homemade fun

Since I have clearly been addicted to Pinterest since I first signed on.  I have beent trying to at least create some of these wonderful ideas that I have been pinning.

Vacation was the perfect time to give a few of the fun activities for the boys to try!!

They have loved racing marbles, it was super easy to make and very inexpensive.  We used two different pool noodles because we didn't cut them straight enough the first time but you could easily use one if you cut straight, you need a shoe box and bag of marbles!  Cut the pool noodle in half and cut half moon shapes in the box and cover of the shoe box.  Tape the pool noodles in to the box,  you will probably need a rock or something heavy to hold the cover onto the table and then let the racing begin!!!!

This cardboard village was easy to make and free!   Just take any old cardboard box and cut, tape and decorate to you liking.  I added pictures and words of simple words for Liam to learn that the letters mean words.  He is doing fantastic at reading the letters that match the word.  AND they love playing on the roads with the cars.


Overall, huge success.  These items were moved into the basement and are still used often!

Happy Pinteresting!!!

Super Woman

In my head, I am this woman 

when in fact this is the woman I am!!!!


I sometimes believe that I can do it all and then as I can barely make it up the stairs to my office, I realize this is not true!

I have been running on fumes for the past few weeks and now that Adele's beautiful wedding is complete I realize that I can breathe again and then my body shuts down and tells me that it's time to rest!

I don't like to think that I can't do it all, I have so many things that I want to get done.  My world has been a little busy these past few weeks and my lists just keep getting longer and longer.  Even as I sit here typing this I think about all the things that I want to get done.   Perhaps I should just do them, that's probably what you are thinking and what I am thinking but actaully it takes more prep than I seem to have time for.

For now, I will take a couple of days to try to rest and then get back at it!

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Good Luck to all the Super Mom's out there!!

busy!!!

Hello there lovely blog followers!

I am sorry for the lack of posting; the week before vacation was busy getting ready and vacation was wonderful and oh so packed with fun!  Now this week is wedding prep for one of my best friends who will be getting married on Saturday!

So I have no time but I wanted to leave you with a couple of pictures to hold you over until things calm down!

I will be back next week with some stories, pictures and thoughts!

I might even sneak in a few pre wedding pics at the end of the week if I find time!

Liam's new favourite thing to do

Joel and Rhys practicing golf in PEI

Liam and I dancing at the Cavendish Beach Country Concert!!!!!

I hope everyone enjoys the preview. 

Have a great week and I will be back next week!

Strawberries!!!

Oh summer!!  I love you for so many reasons; warm sunshine, sundresses, short shorts, bare arms, swimming, the lake and I could go on but I won't.

I will concentrate on a particular favourite:  Strawberry season!  It's my fav!! 

We have a wonderful strawberry patch that we go to "Sunset U-pick" which is currently in danger of being rezoned for housing.  I signed the petition to keep it zone for whatever it is now because I desperately want the strawberries to stay!!  So if you live in Fredericton, head to Sunset U-pick for some amazing strawberries and sign that petition!!!

I found out on Monday that it had opened on Friday without my knowledge and since Monday was beautiful here and the next 3 days were supposed to rain I was desperately trying to figure out if they were open in the evening.  Yes, they are in fact!

I packed up the boys after a speedy supper, grabbed some containers and went in search of strawberries.

Sunset U-pick did not dissappoint, first they were open at 5:45pm (and actually until around 8pm I think, perhaps we didn't need to speed eat but I wasn't willing to take that chance!!) and they had so many huge bright red strawberries ready for picking. 

The boys did great, they gathered approximately 1/2 a box each (some were still a little pale but we will work on that!!) and perhaps ate the other half of their boxes!!

I spent my time there speed strawberry picking as I have no idea the exact attention span a 2 and 4 yr old have for this activity.  It can change at any moment!  So I gathered as many as I could and filled all the containers we had with us!  That equals HUGE success in my world.  I think they had fun, I was happy to have strawberries and everyone loved eating them!!!

We definitely collected enough since we had enough to drop off one box to my parents, a big bowl for individual bowls of yummy strawberries and some strawberry shortcakes AND 6 batches of strawberry jam!! 

So now I have many many containers of jam for the rest of the year.  I should be able to make it until next summer but I can't be sure so I will probably have to make a couple more just to be sure!!!

I always use the freezer jam pectin that uses 4 cups of fruit and 1 1/2 cups of sugar or splenda!!  It tastes the best and you have more fruit than sugar which is hasto be a good thing. 
A little trick I learn because I prefer my jam to not have chunks is to puree the strawberries after you mash them before you put the sugar in.  The package says don't puree but I do and it works great.   My kids love it and look how bright and fun it looks on toast!!!

I hope everyone enjoys this Canada Day long week and gets a few strawberries to eat!!  I think we are heading back for more on Saturday morning.  You just need to have strawberry shortcake for Canada Day weekend!!!

Have fun and be safe!!!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Since summer is upon us, although here we wouldn't know that with the rain and wind today!  Sunny days are right around the corner and it made me think of pink lemonade for sunshiny days in the backyard.

I found this recipe from Sweet Cheeks in the Kitchen blog (actually found it on pinterest) and decided I had to give it a go.

I had to revamp the recipe a bit because I never buy buttermilk I just create it using milk and vinegar.  However, I have yet to learn to make anything other than 1 cup of it.  So since the above recipe needed 1/4 cup of it, I had to quadrupal it.  Slightly tricky and the first attempt I got it wrong!

Leaving out 4 egg whites really messes with a recipe!!  Pretty pink hockey pucks (all 48 of them, 24 regular and 24 mini cupcakes) in the garbage!!!

Pretty but yucky tasting.....garbage they went!

So for an employee's birthday I decide it was an excellent reason for attempt number 2.  Armed with my 4 extra egg whites, I thought I was ready to go!

The cupcakes did end up turning out great, they are a little less pink than the first batch but tasted good this time!!

A few little cracks in the top but definitely showed promise!!  After taking a short TV break, I went to start the frosting.....which was supposed to be pink lemonade as well.  Apparently I did not check my lemonade purchase and bought regular lemonade as my second can.  So vanilla buttercream it was!!!

It's actually my favourite frosting in the whole world so I wasn't entirely dissappointed!

They were quite yummy and I was pleased they turned out this time.

A little sprinkles for added festiveness and a deliverying I went!

Here is the quadrupaled recipe:

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes
(makes 36 cupcakes)

4 cups of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
8 egg whites
1 1/3 cups (1 can) thawed frozen pink lemonde
1 cup buttermilk (can use almost one cup of milk and 1 tbsp of vinegar)
pink food colouring

Directions:
1. Preheat over to 350 F
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
3. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, oil, egg whites and pink lemondae concentrate.
4. Alternate mixing in flour mixture and buttermilk, until smooth.  Batter will be quite runny, that's the way it's supposed to be.
5. Add a little pink or red food colouring to make it a more fun pink colour and then scoop into liners.
6. Bake for 20-25 mins
7.  Cool and frost


Pink Lemonade Frosting
6-8 cups icing sugar
1 cup of butter, soften (salted, if using unsalted add 1/4 tsp of salt)
1/2 tbsp pink lemonade concentrate

Cream butter first then add pink lemonade concentrate and then approx 5-6 cups of icing sugar and taste and add until you like it!

**Incase Pink Lemonade Frosting seems like it will be too much pink lemonade, here's a vanilla buttercream frosting that tastes good with them.

Vanilla Buttercream
1 cup of soften butter
1/2 cup of milk
2 tsp of vanilla
6-8 cups of icing sugar

Cream butter first, then add milk and vanilla and add about 5 cups of icing sugar and taste and add until you like it!


Well I hope that you enjoy this recipe for your summer festivities!!!

What's your favourtie summer time treat?

Happy Father's Day

Since I wrote a post for Mother's Day, I figured I should give equal opportunity for Father's Day!

So I would like to wish Joel a very happy father's day!!!  He is an amazing father and his boys love him so much.  They make me so happy when I watch them follow him around and try to do things he does!  He is patiently waiting to take them to the golf course and loving teaching them new tricks.  Their giggles and glee with wrestling and playing football is music to my ears! 
I must admit, I am happy but a little sad when they want Daddy instead of mommy but it just proves what a good man I married and wonderful dad they have.  We did good!!!

Since Joel is a product of his parents, it goes to stand that my father-in-law Larry is a wonderful, caring man.  He has welcomed me in their family since day one.  This worked out well since within the first few weeks of me living up in Carleton county I had to call him when I ended up in a ditch!!!  He is a great father to his children and a wonderful grandfather (Bucky) to his grandchildren!

And last but not least....my father, Wesley.  Or Chopper as we like to call him.  I have been a daddy's girl forever!   He has always been there for me when I needed him and like most, sometimes when I didn't.  I never doubt his love for me or for those he loves! His a great dad and a wonderful grampy (Yaya) to his grandchildren!  He has a big heart and some great sayings! 
He drives me nuts sometimes but I love him!

So Happy Father's Day to these three wonderful father's in my life and to all you other great father's out there! 

I hope you all had a great day!

Shoes, shoes and oh a little more shoes!

68 pairs of shoes!  That's the amount of shoes/boots/sandals/sneakers that I found around my house yesterday while attempting to organize!

Might not be a lot to some but it was actually more than I thought!  I was a little surprised.  I did however go through them and removed 13 of them.  Leaving me with just 55 pairs!  Some of the removed shoes where very old, hurt when I wore them and really how many pairs of back up sneakers does one need??

I enjoyed going through them and reminding myself of what I had to choose from.  I felt inspired by my friend Jill's blog post about revamping her wardrobe.  I had shoes everywhere and had been ignoring the mess for many many months.  But it was time for them to all have a home!  They now all have a proper place and hopefully this will make finding them and remember them a little easier.

When you have a giant pile of shoes.......shouldn't you jump in them and take pictures??

Grab a shoe and say cheese!

The organizing continued a little into my clothes closet but just enough to make room for some shorts and pack away some winter clothes that were taking up room. 

Thankfully I did go through the winter clothes to make room because I found two new pairs of shorts I bought at the end of the last summer season and was apparently hiding them under 5 wool sweaters!  I purchased 4 pairs of shorts to replace most of my old ones a few weekends ago and luckily didn't go for beige or black.  So now I am doing great for shorts....it was a happy moment!

My equally fashion crazy friend Amanda is going to come up in a few weeks and we are going to go through the clothes to see what should stay and what should go, what I might need and how to work what I have! 

Stay tuned for that adventure....we will document and post!