Go Bag

Once upon a time quite a long time ago we took our young twins to see my younger siblings Christmas play, I brought my diaper bag full of the essentials: diapers, wipes, garbage bag, water, etc. But it was my mother who had what we needed that night. The girls, being quite young, were not that interested in watching and quickly got restless and out of my Mom's purse came a little ziplock bag with a couple little books, then crayons and paper, then a little toy to play with. You would think that first, since her children were far beyond needing to be entertained like this she would no longer carry this little bag but that is not how she is and second that I would be more prepared. I resolved I would also have a bag of goodies in my purse and FINALLY got around to putting something together, it took all of 5 minutes and I have already used it a couple times. The great thing is it hardly takes up any space so I can carry it all the time in my purse without adding unnecessary bulk, which I hate. So here it is!

Here is what is in it:

-Pad of post-it notes
-a few stickers
-a few crayons
-2 tiny books
-2 hotwheels cars
-a handfull of these bracelets, they were cool a few years ago and now I found them on clearance at Staples for next to nothing and my girls love them!

 That is it! Do you have tricks or treats you carry along with you everywhere for when you are ina  situation where kids need to be entertained?

Playing With Their Food

My twins are all about family structure and pretending lately. This especially comes out at meal time and it quite amusing to watch. Here is a sampling of what goes down at meal time at our house;

'This is my mommy raisin, and my daddy raisin and my baby raisin, and my mommy raisins ladybug (also a raisin) and my daddy raisins ladybug'

'My owl (slice of apple) is hungry, he is going to eat my daddy perogie, nom nom nom'

'These are my guys (popcorn) walk, walk, walk, jump into the bowl!' 'My guys are in quiet time'

Food becomes daddys, mommys, babys, guys, owls, porcupines, deer, bunnies, etc etc etc. The best part is when they eat them, 'I am going to eat my mommy now'

For Your Reading Pleasure

There are a million parenting books out there and a million things people say you should do with your babies

I am not a big reader but have read a couple parenting book and my all time favorite that I recommend to everyone is Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches by Rachel Jankovic (you can buy it on Amazon for only $11 using that affiliate link) One of the best things about it is that it is readable, with short chapters that I could usually read in one feed when Cosette was little. She talks alot about our attitudes as mothers and is very encouraging and challenging. I have three copies so I can lend them out to friends, you can borrow one.

I recently started reading her second book Fit to Burst, and it has been as relevant, encouraging and challenging as the first book.

'We are a sisterhood of people who know about long days. That is true. But the fact that we all face the same temptations should give us a burning desire to conquer them, not wallow in them'

I only have one copy of this one, you can borrow it when I am done reading it, and I think I will buy a couple more, that is how much I love these books!

If you buy both the books from amazon you are only a few dollars short of getting free shipping so throw in something fun like this or this or this . 


 Happy Reading! 

Foodie Friday - Mango Chicken

This is one of my favourite GF-DF Crock-Pot meals, typing it out makes me want to go make it right now!

 6 Boneless, skinnless chicken thighs or breasts
1 bag (8 oz) frozen mango chunks
2 Red bell peppers, diced
1/3 cup raisins
1 shallot (I use an onion)

3/4 Cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 thin slices of fresh ginger (when I don't have any I use the powder)
1 tsp cumin (I at least douple this, I love cumin)
1/2 tsp curry powder (again add to taste)
1/2 tsp whole cloves
1/4 tsp group red pepper 
Salt & Pepper to taste

The recipe says to brown the chicken and mix the broth and spices first before adding them but I just throw it all in the crockpot, mix it up and turn it on. I usually shred the chicken when it is cooked and serve over rice or quinoa. Cook on low 6-8 hours or High 3-4 hours. Garnish with cilantro if you are into that.

This is one of the recipes I put in a zip-lock for a even easier meal prep later!


Enjoy!

Even Easier Crock-Pot

You know that day I put baking in jars? Well my efficiency did not stop there, my Mom had sent me a blog post last summer about pre-making crock pot meals and I thought it was brilliant, so I donned my goggles (because onions make me cry) and started chopping.

I chose two crock-pot recipes I love and, like the jars of baking, wrote out all the ingredients I won't be freezing on a card. I chopped and measured out everything that can freeze and put it in a zip-lock bag, labeled and stapled the remaining ingredient list to it. Four crock-pot meals prepped in one afternoon, yes, please. Now, when I need an easy supper I just need to dump the bag in the crockpot in the morning and turn it on.

Two Things and Jars of Baking

Remember a few years ago when everyone was posting `25 random facts about me`on Facebook? Well here are two random facts about me:

1. I love recycling

2. I love efficiency (but need to use spell check to spell it right every time) 

Recycling really makes me happy, I throw every little piece of paper and plastic in the blue bin. When I lived at home I put a second bin beside the garbage in the kitchen so it would be just as easy to recycle as throw things in the garbage. When I drive around on garbage day and people have their black bins out and no blue bins in makes me sad. RECYCLE PEOPLE! It is really easy, especially if you live in Calgary and have curbside pickup. Here is a cheezy video to show you just how easy it is.





Even more exciting than recycling however is efficiency. Assembly lines. Stack of paper to get through. Speed without sacrificing quality. Baskets to organize. Checklists. I get happier just writing about it all. Honestly working on an assembly line would be up there in my list of jobs I would love to do.

Last week I was feeling particularly ambitious and home-maker-like so I put my love for efficiency to work.

I had recently picked up an assortment of canning jars from the thrift store and I had lids for most of them in my stash of jars for baby food. I chose three recipes, Scones, Raisin Muffins and Brownies and measured out all the dry ingradients into jars, I wrote out what I need to add and how long to bake them on a card and put it on top in the jar and PRESTO! Easy peasy baking, when I need to make something I just dump my jar in and add the wet ingredients and I love it! I decided to make scones the other day to go with soup that was almost ready to eat and it was so quick, the slowest part was waiting for the oven to heat up. Efficiency people, so good.

Adventure Week

After a week of three little sick girls and with only a week left of having a extra vehicle I decided to be an adventurous, ambitious and exciting mom in what I dubbed:

Adventure Week!

Now, this took place a few weeks ago and I am just getting around to writing about it so I do forget somethings, but the highlights I remember. 

Day 1.

 A morning full of errands, I usually only do one more maybe two errands in a row because it is a hastle getting three little ones in and out the of van and their carseats BUT ambitios Mom does not care, she ventures out across town for a bunch of errands. 

Stop #1: drop off lunch for Mike who had forgotten it at home. 

Stop #2: Drive across town to take the bumbo back to the Twin Club office.

Stop #3: WestCoast Kids to buy a carseat, that is right in addition to being adventuerous I also made an executive decision. I let K&J walk and told them to stay close and obey and put Cosette on my back, they behaved so well and enjoyed helping me choose a carseat colour. 

Stop #4: Ikea. As you may or may not know there are few buggies with 2 seats and none with three so K&J sat in the buggy and Cosette went on my back again. Our successful shopping trip ended right before lunch and I figured the drive home/arriving home would be not so fun with hungry bellies so we grabbed hotdogs and ate at Ikea.  

While eating I was texting my sister to tell her about my new ambitious self and she told me that the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra had a mini-concert at the library near our home at 2:00, I figured all this running around would make my girls tired and they would nap long past then so figured we would not make it out. I was wrong. We drove home and the girls went for nap/quiet time while I tidied up and checked my email. C woke up shortly before 2 and ambitious me said, why not go to the concert with three little children who might be grumpy and noisy? And I did, and they weren't. We arrived after the concert had began and lucked out being able to sneak into a seat where the girls could see, K&J were mesmerized by the two violin players who made up the concert and C was very happy in her stroller with a cracker or two. After the concert we went to look at books and headed home to make some supper. 

Day 2. 

Recently my Mom sent me this list of the top 15 playgrounds in Calgary, so after a unmemorable morning when we were probably doing groceries or something else like that with no photo evidence and nap/quiet time I decided to hit up the park closest to us. On our way over we stopped at Staples to pick up some printing. The park was pretty awesome, it would be nicer without snow (as most parks are) and with a baby swing but it was still fun and had lots of different things to play on.

Day 3.

Wednesday found us a friends house all morning, home for nap/quiet time and out somewhere I can't remember in the afternoon, or maybe we stayed home? You'll never know.

Day 4. 

This was one of my favourite days, we were up early so we had lots of morning time to get somewhere. I was out of ideas in the morning and was trying to think of something fun, indoors and low-cost. There are not tons of options other than walking around the mall or library where we had just been. Mike and I had been downtown for his grad recently and had walked through the new and improved Devonian Gardens, there is a park and fish ponds and lots to look at so I figured we would give it a shot. I didn't want to figure out where to park downtown so brave adventurous me decided to take the train. I packed some snacks and we drove over to the C-train station. After a little bit of drama and loading and unloading twice because I parked in the wrong area we get on the train. The girls were pretty excited to go on the train, it would have been enough of an adventure on its own! The playground at the Devonian gardens is designed for older kids and even the 'ladder' up to the slide made me nervous, there was not lots they could do at the park but it would be fun for older kids. We walked around and checked out the plants and carvings, they enjoyed being able to explore and walk around somewhere new, the fish ponds were a big hit, they could have watched the fish all day. We hopped back on the train and headed home for lunch/nap/quiet time. Right before supper we had some time to burn while waiting for supper to be ready, generally I stay inside and try to entertain/clean ect during this time but that is not good enough for adventure week so we went out the park out front for a bit while waiting.

Day 5. 

We spent the morning with other mommas and their kids at our church mommas group, I can't remember what we did in the afternoon, I think we may have just stayed home and gotten ready for company coming.


Adventure week taught me to do new things, be adventurous and it almost always pays off. I like being a home-body sometimes (and have no choice often) but getting out and exploring is lots of fun. Also, sometimes I get in my head that I have to wait for summer and warm weather to get out of the house and do things other than shopping but between bundling up and being a little creative there is lots to do in the winter as well. Also, the girls don't care how extravagant a trip is, they enjoy a walk to the park, a train ride, a trip to the zoo, the library, grocery shopping etc etc, so no more excuses, just get out and enjoy being with your kids!

What do you do when cabin fever hits in the winter? Have you gone on any particularly adventurous trips lately? Ever done something with you kids you weren't sure how well you could pull off?