On this evening in 2008.....

The crib was set up, the stroller was put together, and the carseat was installed.  Clothes were neatly folded in their drawers or hung in the closet.  All we needed was a baby boy to fill it all.

We were ready with nervous excitement. 

Getting ready to go to bed that night I was hoping a certain little breech baby would cooperate and magically turn around by morning. 

The last night with just the two of us.....

Exciting Family News

It's official.  Tyler's parents are moving to Collingwood!  They have been talking about buying a property up here for many months now and had even found one that was perfect for what they wanted.  It was just a matter of planning and lining everything up.  Now they have sold their house in Cambridge, found a place in town to rent, and as of yesterday, bought the property!

We are all so excited.  It has seemed very surreal up until now but it is becoming a reality.  The plan is to start a hops farm.  The plans are already in the works, and Tyler is involved.  Hopefully we will all be involved as a family.

This means huge things for our family.  It means our children will grow up with grandparents nearby which is so amazing for them.  It means we will have more family support.  It really affects how we will plan the rest of our lives here, in a good way.  No, a GREAT way.  It also means the boys will have an amazing property to visit and grow up on, and we have a place to grow fresh food for our family.  The positives are endless really.

There are no words really for how happy we are that they are moving here and will be close to us.  Yay!

Cupcakes for Tristan

For T's past two birthdays I attempted more elaborate cakes.  It gets harder to keep up with it over time, but I will go all out again with the cakes for him in years to come.  We're keeping things pretty low-key for his birthday this year, preferring to save the money we'd spend on a big party and cake for other things, like fun family activities that he would most certainly enjoy more.  But of course I still wanted to wanted to make some cupcakes for my special guy.

As with all baked goods I make for my children, these ones are of a healthier variety, using quinoa flour and agave instead of regular flour and sugar.  I decided to make the same Fudgy Chocolate cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing from my Baking with Agave book that I had made for F's birthday earlier this year.  See here for recipe.

I made the cupcakes today and T was very patient watching me decorate them.  He stood and watched, wanting to eat them but he had more self-control than any other 3-year-old would have.  He managed not to touch a single one.

I let him lick a little bit of icing off one.  He is really excited and keeps saying that we are going to have a "Cupcake Party" this weekend.

Of course I had to pick up a special candle for him.

I hope he enjoys them!

Motherhood

....is cleaning the house during naptime only to have it look like you haven't lifted a finger not 15mins after they have woken from their naps....

Brilliant Meal Planning Website

So I have recently discovered the 100 Days of Real Food blog, which has some awesome ideas of how to eat healthy and avoid processed foods.  Today when I checked it out I also discovered The Fresh 20, which is a site in which you join to receive weekly meal plans which incorporate only fresh, healthy food.  I think this is a brilliant idea!  We are always struggling with our meal planning, and while we do it religiously we are constantly running out of ideas and get stuck in the same ruts.  When that happens it's so easy to fall back on less healthy choices to fill in the blanks.  For only $5/month or $49/year, this site will send you weekly meal plans which use only 20 fresh, seasonal ingredients costing around $75.  It is enough for 5 weeknight meals that will feed a family of 4.  They even have gluten-free and vegetarian options.  Almost sounds too good to be true!  I'm going to run it by Tyler tonight and see what he thinks, but I think it's genius!

Cottage Weekend

Last weekend we had our first "official" family holiday, even though it was only 3 nights.  We rented a little cottage on Pigeon Lake, just outside of Bobcaygeon.  It was rather last minute, a few weeks ago my dad called us and offered to rent us a cottage for the weekend so we could join him and his friends on a houseboat for a day.  We eagerly accepted and were looking forward to getting away as a family.

After packing up what felt like the entire house, we left on Friday morning.  We got to Bobcaygeon around lunchtime and grabbed lunch before heading over to our cottage.

The place where we were staying was called Trail's End Lodge.  It was nestled in the woods and the cabins were right on the lakefront.  Ours was a cute little two bedroom cottage.  There was a large grassy area with lots of toys and stuff for the kids to play with, including a little treehouse and a slide.  The waterfront had a little sandy area and gazebo, and there was a dock with fishing boats to take out onto the lake.

Mike and Renee came up later Friday afternoon to join us for the weekend. 

We had a fantastic time.  The boys absolutely loved playing and exploring, and of course Tyler got in as much fishing as he could.  He was really excited to get T into fishing, and was thrilled of course when he took to it right away.  T enjoyed fishing on the dock as soon as we arrived, and caught his first little bass.  On Saturday Tyler took him out of the boat and he loved that too, and even caught his first walleye. 

On Saturday afternoon we took our little boat across the lake to meet up with my dad and his friends on a big houseboat.  It was a lot of fun.  There was yummy food, and even an ice cream boat came by!  Everyone had fun swimming in the lake, even the boys got to go in a little bit.  T really liked playing on the giant floating 'lilypad', while F hung out in his inflatable floaty tube, though he didn't enjoy the water as much.  Tyler and I tried tubing once.  I got up enough courage to go, but in all honesty it scared me and so I only went the one time.  I managed to stay on the tube though even though Tyler came off.  It's not so much the actual tubing that scares me, rather swimming in the lake freaks me out, so I was more scared of falling off!

Sunday was rainy on and off so we mostly hung around the cabin, but when it was clear we would go wander around outside.  The boys just wanted to be outside all the time, they were having so much fun.  We wanted to have a campfire but couldn't because of the rain, but we did manage to roast some  marshmallows over the bbq and make some smores.

On Monday it was time to pack up and leave, but Tyler wanted to take T fishing on the boat one last time.  He set his alarm to get up and go early, but when it went off Tyler just wanted to stay in bed where it was warm.  T had other ideas though, and dragged Daddy out of bed to go fishing.  They had so much fun out there, T didn't want to come back in!  He caught his second walleye that day.

I think one of the highlights of the trip was watching as an osprey kept trying to steal the fish Tyler and T had caught!  I watched from the dock as the giant bird kept swooping down to grab the fish, and Tyler had to shoo it away.  At one point he got the fish, but it was already on Tyler's chain and so a great tug of war ensued between man and bird of prey.  It was actually so cool to see.  Tyler said T was laughing the whole time.

We headed back into Bobcaygeon for lunch and ice cream before finally hitting the road to head back home.  What an amazing weekend!

The weekend could not have gone any better.  I think what amazed me the most is that both boys slept so well while we were there.  I figured T would sleep fine at night, but would probably resist taking a nap due to all the excitement.  I fully expected F to resist sleep at both nap and bedtime since we were in an unfamiliar place.  I was totally wrong!  They both went to sleep easily for naps and night, and they both slept all night long each night with the exception of a few brief wakings.  I can't say how shocked I was at this, but pleasantly so!

I'm so glad we got the opportunity to have this weekend, and that we got to share it with Mike and my dad too.  It's so great to know we get to do things like this as a family, and that everything went smoothly and we all had a great time.  Hopefully we will be able to get away for a cottage weekend once or twice a year.

It's nice to be home though, I missed my bed!  Back to routine, and time to get T prepared for school which starts in a few weeks.  Yikes!

The Great Cookie Experiment

I originally got the recipe for breakfast cookies from my BW friend Karen.  I decided to tweak and add a few things to see if I can make them even healthier.  I started out with the recipe she gave me, but soon it turned into an experiment to see how much wholesome stuff I could pack into them.

So I started with putting this stuff in a bowl:

2 cups crushed cereal (I used PC Organics Ancient Grains)

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup spelt flour

1/4 wheat germ

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

Then I started to go a little nuts.  Every time I looked into our newly organized pantry I saw something else that I thought about throwing in.  So I added (approximate amounts, I wasn't even really measuring at this point)

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

1/4 cup ground almonds

1/4 cup ground oatmeal

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1/4 cup sesame seeds

In another bowl I mixed:

3 eggs (original recipe called for 2, but seeing as how I was significantly adding to the dry ingredients, I figured I'd better add another egg)

3/4 cup ricotta cheese (Karen also recommends tofu)

1/4 cup peanut butter (not in the original recipe, but I thought why not?  Next time I will use a different type like almond or cashew)

6 tbsp agave nectar (originally called for brown sugar)

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp vanilla

1/4 cup oil (I used some melted butter and coconut oil)

1/4 cup apple butter (again, not in original recipe)

I think that's everything?

I mixed the contents of the two bowls together then assessed the consistency.  Still a little on the wet/sticky side.  So I threw in some more spelt flour to make it more cookie batter like.  What the heck, I threw in some more of the Ancient Grains cereal too, this time leaving the flakes whole instead of the crushing them.

Then I put balls of batter on a greased cookie sheet and flattened them a little. 

Stuck them in the oven and prayed they would work.  16 minutes at 400 degrees.  I got 3 dozen cookies out of it.

Success!  They were yummy, moist, and chewy.  I think you could flatten them a little more and cook for a little less to get a crunchier variation.

They were a hit with the boys for sure.  Now I won't feel so guilty when they ask for a cookie.

So, next time I'm thinking shredded apple or carrots.  I'm thinking raisins or other dried fruit.  I'm thinking chopped almonds.  I'm thinking pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  I'm thinking shredded coconut.  Really, the possibilities are endless.  Try it yourself and have fun with it.  I don't think you can mess this recipe up really, just keep adding stuff until you get the right consistency.  It was fun and easy!  And definitely better than any store bought stuff.

What should I call them?  Hmmmmm.........