Food Rule #39

...Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. (Michael Pollan, Food Rules)

And you know what? I think they taste even better than the ones from a certain fast-food restaurant famous for their root beer! mmm.

Loved this recipe!

Booger buster

It's Christmas. So of course people get sick. It's just one of our traditions.

Unfortunately, my two month old picked up something nasty from his admirers. Boo.  And so, I returned to my trusty "baby first aid box" and found my fearless booger buster: 

The idea is rather disgusting, but it works like a charm! A little bit of saline. A little bit of sucking and he can breathe again!

Homemade Birthday: Rocking Horse

I'm super excited for Chritmas gifts this year! (And also my daughter's third birthday!) My husband and I have been working on some very cool gifts...

This little guy we found at a community rummage sale. He went from this:

To this:

And it was (mostly!) so easy!

See that marker? Yeah - it was the glitch. After four coats of chalk paint, it still bled through. So I had to strip those areas & sand off the marker. Boo. But the painting and mane were super easy!

Chalk paint: I picked up a can of white sample paint from the store. It cost me 5.99, but I was able to use it for another project as well. I used a recipe from In My Own Style, and purchased a huge container of calcium carbonate from my local pharmacy, which cost nearly $20, but will be used for multiple projects. I could have painted him any colour, but I like white.

(The paint I had to strip and sand off after it was already painted was HARD work... I believe that's a good thing for kids' toys!!)

Mane: a Pinterest idea that wasn't totally awful! I love it when they work! I used this tutorial. I had to read the directions carefully, as she was missing a few photos. Don't do what I did I and make the mane so thick your sewing machine can't sew through it. I had to remove some layers before I could finish it.

And TADA!

Of course the balloons we blew up to decorate her room were the initial hit, but once she got over those, she loved her rocking horse. And still does :)

Christmas with 3 under 3

This Christmas season is very special to us, and even more so as we get to experience it through the eyes of our three-year-old daughter. But, that also means we have a seventeen month old and a one-and-half month old in tow, which limits our celebrations.

I have to be honest, our house looks quite sparse in terms of decorations.

We have stockings:

And we have a Christmas tree:

But notice something about the tree? Yup. It's missing ornaments. We have a handful of homemade ornaments at Miss K's level, but otherwise it's a naked tree.

As a perfectionist, this year is tough on me.

But, I just didn't want to yell.  Funny enough, as I reflect upon that same article, I wouldn't get out of bed if "not yelling" was my only criteria/reason for not doing things this year. Realistically, I had to pace myself. We have activities planned that I hope will be traditions, and will make memories - and reinforce other ones - without causing too much added stress to a household where all of the littles need help. All of the time.

There's one other things we have this year:

It's our version of Tsh's Easy, no-Frills Advent Calendar.

I looked at the calendar, and attempted to incorporate activities we were already doing, and then added a few more. We even have a few BONUS activities - as Main Street's Christmas tree was lit in November (Miss K - my soon-to-be three-year-old has been asking about it since last January. Not even kidding), and her birthday part is AFTER Christmas this year (again - the whole not yelling thing as important).

Other activities include:
-decorate Christmas tree
-maintaining our Friday family movie night - Elf, Dad's choice!, and A Charlie Brown Christmas
-make perogies (with all of the aunties - and the cousins showed up too!)
-deliver food to the Foodbank
-shop for & deliver Christmas Hamper Toy
-Church Christmas Concert
-make Nuts & Bolts (an easy "dump" activity)
-make cornstarch & baking soda homemade ornaments (so easy & AWESOME!)
-deliver cookies
-candy cane hot chocolate
-"do you wanna build a snowman?!"
-tobogganing
-Christmas train ride

Easy activities. Many of which we were doing already, but now we have anticipation each morning. And? I can switch them around - for instance when there was NO snow on the day we wanted to go tobogganing. And, because I looked ahead, I'm able to "call in the reinforcements" (yay Grandparents!) for the activities that will need a little extra help - like the train ride.

I can't promise I won't yell this year. Mischief abounds around here. But I'm trying not to yell more than normal. :)