April

Time is flying.

Well for General Conference this year I decided to have a "Feast" for breakfast.  One year we went out for breakfast.  It was fun but in the end not very practical for our family.  They would rather not wait so long to get their breakfast. 

I tried to be a bit fancy and came up with a menu. 

We had grapefruit, eggs, pancakes with whipped cream and berries, bacon or sausage, chocolate milk and yogurt.  The kids loved it and so did we.  It was fun to do and hopefully I'll be just as prepared in another 6 months. 

 We also tried our hand at making homemade doughnuts.  This is from a recipe found here.  They are baked.  So I thought that I would give them a try.  I couldn't for the life of me find a doughnut cookie cutter so we improvised (I found one at an upscale cooking store) and they turned out great.  They are made from a yeast dough.  They are ok.  If given a choice I would chose a fresh doughnut from Tim Horton's over these but for the experience these were fine.  The top ones are glazed and the bottom picture is of cinnamon/sugar ones. 

Here is Evan giving them a thumbs up.  That is one thing I like about this boy.  If it is a treat and sweet at least he is willing to give it a try.  If not and it is a dinner I cooked you can usually find him hiding under the table saying that he is full.   (Yeah, right!)

April Fools day is something that we try to celebrate in a fun way.  We didn't let the fact that it fell on a Sunday this year spoil the fun.  This is Spencer's trick.  A stuffed version of himself...to hopefully fool the kids in the morning.  This old trick hatched a few years ago....this year no one was fooled.  Sorry Spen next year you'll have to come up with something new. Thank goodness! ;)

I heard about this trick after last years april fools day and saved it for a whole year.  Minty Oreos.  Approved by the Canadian Dental Association. 

Megan was the most suspecious. Evan really wanted to eat the Oreo but after licking his fingers could sense that it wasn't quite right and Aaron was happy to munch away on the delicious cookie. 

The only other fun thing that we did for April Fool's Day was to eat worms and dirt for our dessert.

The annual dying of the Easter Eggs.  We had fun this year decorating the Easter Eggs.   Here are some pictures of our chaos.

 

  

The final beautiful product (with only a few cracked ones :)

As a side note to myself...next year I cannot display all our wonderful eggs for a week without refrigeration.  When we finally got around to using up all the eggs....lets just say that some held a yucky surprise inside. 

We celebrate the Easter Egg hunt on Saturday and leave Sunday for a more spiritual Easter celebration. 

 Here is Megan with her Easter basket.  This year we did a controlled sugar/candy Easte egg hunt.  Each of the kids got exactly the same number of eggs.  The had fun finding them.  We usually just hide them in our livingroom so it doesn't take long for them to find them all.  Some do require so reaching and actually hunting. 

 We got the kids a few other things that weren't candy related.  A new outside playground ball and the start of our Lego collection. 

 Yup. That Easter bunny even leaves some money in his eggs.

Because the Easter candy was quite limited the kids had it mostly polished off in a few days.  Which was nice.  No need to police the candy intake. 

We had a beautiful breakfast of Eggs Benedict that you can find here.  It was so yummy.  Then for Easter we had a lovely BBQ pork Chop dinner with all the trimmings. 

Oh, what lovely weather we have....

 This is a picture of our BBQ in our backyard after a little spring snowfall.  I think that at this time of year I would prefer rain to snow; then it would feel more like spring. Oh, well.  Thank goodness it warms up during the day and it melts rather quickly. 

With all the melting it provided Aaron with a good opportunity to try out his boat he made at grandpa Burt's place. 

March Update

In March we celebrated a few things...of course St. Patrick's Day came and went.  We usually celebrate this holiday and this year we did it with more traditional food fare.  We had colcannon mashed potatoes, traditional irish soda bread and corned beef that I purchased from Sobey's (it is prepackaged and cooks in under an hour I think), I should have had peas, but we had carrots instead and a rainbow fruit salad.  It was fun a delicious meal.  We also had some green jello. 

 For dessert we had rainbow cupcakes.  A bit time intensive but so fun to eat.  The kids' loved these. 

As a rule I tell my kids that the only way to stay home from school is if they are really sick and in Megan's case I frequently tell her that she can only stay home if she throws up.  So after complaining of a stomach ache (which she frequently does everyday) she ate her breakfast then needed to use the washroom and on her way puked all over the floor.  She just stood there paralized not trying to get to the bathroom but rather just standing there making a huge, stinky mess on my floor.  Gross!  It is so lovely to have to clean up this type of mess so early in the morning and right after a nice breakfast.  So needless to say Megan was allowed to stay home that day.  But she was fine and well rested for school the next day. 

At the end of the month my kids had Spring Break?!...it is still a kinda of tricky thing for me to plan for and for the most part I don't.  This year it worked out that Spencer was busy the entire weekend and the weather was fairly nice so I decided to take a trip back home to visit with my Mom and Dad.  Thank goodness I have family in Calgary that I was able to stop over and visit as well to help break up the trip. 

We arrived in Cardston on the Saturday and it was raining...(just a side note...my dad just finished re-roofing his house in the late fall and then the weather turned wintery so he doesn't yet have eavestroughs) so this is the scene that we happened upon....

My kids got to visit with grandma and we went to the library which is really nice and big now, since I remember going there as a child, we went to Lethbridge for a day of swimming attended church on Sunday and hung out and got to play around with grandpa and "help" him in his shop.  Grandpa helped the kids make a "boat".  The weather was kinda rainy/snowy/cloudy.  We didn't last as long as we would have liked to, but lets face it, if you want to have fun during a spring break in Canada you have to leave Canada and go some place south and warm. 

Here is a picture of the snowman that we made after church on Sunday.  The snow was in perfect condition for making some snowmen.  The snow was so heavy and wet that it took two of us to lift the giant snowballs on top of each other. 

Here is grandpa giving free sled rides.

After a few days stay with grandma and grandpa we decided to head back home.  We made a stop at the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump on our way.  I haven't been there since I was a young child....it is still the same but this time I got to enjoy it with the patience and eyes as an adult.  Megan just finished up learning about Aboriginal people in Canada, so this was good for her as she could see and add to her recently acquired knowledge. 

 This is the sign that greets you.  The wind was blowing pretty strong that day and despite the sunny weather the temperature was rather cool.

 This is taken outside on the catwalk.  This is the actual cliff that the buffalo would be run down and then they would fall to thier death.  Some native people would have a camp set up a little further down so they could more easily skin the buffalo and prepare the meat etc.  This is a rather elabrate operation that would take months of planning.  This particular site is a Unesco World Heritage Site.  If you would like more information click here.

 This is what the inside of a Tee-Pee would have looked like.  Everything was portable but fairly comfortable. 

Here are some skulls from the buffalo. 

Here is our buffalo friend.  They are rather large heavy looking animals due to all the fur and the hump on thier back. 

After this stop we headed all the way home to edmonton....it was a long drive but Aaron slept for about 3 hours and woke up just outside of Red Deer so we decided to stop for an early dinner and potty break at Costco.  Then we continued home and got there around 9pm that night.  Wow, I can't believe that we did that.  The kids were really good troopers with the long drive.  I think that they were excited to be home again in comfortable and familiar surroundings.

Random February

It snowed enough for Spencer and the kids to get in our backyard and make a snow man.  It was perfect snow....the wetter, stickier snow.  The kids got tired since this activity was preceded with sledding at a near by hill.  So in the end it was  Spencer's snowman and his good time. 

Nothing like using things from around the house.  Strawberry eyes, carrot nose and some rocks from the backyard for his mouth. 

Here are a couple of pictures of my kids all getting along and playing nicely together.  We have to find appropriate and fun things to do every Sunday morning since church doesn't start until 1pm.  I told them that I remember making "forts" out of blankets and couch cushions and that inspired them to make this. 

Pi Day

Thanks for Spencer volunteering to bring in pie's for pi day (March 14 or 3-14) for his group I was busy in the kitchen concocting some pies.  I do a lot of other baking and cooking in the kitchen for my family but pie isn't on top of the list of things that we like to eat.

I decided to try making a banana cream pie and a lemon meringue pie.  Everything was done from scratch except the pie crust.  They both turned out really well and both were eaten up at Spencer's workplace.  I had some left over filling and some tart shells in the freezer so I make up some extra tarts for the kids and I at home. 

Here is Evan giving a thumbs up!  He was sampling the banana cream pie and all the kids really liked that one.  The lemon meringue not so much. 

Next year if Spencer wants to volunteer again he'll be the one in the kitchen whipping up some pies or purchasing them for his group.   

February Update

It has been a while since I last posted....things are of course busy and this was at the end of my to do list...but here we go.....
For our date a month Spencer and I went to a Saturday afternoon performance of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.  We started with some lunch downtown, unfortunately I thought that the Old Spaghetti Factory would be a good Italian choice, I was way wrong.  The price was right but the food according to me was two thumbs down.  Thank goodness the company was good and it was close to our next stop; the Winspear center.  I especially love listening to the orchestra. We were way up in the top balcony 'cause those were the only seats left with two together, but even with those seats the sound was amazing and you actually got a great view of the whole stage and orchestra, maybe just a little smaller version of everyone.   The theme was "Disney" and they had singers who would sing the songs and there was even a little Karaoke for everyone to participate.  Before the show there were Disney Princesses in the lobby that you could talk to and get your picture taken with. 

Spencer outside the Old Spaghetti Factory. 

Me outside the Winspear Centre.

Me with Snow White. 

Some other highlights this month include our visit to the Silver Skate Festival. It turned out to be a beautiful day. We were lucky enough to find some parking down at the event. It was pretty packed. The kids spent a lot of time slowly walking across all the mounds of snow that were left after they cleared the lake for skating on.

Here we are at the start of the festival.  There was lots to do.  The kids standing in front of the first snow sculpture; a man carving a skate. 

There was a ton of other ice sculptures and here is one more snow sculpture; a cool couch in the shape of a clam shell.

There was a french activity of making some maple syrup candy on a stick.  We patiently waited in line for our turn.  The man would pour a row of maple syrup down a trough lined with snow and you had to roll your section of maple syrup around your Popsicle stick until it got hard and would stick.  That was yummy to taste. 

There was also a Native Tee pee and inside you could see what a real tee pee would look like.  They also had some crafts in there but the kids weren't too interested in waiting around.  They also had Bannock (a native bread that you wrap around a stick and cook over a fire).  My kids tried that one year and didn't too much care for it.

Here is Evan trying his hand or feet rather at cross country skiing.  He actually did fairly well.  It is always a bit tricky when you fall and have to get uncrossed and back up.  Aaron is down below getting the hang of sliding with just one ski on. 

Here the kids are going down the ice slide.  They loved this and would go again and again.  Now this is winter time fun!

Getting Out...

We had a bit of extra fun in January.  We headed downtown to participate in Metropolis which is a winter festival.  There are 4 huge covered/heated structures that house different activities.  On the Saturday that we went, one tent had break dancing going on.  That was fun to watch.  Then there was a food tent and beer tent and a children's tent.  We checked out the food tent, not much really going on that we liked in there for a treat, we obliviously skipped the beer tent and stayed in the children's tent for a little bit. 
They had a few crafts to do, story books that you could take and sit down to read, they had a giant inflatable slide that you could go on, a caricature artist, and a magician. 

Megan wasn't too into the crafts and was pretty grumpy, then the magician came up to her and included her in his tricks and pranks. She started to smile and enjoyed herself. He multiplied rabbits (foam bunnies) right before her eyes, in her very own hands. She was in totally awe about that. Then Evan joined in the fun along with other kids in the tent. He was really good. 

The video above he is teaching them to juggle.  The video below he is playing his little flute and trying to tell them how to dance celtic style...this is what he got out of them.

Megan was interested in going on the slide.  So we payed $2 and she climbed up the stairs and had a good slide down.  Evan was too scared, but when he saw how fun it was he decided to go to.  Aaron was asleep in the stroller the whole time. 

One afternoon I was busy cleaning in the kitchen and washing vegetables and prepping them for the fridge, when I thought that we would "paint" with different vegetables.  So here is Aaron loving his time painting. 

We used an apple, carrot, I cut a potato and made some different shapes, and the root end of a bunch of celery.  He is very proud of his painting and loves to look at it and tell me what everything was made with.   This was one of those good mom moments.

January Date

So we started our new year off with a special date that I pulled together for us.  I marked it on our family calendar that hangs on our fridge.  I have one date a month planned and one trip to the temple planned for the entire year.  This year I'm going to try having our dates on a Saturday afternoon.  I don't enjoy the rush of Friday night dates so Saturday we can take it a bit slower. 

So I made a little invite to let Spencer know what we would be doing....I cut out words from the newspaper. 

We started off with lunch at Packrat Louie's.  Spencer had been there before for a work lunch and wanted me to try it too.  I remember living in the white ave. area while going to school and walked by this place often wishing that someday I'll be able to afford to eat there.  (I can check that off my bucket list!)

The weather was still a little chilly so for the next part of our date we took a short cut through Old Strathcona farmers market.  I love that place.  Spencer stopped to enjoy a singer/quartet playing blue grass/country tunes. 

We had to walk a few blocks to reach the Ice on Whyte festival that was at End of Steel Park.  It was neat to see all the ice carvings. 

Here I am standing if front of a church. 

One of Spencers favorite things was the ice slides.  A little cold on the bum but fun to go down.
There was a tent with heaters and hot chocolate and free entertainment.  We stayed for a while to get warmed up but then went back outside to finish looking at the ice sculptures. 

A dragon. At night there are lights that shine on the sculptures so I think it might have been easier to see the details in them.  

This one is of a dragonfly and a little fairy on mushrooms.  There were teams from all over the world who came to participate.  There was a competition and with winner was one of the Chinese teams.