Pics

Making toast. Two out of four of my kitchen walls are now Apple Green...not so sure I'm in love with the colour, but Scott likes it. When we come back from Maui I'll decide if I want to paint the other 2 walls green or buy a whole new colour. It only took me 4 months to do 2 walls...wonder how long it will take to do the other 2?


Another year of Family Friendly Soccer has come and gone. Orange won 3rd place. Yay!


Guess which one of these kids barfed all over me. Just guess. Okay, it was Sam...I gave her a bath and then Kylie read her a story while I cleaned up Sam's bed. Blech.


Napping in the chair on a lazy Sunday.

Cooking with Princess Kagoli

Gawd, I am a very irresponsible blogger lately. But I don't have time to scratch, let alone blog!! And no pictures to share, because I haven't uploaded anything from the camera in forever...anyway, today you get a gest post from Kylie...err, I mean Princess Kagoli.


(from: allrecipes.com)


Princess Kagoli's Royal Apple-Cinnamon Crepes

Prepare one recipe of crepes, as follows:

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.

Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

Prepare one recipe of filling (don't remember where this recipe came from):

Ingredients:
two apples, peeled, cored and chopped into little pieces
2 tbsp butter
1 large sprinkle of cinnamon
2 tbsp icing sugar

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan, and throw in the rest of the ingredients. Stir until the apples have softened.

Roll some of the apple mixture in a crepe, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

**You can make everything ahead of time, and then reheat the apples/crepes separately before rolling together. You can also try and talk Mom into letting you have leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

Nickelback!!

WOOHOO!!!! There seems to be two factions of music fans in the world: those that think Nickelback is awesome and those who think Nickelback sucks. I can assure you, they do not suck, they rule!!!! Woohoo!!!!

...and in case anyone ever asks you, it is my God-given right as a middle-aged, middle-class mother of small children living in Alberta to enjoy a bottle of Mike's Hard 100-calorie Lemonade in my backyard as I pull dandelions with my Canadian Tire Dandelion-er...and when 'Burn It To The Ground' comes on the radio , I may throw down said Dandelion-er, throw my arms up above my head and scream "Woohoo!!!" for all my neighbours to hear. So what if it embarrasses my children...and my husband...I'm gonna do it anyway :) .


Jacob at his first major concert. He figured that he would let his friends sniff his shirt for 25c a pop, so that they could smell what a real concert smells like lol.


After the first opening act (there was 3) Jacob wanted to go take pictures of the tour buses. Lots of ladies, both young and old, would comment on how handsome he was and how cool his hair was on our little walk. He even got a few high 5's on our walk around Rexall.


My boyfriends.





It was a great show, and now I wish I would have gone to see AC/DC when they were here last year. Think they'll come back?

30.

Thirty! Thirty fat, gross pounds gone forever!! Well, maybe. I hope it's gone forever, anyway.

I have come to terms with the fact that there are some foods that I pretty well need to avoid for all eternity...like fast-food burgers and yummy potato chips. That's ok, there are plenty of yummy substitutions for those things. So in my quest for healthy substitutions for the foods I love, I found this:

HUNGRY GIRL MIRACLE MASHED POTATOES from Hungry Girl

Ingredients:
1 large (about 13-oz.) potato
3 cups cauliflower florets
3 tbsp. fat-free half & half
1 tbsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread
1/4 tsp. salt pepper and additional salt, to taste
Optional: 1/2 tsp. crushed garlic

Directions: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, peel and cube the potato. Once water is boiling, add peeled potato cubes and cauliflower. Wait for the water to return to a boil, and then reduce heat to medium. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes (until potatoes and cauliflower are very tender). Remove the pot from heat and strain out all of the water. Transfer contents to a large bowl, and add half & half, butter/buttery spread, salt, and (if you like) crushed garlic. Mash it all together with a potato masher, until completely blended. Season to taste with pepper and additional salt. Enjoy! Makes 5 servings.

***I used skim milk in place of the half and half, and fat-free sour cream in place of the butter.

My super-picky pre-teen didn't know she was eating cauliflower...I wouldn't have known there was cauliflower in there if I hadn't have cooked it myself. The only thing that sort of gave it away was the smell of the cauliflower as it cooked...sort of cabbage-y. Scott, being the mashed potato lover that he is, said he could eat it at every meal and be a very happy man :) .

Anyway, next recipe on my list to try is this:
Dr. Oz's Fettuccine Alfredo . It has something like 450 calories per serving...perfect for a special-occasion dinner.

That's it.

The girl I work with is Filipino and has 4 of the cutest boys I've ever seen in the entire world (other than my Jacob, of course). They're all under 5 years old, the latest baby being all of 6 weeks old. He has the chubbiest, wubbiest cheeks you've ever seen and I could kiss them all the live long day.

I've decided that my next baby will be Filipino. I don't plan on adopting, and Naomi says that it's only sometimes that she feels like giving me one of her older boys (can you imagine...4, 3, and 2 year old boys all in the same house??). They're so cute, I can't imagine them getting into trouble (lol) .

Scott has decided that now is the time to put his foot down.

Someone fix this situation for me.

Yes, I'm still here.

Going a little crazy right now...

This month's projects include:

• turning over the garden
• planting seeds and pumpkin plants
• finally finishing the rock garden before the weeds take it over
• finish painting the kitchen
• shop for next month's Maui trip
• where in the f* are the drywallers???
• finish the school yearbook
• do a bunch of overdue PAC reports

...so you won't see me much this month. Bah!! Lucky you!!

Baking with Sammy Sunshine.

We've had a few days of cruddy weather, which is keeping us inside...which makes for a bored toddler...which makes for a mischievous toddler. Yes, she wore her pyjamas all day long. It was one of those days. We organized the pantry and found a cake mix, yay! That'll kill 10 minutes...






Oh my God, this was her favourite part. Putting big sloppy globs of batter in the paper liners...what a mess lol. But no way would she lick the spoon! She told me "dat's gwoss, ma!"


I have no sprinkles in the house...I didn't think that was possible. I guess Jacob used them up making donuts. Anyway, I gave Sam a pouch of gummies for decorating her cupcake...and she couldn't shovel them in her mouth fast enough lol.


And now I'm going to lick the icing off and then squish the cupcake in my hands...because it feels so squishy between my fingers. And my mom will clean it up. Awesome, hey??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ps...today was an awesome day. We got to watch part of a horror movie being filmed, and Jacob can't stop talking about it. I got some wicked dirt stains out of a pair of white nylon leggings using dish soap and lemon juice. Could it have been a better Sunday??