Home Made Creme Eggs

So this weekend I came across a fabulous recipe for home made cadbury creme eggs. I know, right? I was so excited and got right to work making them. Except I got halted when I pulled all the ingredients out of my cupboard and discovered I was basically out of icing sugar. Of course it was snowing, cold and miserable and there was no way I was going to venture out in the snow with two little ones (I'm committed to my sugar intake, but there are points that I draw the line!). So I called Mark and asked him to stop at the store on the way home from work to pick some up for me.

Sunday afternoon while the girls napped I attempted the recipe. Now my first problem was that I don't have the proper egg molds. But I figured it was okay as I could substitute and use the wilton half-egg cupcake molds. I have 12 of them so I figured that would be plenty and they would be bigger, but since they're only half an egg it evens out, right?

I mixed up the filling as per the recipe. They warned me that the step where you roll the yolks and put the eggs together was sticky. They weren't kidding. I highly recommend damp, cold hands. Not super wet (that also makes a sticky mess), but not totally dry. I kept a bowl of cold water, would dip my hands and shake them off. It worked great.

I made 12 fillings out of the batch, it worked perfectly.

Then I got to the chocolate. The recipe only calls for 12 oz of milk chocolate. I figured I would probably need more since I had bigger molds, but I wasn't concerned since I had a big 750g bag. Ha! I used the whole thing for 9 of them and then had to finish off the rest with semi-sweet (which is totally NOT the same, let me tell you).

But in the end I think they turned out cute. Don't you think? I'm so excited for November when I'll be craving them and they're still 3 months away from store shelves.

So, you should make them. But just in smaller molds. Hehe! Here's the link

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Is This Weird??

I don't eat out at fast food places with Mady tons, so perhaps this is totally a normal thing to do. I don't know. But here is a little run down of what has happened the last two times we have been out to eat.

So at the mall with my sister and our 4 kids (3, 2, 8 months, 7 months) we stop at the food court. We're at a four person table and the babies are in my double stroller. We barely sit down and a little girl who was maybe 8 comes over from the table behind us to the stroller. I can tell that she just wants to see the babies, but she doesn't simply say "can I look at your babies?" Instead she stands awkwardly next to the stroller, not really interacting with them (probably in case she got in trouble), but too close to be considered NOT interacting (her hand was on the side of the stroller, so I know she was there for the purpose of looking at the babies). She didn't say a word to us or the babies, just kind of hovered. So it just felt weird. We were trying to eat and she was just, well, there. I get that she's 8 and too young to get the social clues, so she didn't really bother me, except that she was with her mom (who sat at their table the whole time watching this happen) and her mom didn't stop her from coming, or encourage her to say something like "can I see your babies?". She just ignored her while the daughter made our lunch awkward.

Then today while out running errands we stopped for lunch. It was just me and my girls and Kate was in her car seat (preserving heat, its COLD here.) so I put her on the floor beside us and Mady and I sat at a 4 person table. The little girl (maybe 5 years) from the table next to us was done her meal so she comes over and sits at our table. Yup, just sits down. Again, doesn't say anything, just awkwardly smiles at Mady. I finally had to tell her that Mady couldn't play, she needed to eat her lunch (she's an easily distracted two year old) and that she needed to go back to her own table. I'm sure I sounded like a rude hag, but Mady wouldn't have eaten the entire time she sat there. Again, the Grandma she was with didn't say anything in terms of the fact that maybe you shouldn't try to make friends when it's obvious that the other child just sat down and needs to eat.

So am I totally out to lunch? (oh ha! Bad pun.) When I was a kid, I was totally one of those kids that liked to look over the backside of the booth at the next table and my mom always made me turn around and sit down because its rude to interrupt someone else's meal. And its one thing to strike up a conversation from your own table first, but to just assume that the other person wants your company and sit down? (again, I know this was a child today, but her grandma didn't stop her which says the adult thought it was okay).

So is this weird to anyone else? Has this happened to anyone else? Do you let your kids go talk to other people while they are trying to eat their lunch? I'm all for being friendly and making friends, but there's still a social personal space bubble for meals that has to be correctly interacted with, right???

Silhouette Birthday Cards

So this year was a "big" birthday year for my Mother-in-law and my Sister-in-law. In January they celebrated turning 60 and 30. Of course, since I received my Silhouette for Christmas I was told that my cards needed to be impressive this year. Oh the pressure! I totally took way too long to make these (after trying out a few different design ideas), but they did make it to them and so they get to count toward my list.

Here is my Mother-in-law's card.

I love the background on this one. But I also found it hard to add layers without hiding too much of it.

And this is the one for my sister-in-law.

I'm totally in love with this ribbon style. I may use it way too much in the future. In case you can't tell, the ribbon is behind a lifted page to create a 3D type look. But how cute is that? I got the idea for this one off the Silhouette Flickr group.

Have you made any cards lately? I'm looking for ideas for Male Birthday cards. They are NOT easy even with a fun machine to cut them.

linking up here:

This Week with Mady

So here are some highlights from our week.

For valentine's day Mady helped me make a cake for Daddy as her Valentine. This was the most she's ever helped with a project. She helped me count everything going in (but forgets to go in order and will just say random numbers. Haha! She can count just fine, but I think the space between measuring things makes her forget).

She stirred everything together and then she even helped me make the icing and spread it on the cake. I gave her a little spreader and I used the big one. She got started right away. I forgot that 2 year olds have no concept of the right amount of pressure when spreading icing so she basically started gauging the cake (hence all the crumbs in the icing on the left side). Whoops!

Then I put the heart-shaped cutter onto the cake and let her pour in the sprinkles. Pour she did! I think we used half a container.

Mady has gotten into dressing herself lately. The other day she was supposed to be finding a pair of underwear. She came out wearing the covers for under her dresses. All of them (at least the ones she could find).
The green ones are hiding more underneath them.

She cracks me up!

Snowman Playdate Party

So the problem with having my kids' birthdays in the summer is that all winter party ideas have no outlet. So since I had seen so many cute snowman party ideas in the blogsphere and Mady is always up for doing anything with the word party in it, I decided to invite some friends over for a Snowman Playdate party. This was a few weeks ago, but due to camera problems I'm just getting this posted now.

My original plan was that all the kids could build snowmen out in the yard to start. We had snow, so it seemed perfect. If I had had the party exactly one week before, it would have been as that was the day a chinook blew in making it warm and the snow sticky - perfect snowman weather. As I watched the weather all that week I started making backup plans as all the snow was melting! By Friday morning (the party was on the following Monday) there was literally no snow in my front yard. But then it started to snow. And snow. And snow. I thought "this is great, we'll have plenty of snow for snowmen!" And we did. This is what my front yard looked like Monday morning.

Perfect for snowmen. Sadly, this is what the temperature read Monday morning.

Sigh. So, we made snowmen indoors. Now, just so we're clear we had 7 kids 6 and under and only 3 moms so I didn't take a single picture while the kids were here. Sorry. I'm not that multi-talented.

When the kids arrived we made sock snowmen. They're socks, filled with rice, tied off with an elastic, topped with another sock for a hat and then faces etc. made from felt. This is Mady's.

Next we glued "snow" onto the snowman. Mady LOVED doing this. I pooled the glue on paper plates and for a full week after the party she asked for "snow" and glue. She ended up covering the entire page with cotton balls, and I'm now out of cotton balls. haha! But here is how it looked after her first gluing session.

Then for lunch we made snowman shaped pizzas. I didn't get a picture of this, but imagine pizza dough shaped like snowmen and the kids favourite toppings. :)

I made snowmen milk bottles. I cheated and used mini donuts for the heads instead of Timbits because my local Tim Hortons only had the red-jelly filled powdered timbits and I feared that when I put the straw through they would squirt the red jelly leaving a gruesome looking snowman scene. We didn't want and scared kids. Ha ha!

I cut up a whole tray of veggies. And forgot to serve them. Whoops. We ate them with our supper instead.

For Dessert I made melted snowman cookies. Aren't they cute? Let me tell you, this is the way to make sugar cookies. No rolling/cutting required!

After lunch we made Snowmen on a stick (marshmallows on sticks, decorated with candies). I didn't get pictures of this, so you'll just have to imagine them.

Then I sent home snowman crispy treats as a favour.

I had to remind myself that this wasn't a birthday party so I couldn't go ALL out. It sure was fun! Hope the kids liked it as much as me. Haha!

Edit: I realized that I totally forgot to include links to where I got these ideas. The melted snowman cookies were all over the blogosphere so I have no idea who did it first and the snowman milk was from Bakerella

Kate's 7th Month Photos

I was concerned I wasn't going to get the photos off my camera to be able to post this, but I found a way. It's painfully slow, but they are here.

I feel like this month we have seen the most change in Kaitlyn's abilities. We have officially barricaded the stairs. She is rolling all over the place and working really hard on crawling. She can't quite figure out how to go forward so in order to get somewhere she rolls/turns/goes backwards until she gets to the right angle. Sometimes this means she gets thoroughly frustrated, but learning a little determination never hurt anyone, right?

We continue with the solid foods. I was hoping that since we had such a great start she was going to be so into it and opening her mouth. She hasn't outright clamped it shut, but she's giving me faces and isn't exactly helping the process. This week I started incorporating some sweeter foods. I figure if she's anything like her mom or her big sister, she doesn't want bland food, she wants the sweet stuff. And then maybe once I can get her to open her mouth I can sneak/shove some other stuff in there too.

The second bottom tooth popped through this month. More seem to be on the way, but they're being a bit more stubborn and Mommy isn't getting nearly enough sleep. I included this picture because you can kind of see them in it. The face is because it was clearly nap time.

Last week Kaitlyn was playing with a lid/handle to the Tupperware kids cake carrier set (if you haven't seen it, its the mini version of the real one). Mady had pulled it out Kate found it and thought it was the best toy ever. But then of course Madelyn decided she wanted to play with it. I suggested that she trade a toy with Kaitlyn, so Mady went and got a cloth book. Kate wasn't interested and wouldn't let go of the cake carrier. So then I suggested Mady trade her something that was a little more similar. So Mady went and got a different lid from the tupperware set. Again, Kate didn't want to trade. I didn't think it was a big deal so I went and traded it for her. Ha! I heard about it from Kate the entire 5 minutes that Mady had the cake carrier. When Mady finished she gave it back to Kate she immediately stopped crying and went back to playing nicely with the carrier. So I guess now I have to deal with toy sharing. Who knew 7 month old kids had such opinions??

Mady didn't have favorite toys at this age, but Kaitlyn totally does. She likes a mini bath book shaped like a duck because it has a squeaker and she can make it work. And she seems to like all the noisy toys (the rattles, the crinkle paper etc.) Have I mentioned how much I hate toys that make noise? I can see this being a problem in the future. Start praying for my sanity now, please. I think Kaitlyn is my quiet kid that makes noise when she plays, where as Mady can play quietly, but makes up for it with personal volume. I shouldn't be surprised that they're so different.

This month Kaitlyn has also been working on sitting. She can't get herself into the sitting position, but if you sit her in it she's getting much better at holding it herself. Of course, once she gets tired the only way she knows how to get out of the pose is to fall over. So she's not always impressed with it!

These pictures (in the blue dress) were quickly snapped when we got home from church on Sunday. The weather was nice and Kaitlyn was finally able to wear this dress. I love it. Mark's aunt gave it to Mady when she was born and she was able to wear it lots, but it's thinner cotton so I've been waiting for warmer weather so Kate could wear it and I feared that she wouldn't get to before she outgrew the size!

I can't believe it's already been 7 months (wait, don't I say that every month?). But I must admit, aside from the teething, this is one of my favourite ages. There is so much more interaction and that's always more rewarding than when they just sleep and cry.

My very Best Friend

My husband and I have never been big valentine celebrators. I usually make something heart-shaped either for supper or dessert, but that's about it. The first two years we were together I helped him move. Yup, two years in a row! I think that's when he knew I'd stick with him through anything. (In his defence he made up for it later. In June, but he still made up for it.)

So, today, as much as I love my husband and my kids, I think I talk about them too much as it is and so instead, I'm going to break the rules and spend today talking about someone else that I love. It's my blog. I can break the rules if I want.

I'd like to introduce you to my very best friend in the whole world. My sister:

(she's totally going to hate me for putting this picture up, but it's the most recent one I have. And since we were 7 and 8 months pregnant in it, I can honestly say that we are both much, much thinner now. Ha, well, maybe not much, but thinner)

Now, some people would say that Mark is supposed to be my very best friend, but he's only known me for 7 years and Jen has known me for nearly 28. And she's willing to tell me if I look fat in a certain pair of pants, so you know what? She gets to beat him out in that category. And since he doesn't ever want to be asked if "these pants make my butt look big" I think he's okay with that.

Jen is my older sister. 3 years old to be exact. I spent my life wanting to be just like her, which is good because I also spent my life in her hand-me-downs. We did everything together (well except for a couple years in there where she teamed up with our older brother, but she came around).

We shared a room for the first 10 years of my life (and were roomies in college) and though we fought ALL. THE. TIME. (she was clean, I was messy. Tape lines had to be brought in to create some peace) I like to think that it was these years in such close quarters that made us such good friends. We have the sort of relationship that we can talk about anything. And I know she'll always be truthful with me. So I ask her opinion about everything. She's the one I go to for any and all advice and her opinions weigh pretty heavy (except this week she told me the font I used on an invitation wasn't so great, but Mark and I both liked it so we countered her vote). She's the best person to shop with (we like all the same stores), to make snacks with (we like all the same foods), to watch movies with (we like all the same movies). Basically, she's great.

Tragically Jen was taken from me nearly 2 years ago. Don't worry, she didn't die. She just moved from the same city as me to another Province and instead of seeing her all the time, we are now relinquished to near-daily phone conversations and ridiculously long Facebook messages.

Here's a glimpse of some of the things we talk about (paraphrased of course):

-Did you see the blog with that cute craft/yummy recipe/awesome tutorial/funny story?

-Seriously, my kid kept me up all night/my kid peed all over the floor 4 times today/my kid ate all the valentine chocolates/my kid no longer wants to sleep (wait, those were all just me)

-"I think I want to paint/redo/tear out/reupholster _______ this week. Or you know, sometime." (me) "I painted/redid/tore our/reupholstered ______ this week" (her)

-I have nothing to wear. Wanna go shopping? You should come see me.

And a lot of other nothing-type stuff. That's why I love her. She totally doesn't mind if I call her 8 times in the same day with stupid questions like "what should I make for supper?" or "Do you remember the name of so-and-so's sister?" (I'm sure I sometimes get annoying to her husband as he now just picks up the phone and upon realizing its me immediately gets Jen. I told him once that if I was truly annoying he could just move them all back here and then we could hang out and I wouldn't have to call so much. He hasn't complained once. I have such wicked negotiating skills).

I also like that Jen and I get to be Mom's together. She has a little boy a year older than Mady and a little girl 5 weeks older than Kate. Its nice that we're in the same stage of life because I can tell her how much I don't enjoy baby spit and such and she totally gets it. I think everyone needs a sister.

Our kids: Jen's and then mine

In our teen years we would spend Valentine's Day together waiting for some boy who was secretly in love with us to send us flowers. It never happened. At least we had each other.

And as much as I would have been thrilled to have a boy, I'm even more thrilled that Kaitlyn was a girl because this means that my girls can have a built in best friend like me. And I tell them that they're best friends. I figure this way it removes any doubt.

Love you, Jen! Come visit me!!

ps- Did Dan get you flowers? ;)

Dear America Part 2

Dear United States of America,

I would just like to thank you for responding to my plee with your recent decision to open up locations of Target in Canada. I hope you are able to work out that whole lawsuit thing about the name . Whatever you decide to do, please make sure the location near my house (there WILL be one near my house, right??) has an extra big "dollar spot." This seems to be a source of wonderful craft and party inspiration for my American friends and I would like to take part in the fun.

Further, if you would stock this Target with the following products, our friendship would be forever sealed.

-Nutter Butters (this one is becoming desperately important!)

-Candy Cane Hershey's Kisses (I have found a good alternative at Bulk Barn, but sadly they also refuse to open a location near me!)

-Milano Cookies

-Oreos with the coloured centres (<----that's how we spell Centers)

-Mini Nilla Wafers

-Actually mini of a lot of things. Assume if its mini and used for baking that we don't have it.

-Choco Tacos (I've never actually had these, but my favourite blogger talks about them ALL. THE. TIME. She's right about so many other things, so I can only assume these are good.)

-100,000 bars (again, never had them, but I have some cute ideas of what do to with them).

-All the different Girl Guide (Scout) cookies. We only get the sandwich "oreo" style ones, and sometimes the thin mints at Christmas.

I assume you're still working on store locations of the other establishments listed in my original letter and for that I thank you.

Also, I would offer to trade you Kinder Surprises, but I hear they get confiscated at the border, so you may have to settle for Bird's Custard Powder.

Sincerely,

What products do you load up on when visiting other countries?

Baby Shower Card

Aak! My camera is taking pictures that won't load onto my computer. Very frustrating! I have some super cute snowman party things to show you, if I can get them off my camera. Anyone want to give me a new camera? Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask...

So this past weekend I attended a baby shower for my cousin-nephew. Okay really he'd be my first-cousin-through-marriage once removed, but he feels more like a nephew so cousin-nephew it is!*

Out of the 4 cousins, three have kids (two each). There are 5 girls and now finally a BOY! I think this little man may get spoiled. Or he'll be stuck playing dolls and "shopping." Hehe!

Well, this shower was a great opportunity to use my Silhouette. And of course I'm always looking for excuses to use it! I've made lots of cards before. This was the first one I've made without a single stamp. I love boats for little boys!

I did a punch out of the same boat that's on the front, but smaller, on the inside. I LOVE that you get to resize to your hearts desire with this thing!

There will be plenty more cards showcased as I still have all of this year's birthday cards to show you. Have I mentioned this machine is addicting??

*for those of you who don't understand family tree lingo he's my husband's cousin's son.

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