Happy Valentine's Day

Today will be a Quiet day at home watching the snow fall. Yep it's snowing again. I guess that's what we get for having Valentine's in Winter?

I also dropped these off at the school today for Teacher Appreciation Muffin Monday. 

I think my Cat thinks it's cold?

Virtual Cookie exchange-Chocolate Chip or Cranberries and White Chocolate

OK  Karen sent me a email today, full of holiday wishes and ideas! This right here is the idea. A Virtual Cookie Exchange. Here is the code for the buttons.





Now my coding skills are a bit off so I'm going to have to work on that, but in the meantime, RECIPE? right you all want the recipes?



In yesterday's Random Tuesday I was talking about Chocolate Chip cookies for My son's Curling potluck. If you've ever gotten an email from the Cookie countdown on Allrecipes? you've seen this before. It started as White Chocolate and Cranberry cookies. The recipe there asks for Brandy and if you saw me Friday night? well uh I drink Rum, and the boys they dont' drink yet. give it time, there are 8yrs to legal age for my oldest. ACK!

So here's my revised for us recipe...
Excuse the spots...
1/2 Cup Butter (I used margerine, cause that's what I had) softened
1/2 cup PACKED Brown sugar.
1/2 cup white sugar
1 Egg beaten
1 TBSP Brandy... replaced with 2TSP Vanilla
1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour(or replace 1/4 cup with whole wheat if you use them for kids lunches, then you can say YES my kids eat whole wheat cookies when the teacher asks about healthy choices)
1/2 TSP of Baking Soda (not sofa as I first typed)
1 cup Chocolate chips (ORRRRRRRRRR the 3/4 cup White chocolate chips and 1 cup dry cranberries, also yummy)


Cream the first 5 ingredients, and then add in the dry at the end. You can use a mixer but make sure it's got GOOD power. I have a tendency to ask Santa for Mixers for Christmas on about the 20th or 24th of December.....

YAY for Holiday School Projects

My Son's Grade 3 Class has a project due last week. The Paper part went in Friday and the "Presentation" by the students were Today. Sunday we did our baking. OH the Baking my boy can do! I'm so very proud of him, and his ability to get just the right amount of Ginger Bread Men made for his class mates and some leftover for his brothers. He shared them wonderfully and now for your Viewing Pleasure... 

Boy + Ginger Bread Baking=Danger for Ginger Bread Men. 

Recipe from allrecipes.com called Eileen's Spicy GingerBread Men. So yummy, and if you want them a touch crisper? replace 1TBSP of the Molasses with Corn Syrup.

Yummy Orange Loaf, Aj's Favorite

The orange loaf works out every single time. When I was waiting for MJ to be born I think I baked it about 8times in 2wks. :)AJ now loves it. It came out of a recipe book I received as a wedding shower gift. You know the kind, everyone submits a recipe and they print it to raise money. This was for a hospital fund. The book is so very well used that now the covers, and binding are gone! The Orange loaf page is a mess, along with the Brownies for a Crowd recipe that was used for the new roof in May. I hope you like it as well.
EAsy too!

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening, (Cream together)
2 eggs,
rind of one orange... See More
1tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup flour
1tsp salt
1/2 cup milk

topping,

1/4 cup sugar, and the juice of 1 orange boiled together until disolved.
I use the mixer for loaf batter, and then bake at 350 for 15minutes, then 325 for an hour.
Pour the sauce over the loaf while it's in the pan, wait about 1/2 hour before taking it out.

no breadmaker needed.
OHHHHHHHHH and when you are putting the shortening in and using the handy measure on the side of the box to cut it? Take all the wrapper off first. This morning I took this loaf out of the freezer for breakfast. AJ says "mom there's paper in here" yep! the wax paper from the shortening got cooked into that part of the loaf. I pulled it out and we ate the LOAF not the paper. oops!

Tuesday are Random they pop up Randomly

Yep it's Tuesday again, ever notice how it Randomly shows up in like the almost middle of the week, not quite the middle, but randomly placed, ok so no it's not showing random but I'll make it random.

Dishwasher now works much better. A Valve had to be replaced, it was a little gunked<-- (new word apparently, ADD! )up from previous 17yrs of use or so. ICK! Hard Water is not cheap.

I did some easy baking this weekend, Peanut Butter cookies those 3 ingredient kind, egg, PB, and sugar, done! bake, and done. gone!!! all goneeeeeeeeeee the boys ate them almost the minute the got in the house. They didn't leave a crumb for Hubbie. He was not amused.

Friday was not a happy day here, my son was picked on and I'm not happy about it in the least. I will be talking to the school after I cool down. For all the talk about not bullying there wasn't a lot done about it either.

Christmas is coming and I'm not ready, I keep procrastinating, I've got to start making lists so that I can DO something! at the rate I'm going I wont have anything done because I haven't started the list and then I'll leave something half started or not done.

More tea, must have more tea.


Weight loss has turned into weight gain, it has nothing to do with the cake but it might have something to do with the leftover Halloween chips. Those chips? they say 90cals per serving but I swear when I look in that bag it should say less then 90cals, cause there is no way 5 chips can be 90cals?

I've decided I'm not going to be baking this Christmas, nope not going to do it. If you want shortbreads, I'll buy you one of those pre-made cans of the stuff or go to a bake sale and have someone else do it and wrap it and tag it and seal it up with duct tape. Yep that should help. Me? Glutton? no just impulsive eater or Seefood diet.



I've going to wrap up the random, I've got nothing else to put in here, I'm boring this week, nothing big happened, no chairs were covered in snow, no kids were curling(tournament at the arena), bowling was ok, we supported them well with the purchase of chocolate bars. I spent too much time researching how they get the caramel inside. The kids did help though, they offered to eat it all for me.


Oh I went to see my son do Judo this week, he's good, and those "games" they play (warmup, and theory) would probably have me sleeping on those judo mats! where do kids get all their energy? play play play, fight fight fight, play play play, laugh, run, jump, play?? Drum Drum Drum.


I don't even have pictures to add today. There are no leaves on any of my trees, there are no deer coming to visit. I think all the gophers are asleep, all the raccoons ate all the berries on the bushes, and all the skunks are curled up under my baby barn.

BTW what keeps you all reading?

Random Tuesday Thoughts, Boys it's a house of boys

If you're feeling Random today go on over and hook yourself up. Click it, you know you want to?




so things were a bit rush here yesterday, I've got a lot on my mind and a lot to get completed, so I started. Did some laundry, and the baking and the dishes, then the boys got home. dun dun dunnnnnnnn Homework! Supper! and No more time left to veg. The days are too long!

Hubbie is still trying to fix the slider on my van, the van is 10yrsold and so he's trying, the door is stuck, wont open. Remember the age of vans with only 1 sliding door? yeah that's me. He's using a lot of fast grinding tools.

Random Status updates I made lastnight...
The sound of a grinder grinding into a Van door sounds almost like someone screaming as a grinder slices off your arm...ok yep heart still works.

Mary had a little lamb sounds good on a drum when it's played by your son!! (<----I never hear enough of that song...)

Next up Hot Cross Buns!

I'm impressed now snot wiping and drumming.... hmmmmm maybe he's going to be good at this?

And that led to this doozy...

TJ is playing the drums to his DVD he got at school for band now he's on lesson 21 and a bit of a perfectionist, but he managed to get the other unbusy arm to play the note that the snot arm was due to play.. (I think I'm untrained in this)

On to other Random, the list of things I've done in the last 3 days no one actually noticed so I'll just jot them down so someone will notice....

Baked a apple crisp, because you know the baking just appears out of thin air...
washed the door leading to the basement
Washed the wooden cupboards, and lysol wiped all the door knobs.
Washed the inside of the oven, maybe they will notice the smoke detector going off less often? no they wont...
Washed the baseboards in the bathroom.
Threw out toys they desperately "NEED" to keep but haven't noticed are missing yet, it's been 3days now. ha!
Trying to win money on the local radio program, could be up to 1000.00 but no one will notice because the line is always busy!

No sighting of the bear today, but I still sent the boys out to the bus stop to wait for the bus. Probably a bad mom moment?

Today we don't have dentist appointments we have Eye Doctor Appointments. I swear I heard the receptionist go "chaching" when I said I needed 3 appointments...She laughed when I told her I totally heard her say that...

Ever Notice When you Make Plans...

So when I was doing the Friday Fill ins, I had planned to take the boys to the beach. We started out with that plan, and things were going well. I had managed to crawl into bed at like 244am! after getting sucked into The Tudors? It was the first time I saw the show and I'm already sucked in, because well it left me hanging. Now I'm either going to have to work on finding this show at a regular time or maybe it comes in a box set or something? I'll have to great googly moogly that one.
So I slept like a rock, and at 7am Hubbie rolls over gets up with 2/3 boys and tells them "Don't wake mom watch some cartoons" and he took off for the yard sales. He did well, but over spent on stuff we don't need. I'm going to have a yard sale his yard sale finds. He found some books for the boys on animals, Sharks, Frogs and dinosaurs, great stuff for next year. The details, labels and so on are great. I read the first 4 pages of the frog book to MJ and I learned about Frogs I've never seen or heard about before. So we got the kids, lunch, I did more dishes, got more laundry upstairs,. this falls in the "let's" Category. He brought me up the big basket of wet clothes and I was going to hang them. I procrastinate. I read, I comment on a few things I like, I pay some Packrat, I collect some 101 eggs, or few ,and have my tea and next thing it's 1pm and people are asking me if we are going anywhere? uh yea, just let me get showered and dressed.. more procrastinating. The deal is set, Hubbie offers to hang the clothes for me, and I head to the shower. SCORE! So I get out of the shower the house is clean, the kids are happy, but sucked into Spy Kids 3.... and I go get dressed. Ready to go.
It was 330pm before we left the house, and it was cool today, not beach worth, not even sand castle worthy. We drove to the local DQ and bought the kids some Soft Serve. They were happy as clams at a beach. Also the price of the beach pass? it's gone up 24.00 this year! it was 50$ last year, and this year it's 74.00! it will cover all provincially run parks for the summer buttttttttt 24.00? but we do it for the kids. They will have memories for a life time. Hubbie also found some sand toys at one of the yard sales. I guess someone had bought them for last year but never used them, they were still in the mesh bags. Got to love impulsive shoppers. We go through a lot of sand toys here between the kids and the fox they get a lot of wear and tear. even the Tonkas.
So tomorrow we will again plan the beach run. I've got the cooler in the car tonight, I have the buns ready to make sandwiches tonight and I'll throw them in before church, and we'll drive Straight from church to the beach! They have changing rooms there, I'll pack their play clothes in the van too.
I wonder if I can managed to get out of the bed in the early morning and get some muffins made for the weeks lunches? Then again Hubbie is out tonight with some of the "guys" (which means guys and girls) from work. (Networking for the next big home improvement project?) No,we couldn't get a sitter, so I'm home, and he's out. Anyone have a babysitter they can spare? This is the part I miss about living close to our families.

This is last week's Beach Trip picture. I'll have to get another one this week to compare the green. So much better then snow.

Happy Thanksgiving

Good morning, it's October, and the second Monday of October here in Canada so it's Thanksgiving Weekend. For most that means Turkey weekend. It's tradition in my family to have the Turkey on Sunday because a lot of my family uses Monday for traveling home, with leftovers of course.
This year I've left the turkey in the freezer for Next Weekend because my inlaws are coming to visit. Next weekend is also AJ's birthday, it's going so fast I can't seem to keep these boys from growing up. He is having a birthday Party and it's going to be on Saturday afternoon. I'm just hoping I can get the house into a kind of order so that the kids don't think he's already spoiled. I have a hard time getting rid of toys here. I'm the kind of person that remembers where every single toy came from and when it was given and by who it was given.
He wants to have Pie for his birthday cake. I'm thinking I'll save that part for Sunday. I'll have cake for the birthday party.
Today though, since it's Thankgiving and we aren't having Turkey I'm going to bake up some muffins for the week's lunches. The boys have School On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week and I'll also ahve some of these muffins for the visiting inlaws since they like to hav esomething with their tea.
Recipe to follow, it's the very first recipe in the Jean Pare (accent over the e), Muffins and More volume in the Company's Coming cook books, it fits since I have Company COming!

Topping 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2TBSP flour, 2TBSP soften margerine, mix it up into crumbles but if it's a bit soft and pastish it works too,

Muffins,
1.5 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar(I've used splenda sometimes)
1TBSP baking powder,
1/2 tsp Salt (I've cut this to 1/4 tsp when I think of it)

1Egg
1/2 cup milk (I use skim)
1/4 cup of oil,(I sometimes sub in 1/8th of that in apple sauce)
3/4 cup of shredded apple, with or without peels, I peel them.

mix, pour into greased muffintins, I get about 12muffins, and then I top with the topping and bake at 400F (200C) for 20-25minutes, my old stove 18minutes work, my new stove is 22minutes.

If you can get them to cool before they disappear they freeze well. I'll throw them in small zip bags for kids lunches. They don't usually last that long if hubbie knows I made them. The trick for that is to bake them while he's at work, and the cook a meal after to cover over the apple muffins smell.