earl grey

i know. another picture of cupcakes. 

sorry.

today was my "free" day for this week (the one day a week i get to partake in sweets during the Lenten season).

i made these earl grey cupcakes with lemon buttercream for jamie's grandpa's 80th birthday.

there are a bunch leftover so it seems to me as if i'll be playing the part of porch fairy tomorrow after church. 

(i love playing porch fairy.)

*porch fairies are those who leave treats or goodies on the porch/front door of someone they know as a surprise

haircut

today i decided that i was done with noah's shag and told him that in the afternoon we would go get his haircut. 

i called the salon and made an appointment for 3:30.

he fell asleep at 2:25. 

i had to wake him at 3:10 and he was none too pleased.

i told him if he sat nicely and got his hair cut we'd go to lucie's (a lovely bakery next door to the salon) and he would get to pick out a treat.

so we went.

he was okay. he sat mostly still and though he was a bit grumpy, we survived and he came out with a decent haircut.

i suppose he actually did quite well because the woman beside us watched for a minute and then asked how old he was. we didn't get a chance to chat further but i'm guessing she thought he was doing well (that or she thought i was some extravagant woman for taking my 3 year old son to get his haircut at a salon - but people - i cannot cut hair. trust me.).

so now he looks like his daddy.

big bowl of fruit

can i just say (of course i can, it's my blog) how happy seeing this on my table makes me?

so happy. 

jude calls the nectarines "apples" and noah called the kiwi fruit "those brown fuzzy ones". 

seeing this will also make jamie feel angst at the thought of all this fruit potentially going bad and thus being a waste. but when fruit is out and in plain sight, it gets eaten. 

end of story.

also, it makes me happy.

Dear loud whistler,

While your whistling skills were well-honed, your choice of "Teenage Dream" was quite unexpected.
As was the fact that you were clearly in your late 40's, possibly 50's.

Keep up the stellar whistling,

Vanessa

dishes

the past week i've found it difficult to stay on top of this picture taking thing. 

it's not that i haven't been doing anything worth photographing, it's just that i've been too busy to photograph it all!

yesterday we had jacob over in the morning, then naps, then ran a couple errands and then zipped off to elijah's birthday party at fun works in kitchener where we stayed and endured mad chaos with a bazillion children until past the boys bedtimes. came home, put them to bed, cleaned up.

oh, did i mention our dishwasher broke the day before jamie left us for 4 days? yeah. that.

so dishes. plech.

then today we did the Y thing, went to jen's house and stayed there 'til dinner, rushed home, cleaned up for the lovely ladies coming over at 8pm tonight, made cupcakes, cleaned up a bit more, rearranged our living room, had some of my favourite ladies over, they went home, iced the cupcakes, sent them back with jen, sorta cleaned up and gave up on the rest.

so it's been busy to say the least.

UP!

I love that there are people in the world who dream big and are creative and a little bit silly to even attempt to do something like this.

Amazing.

three

today i watched my friend suzanne's son, jacob for a couple of hours.

jamie commented to me,

three isn't so hard. we could totally do three. 

(my evil plan is working...)

thoughts about lent

I didn't grow up practicing or participating or even really knowing about Lent. 
I'm not sure when I heard about it, but for the past few years I've started to look more into it and sometimes I give something up - or at least attempt to. 
For some reason this year my heart has been inclined toward Lent; to make it count, to prepare my heart and focus on Jesus and the suffering he took on for me. 
Upon doing some more research I found that there is more to Lent than just "giving something up". Wikipedia says that "there are three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent; prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour)."

Recently the pastor at our church spoke about the discipline of fasting and how it's a gift to us as Christians to practice this and rely on the Holy Spirit. It's something that's assumed of us as Christians (Matthew 6:16 says "when you fast..." not if, but when.) and it's something that Jesus himself did. I don't regularly fast, but I'm seriously considering making it a part of my life whether on a monthly or seasonal basis, I'm not sure yet. But it's something I felt the Holy Spirit saying to me, "Listen to this. Pray and seek me on this.". And so I'm going to. 

According to Wikipedia, justice (referring back to Wikipedia's definition of Lent) is the concept of moral rightness based on some form of ethics or law and that punishment occurs when there is a breach of those ethics. 
Romans 3:28 says that we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law so I know that I have already been justified, but I do like the idea of focusing on God, myself and my neighbour in a way that is more purposeful and deliberate.
So with all that, here is what I'm aiming for during this time of Lent.


I'm giving up sugar - nothing like giving up all breads or not eating fruit, but candy, sweets, desserts, sugary cereals or other sugary breakfast items will be what I'm focusing on fasting from.
I also really want to focus on my bible reading plan: for slackers and shirkers - I've been coming and going with it and I really want to make a concerted effort to stick with it, rely on God and seek him during this time for my contentment and fulfillment.
I want to be in prayer for specific things: 
1. God's will and plan for our family as it relates to expanding it. We're not there yet, but it's something I continue to think and dream about on a daily basis. I want to be at peace with whatever He has in store for us. 
2. the Orphan crisis and my/our role in it. 
3. my husband and my children. Especially for this next transition and phase in our lives. 
4. specifically for Noah and how incredibly strong-willed he is. how to teach and instruct him. for wisdom to take the necessary steps to guide him and to know what those steps are and for the Holy Spirit to bind the spirit of defiance and stubbornness in him but without breaking his spirit.


As for "almsgiving", I'm still not sure exactly where or what God would have me do during the next 40 days (Lent starts this Wednesday) but I think my eyes will be open and I will be praying for opportunities and I know God is always waiting to present us with opportunities to be His eyes and ears, his hands and feet and to speak words of Love and Truth into peoples' lives if we are only willing to be open and step out in faith.

rascal

oh jude. you are my little rascal.

today you:

learned how to put your hands in your pants pockets and proceeded to waddle around like a penguin. it made me laugh.

ate 4 large bowls of yogurt and got so excited when i pulled out the container, shouting "BU-BEH!" (that's blueberry in toddler speak - even though it was strawberry yogurt.)

rubbed peanut buttery hands in your hair right after dumping a whole bowl full of cheerios all over the floor.

got really upset when we took away the gigantic booster juice that jamie had purchased for me and him to share. you ran away with the cup in your hands in the middle of the mall, sucking up as much smoothie as quickly as you could.

did really well in the nursery at church - hooray!

jumped and flung yourself over both me and your daddy.

waved and smiled at complete strangers at the mall.

pointed to the camera and said "cheese!".

so we took a self shot.

fluff

damn you, gently falling white fluff of doom!

today it rained all day. 

i guess the temperature tonight dropped enough for the rain to turn to snow. 

will spring ever arrive?

zuppa toscana

a few days ago a girl i follow on twitter linked to this recipe of a copycat of the olive garden's zuppa toscana soup. zuppa toscana - it's fun to say.

anyway, i knew i wanted to try it as soon as i clicked on the link.

so tonight i made it.

i've never cooked with kale before. 

it was delish!

a success - jude even perfected his self-feeding of soup skills.

olive garden copycat zuppa toscana

adapted from food.com

1 lb italian sausage (i used mild and it was lovely)

5 small medium potatoes (or 2 large), sliced in half, and then in 1/4 inch slices

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 cup bacon bits

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2-3 cups kale, chopped

4 cups chicken broth

4 cups water

1 cup heavy cream

cook sausage in a 300 degree F oven for approximately 30 minutes.

cut the sausages into slices.

place onions, potatoes, broth, water, and garlic in pot and cook on medium heat until potatoes are done.

add sausage and bacon.

salt and pepper to taste although i forgot to add this and it definitely did not need any more flavour - the sausage added plenty!

simmer for another 10 minutes.

turn to low heat.

add kale and cream.

heat through and serve with thickly sliced fresh bread. 

noah called this "milk soup" and decided the sausage was "spicy". i told him he has a spice sensitivity like his grandma (who was sitting beside him). he had no idea what that meant and repeated that he still thought the sausage was spicy. 

psh.

goose egg

i do well when i have a plan for meals. without it i flounder and eat bad food and feel crappy because i ate bad food.

but when i have a plan - the outcome is usually really good.

today's lunch: wagon wheel pasta in a cheesey cream sauce with sauteed red peppers and onions, tossed with corn and cubes of ham. it.was.delish. (but apparently i was the only one who thought so as jude rejected it and noah refuses pasta in general. oh well. more for me!)

today's dinner: mini meat loves with creamy mashed potatoes and a large pile of steamed broccoli. YUM. the entire family enjoyed these. the original recipe says to put the meat loaf mixture into muffin tins but i pushed the boundaries of "mini" and put the mixture into MINI muffin tins. oh yes i did. and they were perfect for the boys. they each ate 3. jamie and i ate 2 regular sized muffin meat loaves although now jamie says he's never eating muffins that i make because all he's going to think about is meat. and meat + banana muffin is kinda disgusting. but i promise i cleaned them really well. also i chopped up about a cup of fresh spinach and threw it into the meat mixture. it was perfect and no one noticed. 

and then we all went out to marble slab for some ice cream to use an about to expire coupon for a free ice cream cone. i had a key lime/cheese cake coconut mixture. it was refreshing. jamie had his usual cheesecake ice cream with raspberry mixins and noah picked chocolate swiss with marshmallow mixins. jude sampled all of ours. 

speaking of jude, the little rascal just absolutely MUST walk everywhere. no more carrying. none of that, thankyouverymuch. today after i opened the garage door he had scooted underneath it and started barrelling toward the roard with nary a concern. until he tripped and fell and smashed his head onto the asphalt and got a goose-egg bump on his head. poor fella. thanks to some awesome arnica it's not as huge as it was this morning and hopefully it won't bruise too badly (but that's wishful thinking i know). 

share the love (week 3)

How's your Thursday going so far?

I hit the gym this morning with the boys (but only after Jude took off down the driveway before we even got into our car and got a huge goose-egg on his head because he tripped and fell - good times), made an early lunch (it was good, but apparently I was the only one who thought so) and read stories with the boys.

Speaking of lunch, I gotta say, every time I buy one of the Piller black forest style cooked/smoked hams I love them. You can do so much with one (well, the ones I buy are the half hams) and so far I've got a ham & potato soup and a red pepper, ham & pasta dish out of this one with much more left over! So when they're on sale, I buy at least one, sometimes two and freeze them. You really can't go wrong - plus the boys like ham.

And ever since the dreaded dentist appointment of 2011 and was told I have multiple cavities I've been taking dental care a lot more seriously. I mean flossing at least every other night, if not every night. (So I didn't use to floss. I learned my lesson. You should floss too!) Anyway, my dentist recommended an electric toothbrush so I went out and bought the Oral B Vitality and I LOVE it. It has a 2 minute timer on it and the biggest thing for me is that at night I realized I was so tired by the time I was brushing that I'd just do a quick brush and then bed, but the timer helps me keep brushing until the 2 minutes are done. It comes with a charging stand which I like (we'll see how this goes over in Africa, though). I like. It was ~$30 so about mid-range - not $10, but not $100 either!

And I'm fairly certain I've blogged about this before, but for goodness sakes, I love our sound machines. I started using a sound machine for white noise when Noah was about 4 months-ish and we haven't looked back. The white noise has been a familiar sound/thing that no matter where we go, it's somewhat comforting. Also, I know that neither boy need the white noise to sleep as they've fallen asleep without it, but it's helpful if we're watching something after the boys have gone to sleep and we know we don't have to worry about them waking up from our noise. It's comforting to us, too. Who knew?
We have two different ones; the Conair sound machine and the Obusforme Sound Therapy. I like both of them.

And as for music, I'm still loving Sweet Thing's Change of Seasons. I heard it on the radio awhile back and immediately really liked it.
After a quick google I found out that Sweet Thing is from Toronto which makes me like them even more. Love me some good hometown musicians. I love their harmonies and I like the lyrics to this song. Here's the live studio version of Change of Seasons.

daddy love

lately noah has had an increased desire to be with daddy. it's a joy for me to see this as previously jamie has been the recipient of some disrespectful behaviour from noah which has been hard for me to see and hard on jamie as well (who is an amazing daddy and shows unconditional love and grace to his little boys). 

tonight jamie had a later day on campus and came home about 20 minutes before noah's bedtime and when we heard the garage door open noah raced down the stairs to see him.

much fun ensued.

ps this is noah being thrown up into the air, not jumping off the balcony.

research

my personality, in general, is one of a researcher. when i'm insterested in something or passionate about something i research. i read, read, read - books, magazines, articles, blogs, anything i can find on that particular subject/thing/issue.
when i was pregnant with noah i read a lot. i read books on pregnancy, birth, and labour. i asked people for their birth stories and found some online too*.
i read books on parenting philosophies including everything from babywise to attatchment parenting.
jamie's nana even wrote out her birth stories for me which i absolutely and completely loved!
i loved hearing the horrible worst-case-scenarios and the oh-my-gosh-it-was-perfect stories. i wanted to know everything.
but at some point all the research combined with some PPD made for one overwhelmed, anxious and paranoid mama who didn't have any confidence in her own maternal instinct.
research is so great and valuable, but at some point you need to take what you've read, glean the principles and mold them to your situation. because your situation is completely unique in at least some way and it's going to look different for everyone.
it took me going across the globe to africa, away from all my precious books and dependable internet for me to learn how to trust my instinct and my God-given ability and privilege to be noah's mama. picked out specifically for noah and he for me. noah was 6 months old at the time and it was the best thing for all of us.
since then i've occasionally referred to books or online resources for different questions i've had but nothing like my initial frenzy of reading.
but now i find myself compeltely depleted of wisdom and knowledge of how to navigate these murky waters of preschoolerhood that i find myself in. so it's back to the books.
this time, however, i'll be able to take it all in with a grain of salt and figure out how to balance what i know of my child with the principles and ideas presented.

also, funny story: on my way out of the library as i'm wrestling to keep two very rambunctious, hungry and somewhat cranky boys under control i am sure the librarian was totally chuckling to herself as she scanned these books out for me. it also might explains why she was so helpful by putting my many books into my bag for me (never once has a librarian done that for me). regardless, i was thankful.

thanks to those so far who have recommended ideas and books to me. i'm likely going to at least skim everything i can get my hands on and then delve deeper into the ones that seem to hit it home with me. keep 'em coming!


*the blogs i've linked to are all ones i found around the birth of jude, not noah. but they're good ones. if you like birth stories, read 'em! the first link is hilarious (caution, much swear-age occurs), the second one is amazing and terrifying, the third one i love how she writes and um, also, the last one (nella's birth story) is absolutely heart-breaking. read with caution. i bawled. (i actually just re-read it and bawled again. so that's that.)