Category: babies

Soup’s on

Posted by – 29/11/2008

Well, soup’s in. It’s all gone already. We don’t have a microwave here and my work is not leftover friendly, so we try to eat as much of whatever’s been cooked right away. Including cookies. It’s almost competitive.

Today, after a walk to Chapter’s for kid dictionaries (Ari had a stellar review at the parent-teacher conference yesterday, it was nice to hear such positive feedback), I decided that soup was just the thing for lunch. Broccoli soup. It’s so easy and it might be my favourite. Here’s how:

1. Saute chopped onion and red pepper in butter and seasoned with salt until translucent, then add a tablespoon of flour and stir it around.

2. Dump in a 900ml carton of stock (I used No Name Chicken stock), and add a chopped head of broccoli. I put about a tablespoon of dried parsley and same of dried thyme and simmered for 6 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender.

3. Blend. Add 1/2 cup cream (half and half is what we have here, for coffee) and serve. I dumped black pepper on mine and a handful of grated cheddar.

That’s it. Easy, fast, delicious, the three most important things about cooking.

soup

I’ve been looking for a recipe for apple crisp/crumble. I like it with brown sugar, oats, apples and not much else. Butter, right? I just want the right proportions. Minimal cinnamon.

Yesterday I got some nice new cotton yarn at The Yarn Boutique, near my house, and I made a quick baby toy for friends who had a little girl a couple months ago. It’s made with the idea that babies shove stuff in their gobs, and small enough for baby hands. And no loose strings or eyes that can come off…

bunny

Cool how the yarn striped, eh? I didn’t even do that on purpose, it’s the way the yarn was born!

I live in babytown

Posted by – 23/11/2008

Spent the afternoon with the twins. They haven’t changed much since Thursday, but they are great. I found out that Gabe particularly likes having his picture taken, then looking at the pictures on my camera’s view finder. He laughed and laughed…I admit, I laughed too. Bea is known as the ham, but he’s pretty funny too.

baby baby baby

baby  baby baby

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baby  baby

baby  baby baby

baby  baby baby

As you can tell, they hardly sit still for one second. Emily, feel free to steal any of these!

Mii fit

Posted by – 22/11/2008

I have already been blabbing on about it on facebook, but here is where I say it again: I love Wii Fit. If I had the time, I would fiddle with it every day. I especially like the hula hoop game (only because I love it that the Shannon and Ari miis are in the hula room dancing with me) and all the balance games. I try to do every one, all the balance, yoga, aerobics each time I turn it on. No, I don’t like the strength ones, which probably means they are the ones I most need to do. Too bad I hate doing pushups. If the floor was a little cleaner here it might be more fun.

Here is me workin’ the hoop:

Mii

That’s Shannon on the left and Ari (although her mii is named Leah) on the right. They are holding hoops that they throw over my head, which I lean to catch. It’s seriously hilarious. If I were the only person in the house, I would set up Wii Fit to have goofy people playing, like Murderface.

I went to visit Emily and her family on Thursday, as per usual. The babies are turning into people, really small people with teeth. They bite each other…and I shouldn’t laugh because being bit is no fun at all, but it’s funny because they haven’t quite figured out that putting one’s fingers in someone else’s mouth can lead to pain. They have both figured out how to climb the stairs, but not how to get back down. Gabe was enjoying a nap while Bea messed around on the stairs, up until she screamed bloody murder and woke him up.

This is a portrait of frustration:

Get me down!

That’s drool rash on her chin. Some people think she needs her bangs cut, but she doesn’t.

Sunshine, lollipops and diarrhea?

Posted by – 19/11/2008

While most of my life is perfect, occasionally a wrench does get thrown into the works. Today I had the extreme misfortune of drinking bad orange juice at work. Which led to me not being physically able to leave work for a full 15 minutes after my shift was over. Ugh. Of course I am starving now. Gross, eh?

Also, I broke down and bought a new book: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. It’s crazy popular right now and a movie is being released soon…but the book sucks. It really really sucks. The writing is dreadful, it’s got no flow at all, choppy and juvenile. It’s like reading the blog of a 13 year old girl who’s self absorbed  and boring. There is virtually nothing compelling about it. Even the characters are dull, flat and substance free.  At first I thought maybe I am just too old for it, but I enjoyed all the Harry Potter books and they are geared for an even younger crowd. Not that they are perfect, I have problems with JK Rowling too, but not like this. I will finish reading it (to be fair, I am only 125 pages in) and write a proper review when I do.

Unrelated baby picture:

cuppy cake

Tomorrow I will sit on Gabe and Bea Bea and everything will be ok.

Painting

Posted by – 02/11/2008

Less than a year ago I made three paintings, one each for my parents and one for my sister. I hadn’t painted since, the past year has been SO crazy, but because the babies first birthday (see previous post) was rapidly approaching and I’d been meaning to do a painting for their room since their birth, I finally got off my duff and did it. I knew I wanted to do a painting of bears and I have spent a lot of time looking at pictures of bears. A LOT of time. The painting I wanted to do, based on a joke Emily’s mom told us about a certain cross-eyed bear didn’t really work so well. How does one draw a bear with crossed eyes without it looking too cartoony? So I decided to go with the story of The Three Bears, it’s one of my favourites. I prefer the version where the bears, upon finding Goldilocks the greedy furniture smasher holed up in the home, eat her. Sadly, I don’t know who did the illustration I copied. I glued a copy of that on the back of the painting along with the hilariously sober synopsis of the story from Wikipedia on the back. I can hardly wait ’til they are old enough to read it themselves.

The Three Bears

It’s not as good as any of Shannon’s paintings, but I am still pretty happy with how it turned out.

Other than the smell.

First birthdays must be noticed

Posted by – 01/11/2008

Beazy is one!

I went to the twins’ first birthday party this afternoon. It was super fun, those kids make me so happy, I just love love love them! Everyone was oohing and aahing over watching their first bites of sugar, so I didn’t burst that bubble by talking about feeding them McDonald’s ice cream a couple weeks ago. If there’s anything organic in that stuff, someone please tell me.

Dessert

Posted by – 02/10/2008

Supper was a bit of a bust for the women in the house, so we over compensated by making rice crispy treats. Guess who picked the colour.

mmmm

I also visited Emily and the babies, who seem to grow funnier and cuter every time I go. It’s amazing how different they each are, and we’d wondered, when she was pregnant and knew that one was a girl, one a boy, how they would develop differently. They are totally different, night and day, but they are both awesome, sweet, funny and totally lovable.

All action, all the time

Posted by – 10/09/2008

I sat with Em’s babies for about an hour and a half yesterday while she was in a doctor appointment. It was just me and the kids and we had fun, believe it or not. They never stop moving these days, it’s crazy, and by the time I go home I am ready for bed. I don’t know how she does it.

action

Not one picture was not blurry.

We went to the Fairview mall after, just to hang out, you know, and cause trouble. Plus I needed a new watch battery. Did you know that you can still get your baby shoes bronzed? I thought that went out with, ahem, the bronze age. My dad used to joke about getting a pair of his underwear bronzed, he’d had them so long. I loved the typo in the bronzing pamphlet. Footh? Just get one footh bronzed if you’re a total cheapskate.

ah ha

I don’t think anyone does this anymore. It’s pretty tacky, if you ask me. Of course now I am trying to think of something I own that would be funny to have bronzed.

Consider them sat upon

Posted by – 04/09/2008

Yesterday I got to visit the babes. They are turning into proper people, it’s so awesome to be a witness to that. Bea has 2 teeth, teeny tiny white chiclets front and centre. They went for a dip yesterday in a hilariously small pool, which they love, and then Bea got to lick the lid of a visiting baby’s food jar. Mmmm, sweet corn casserole!

De-lish!

She could make anything look good!

ps The new 90210 pwns!

Sexy!

Posted by – 08/07/2008

I was looking for size 5 swim suits today and found this. The tag inside says it’s for an 18 month old.

Ugh.

Is your toddler sexy? Were her first words “that’s hot”? This bathing suit was $3o at Winner’s. Gross, eh.