Life ¤ Love ¤ Laughter ¤ Linds

With Old Man Winter stubbornly holding us in his bitter grip, we've been eating a lot of warm-me up meals... stews, soups, and the like.  Especially soups.  My boys DETEST potatoes not cooked in a french fry form - we eat a lot of oven fries.  In spite of this aversion, they will eat a bowl of creamy potato soup (we call it vegetable soup) and ask for seconds.  This is big stuff in the battle of the mealtime, although Kaleb might be cluing in - the last time I made it did not go over nearly as well..  (NOTE:  The following sentence may kill your appetite.  Kaleb has actually vomited his mashed potatoes on the dinner table - I think it's a texture thing - definitely disgusting.)  Growing up, soup was always Chicken Noodle or Dutch Meatball.  Both delicious, but well, predictable.  My mom would, on occasion, make a batch of split pea... blech, no thanks! A friend from In R Dream posted a photo on instagram the other day of a coconut s...

Today I almost achieved that most enviable of all titles:  "Best Mom in the World."  It was sitting there, just out of reach.  Tempting.  Teasing.  Whispering my name.  Alas, as fate is such a fickle creature, my hopes of laying claim to it were dashed with one quick yell across the house:  "I told you to brush your teeth!  Get going."  I fell off the precipice to wallow with the mortal mothers, resounding choruses of "You're so mean!" echoing in my ears.  Such is life. I fed my kids cookies for breakfast.  Chewy, yummy, peanut buttery cookies.  With chocolate.  Justin was so excited he insisted he was going to tell his classmates.   Kaleb just didn't want to stop eating. Now, before you judge me, know that these cookies weren't just any old unhealthy treat.  Besides the chocolate chips, these babies didn't have extra refined sugar, oil, or flour added to them.  It was like eating a glorified bowl of...

Last night I must have known that today would start with a fizzle.  After the post-dinner catastophic clean up, I actually started prepping the monkeys' lunches.  Even with our early start school (thumbs down!), I tend to toss their lunches together in the morning.  We have our rhythm and usually, our get-out-the-door routine progress as planned. Not so much today.  My alarm turned itself off.  Seriously!   It's not like I forgot to set it before bed.  I would never do that.  I did wake up to my internal alarm, but the morning was a fog of ineptness.   And the kids would not stop fighting over who got to wear which shirt... you know, those pink ones we're wearing to stand against bullying?  (My guys may very well have gone to school sporting blood stains due to the fists that we're being thrown.  It seems we entirely missed the point of Pink Shirt Day.) We finally got our, uh, "stuff" together and made it to school ...

There are days when I'm dumbstruck at how grown up my oldest monkey has become.  I look at him with wonder and awe intermingled with a little bit of sadness remembering when he used to need me for things - almost everything in fact.  He's eight years old.  Almost a grown up, according to him.  Halfway to a driver's license to put it in perspective. He hasn't needed my help with dressing, brushing his teeth, or getting his things gathered for school for quite some time.  He can get his own snacks, feed the dog, load & unload the dishwasher, and find a quiet spot to read all on his own.  He helps with chores, plays creatively, and has astounding logic that you can't argue with at all.  He's almost a grown up... I've noticed his independence developing with little things - increased modesty, bathing on his own (even the shampoo!), not acknowledging me at school, even in how he interacts with Justin.  He wants hugs before bed, but he doesn't wan...

Ignore for the moment the fact I haven't blogged since August.  I mean, we all get distracted once and awhile, don't we?  Life is constantly changing and things get pushed to the side. It's a PA Day here.  It's winter.  It's snowing.  I was craving comfort food that wouldn't take a mess to make. I peeked in my horribly empty and in-desparate-need-of-cleaning (it's on the to-do list) fridge.  I had some Activia yogurt,  some bruised apples,  turkey slices, slightly wilted celery, chicken thawing for dinner tonight, a bit of butter, and a bottle of maple syrup.   The pantry isn't faring much better - some Mini Wheats, marshmallows, soda crackers,  and an unopened box of granola. Let the creativity begin.  I melted some butter in a small (8"x8"ish) Pyrex dish.  I peeled, cored, and sliced them apples.  I tossed them in the butter, sprinkled with a generous amount of cinnamon, and drizzled with maple syrup.   I...

IThe oldest monkey asks "Mommy what is today's holiday all about?"  Hmmm... I'm not really sure.  It's a holiday just for a break."  My less-than-knowledgable answer works for him and we declare it a lazy day! We searched for close-to-home and inexpensive activities, but nothing really struck a chord.  We lazed in our pj's until early afternoon and then headed into town. I absolutely love "downtown" Port Perry.  The shops are quaint, the people are friendly, and it's easy to find Kawartha Dairy!  The kids don't mind walking around as long as our loop finishes at Palmer Park.  They take advantage of the playground, we check out the lake, and when the weather cooperates, they can romp in the splashpad. Today, as we reached our wandering limit, we opted to eat out in celebration of Kev's birthday.  1 vote pizza, 1 vote Thai food, 1 vote Mexican and one indifferent - mom's vote won today because we managed to convince the pizza vo...

Last week, I impulsively decided that a CSA Farm Share program was a great idea for our family.  I say "impulsively" because I stumbled upon the concept through one of the local farms while looking up U-pick berry info.  I then posted a question in regards to CSA programs on Facebook, and one of my friends replied that her parent's farm (also local) was just starting up a program.  It's a $400 investment with a weekly full-share - enough veggies for a family of four - over a harvest season of 20 weeks.  At $20/week for fresh colourful veggies and fruit, I thought it would be worth it and just sub for what we need at the local farmer's market and grocery store... and in minutes decided we should give it a go. Thus our jump in feet first adventure in CSA Farm Shares.  We're buying our produce from F&M Farm  in Columbus (N. Oshawa) and Kevin picked up our first "basket" today. Is it not a beautiful bounty of goodness?!?  We've got beets, zucc...