkin oat muffins with maple glaze is directly from the hazel bloom.
yield: approx. 12 muffins.
Ingredients:
Maple Pumpkin Oat Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon*
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger*
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves*
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
1 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have butter milk, take one cup milk and mix in 1tbsp of lemon or white vinegar.)
1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree – canned or homemade
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 egg (i used egg substitute)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cinnamon-Maple Glaze
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, depending on your tastes
3 teaspoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons milk
Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Line 12 standard (1/3 cup) muffin cups with cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, pumpkin, maple syrup, brown sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and whisk just until the ingredients are well incorporated. Try not to overmix!
Bake for about 22 – 25 minutes, until the top of the muffins spring back when poked and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean.
luckily for me, i had some seriously cute help. lion was a wonderful mixer of ingredients!
i skipped the glaze part, as i thought the muffins were sweet enough and the sticky mess from the glaze was not something i wanted to to deal with.we all loved the muffins.
to all my canadian friends, go whip up a batch this weekend for thanksgiving this weekend! yum!
don’t you just love smoothies? i’ve been on a bit of a smoothie kick as it’s a great breakfast boost for the kids and the perfect way to get that needed protein into them. especially now that bear is in JK all day! I’ve even gone out and purchased the Best Juicer I could find to create delicious glasses of goodness. i check the fridge for various fruits bits, veggie chunks and other possible smoothie ingredients. i chuck what i can find into my container and blend away (i just use my immersion hand-held blender). i always make sure i put in flax oil, tofu, unsweetened organic almond milk and some kind of fruit. often i use banana’s, berries, or left over fruit salad chunks. sometimes, i’ll throw in a dollop of plain organic yoghurt or a splash of organic whole cow’s milk. when i was on my cleanse i was encouraged to make smoothies with spinach, so i now i put in big handfuls of the fresh organic green stuff. once i had no spinach so i threw in some kale. the spinach is tasteless when mixed in, but provides awesome nutrition. this smoothie pictured below also has ground flax seeds in it.
i don’t measure anything when making smoothies. i add until i like the colour, consistency or taste. i only use about a 1/4 cup of flax oil and one heaping table spoon of the ground flax seeds. have fun! enjoy! do you have favourite smoothie flavour?
i watched half of “eat, pray, love” last night. i got to where she arrives in bali. the movie isn’t horrible. it’s just kinda blah and frustrating, because (thus far) it hasn’t really gone any where. i love the concept behind it; a woman travelling the world alone, finding herself (without a man), learning new languages, meeting new people and so on. but, the movie lacks any realism. the places she visits all look squeaky clean and too perfect and the people, well, they’re perfect too and none have any dimension to them. everyone and everything is flat. it all looks like a set designer or a make-up artist just touched things up, which i’m sure they just did! but i hate seeing it so obviously in my face! i haven’t read the book, and probably won’t.
hollywood needs to back off the whole perfection ideal and let a few eye brow hairs stray or a pimple blossom into a shiny whitehead, right?
it rained today and the kids got batty. lion has been crying off and on all day. i’m guessing it’s teeth related, but listening to his over the top dramatics is exhausting. doesn’t help that bear has been antagonizing his brother as well. i feel grumpy. i’m not interested in making dinner at all tonight, but we did some grocery shopping this morning and our cupboards are full of beautiful, seasonal foods, so i must create something delicious for the dudes. corn? and burgers? green salad? done. ******* i’ll be participating in NaBloPoMo via blog her this september. it means i will be blogging daily, hopefully. the theme for the month will be “eye“, which i think will be fitting as the upcoming month is filled with new experiences for us. let’s see, we’ll be starting full time school, swimming classes for bear, new daily routines, full on toilet training for lion (he started on his own in the beginning of summer, but with our trip and such we got side tracked), and us parentals will be going forth with various projects around the house and pursuing our own hobbies. good times!Â
it’s that time of year again when fresh ontario peaches are in the markets. yum! today with the cooler temperatures i was inspired to get my baking groove on. so, we got busy and a little messy with baking THESE today, kinda. i got the idea from tiffanie over at cornerblog. i was too lazy to find the actual recipe as suggested from the joy of cooking, so i used a finnish crepe/ lettu dough instead, one that i have winged countless times from memory as i’ve been making lettuja for so long, recipe for them found HERE.Â
i bought my donut pans at a local bulk store a while back and have been getting my ice makin’ groove on during these intense heat waves. lotsa lemons and blueberries! yum! back to the baking… lettu/ finnish crepe recipe 5 dl (2-3 cups) of milk 2 eggs (we used the boxed egg substitute) 2 dl (approx. 1 cup)flour 2 tbls (a dollop) butter or veg oil 2 tbls spoon sugar 1 sprinkling of salt 1-2 peaches (depending how big your slices are and how much you sample!) and/ or as many blueberries as you think look yummy! i filled each ring with the dough. then, i cut the peaches into fairly thing slices and placed 2-3 pieces into each ring. i had to do some pretty serious peach sampling, as they were screaming to be eaten. oh boy! i preheated the oven to 350F and once ready baked the ring things for about 20-30minutes. a slightly hotter oven would have been better, but this way they cooked pretty evenly. i will keep perfecting this recipe : it’s a keeper!
well, they are a humongous hit! both of the the boys, yes lion included, have been sneaking up onto the counter to try and get more peach rings! silly boys! it’s finally raining. i hope it rains all night. we have not had a decent rain fall in a very long time, not only is everyone’s grass yellow, but i wonder how all of the wild animals are faring.Â
we went on an overnight mini camping extravaganza vacation with friends this past weekend. it was one night of laughs, booze, camp food and lotsa fun!
because our area of canada is experiencing an unusually dry and hot summer, there was a fire ban at the grounds. there have been lots of forest fires, so i completely understand the ban, but i will admit i was slightly saddened. what’s camping without a fire? It’s ultimately my own fault as I should of done more research into the camp ground. Lesson learnt. In future, I’ll definitely be reading up on how to find the perfect campground for your RV. No longer am I taking our RV and just randomly choosing a camp site in the hope it has everything we need.
we had meal planned our dinner to be cooked with the fire, but luckily a couple of weeks before we decided to purchase a stove top. After reading lots of camping products reviews, we have spent quite a bit of money upgrading our camping gear! So… we did it all stove top instead and it all worked out fine. our to be fire roasted potatoes, became stove top taters instead and were yummy as heck! We recently bought a new RV Battery which meant we could cook all this wonderful food. It saved the day!
[ new potatoes, garlic cloves cut in half, generous chunks of butter, cut yellow onion and a generous sprinkle of sea salt. i had wrapped them all in lots of foil as we had hoped to cook them in the fire. this is how we do taters at the cottage on the BBQ! ]
there were six kids and six adults so it all balanced out. the kids played in the woods where we set up dear hubby’s beloved brazillian hammock and as dusk settled in the kids explored everything with their flashlights. it was so funny and cute and hilarious to listen to their excitement. the little ones had a harder time getting to sleep. dear hubby walked around the campground with lion on his back, which worked out well. however, we got off to sleep absolutely fine in our RV as we have comfy beds and even an amazing skylight to which we can see all the stars glistening from. last year when we went camping our skylight was damaged a little from being so old, but luckily we had a dome skylight replacement to fix it on the spot so we didn’t have to panic about not having a view of the stars!
once the kids were finally asleep the real party started, and the booze came out in generous pours and were slurped in generous gulps. it was a perfect summer night for sitting around our pretend fire, where the chatter and drinks flowed and then as the night progressed the laughs became slightly louder and longer. good times.
morning dawn brought with it a few rain drops that luckily didn’t amount to anything. it brought with it super hungry kids who had to have some fast granola and fruit to rid them of the morning grumps! just look the differences in the two pics of the kids… before granola and then after!
and then after some team work we all ate fantastic breakfast burrito’s and sipped on the best coffee ever! food tastes to great at camping, even if it car camping! so yummy!
lots of summer love to our friends. we had a blast and can’t wait for next summer’s camping trip! ******* today is monday and incredibly hot. tomorrow they are predicting +36c, which midas well be the boiling point. we will hunker down inside with craft projects and friends and ice cream!
we’re going on a simple car-camping trip this weekend with friends. yesterday the weather said 90% chance of rain all day saturday, today it’s dropped to 20%, so we’ll see what mother nature actually serves up for us! i’ve been thinking about food for this trip as we have three families of four, ranging from 1years to 39:ish, so ti satiate twelve people can be tricky! here’s what my research unveiled on pinterest…
we’re going to roast some potatoes with onions, garlic and butter  topped with a sprinkling of sea salt and pepper.Â
and hot dogs of course! we’re going to load ’em up with all sorts of goodies, not just ketchup!
look at this fabulous idea; smores in cones baked in the fire! cannot wait to sink my teeth in one of these! teh kids are going to get a pretty serious sugar high, but hopefully they will just crash afterwards!
we’re making yummy breakfast burrito’s for breakfast on sunday. the meat eaters will include eggs and bacon in theirs, while us veggies will include tofu and veg as our insides. there will of course be salsa and sour cream for dipping!
we had a small and simple birthday party for lion’s second birthday. we invited everyone to join us at a local park, next to the river and a playground. it was perfect. we found a picnic table next some big ol’ shady trees and set up our party. there were carrot cake and chocolate lion cupcakes.
rainbow fruit kabobs.
beautiful handmade pinwheels made by dear hubby. inspiration from HERE.
balloons for all the kids to take home!
colourful bunting flags quickly sewn up by your truly. see instructions HERE.
we had flowers from our backyard.
drinks sitting in a bucket of ice.
signing happy birthday and paljon onnea!
we ate all the goodies with goodie friends!
and lion was spoiled with lots of wonderful new toys and gifts!
and, lion was the recipient of lots of special birthday hugs and kisses!
lion’s birthday was a success! it wasn’t nearly as emotional as i had suspected, although i did have a few good sobs in the days leading up his birthday. and, as usual, i got a lump in my throat when singing paljon onnea; i am such a sop sometimes!
1. the brain tumour association of canada is still accepting donations for their spring sprint campaign. if you are interested in sponsoring me, please follow this link. the event already took place, but brain tumour research needs funding, trust me i know.
2. i have been reading cornerblog for a while and loving all of tiffanie’s pictures and tales. today, she has a serious request for a little friend of hers who is looking for bone marrow donor in the states. please, please, please read her blog, sign up as a donor or at least pass jake’s story along so that he can receive the help he needs to get strong and healthy again. no child should have to suffer.
**** last night we had a lovely, boozy night in our backyard with friends.Â
we started the evening with wine sangria and ended it with potent vodka sangria! i made some fancy ice cubes inspired by tiffanie at cornerblog: lemonade, blueberries, lemon wedges, yum!
we ate burritos and devoured ice cream sandwiches. summer fun!
it was a night filled with non-stop conversation, laughter and the sharing of lives. for a change, us adults talked more about our own lives than the kids’. we chatted for hours about travelling and it was the kind of talk that made me want to run inside, pack a pack and head straight to the airport, buy a ticket and just go. just go somewhere new and exciting with my family and live out an adventure.
one funny travel coincidence that revealed itself in our boozy haze… can you believe we stayed at the same absurdly tiny and freaky hotel (chunking mansions) and ate at the same aussie restaurant in hong kong? our visits were only a year or so a part and long before we had kids or were friends. but, what the odds?
the big kids played and played and played. when the sun set and it got dark, we gave them flashlights and the boys turned into avid owl explorers. it was the funniest and funnest game to watch. the littler kids crashed out; one up in bed, the other with his mama.
but, instead of buying a plane tickets, today dear hubby bought us a sofa. sigh. so it goes, i suppose.
pictures of the sofa chaos to follow. lotsa boxes and giggling little dudes!
