Happy Mother's Day

We love you Mommy!!!

Here are the boys giving mommy her Mother's Day gifts. There's an absolutely adorable recipe book from Monkey. His recipe is for chocolate chip ccokies and reads'

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup chocolate chips

100 cups of flour

30 eggs

Go to shopping to get groceries.

Mix them all with beaters until just right.

Place cookies on the cookie sheet.

Turn on the over so that it is too hot for my brother, but safe for mom and dad.

Bake until just right.

Monkey likes them beacuse they're a special treat!

Big C made mommy a beautiful pot for some colourful plants for the garden. He was sooooo proud of himself and had the biggest simle.

Both boys had huge grins as mommy opened and enjoyed her presents. They're so lucky to have the most wonderful mommy in the whole world!

Monkey is participating in Jump Rope for Heart-Wanna sponsor him?

Monkey's school is participating in the Jump Rope for Heart day. I think that is so cool! I always did that as a kid and now he can too. It raises money for such a worthy cause.

Of course, Monkey is looking for sponsors and they no longer allow the kids to go door to door. If you would like to sponsor him, please let us know. We'll have him call you himself to ask you to sponsor him. Or, he'll hit you up the next time he sees you. If he raises over $125 they'll put his name in a draw to win a trip to Diney World, gee, thats a trip I want to take again really soon!!

You know what they say-boys will be boys

I wish that I could put a music soundtrack behind these photos!! The best I can do is embed this video,
(Shayla, just humm Aerosmith Dude Looks Like a Lady) please play the music while you look at the photos-oh my gosh I am laughing too hard.
Saje and I were upstairs and the boys got in to the dress up bin. When I arrived on the scene Monkey was in the car as seen below but Big C was driving, they were both in thier little dresses and Monkey was ringing the cymbal with a baton (as seen above). I ran upstairs to get the cameraMonkey loves to put this dress on (he is in it several times per week) and twirl around and watch the skirt flare out. I can remember doing that when I was a little girl too.

Monkey is expelled from Junior Kindergarden

For anyone who noticed the lack of blogging recently we appologize. We had had a very stressful couple of weeks.

On April 16 we had a meeting with his [private] school. This is the first we heard that they had some concerns about his behaviour. We had a long discussion and we shared with them the things that we do at home to keep Monkey in line. We clarified that they were not looking to kick him out, just to have a discussion. They used them for a couple of days, but it became clear that they were not committed to it.

A week later we had another meeting and they said that things were getting better, but were not perfect. They didn't seem to understand that with a 4 year old, things would never be completely perfect. Three days after that, they called me and kicked him out.

So we've been dealing with that for the last couple of weeks and our blogging has fallen by the way side. We're back now and will hopefully stay that way!

Some new trees

For earth day we had a tree planting event in our community. We planted several thousand trees and then everyone who planted trees got to bring a tree home to plant if they wanted to.

We have long despised the evergreen tree on our front lawn. Dave had made several threats on its life and I have been able to hold him off only by the skin of my teeth. Since we have now aquired a tree from the city of Ottawa that will go on the front lawn, the evergreen can go.

We planted the new tree right next to it and will cut it down sometime over the next couple of years as a Christmas tree so that it can have it's chance at glory before becoming mulch.

I wonder if the new tree is taunting it while we are not listening!! The boys were happy to help out. I can't wait until the tree is taller than the house and the boys are taller than me and we can look back on these photos and remember when.

BNK Comes to play

After a stressful couple of weeks the ladies and gentlemen felt the need to decompress. The ladies had a PJ Girls Night where we sat on the couch in our jammies eating nachos and drinking beer while getting caught up.

The boys went to see a movie and out for snacks afterwards. It was so great to spend time as adults.

Before we could do that, we had to wipe out a couple of little boys. Monkey was on the last leg of his three day sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
I don't know why I spend money on toys when a couple of two year olds can have this much fun with a landry basket!

Look at my BABY!!

Just a few short weeks ago we were posting these sweet pictures of my little itty bitty baby in his cute little toddler bed. It is a baby bed really since it has a crib mattress. At least, that is what I have been telling myself.

Recently people have been making cruel comments. People like my husband and my father who have been telling me how big he is getting. Comments like "he isn't a baby anymore" and "wow, he is growing up so fast". Such hurtful things to say to a mother. "Wow, he's a little boy now." Sniffle

Last week he announced, out of nowhere, that he was done with his train bed. "all done train bed mommy. I want a race car bed like Monkey". Seriously, that is what he said.

I didn't believe him, but he kept lobbying me over several days. Finally I admitted to him that we had a race car bed for him in the basement (because I am a GENIUS!!). His response was "lets go get it".So we did. His train bed is sold and out the door and he sleeps in a race car bed like a big boy.And I try not to wake him up with my quiet wimpering as he grows up.

Big C's mailbag

Don't know what happened with Canada Post this past week but the mail was not moving at the same time. A couple of the neighbours have mentioned having trouble as well so who knows.

Grandma sent a card to Big C and it has now arrived! Yay! He tore it open on Mommy's lap and then proudly showed it off to everyone he could find.

DpoD April 22nd - Earthday Mailbag

Another postcard arrived today and Monkey was overjoyed to open it.
He carried it patiently down the hallway while daddy asked him politely to wait until he had the camera ready before he opened it.
He stuck in his finger and pulled the envelope apart.
And inside he found...
A picture of him with the fish that he made at grandma's house. Was he excited?
ohhhhhh yessssssssssss!!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!

Happy Earth Day to all.
(well, almost everybody)

Whole Wheat Pancakes with a Banana hidden inside

This is a great recipe since you can really make it healthy and full of fibre without compromising flavour.

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

3 tbs granulated sugar

1 tbs baking powder

1 tsp salt

Mix together these four ingradients

1 egg

about 1 3/4 cups of milk

a couple of mashed up bananas (ripe or overripe work best)

Take a 2 cup mixing cup and drop in the egg. Fill the rest of the cup, up to the 2 cup line with milk. Mix well.

Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and throw in the bananas. Mix until dry lumps are gone being careful not to over mix.

Cook over medium high heat. You can add fruit or chocolate chips to the pancakes in the pan as desired. You can also make them in to fun shapes.

Milk Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Yummy and your kids wont know that you put chick peas in them!

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup butter or margerine softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

2 tbs milk

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup quick or old fashioned oats

1/2 cup raisins or nuts if you want

1 can of chick peas pureed in the blender or food processor

Combine flour, baking powder, bakinig soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in egg. Gradually beat in flour mixture and milk. Stir in chips, oats, chick peas and nuts or raisins. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake in preheaded 375 degree oven for 10-14 minutes until they reach the desired firmess. Let stand for two minutes then remove and cool on a rack or on the counter.

Enjoy without feeling badly about it!!

The April birthday Part-ay

Saturday night was a fun one chez WB. We had 22.5 people (including us) at the house. That was made up of 12 adults and 10.5 children ranging from the oldest at 4 years and the youngest at 22 weeks gestation. It was a *wee bit* of a zoo. That's cool, we loved it!!

We had some birthdays to celebrate and we did it up in style. We had a big pot luck with lots of food and a reasonable amount of drink as well ; )

One papa needed a high chair to feed his little one. We no longer own such a contraption...what do we own in large quantity though....you guessed it!! This little darling has never been so secure during a meal.

We had the basement, backyard and main level crawling (and reverberating) with children and their joyous noises. I tried to get some photos of the melee as well as a video.I need to remember next time to get a video of the bunch of them doing laps around the main level.

We ended up with an extra blue serving platter...does this belong to you??

Since my photographing was haphazard at best I managed not to get any head photos at all of anyone whose birthday we were celebrating-oops!

Sleeping Buddies

I have no idea why Monkey is asleep in the middle of his bed.

Big C will soon need a bigger bed, not to accomodate Big C, but rather to accomodate all of the toys that he sleeps with : )

Adorable

Another fun sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

DPoD April17th - More Mail!!

yay! More mail for Monkey and Big C.
We love it!!!!
Thanks so much Heather and Nick, the boys were absolutely overjoyed!!

Lone Star Gift Certificates

Dave is part of a fundraiser where they are selling $10 Lone Star Gift certificates for $5.  They expire on July 31st.  They are good for use at the Baseline location only.  Please get your money to Dave and let him know how many you want and he'll pick them up for you.  You can email him or reply in comments.

 

DPoD April 15th - A sign of spring to make Mommy smile

We're here!

Monkey's view:

Daddy's view:

(We took our pictures at different times. I didn't even know that we'd each taken pictures of the same flowers out there. Personally, I like his better. What a great little camera!!)

We love you mommy and we love spring too!

Happy Birthday Dave!!

After the excitment from Grandpa's day wore off read:Grandpa had a good sturdy nap, the rest of us went out to celebrate Dave's birthday and Cadie's visit at the Lone Star.

We are family...I got my sister and my cousin with me...