Lucas is walking

Story time

We signed up for Little Bears Story time at our public library. Its for kids ages 1-2.5 so its perfect for these guys. Sadie loves it. So many kids to hug, theres stories and singing and dancing. After a song or two, shes totally in her groove and shaking it and spinning around with the rest of them.

I try and scope out some books before we head into the story time, and I found a bunch, including Red is Best. Such a good book.

The next day was beautiful, so we had our own story time outside. It was great until Lucas bullied his way into her chair. He loves his lawn chairs. So much so, that he needs to occupy both, always.

This weekend we celebrated his first birthday with the family. It was lots of fun. I didn't get too many photos. The weather wasn't the greatest, so it was mostly inside.  I'll post a bit about that later.

a little of this and that

Not much is new these days. I've been getting overwhelmed with thinking about all the clutter that is in my house, how disorganized it is. Just yesterday I found a power cord in my dresser drawer at the bottom. Why? How? I ask myself, but somehow it got there. Its been put on top of the dresser until I get some bins to store and organize things like cables, wireless routers, and such, and then other bins for organizing Tony's saudering iron, wires, and bits. A trip to walmart sounds like fun. Lets just hope I can keep it all organized. I tend to fall in love with the idea of organization, but never follow through.

It also doesn't make things easier when you have 2 little tornado's tearing up every room you touch. That also was an eye opener to me. I realized that my living room floor can be entirely covered in just their toys. Gross. This week the broken toys, mcdonalds toys and crap toys were thrown out, and baby toys stored away. Reduced their toys by half ish. Not bad.

Best trick to entertain a toddler while cleaning the kitchen, a sink full of bubbles and water. Throw in a few cups and we're good to go. The only mess you have to clean after that is the swamp they make on the counters and floor. Its worth having one of them busy while I clean.

Oh man, fall is coming. I'm on the hunt for killer crockpot recipes. We made chicken stew, but I'm thinking of other fun things. Any suggestions are welcome!

dinner time happenings

Sadie picked dinner tonight. She choose cheerios and milk. She loves cereal almost as much as her daddy.

Tonight I was feeding Lucas his cheerios and I'd hear, UH OH! I turned and looked and saw Sadie mopping up drips she had made with the little green cloth. Every bite I'd hear UH OH!

Too bad she doesn't do that all the time- the cleaning up of her messes.

bits of our day

 When Lucas goes down for his second nap, its time for Sadie to paint. She's learning how to use watercolours nicely.

 My green onions are growing like mad in their jar on the windowsill. I've also read you can propagate rosemary this way, so I'm trying that out as well. 

 We've been drinking more tea now that the weather is cooling down. Sadie loves tea.

 Picked today from my still alive cherry tomato plant. Woo hoo, its still alive!

You can tell that Sadie lives here.

Lucas is 1!

Yep, my baby is ONE! It went so fast with him. Last night we had cake, just the 4 of us. It was getting late, so Lucas was kinda dazed and tired, but never the less, ate most of his cake. We didn't do much, just dinner and cake and then a quick sink bath to get rid of the gooey chocolate he covered himself in.

His party is in a few weeks, so I tested out this technique of making an ombre iced cake. The icing part turned out well, but the cake wasn't great. I think I've spoiled myself by making cake from scratch. This sucker was a box cake. Yuck. The raspberry filling wasn't that great either, but live and learn.

Sadie's Sad Sad Day

 It was just Sadie and I out in the yard. I was busy getting part of the garden ready for fall, and she was off playing with her babies (or so I thought). I heard her rambling on about babies and bugs, and then it went quiet.

As in too quiet. So I turned around to see her with my pair of scissors that I had been using to cut plastic. She dropped the scissors and her hands then went to cover something up. Instantly I thought she was hurt, but no, she was fine, no cuts. No cuts on her skin. I asked her what happened, and she burst into tears. She just kept crying. Then I moved her little arms, and lo and behold, she had cut her most favorite t-shirt. The one with the KITTTTEEEE on it. There's a small hole on the front, in the middle. Seriously, its one of her most favorites, and she came and sat on my lap, devastated.

I'm going to try and find a way to fix it, but the hole is in an awkward place. My poor girl.

Getting into the swing of things

 I'm slowly slowly getting back to this blog. Still been pretty busy, but trying to take time and enjoy the weather and yard before fall hits with its ugly rain. We visited Tony's mom in the hospital a week ago and while visiting, Sadie fell and scraped her knee pretty bad. Poor girl sat in Tony's lap and kept crying KNEEEEEEE over and over. We didn't have a band-aid on hand, and so a wet cloth helped soothe her until we got home. Curious George helps make all owies better.  Its been a while since the scrape, but she still points to her knee and says KNEEEEE sometimes. Shes just reliving the trauma...lol.

 My little baby is almost 1. One week a a bit to go before his birthday. No, I haven't gotten my stuff together for it, but there is a theme and its an under the sea theme. I've got Swedish fish stock piled and gummy sharks, but thats it.

We've been trying to paint and draw more.

 Sadie loves painting, but Lucas loves it just as much and bothers my budding artist. So We will wait for when he has his second nap for painting time. I should really buy finger paints for both of them. He loved it last time I had some.

How does your garden grow?

Fresh from the garden. I think I'm going to roast these babies with rosemary and garlic.

oh pinterest

I'm not gonna lie, I had high hopes for this recipe to turn out. Bummer it didn't though. It was supposed to be mini chicken pot pies from a betty crocker recipe. Oh well. Pot pie from scratch sounds better anyways. These guys weren't terrible, just not good.

This goes to show you that not all pinterest recipes or things turn out. At least, this one failed me.

we went camping (and survived)!

Ahh camping. Such a well needed getaway from all the stress of being at home, driving to the city for hospital visits (visiting Tony's mom), and stress of Tony's work. It was perfect. Being in the woods, no tv, no computers, nothing. We were up there for 3 nights, and it was just the right amount of time.

We had never slept in a tent all together, or camped with the kids, it was quite the experience.

Some of the things I learned:

-The kids will get filthy, especially the littlest one that can't walk, crawling in the dirt will happen.
-Kids will try and eat rocks (mostly just Lucas) watch for them to start drooling or with chipmunk cheeks if you weren't paying full attention to them and were instead skipping rocks across the lake (bad mama).
-Baked potatoes in the coals take a very long time. Just don't bother.
-We brought a Rubbermaid bin for storing food and supplies, it doubles as a bathtub. Sadie had a ball. In fact, when it was time to take her out of the cold water, she was so infuriated with me that she hit me in the face.
 -If you can, buy the kids mini or kid sized sleeping bags, cause bringing a million blankets was so annoying.
-Its amazing that kids can be entertained by a dolly, rocks, and cups and buckets. Colouring book and crayons were given to Sadie later which were also awesome, but that was about it. 
-Camping is quite the bonding experience, and this was especially true for Sadie and Tony. Boy did they bond.
Tidbits that happened while camping: 

I would take Sadie on walks to get water, and she would get uptight because we were leaving daddy behind. She would call him, or exclaim DADDY! when she spotted him again. 

While making breakfast I found Sadie reading a story to Lucas. Oh goodness my heart melted at that moment.

Lucas loved playing in the dirt with rocks and cups. His bottom half was always filthy and I was lucky to bring him so many clothes. We had just enough.

Sadie started eating meat out of the blue during our camping trip. I was cooking a garlic sausage and she was so impatient, she kept exclaiming MEEEEE for meat and was almost beside herself because she wanted to eat it. She's still kinda picky about it, but its enough that she tries it now.


That's all I can remember for now. I'll update you all more later on the goings on from around here.

its been a while

So, um....its been a pretty long time since I blogged. All of a sudden, it got really busy around here. There were birthday's, my mother in law's hip replacement surgery, and then planning a camping trip with the 2 kids. It was a lot to do. I tried planning blog stuff for when I was gone, but I found that by the evening, I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

So I've got a lot of stuff to write about now, more later. I need to gather up the few photos I've taken to update this sad looking little blog.

Posting will probably still be sparse around here, but I enjoy keeping a diary of stuff thats happened, so keep your eyes open for new stuff.

Sharing - or lack thereof

I didn't think it would be this hard to teach sharing to Sadie, but its proven to be very difficult.

This was a very sad tea party. Mostly because Sadie wouldn't let her brother have any of her toys.

He was so crushed.

I also realize that Lucas is at an age now where if he doesn't get his way, a full blown fit will occur. It was bound to happen.

I think every attempt I make to teach sharing has them both crying in the end. I usually grab an unused toy from Sadie and give it to Lucas, and then she cries and wrenches it back making him scream all while I'm trying to take it back from her and say "Sadie, we need to share with Lucas". Nope. That is not working. They are still pretty little though.

Any help or advice is welcome.

These photos make me laugh every time though. Sadie calmly pouring her "mint" tea and Lucas just Wailing. You can even see the pout begin in the top one.

Beat the Heat - Peach Mango Summer Smoothie

We've been drinking smoothies a lot lately. The kids love them, and its one way I know Sadie is ingesting good for you foods. One of the best ways to get it nice and cold is to either add ice or frozen cubes of yogurt. I froze a bunch in an ice cube tray and they make things nice and cold without watering it down.

To make our Peach Mango Summer Smoothies, all you need is a couple peaches pitted and cut into chunks, a few chunks of mango, then I add orange juice, frozen yogurt cubes and away we go.

Blenderize it to death. I don't mind peach peels in my smoothie, but you can peel them if you want to.

Sometimes if I'm desperate to make a healthy one for Sadie, I throw in spinach. She is none the wiser.

Smoothies are my best friend this summer.




If you have tips or tricks to beating the heat, email me at justaddmoresprinkes[at]gmail and I'll see what I can do about posting it up here on the blog. :)

a whole lot of nothing

I had planned some blog stuff and then last night didn't turn out well. Lucas refused to sleep on his own in his bed. He let out screams that sounded like a cougar. He fell asleep in my arms at 11pm, and then woke up at 3 screaming again. I patted, walked, bounced, fed him, snuggled him, all while he cried. Finally after 40 minutes, I gave up and let him cry himself to sleep. That took an hour.

He's got a bunch more teeth coming through, his top front one and a side one on the bottom. Hopefully this little shark of mine has a better sleep tonight.

For now, I leave you with probably the only few things I accomplished today; some sketches and a bunch of cut flowers.