Gangnam Style a la Sam & Juliet

And who can forget about Sof...

peaches & green beans

finally some faces!!

I guess the apples were a little sour... hehehehe.

Butternut Squash

" we are all a little MAD here... And a lot disappointed."

A few weeks ago I came across an event for the kids that was being held at the Fulford Mansion.

"How neat" I thought. Even more so because it was a Mad Hatter's tea party. Fabulous. And at $40 for the kids to attend the 2 morning event (9am-noon each day) I thought why not. Let's be social.

I don't know what led me to believe that it was going to be some extravagant tea party in the Fulford garden with frilly table cloths, yummy eats and elegant tea ware... but I was WAY off. Way, way off. I guess with kids ranging in age from 5-12 plastic cups & paper plates are way more suitable... and granola bars cut into little pieces with not enough juice to go around way more cost effective. Way more disappointing, but way more age appropriate... ugh. Speaking of age appropriate... let's talk about the activities. One of the activities they did was a scavenger hunt. The kids broke off into groups and were each given a clue as to where their next clue was hidden and so on. Oh what fun! Well someone forgot to remind whoever made up the clues that the age range was 5 to 12 years. Even I couldn't understand half the clues. "We hang from the arms of the friendly giant". Oh yes that must be something hanging from the branches of the dead tree way over there on the other side of the HUGE lawn. Any 8 year old (+/- a few years) could have guessed that. Please. What ever happened to find a pine cone, a feather & a dead bug or something?? Oh and for pin the grin on the Cheshire Cat...  which Sam won btw, have you ever heard of sticking the cat to the wall so the kids could go for it instead of holding the cat in your hands and going for the kids? IS IT SO COMPLICATED??!

Boo. I had such high, albeit unreasonable, expectations... so I was a titch disappointed with the whole thing. The kids, however, had a blast. I never thought Sam could possible be THAT excited for a tea party. Here are some pictures, that undoubtedly make it look WAY MORE FUN than it actually was. Better luck next time, although next time I should probably just stay home.

On the plus side I got a free mini-tour of the mansion and took the opportunity to take a few photos of the garden statues! Yay me.

Peas, Bananas & Pears Oh My!

Zucchini

Either this child doesn't have taste buds, or she just really likes her vegetables. There was no change in facial expression in going from a bite of sweet potato to zucchini. There was, however, some doubtful responses to avocado...

I think it was mostly because of the texture... I mashed it by hand instead of in the blender so it took her by surprise. She's been doing such a great job with vegetables I think it's time to reward her with some fruit!

This is what happens when you shop with my husband...

You might remember this pic from an earlier post... Fishing Sofie

 Well... we now bring you... Goalie Sofie

 And... Biker Sofie

 And... the Bobble Heads

Sweet Potatoes!!

Do I have potatoes on my face?

all abord the peace train...

Carrots

Do we love them? Yes we do!! I dusted off the Baby Bullet I got from my father-in-law and whipped up some carrots for Sofie yesterday. It was a success. Next stop: sweet potatoes!

PS... Am I the only person who finds herself opening & closing her mouth when feeding her baby?? Geez... I have to actually concentrate on NOT doing it. Honestly. What is up with that?

Bunk Beds

Sam & Juliet share a crowded room... as you can see here and here. The idea of bunk beds has been floating around aimlessly for months and we FINALLY got it together & dealt with it. Bunk beds are expensive. Mattresses are expensive, and Sam desperately needed a new mattress to replace the tiny single piece of foam he'd created a nesting hole in.... literally. He slept in a hole created by his own body weight. So... my husband decided he'd like to build the bunk beds himself using the leftover wood from last year's deck project. SUCCESS! Once they were put together the kids & my mother got busy painting them.

Sam requested that his top half be red and Juliet wanted her bottom to be pink. She also requested a rainbow ladder and Sam was okay with that so long as no pink or purple touched his red. So after a couple of days and 2 brand new outfits of Juliet's covered in paint (argh!) they were done.

Complete with glittery stars for Juliet to gaze up to...

The kids (& me) are very happy with the success of the project and everyone is sleeping well. I've re-arranged their room to create a lot more space & turned "Sam's Sea" corner into a cozy reading area with bean bag chairs. The new found space has also doubled as a hockey arena courtesy of Sam. The last bit of effort will be to remove the blades from the ceiling fan so that Sam doesn't accidentally get decapitated climbing in or out of bed. 

Water Baby

When you're born into a pool of water... with water in your lungs... in the month of February (which makes you Aquarius)... you are a true WATER BABY.

Finally!!

let's go fly a kite!

Not only do we have a great kite flying spot... we have great kites. You absolutely CAN'T go wrong with the cheapest kites you can find (at walmart) ... And when I say you can't go wrong I mean my girlfriend's (almost) 3 year old son was flying his kite without even knowing it. He thought it crashed and when he ran over to us the kite lifted off again and he was good to go. He also flew it laying down.

It doesn't get much easier than that. Here are some more of my favourite pics from that day.

A million and one...

That's about the number of things I have to post about. Or that I have wanted to post about. Where does my time go? This post is going to be totally random so bear with me...

So the daughter formerly known as the devil is doing A LOT better. It only took 4 and a half months. No biggie (insert sarcasm here). I cut out dairy from my diet mid April & cut out wheat at the beginning of May. Neither one made much of a difference with regards to Sofie's fussiness but it did help to knock off 10 more lbs of pregnancy weight. Woo Hoo! Still got another 15 to go... Boo. I'm slowly starting to re-introduce both back into my diet in small quantities. Mmmmmmm.. Cheese.

I then started questioning my breast milk supply and decided to run with the idea that I had a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance because Sofie had all the symptoms associated with that. I started block feeding (feeding from one boob for 6-12 hours before switching to the other) about a month ago and it really seemed to work!! She was (is) crying less. At the same time I decided to introduce an organic dairy based formula and she loved it! So now between the 2 we've got a pretty happy baby!! She still isn't sleeping her nights at all but at least she doesn't cry all day anymore... which is a MAJOR relief. I also started giving her cereal... which she loves, but hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. Still a lot of pushing out with her tongue rather than taking in. But we try.

Yay for Sofie!! Now we just have to stop waking up every hour.

When I cut dairy out of my diet I also had to cut out soy... which is difficult for a vegetarian. And then I cut out the wheat... which left me with not much other than fruits & veg to eat. One of the new veggies I started eating a lot of was (is) spaghetti squash and I fell in LOVE. Soooo much healthier than eating actual pasta and I can prepare it the exact same way. MMMMMM. After baking it at 350 for 1 hour, add some diced tomato, avocado, onion, cilantro & salsa verde et voila!

All it's missing is a little feta cheese to make it extra perfect.... but at the time of the pic I wasn't eating dairy at all. Next time I'll add the feta. So good.

So schools out for the summer. Now the challenge will be to find things for the kids to do that don't drive them to kill each other... & me to kill myself. We didn't put them in any camps because both my husband & I will be home all summer and we didn't want to spend the money. That may have been a bad idea... lol. We are 5 days into summer vacation and I've already put a call out to see if there are open spaces at camp next week. Thankfully there are. In the mean time, being the only people on the block that don't have a pool we have to be a tad more creative when it comes to cooling off in the summer heat. So the other day we had a water balloon fight!! Which turned into great family fun. Until the balloons ran out and my husband got a hold of the bucket AND the hose. I lost. And it probably wasn't a great idea to be wearing a (mostly) white dress. When I got dressed that morning how was I supposed to know that the kids would ask to play with water balloons, which would give me the idea to fight them with the hose... and my husband the idea to fight with the kids against me??

It was a lot of fun, especially for the kids because they got to throw water balloons at us without getting in trouble. Good times.

In all the kerfuffle that is my life I totally forgot that they were building a splash pad in town. Who needs a pool? When Juliet went to a birthday party in the vicinity of the project we discovered that it is WELL underway!! Check it out.... should be up & running by mid-July. WOO HOO! I could very well be more excited than the kids.

 

So we've been living in this house for 3 years now. It's our 4th summer. Get that? One two three four. For some reason... even tho NOTHING has changed... the (mess of) garden on the side of our house has decided to bloom... What's up with that? Not only have we NEVER had a flower bloom on the clematis I thought I dug it all up last fall...

Apparently not. I don't even know if the photo actually does the mess of vine justice. After my husband rescued the air conditioner from the death grip of the massive vine I had to tie it up in 3 places. And there are actually flowers on it. Also... we've never had more than maybe 2 or 3 of our lillies bloom.

 Crazy eh.  And the mother's day grape vine is doing well too. Look... GRAPES!

I also attempted to grow a little herb garden in my kitchen window remember? (picture of the day April 7th, 2012 & May 22nd 2012). So my chives didn't grow AT ALL... (ya I know what you're thinking.... Who can't grow chives?) But after 2... yes TWO tries, my basil started growing! There's barely enough for one salad but at least it's pretty to look at. And yes, I am a total gardening failure.

So I think I'm up to date with everything I've wanted to share. I will try to keep on top of things but there are no guarantees. And I think I'm going to stop posting a picture of the day and just post pics right here when I feel inspired... I'm like 20 days overdue anyway. Here's one to start... We took a day to venture into the US and headed to Watertown to do a 'lil shoppin'. Basically a waste of time. But not before my husband had some fun. Poor child.

A la prochaine!