Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Sickness

It's official, "the bug" has made it's way into our home.
ok, I may be being slightly dramatic as I appear to be the only one feeling nastier then usual, but still... it's in the house now so I fear it's only a matter of time before we are all hit.
In an effort to liven myself up and hopefully knock this thing out of my system I made up some wonderfully homey chicken soup.
The broth smelled so good (and looked so pretty) while it was cooking I was all but drooling when I went to bed Monday night so looking forward to yesterday's lunch. Such a shame when I woke up, Tuesday morning, with the biggest aversion to chicken I have ever experienced!! non the less I forced myself to have a bowl and it tasted fantastically warm and full of "feel better" goodness!

What do you do when you're feeling under the weather?
Only two more days until my knight in shinning armor will return to rescue me from my two dragon like children so I can sleep a full 24-48 hours!
seriously though... where do kids get their energy from? It really is insane... 

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Bits and Pieces

A few more pictures then usual this go-around but I just couldn't decide! I feel like this last week has been super eventful and I wanted to share it all... 













one. 14 week baby bump! not much has changed since my 9 week picture, except my belly is much harder... it's nice to feel a nice firm pregnant belly instead of a squishy bloated looking one!
two + three. working on "school" work. Learning our colors and doing letter crafts.
 four. We are officially a diaper free household for the next few months! It's been a while for us waiting for Eli to decide it was time (he's been ready... just stubborn) to start going on the potty and it finally happened! only a few accidents, one can be blamed on me, and all seems well! woo-hoo!
five. I will confess to letting the boys watch more TV then usual. I try to stick to about 2 hours a day (an hour in the morning and then an hour or so in the afternoon/evening, excluding their bedtime 20 minutes), just because they often need the down/quiet time but this week I'm afraid mommy needed a little more down/quiet time then usual.
six + seven. I absolutely adore watching Eli do crafts. He is so serious and deliberate with his colors, which is such a change from his almost care free ways of playing. I could watch him craft for hours just to see his little lips pout and brow furrow in concentration. We made masks with plates, both boys were very proud of their end results.
eight. rawr!
nine. Robin the Boy Wonder, and Heaven help you if you call him anything else.
ten. Making muffins! mmm... and they were super good...
eleven. I could count on one hand the number of times this has happened in the past 6 months. He fell asleep right after bath while I was getting his bedtime snack ready. 
twelve. How I wind down after a full day of mommy-ing.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Musical Monday: Paul McDonald and Nikki Reed - Now That I've Found You

A friend of mine showed me this last week via facebook and I instantly fell in love!
Thanks Ms. K!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Brown Sugar

Did you know that you can make your own brown sugar?
I know! It's completely mind blowing. I was so excited when I did this, I will be honest, I didn't buy actual brown sugar for like 2 weeks...
The consistency is just like store bought stuff and the taste is pretty much the same. 
And it works just as well in your baked goods.
You should really do this at least once... you'll feel like a superhero! 
All it takes is, 1 cup white sugar and 1 tbsp molasses mix them together and wham-o! 
Brown Sugar Baby!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

fabric

The last few days have been horribly gloomy making most of my pictures dark with a blue-ish hue.
That said, I've been dying to get out all of my new fabric and take pictures so I could brag show you everything!

So, there's no point hiding the fact that buying all this fabric made me slightly light headed and embarrassingly giddy!
Although I didn't buy anything with the intention of waiting until after our move to use it, I'm thinking the reality is it will go in a box/bin shortly and make a reappearance once everything is settling in our new home.
It will be like Christmas morning!! and what gift is better then a load of fabric? 
ummm... nothing... I honestly can not think of a single thing at this moment. 
I wish you could touch those polka dot fabrics. They are so soft and dreamy. I fully intend to go back and get more of a different colour. Maybe I'll make a dress. A polka dot dress! Can you think of anything more fantastic? 

My fabric store (yep, it's mine now) sells quilt kits. This one was sitting up on a top shelf and almost went unnoticed, but once I saw it and took it down I had to buy it. The fabric is an adorable little bug pattern and it came in this cute little case! Truth be told, I would have thought about it more if it wasn't packaged in the case. I was sold when she told me it came with the case.

I do have baby on the brain right now too so I bought this great little panel with all kind of animals on it with the plans to make it for our new little bean (hopefully before it arrives!). Since I was there it only made sense to also buy the coordinating fabric for the back and binding...

and lastly I got 2 fun fabric books to make for the future little one as well. I've never made one before but have really wanted to. I'm super picky though and haven't wanted to buy one that was just pictures (if I'm going to the effort to make a book, I want some bookish features... like words... I know I know, I'm such a snob!)  have you ever made one? My sister in law's mother made my nephew one and even made it crinkly! as soon as I figure out how she did it, I will let you know (as I'm sure you're loosing the same amount of sleep over it as I am!)
 
And that's that.
Just looking at those pictures make me sigh. 
And then want to get my scissors and cut into it all!

In other news I am surviving my time alone with the boys quite wonderfully!
The boys have been great, I have had energy and we've all been doing our part to make life good while daddy's away (we even got Eli going on the potty!! but shhh, don't say that too loud or the roof might fall on my head!).

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Life Changing Snack

Ok friend, I think it's high time we discussed something. 
Something that could be life changing.
The sheer brilliance of this is actually mind blowing!

Chocolate covered Pretzels.
Honestly, I am not a huge pretzel fan, in fact I usually pick them out of the snack mix and eat them first to get them out of the way.
But cover them in chocolate and they are to.die.for.
The perfect balance of chocolate and salt... mmmm... you get all your cravings met in one glorious snack.
If you haven't tried them you simply must. 
As in go. Go now. Go now and find them.
You can thank me later.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Musical Monday: Meaghan Smith - Heartbroken

My mister is away for the next little bit which means life is about to become a little more chaotic then usual.
That said, I am completely embracing it!
It seems an odd thing to admit but I am always super productive whenever I have the house to myself in the evenings so I am pumped to knock out my to do list over the next week or so.

Although my mister and I agree on a lot of music I'm afraid he's just not that into some of my favourites.
I think I have officially converted him over to the Zooey Deschanel fan club but Meaghan Smith is taking a bit more time...
This CD will be on repeat for the next week and I'm super excited to dance around my kitchen with my boys (because Zac LOVES this style of music!).



Friday, March 16, 2012

Please Forgive

You'll have to excuse the sudden bloggy silence this week.
My mister is preparing to go away for 2 full weeks which means our house is in a bit of a scramble trying to finish up any last minute updates/painting needed (we should be able to list as soon as he gets back you see).
I really don't know what I've done at all this week to equal why I've been so tired and scatter brained, but it's true, I have been.
In other news, I bought more yarn and a boat load of fabric yesterday!
I'll take pictures and do a little show and tell next week sometime.
Have a good weekend! I'm hoping ours is very productive!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Yarn

Look at it all!!
And it's all miiiiine!!
I was able to get some shopping time alone on Sunday and I hit the yarn section hard. I have everything laid out on the bed in our spare room right now and I keep going in to just stair at it all.
Can't wait to get some projects started!!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Too Big, Too Fast

My boys are getting so big...


When did that happen and how do I make it stop?!?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I have an odd love for zucchini.
Mostly in baked goods though because they become so ca-razy moist!
Zucchini Loaf? Yes.
Zucchini Muffins? Yes!
Chocolate Zucchini Cake? Yes Please!!
Another awesome thing about zucchini...
It's cheap!
And if it's cheap in rural Newfoundland chances are good it's cheap where you live.

Do you know what else is great fun about zucchini?
You can also call them courgette's! How fancy does that make zucchini sound now?
So instead of sharing a super awesome Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe with you, perhaps we'll call it a Chocolate and Courgette Cake! mmmm... sounds like we need tea and fancy dishes for that delicious cake.
So as not to intimidate you away with fancy dishes I will stick to calling this a Chocolate Zucchini Cake. 
My mom used to make this and it's always been a favourite of mine.
Have no fear though, you can't taste the little green miracles of moisture, truth be told they don't have much of a taste raw anyways...
Now, that could all be different of course if you start calling them courgettes!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
1/2 cups butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 heaping tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups zucchini, shredded and dried on a towel
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used chocolate chips instead)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a 9x12 cake pan.
Cream together butter, oil and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, vanilla and sour cream/yogurt.

Sift flour and cocoa together 3 or 4 times. The better the flour and cocoa is combined together the better. 
Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Beat into egg/sour cream mixture.
Add zucchini and nut/chocolate chips and fold to combine.

Bake 50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Ice with chocolate icing once cool.

Chocolate Icing - I wish I had an exact recipe to share with you here but I just combined about 2 tbsp butter 3-4 cups icing sugar, a heaping tbsp of cocoa powder and a few splashes of milk into a food processor and pulsed until it was the right consistency. Too little milk the mixture will come together in a dough like clump, too much milk and it will look shiny and slightly runny and dry with a royal icing like finish.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

365 Day Project

At the beginning of every year people tend to set goals... it's a pretty well known ritual...
The last few years I have noticed that the blog world always seems to go a bit wild at the beginning of January declaring projects to be completed daily over the following year; it's often called a "365 Day Project". 
(my favourite one can be found here)
I don't often follow the crowd with too many things, but I have been itching to get on board with a project for awhile now.
The trouble I was having though, is what do I want to commit to doing for 365 days that I wouldn't grow to hate by about day 54...
So instead of doing a 365 day project I'm doing a 12 month project.
I've decided that this year (I'm still going to try and complete my little project by December 31, 2012) my 12 month project is to...
dum dum DUUUMMM!!
complete 12 blankets.
I'm not limiting myself to sewing them or knitting them or crocheting them... just to make a blanket a month.
Hurray!! I feel like I have something to focus on now, and it's always nice to have something already planned when those creative ruts come a calling.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Musical Monday: Neil Young - Old Man

This weekend was one of those remarkably productive ones in our household.
We were able to clean the entire house (and keep it clean I might add!), do 7 loads of laundry, I baked some on Saturday, I put together half of the top of a quilt, my mister started painting our front entrance AND I snuck a nap or two in there as well, and that's just to name a few things we managed to accomplish.
Sometimes I'm just so proud of us!
It seems Neil Young has been my go to guy in music for the past little while, especially when I'm baking or cleaning.
Thought I'd share the love as his greatest hits was playing in our house most of the weekend.




Friday, March 2, 2012

A laugh

I adore cakes... and cupcakes... and muffins.
They all make me happy!
I saw this clip awhile ago and it made me laugh, so I thought I'd share it.

Have a great weekend!!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Chocolate Chip Squares

I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood. 
Not because I had a horrible one or anything, I actually had a fantastic life growing up; I just think I have a crappy memory.
One thing that I do remember though is these Chocolate Chip Squares.
My mom worked full time so it was always something special when ever baked goods were made. This one was an easy family pleaser she pulled out of her sleeve every once in a while.
Truth be told, I want to say we had these a lot... but given the quality of my memory there is a chance we didn't have these as often as I think we did and I just remember each occasion with an extreme amount of excitement.
Either way, these are tasty and super easy. 
You make them in the microwave people!
5 minutes to whip them up, 5-7 minutes of baking time and then eat eat eat... perhaps you should allow some time for cooling, but either way a yummy treat in less then 30 minutes!
THAT is what I'm talkin' about! 

Chocolate Chip Squares
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

In a small mixing bowl cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla, mixing well.
Stir together flour, baking powder and salt and add to the creamed mixture, blending well. Stir in 1/2 - 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips and nuts (if using). Spread into a greased 8 inch square dish. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.
Microwave (on high if you can) 5-7 minutes, rotating dish half way through cooking time if your microwave doesn't have a turn table, until a toothpick comes out clean when tested.
Cool and cut into bars.