Gingerbread house decorating

Well we have done it! I made a gluten free gingerbread house that the only part that will get eaten is the candy LOL…how funny is that. The reason will become very apparent in this blog, lets just say following directions didn’t work so well for me but fortunately didn’t ruin anything.

Alright well first off we found a gluten free bread mix that came with a recipe found at our local Edible Island. (Here is the website http://www.pamelasproducts.com/recipes/printrecipes/printgingerbreadhouse07.html) I have never made a gingerbread house from “scratch” so to find out the extremely long process of it made it a rather difficult experience with my 3 and a half year old because she was ready to decorate it and eat it NOW…..but needless to say we made it through that huffin and puffin.

First we put all the dry fixings together and mixed it up:

Then we mixed all the wet ingredients together:

Then we stirred it up and wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 1 hour (which turned into more like 3 hours because I realized I didn’t have wax paper so called around then had to go to the store etc…I have to make sure I read the FULL instructions before starting something I have never done…lesson learned). Once I got the wax paper I cut out the shapes, which they have for you in the link I put at the beginning of the blog, and retrieved the gingerbread dough from the fridge. I rolled it out and cut the shapes out.

Okay here is the part that I found didn’t work for me so I will tell you what they say to do and then explain what happened to me. The instructions say to “Bake cookies twice to dry enough for building a house. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Then turn off oven leaving cookies inside with door shut. Leave them to cool completely in the heat of the oven (3 to 4 hours). When cool, remove cookies from oven, preheat oven again to 350°, then bake for an another 10 minutes. Turn off oven with cookies inside with door shut, leave until cool. “

So naturally I prepared the cookies sheets just as they said and preheated my oven at 350 and placed the cookie sheets inside. I looked at the time, “Okay it’s 2:51″ I say out loud and since my timer on the stove doesn’t work I make a mental note to take it out at 3:01. I go about doing some tidying up around the kitchen, change a dirty diaper and come back to the kitchen only to find that there are wisps of smoke coming out of the stove elements. I rush over and open up the oven door in hopes to save the gingerbread house, only to be pushed back by an angry cloud of ginger smelling smoke. I quickly turn off the oven and open it momentarily to see if the gingerbread house was salvageable only to have some of the smoke escape. I came to the conclusion that I would let it cool down for the next 3 hours as the instructions said (because there was no way I was going to open that oven up again) but I would skip the step that said ‘Bake twice’.

About an hour later I did manage to get a peek at the gingerbread foundation and it seemed to be usable just not edible so I left it to finish cooling. Come 2 hours later, voila!

And of course next came making Royal Icing, which had a slight air of abnoxiousness to make in itself especially when I don’t have an electric egg beater BUT I did figure out a cheat….at least I think it is…if you have your icing sugar, cream of tartar and egg whites and you have been hand beating it with a metal whisk for 15 minutes but you find its just not getting solid enough to “hold its shape” just add more icing sugar. It works, I swear, even Martha Stewart said to!! lol (That last comment came from doing some research into how to make it thick when it was very much not holding its shape)

Then of course came the putting the house together:

And the classic decorating.

Now my daughter can’t have chocolate (something in it effects her sleep) but I did find an interesting substitute that seems like chocolate but isn’t….Reeses pieces…yes there is NO chocolate just the usual sugar/wax/artificial flavouring grossness but it made for a happy hyper girl!

So there is my holiday tale. I hope you enjoyed and i think i will try this again around ayyam-i-ha but i think i will up the anty and try for an ayyam-i-ha castle!! haha

Happy Holidays Everyone

Gluten Free Breakfast Crumble

Alright we have moved in and am LOVING the new house. I have already had a bunch of play days, not to mention a potluck with 14 kids and just as many adults! Myself and my roommate will be hosting his families christmas dinner here at the house this thursday and yeah….its been a good transition. And now that we are all finally settling in its time to do some baking! By now I am sure you guessed its one of my favourite things to do, especially when I begin to notice that I don’t have a lot of snack food and I am ALWAYS hungry.

I am also finally coming around to using my over-encumbering amount of plums with what I think will be a wonderful and delightful breakfast favourite, especially for me since I can’t go a day without breakfast (lunch is expendable but never breakfast!). Someone had suggested a plum crumble as a wonderful breakfast treat and my brain jumped up enthusiastically with thoughts of FINALLY emptying my very full freezer.

So here for you is my own rendition of a Breakfast Plum Crumble

Mix Dry ingredients first:

2 1/4 cup flour (I bake gluten free but whatever flour you prefer works too)

1 1/2 cup GF rolled oats

1/2 cup ground flaxseed

3/4 cup sugar (or 3/4 tsp stevia)

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp  baking soda

Then add:

3/4 cup of softened butter or margarine

In a 9″ x 13″ baking pan lay out:

4- 5 cups plums

1 cup of whatever other fruit you have (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, peaches)

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

Lay out plums and/or other fruit in baking dish, and sprinkle your crumble topping over all the fruit, then bake for 35-40 minutes, take out, cool and enjoy in the morning either cool or warmed up. Also you can add any assortment of small nuts or crushed nuts into the crumble part to add even more healthy goodness!

It is a pleasant change to the same old routine of cereal or toast, not to mention healthy as all get out (on top of keeping you ‘regular’ if you know what I mean…lol)

Well I hope you enjoy this sort of thing as much as I do!! And keep your eyes open for our next feat of gluten free gingerbread house! My daughter is especially excited for that!

Packing…the perfect simplifier

Well we are moving….again This will be our 7th residence in 4 years. Sounds crazy right? Lets just say we just haven’t found our nook…BUT I am feeling pretty good about whats coming up and I will tell you why.

Our roommate just bought a house (first time homeowner) and it is big enough to suit ALL of our needs. Our needs for rooms, office and photo shoot space, and a nice living room area where we can host events without being too crammed. It also suits Ian’s needs with a room for a bed, a lego room (his hobby…no his passion) and a tv/games room. Currently it doesn’t not have much to speak of for a yard but come spring time that will ALL be fixed. Ian also said I can paint our part whatever color I want, so that is exciting.

As much pain as packing can be sometimes, I think it is the best way to simplify and let go of a lot of things that have been left in boxes and never brought out. Questions seem to arise such as “Do I really need this?” “Is there a reason for keeping it anymore?” “is this seasonal or collecting dust”

With reflection comes a certain amount of rethinking and definitely some cleansing. Interestingly enough I haven’t collected much more stuff since we moved here, that has been a nice plus (except for kitchen wares like baking dishes etc) but I am going through clothes and also organizing what hasn’t been able to be organized or have a place. I am hoping this can be resolved in the new house. I think my hope is to have a place for everything so I won’t feel so….random…I definitely think that is the word I am looking for.

Anyways late night thoughts, til next time!

Happy Hallow’s Eve

Hello!! Well I could put up A LOT of photos but I will try to narrow it down a little.

This years Halloween celebration was awesome! Aria decided, when I asked her back in September what she wanted to be, that she wanted to be Ms Frizzle. Whether or not she truly understood the concept of sticking to the idea to dress up, she didn’t change her mind. I had a friend help me create a wig and found a dress/coat at a kids consignment store. Also my friend Pam, who made the wig, found some easy stick on sparkly stickers to put on the coat of the costume. Lets just say Aria was ECSTATIC! Photos to show

I dressed Tevye up as Liz (Ms Frizzle’s lizard). We didn’t go far for our trick or treat venture, but for a 3 year old I think she got enough candy to give her 2 treats a day for almost a month. Kind of a side note, I found it funny that I felt she got plenty of candy where as I remember as a kid getting two pillowcases FULL of candy…..how mom monitored that I will never know!

We also did some decorating of pumpkins of course, which was neat cause Guy (Ian’s dad) bought us pumpkin carving kit so we had some options not to mention a very nice cerated carving utensil.  Aria enjoyed carving(also known as STABBING) her pumpkin very much but left most of the cleaning out to me. She was quite happy to wait and let me finish cleaning it out so she could carve (stab) the pumpkin.

She also has a thing for spiderwebs and spiders so I made sure to buy some cobweb stuff and a selection of small and BIG spiders. This allowed for our place to look thoroughly infested. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the final product of our decorations but I had a compliment from a kid saying they liked our house, so I felt pretty good. OH I almost forgot a friend of mine Sarah came over and brought her strobe light which added a cool effect to the decols out front.

As a treat, on top of candy, I allowed Aria to stay up late (til 8:30 )and have a few treats while she watched some scooby doo. Once she was in bed i put on ‘brothers bloom’ and had some friends over to watch it. All together it was a lot of fun  night…..oh and a word to the wise, you can give me coffee and yes i will get 3 times more stuff done as long as you don’t mind it mostly half done. I was so flaky all day because of four sips of a caramel macchiato soy beverage that was in the fridge….it made things interesting

Introduction to Solid Foods

Well this is week two of Tevye being introduced to solid foods, and I would say he is enjoying it. His first 5 days was butternut squash which , if you watch below was a stupendous success!

This next video is Aria taking part in the feeding process and being so wonderfully grown up about it! I love the fact that she wants to take part in her brother’s milestones, she is so involved!

EDITED: By the way that breakfast that I ate took three meals to finish and it was not my idea. Jessie wanted to make me a special anniversary breakfast with all the meaty goodness that I liked and THEN some…hehe, it was huge but wonderful!

Now we have moved onto iron fortified organic rice cereal mixed with a bit of banana for breakfast/lunch and turnip for supper. Again all of these are a huge success. I also just bought peas and carrots which I will be making up and blending to see what he thinks.

This has been quite the experience because my daughter didn’t take to actually eating 3 times a day til she was nearly 10 months old! Tevye seems to be a natural born eater and patiently waited until we were ready to feed him solids, a whole six months later…lol Also just for your knowledge I weighed and measured Tevye and he is sitting at 21 and a half lbs and 28 inches long, Aria herself is at approximately 34 lbs and 3 and a half feet. They get so big sooo fast!

 

Unconditional Generousity of a Stranger

There are moments in life that give one pause. Moments in life that give one faith in the condition of the human race. Moments that make the frustrations slip away and a smile come to ones face.

I had a moment like that a little over a week ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

My day was going pretty good, one of those days where there is lots of running around to do and I have two kids and only a set of hands to get it all done. Not to mention my sleeping patterns have not been the best as of late so I was a little tired and forgetting things. At this point in time I had to go do some major shopping, so all is well the kids get up from their nap/quiet time, I bundle them up on this very rainy day and buckle them in the car. Arrive at superstore in fair good amount of time with little hassle in traffic as it was not quite rush hour. I get a really good parking spot right next to the grocery carts and get both kids out of the car….then I realize just as I am about to go get a cart…I have neither wallet or purse that generally carries my wallet *palm hits forehead*

With this knowledge I turn around and say out load, mostly to Aria, “darn I forgot my purse, gotta get you back into the car now, go home and come back”

As I begin to put Tevye in the car, Aria talking to general area of this that and everything, a lady who seemed to be getting into her car stopped and said “Is is a big shop?”

I look up to find a woman’s gentle, aging face smiling at me with friendly eyes. I smile back “Yes it is”. Thinking that was all to be said I turn back to Tevye and the woman replies back,”oh if it had been a small shop I would have been able to lend you some money.”

With a bit of shock and genuine gratitude I smile at the woman and thanking her for her kindness. Though having to drive back home, get the wallet, drive back (this time through rush hour traffic) and get a parking spot (not NEARLY as good as my first one) I couldn’t really be upset. The small act of kindness that this woman was willing to provide made me smile, and if I started to feel frustrated with the terrible timing or whatever, my mind wandered back to the woman willing to lend a complete stranger money, not knowing whether she would get it back. Anyways it was wonderful and I just HAD to share that feel good story with everyone.

Build it and they will eat it

This technique works wonders with Aria when it comes to salad. She use to eat salad all the time but now she isn’t a fan of the lettuce which really isn’t my concern, my concern is I still want her be able to get excited and enjoy eating vegetables raw and not JUST cooked.

So a little while ago I started doing “Build your own salad” where I bring out a bunch of different vegetables, seeds, nuts and raisin/craisin type things and let Aria decide what she would like, with of course a few suggestions that she agrees to. Here is a picture of what I used for choices at our last meal:

Some basic veggies that ALWAYS go in salads for her is cucumber and avacado. Then from there it changes from night to night. Seeing as we had leftovers from the turkey dinner we had a turkey salad with cucumber, avacado, craisins and turkey. She really has a lot of fun and gets excited about it, which is kind of the goal for me and in the end we have a young girl eating lots of veggies…YAY

Cousins re-united

The last 4 days have been spent with family from Nova Scotia. My sister-in-law Kate came out for her brother’s wedding with her two kids, Alice (5 yrs) and Themba (5 months),  tagging along with her.

It was SO wonderful to see them and to see that, not only did the friendship between Alice and Aria only get rekindled, but that the two boys (mere month apart in age) seemed to notice and enjoy each others company. Here are some wonderful pictures from the visit that really capture the energy and the love of family!

Aria and Alice being quite goofy. Tevye and Themba in their homemade sweaters from a dear friend Stephanie.

Aria and Alice playing outside with chalk and bubbles.

Finally a baby Tevye does not dwarf! lol Themba just under a month younger and barely an inch shorter then Tevye, and maybe only 2 lbs lighter. Tevye does have a bigger head and thicker feet but Themba has trunks for legs. Between Aria and Alice is 2 years but only an inch for height. Alice certainly had an impact on Aria this last week…I already see a difference in Aria and how she interacts with me and other people. Its quite interesting

Was a wonderful visit, even for all the sickness and jet lag that they suffered through…it was still nice!

Spelling her name

Just a wonderful moment, in the last week we have been working every once in a while on spelling Aria’s name and….well I will let the video speak for itself!

When I watch I think to myself, she is only THREE…..oof!

Dairy-free ice cream, movies and daisies

Okay so life has been going pretty good. Got Aria going to strong start again (a free preschool type program where the parent and child interact, play games, do art, sing songs etc) and she is just loving it. I am going to try and make sure we go at least twice a week so that it becomes a regular routine for her. She really does enjoy it and gets to see her friends a lot more often because of it.

In other news, I also borrowed our neighbour’s ice cream maker and made our first batch today of dairy-free ice cream. Very simple recipe that I made up which is two cans of coconut milk and half a fresh pineapple! Throw it in together to the machine and let the machine do the rest of the work! Next I am going to try dairy free chocolate sorbet from this website http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/icecream/r/chocolatesorbet.html I will let you know how it turns out.

I also got to go to the movie Julie and Julia tonight…that was a nice break…from half my kids hahahaha…I had Tevye with me but he slept through 2/3s of it and then was very happy the rest of the time. YAY. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Meryl Streep, she is just AMAZING and wonderful. If you haven’t seen it, its funny, I highly suggest it.

Ah and my wonderful husband being SO energetic about getting me a surprise ended up, by accident, sending me 3 dozen daisies A WEEK EARLY of our 4 year anniversary (coming up this oct 1). What a sweet guy he is, he knows they are my favorite and he even told me that he was thinking about getting me a potted plant but decided that I needed a vase for flowers that he would want to get me in the future and so went with a bundle that came with a vase.

Don’t know where I would be right now without him, but I know I am happy right where I am WITH him. Yes and I am missing in LOTS now that he is back to work up in the Fort Mac camps. His rotation is only 3 weeks and 1 week but he couldn’t come home the first rotation so I think that is why its the hardest right now. He’s gone for 2 months…:( Mom and Dad how did you ever do it for all those years? Your courage, stamina and patience are qualities I hold you in high regard for!

I realized just now I am starting to ramble, I think that means its been a while since I last wrote…so with that said I will stop now and try to focus my next one a little more. Sorry about that! And to send you off with lots of awwwwws and ooooos here is a video of the kids.

Just a glimpse at this boy’s speed! CIAO