Happy Canada Day!

It's Canada Day! Daddy had to work, so I took the kids and went to visit my home town with a friend who still lives there.

On our way, we stopped in Uptown Saint John to catch the people parade, which kicks off Canada Day every year. We also checked out the massive craft/yard sale they had going on. Miss Salean loved the parade and was given a flag by an officer marching in it. I was surprised the bagpipe music didn't bother her, she even tried to play along with her fingers!

After the parade, we headed out to Grand Bay, we were a bit late to the festivities, but saw some firetrucks, had a picnic lunch of hot dogs and cookies, and stood while the National Anthem was played.

We had to park at the school and walk, on site parking was for disabled persons only, so after looking around we walked back to the school and let Little Miss play...we lost track of time, but it was close to two hours! She was quite the daredevil climbing on the equipment meant for school aged kids!

On the way out of town, we stopped for ice cream at a produce stand that I visited many times as a kid. It was their first visit to the shop that is quite famous in the area. Salean's cone melted quickly, and Savana enjoyed the bottom few inches of Mama's empty cone. This is a phone picture, so very low quality!

We also had two milestones today! Savana finally found the motivation to start the 'army crawl': Big sister's toast! She can boogie when she wants to! She has been pushing herself along with her toes a bit in the last few days and is able to get up on hands and knees and rock, so it won't be long before she will be off like a rocket! This evening, she was laying on the floor, I glanced away, and when I looked back she was sitting up! It may have been a one time fluke, since she didn't do it again, but it looks like she figured out how to sit up today, to!

You know a toddler had a good day when they end it with a messy t-shirt. Judging by the above, she had a great one!

Happy Canada Day!

~Natasha.

Our Bookshelf: End of June

The past weeks have been a couple of messy ones for our bookshelf. Miss Salean has been hauling books off, throwing them, hiding them, and taking them for walks. I just finished collecting the books to swap them out, I found a few under the couch, some in her room, two in her crib, and a stack in the bathroom. So, I do not have a picture of our shelf this week. I also don't have them divided up by what was new or old. But, here is what we have been reading.


Snuggle Puppy  by Sandra Boynton
We Belong Together by Joyce Wan
Poke a Dot: 10 Little Monkeys by InnovativeKids
Horns to Toes and In Between by Sandra Boynton
That's Not my Bear by Fiona Watt
Willow Finds a Way  by Lana Button
Eeyore Has a Birthday by A.A. Milne
Crayola Little Library: Big Dog! Little Dog!
Crayola Little Library: Colors
Tickle Time by Sandra Boynton
Rock a Bye Farm by  Diane Johnston Hamm
Blue Hat Green Hat by Sandra Boynton
Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr & Michael Sampson
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin
Three Minute Tales: Puppies
Toes Ears and Nose by Marion Dane Bauer
The Cheerios Animal Play Book by Lee Wade
Just Like Mommy by Cecilia Johansson
The Night Before Father's Day by Natasha Wing
Grumpy Bird by  Jeremy Tankard
Poke a Dot: What's your Favorite Color by InnovativeKids
Disney: The Prince & The Pauper
Another Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone
Just Me and My Puppy by Mercer Mayer
You're All My Favourites  by Sam McBratney
Thump Quack Moo by Doreen Cronin
Digger & Lew by Malachy Dew
Treasure Hunt: Counting Colors by Priddy Books
Count to 10 With a Mouse by Margaret Wise Brown
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
Good For Me and You by Mercer Mayer


What Mama is reading

Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs (I haven't had time to read it in a couple weeks)
Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul by Jack Canfield, Jennifer Read Hawthorne & Mark Victor Hansen

That's it for this week! Our new books are out already, and aside from some library books that I plan on returning soon, they are all new out. As usual, I put out one Disney, two Mercer Mayer and 2 Sandra Boynton, the latter two are some of my favourites,

Have a good week, everyone!!

~Natasha.

Monday Morning Muffins: Apple Oat Yogurt Muffins

I had a bag of apples in the fridge last week that begged to be used up. I thought I found the perfect recipe on Pintrest, but when I went to pin it I got a message...oops! You already pinned this one. I checked here, and found that recipe posted a few weeks ago. So, the search continued. After perusing a few more recipes, I found THIS, I didn't have Greek yogurt on hand, but I had a container of plain regular, I decided to go for it anyway.

They disappeared before I got a picture of one on the plate. I found they were a little dense and wet in the centre. They didn't burn, but were just at that almost point while the tops could have used a minute or three longer. This was probably caused from a combination of the large tin and the regular yogurt, So it was my fault, not the recipes.

Once I got the apple grated, the recipe flew together. They turned out delicious and Little Miss loved them. Mr Picky missed out. The newbie got a small taste and seemed to like them. She is just starting the journey into foods, so she mostly drooled on it. 

This one is definitely a repeat, I may even buy some Greek yogurt to make them again. It's not something I would normally purchase as I find it to bitter and prefer regular. 

Another Monday has come, I am hoping this week does not have as much rain as last week. It is starting to get depressing! Two days of sun followed by three days of pouring rain, what a miserable summer so far! 

Have a good week, everyone! 

~Natasha. 

Monday Morning Muffins: 'Plain' Berry Muffins

Happy Monday! I accidentally just deleted my last post, our Mid-June bookshelf, so yeah..happy Monday. But we have some delicious muffins to enjoy!

I had some leftover blackberries and raspberries, they were on sale last week 2 pints for 5 dollars, so I got one of each. After eating a few for breakfast one day, Little Miss decided she didn't like them anymore. Typical 2 year old. So, into muffins they went. I just used THIS plain muffin recipe and added the berries, which I cut in half as they were quite large.

Guess what? She wouldn't eat the muffins, either. I on the other hand, really enjoyed them, especially hot from the oven. 

As usual, this recipe made 6 bakery sized muffins. It is an easy recipe that I will use again with different fillings. I am not crazy about raspberries and blackberries, I find the to sweet, but they made a good mix.

Yummy deliciousness!  I wish I had some blueberries so I could have made bumbleberry muffins instead, maybe next time!

Have a good week, everyone!

~Natasha.

Monday Morning Muffins: Sweet Potato Muffins

This is probably the third time I have made these muffins, they came out of a rogue sweet potato laying on my counter that I got tired of moving from place to place. Another Pintrest search found THIS recipe, Little Miss loved it (not so much with straight sweet potato) so it has made repeat appearances. 

I skip the ground flax seed because it isn't something I keep on hand, and the only store I can find it in at a decent price is 30 minutes away. Plus, I always forget to get some when I am in the area.

The recipe made 6 massive muffins, this is the first time I have used this pan with the recipe. I think next time I will use the smaller pan, it made 10-12 with that. They baked up quite dense, I think because the pan was to deep. It took quite a while to bake them off as well, thankfully, they didn't burn.

We loved them again! They taste kind of like pumpkin muffins, and would make a great Autumn treat. I will definitely be making them again and again to help the fussy one get her sweet potato in!

Happy Monday!

~Natasha,

B, C, and D.

My experiment with The Letter A...Again worked, she got it! At the end of the week, I tested her by writing some letters on her magnetic board and she got A every time. As well, I showed her some books and she pointed out the A each time. Yay for A! So, on we went with the next letter.

We have been spending about 4 days on each letter, a week seemed to be to much. I give her the lunch bag filled with goodies and we go through it. We then watch 2 videos on the computer, I have been using Sesame Street podcasts and THESE videos. If she is still interested, we go through the bag again. All in all, our school time lasts about 15 minutes a day.

The first time we went through the B bag, we were in our back yard tent. I set it up and we played and read in it for about half an hour. A storm was blowing in, so we had to go inside because the wind got strong and scared Salean. Otherwise, she loved the tent and we will be using it again!

Our bag of B's included:

Two B puzzle pieces.
The Fridge Phonics set with the letter B.
A Blue B made from a pipe cleaner
A Blue Ball (large pom)
A Bunny
A Blue Boat
A loaf of Bread
Four First Words cards: Book, Ball, Bed and Baby.
Our Books: Ten Tiny Babies and Belly Button Book.

With the letter C, I focused on the K sound. This is only an introduction, so I didn't want to confuse her with to much. I left out anything I had that was a S sound like circle and words combined with C, for example CH like chair. 

Our Bag of C's included:

Two C puzzle pieces

The Fridge Phonics set with the letter C.

A Cat

A Cow

A Car

Four First Words cards: Car, Cat, Crayon and Cookies.

Our Books: Corduroy and ABC just for me. 

We haven't started D yet, but plan to at the beginning of the week, which is why I am including it here.

Our Bag of D's will include:

Two D puzzle pieces

The Fridge Phonics set with the letter D

A Duck

A Dinosaur

A Dog (wolf)

A Doll

A Donkey (Eeyore)

One First Words card: Dog

Our Books: Three Minute Tales: Puppies and Big Dog! Little Dog! 

So far, she is really enjoying her letters, I tested her on A, B and C this morning, she knew what each one was. While we were drawing, I drew a D and asked her what it was, she said D, but her main word is D so I do not know if she actually knew what it was or just said D by coincidence. 

If we continue on this track, we should be through all the letters before Labour Day! 

Have a good weekend, everyone!

~Natasha. 

We are linked up to:

Brown Sugar Cookies

As mentioned before, I have a board on Pintrest with recipes that I have found myself making several times. This recipe I made just to try a couple months ago. Mr Picky has been working away a few days at a time, so I have been baking cookies to keep him going. It isn't much for food, but it is better than nothing and cheaper than buying several meals a day.  I chose brown sugar cookies as he loves regular sugar cookies and cinnamon cookies, so I thought this might go over well. I was right. Since then, I have made them about 10 times, he constantly requests 'those ginger cookies' (even though I keep telling him there is no ginger in them, just cinnamon). I am very close to memorizing THIS RECIPE.

This is a quick and easy recipe, it whips up in just a few minutes. The hard part is rolling and dipping every cookie, but I am sure to be given a look of disappointment were I to skip that step. The only change I made to the recipe was to not refrigerate them for two hours. Usually I am making cookies at 8 or 9 at night for him to take at 4 AM, so I really do not have time to cool them for two hours before baking. They turn out just as good, anyway!

Delicious little cookies that everyone seems to enjoy. Any cookies that are left behind do not last long! I think this would make a great pot luck or bake sale recipe, they are sure to be popular!

Hope everyone is having a good week!

~Natasha