Date With Daddy

I think the relationship that my daughter forms with her Daddy is of utmost importance. She spends the day with me, and yes we have dates too, but Daddy-Daughter dates are a must around here. I've had the extreme luck to marry, what I think, is the best man walking this planet! Tall order right ;) Our kidlets observe on a daily basis how spouses should treat one another in a marriage, although sometimes we fail at this, which I think is ok because they also see how we pick each other up again and still love unconditionally. We are not perfect around here by any means. I think these Daddy-Daughter dates are a time to teach my daughter how she should be treated in a relationship in the future. So we make a big deal around here from start to finish!!

Of course, first we have to choose our outfit, a tough decision for this little girl. I gave her four choices so we wouldn't be there all day.

After 10 minutes of going back and forth she decided on this one.

 
Then we did her hair. She decided on braids and a pink bow.

Once she was all ready, Daddy nipped out to pick her up some flowers because every girl deserves flowers on a first date, no matter what! He knocked on the door and she answered it so excited to find Daddy AND pink flowers (her favorite colour) to boot.

Typically you don't kiss on the first date, but this was an exception ;)

She loved them! Her very first dozen roses and they came from her Daddy as they should. 

She wanted to bring a rose with her so we put them in some water and took one out for the road.

 

They dined on chocolate milk and fish n' chips. A gourmet meal if you ask me!

And most importantly, she was learning how to be treated by her future dates in her life, with respect and kindness.

We saved and dried one of the roses and I placed it in a window box with a photo from her first date with Daddy. It hangs in her bedroom as a reminder of her first date with her Daddy and she will have many many more before her dates are no longer ONLY with her Daddy.

So all you Daddy's out there, go ask your beautiful daughters out on a date and get teaching them how they should be treated in this world. It's the little things in life that matter and remember to leave your phone in your pocket, it is VERY rude to be on it in the presence of a lady ;)

REMINDER: I'm on Google+ now so add me to your circle and I'll add you back! Have a great day!!

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Where Have I Been?

WOW!! It's 2013, a New Year and where have I been?? Well I hit my blogiversary in December and I honestly have been just on a time out. I've been contemplating if I want to keep blogging, why I blog and why I would continue to do so. I have found over the year that my ambitions for my blog changed somewhere along the way. I started this blog for me, some place I could just get out all the ideas that exist in my head and maybe be some inspiration to one person somewhere.

As time went along I felt pressure to do certain things in order to grow my blog and branch out. This pressure of course was all my own. I felt if I wasn't linking to as many parties as possible, no one was stopping by and then what was the point?? So I would get up before anyone else in the house and link my post to as many as I could and browse and comment to my fair share which is proper etiquette. Then it started to be too much.

I don't blog or link or browse or comment anytime during the day and not unless my kids are sleeping and my husband is busy doing something. I'm not judging those who do, this is just how I roll. It's my rule. This is MY hobby, it's not meant to impede on my mothering or my marriage and I felt the pull to jeopardize this time (again, my own pressure) was becoming great. I felt if this line wasn't crossed, my blog just could not survive.

So I stopped blogging cold turkey and just took some time to get some new perspective. I discovered that if I look at the facts (monetary gain, followers), I get overwhelmed and like the break but then I make a cute lunch or organize something and miss sharing. So this is what I have come up with...well actually, I've just gone back to the basic reason I started this in the first place, to share. No blogging world, link party, monetary gain, followers pressures. Just blogging to share to that one person that's not my mom out there, YOU!

This DOESN'T have to be that blog that is discovered by the Ellen Show, it's my little ol' blog that is created by a Full-time Mom, Full-time Wife and Full-time Daycare Provider that I love. I can not be everything ALL the time, even though I so desperately strive to. I'm just one person who will blog when I blog, link when I link and maybe one day figure out how this whole thing works. I'm taking the pressure off. I may NEVER sell an ad space because, even after a year, I don't know how to begin that process. And although I could read the post on my Pinterest board showing me how, clearly I just rather not right now.

So after 1 year of blogging, I am still a novice at this whole thing, and that's ok! Now that that's off my chest, I would love if you would stick around and see what happens next ;) Happy Belated New Year!!

Christmas Traditions for Kidlets

(;*WARNING*;)

These are HIGHLY messy activities! Enjoy!!

I don't know if I have ever explained how much I absolutely adore Christmas, furthur more (and this is where I get the eye rolls) I LOVE WINTER! Yep, It's my favorite season hands down and I can't wait for it to come back around every year. A main reason, of course is Christmas and it has intensified since I had my own kidlets. I love the feelings that are associated with Christmas. I am a sucker for a real fire place, the smell of the wood and the crackle of the popping logs. I wish that gas fireplaces had a built in speaker to resemble that sound, at the very least. I love that you can live in sweaters and snuggle up on the couch sipping some tea, hypnotized by the flame. I love the glow of Christmas lights and how for a small frame of time it seems so many of us are united. Car rides to see Christmas lights are a top on my list. I love the decorating and the activities we plan with our kidlets. I love sitting down with family and stuffing our faces until we pass out on the couch. I love the holiday specials on TV and the All-Christmas-Music stations. But most of all, above all else. I LOVE CHRISTMAS EVE TRADITIONS!!

A few years ago we started our Christmas Eve traditions. First rule,  no one is allowed to enter or exit on this day. This is a day for the four of us to focus on our immediate family and take a break from all the hustle and bustle. There are not to many rules on this day other than that, and it is my favorite day of the year. So I thought I would share some of our Christmas Eve traditions.

Usually we start off the day by making our Gingerbread House. It has also been a train and will likely be a sleigh in the future, but mostly a house. The 'BIG' kids (Mommy & Daddy) help with the icing and the kidlets do the decorating eating! Some decorating gets done but an awful lot more gets eaten ;)

Caught in the act ;)

 Next up is making cookies for Santa and of course US! The kidlets get all dolled up in their baking gear. All ready to get down to messy business.

Once we have the cookie dough assemble (Chocolate Chip in our case), they roll them or log them up to hit the oven. It doesn't matter what they look like because they never make it past Christmas Eve anyway, and even if they did, who cares? ;)

After we get the kitchen all cleaned up, we move our mess into the living room where we make indoor s'mores. This is a common event for our family and you can read another post about it here. This year however, we will not be making s'mores in the fireplace because we have a gas fireplace in our new house, so we'll be improvising with the oven!

 Once we have them roasted, the best part resumes...THE EATING!!

Nom Nom Nom

After we eat up all that goodness and try to stuff some healthy meals in between, we move onto more yummy goodness. As you can see, this day is not meant for watching our waistlines. We stick to the balanced nutritious stuff every other day of the year, Christmas Eve is when we get our junk on!  So to keep the theme going, we have Mount Crumpet Hot Chocolate!!! This only works well with the stuff that comes out of the can. You get the best peek for the top of your mountain.  If you don't know what Mount Crumpet is, you really need to read Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Making Mount Crumpet

Look at the peek on the mountain! This may be the favorite of the kidlets, probably because of the mess that they make ;) I promise it is worth every spill of hot chocolate for the smiles these mountains bring!

 

Next, one of MY favorite traditions...matching pajamas! I will so do this tradition as long as the kidlets will let me. Sometime before bed, they open there NEW Christmas pajamas, even though they spent most or all of Christmas Eve in the previous years Christmas pajamas! As they get older finding matching ones is getting tougher, they don't seem to make cute jammies above size 5. Still working on these for this year.

Opening the matching jammies! (pic from a few Christmas' ago)

Cute as can be all matched up

Next we put out our food for the reindeer on the front lawn. Super simple recipe of oatmeal and sparkles. The kidlets dump the 'food' out and Santa knows which house to come to.

Lastly, we come back inside and get our snacks ready for Santa and more for the reindeer. A sip of milk for Santa and then we snuggle up and read Little Critter's The Night Before Christmas, this is a favorite book of a great classic.

That's it! Our Christmas Eve traditions come to a rest until next year. It truly is something I look forward to every year and I highly recommend making a day that is devoted to just your immediate family. No one in or out, no exceptions, one day a year. It's worth it!!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays everyone! What do you do with your families for the holidays?

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Toy Central Reveal-Organization

Now that we are in the gap between holidays, I thought now would be a great time for some more organizing tips from our NEW homestead. As some of you may know, we recently built a new home and are now settled in nicely. We have converted one of our bedrooms in our home to be the main toy room. We also have a toy stash in the main living room and an Inside-Outdoor Play Area in our unfinished basement. As most families with children, we have stashes of toys EVERYWHERE. I think this is the key to organizing. If your kidlets are anything like mine, they like to be where we are. Since we don't spend ALL of our time in the playroom, there needs to be places for them to put their toys in other living areas of the home.

Since I also run a daycare, my kidlets also have small toys in their bedrooms that could be chocking hazards for the smaller children. So basically, there are toys in every room but the master bed & bath. Gee Whiz, that's a lot, I feel a purge coming on. ;) But seriously, it's not that bad. I will tour you through the rooms over the next few posts and you will see how we keep it under control!

First stop, our main living space. You may recognize the same toy storage set up from this post. Same stuff, different house! Sorry for the blurry photo, maybe Santa has an extra SLR in his bag ;) Just as in our old house, the toys are neatly tucked away in little bins that I am in LOVE with! Our movies are all tucked into the ottoman, as well as all of our remotes. We keep about half of our toy stash here and the rest in the playroom.

 And this is our new playroom!! This is where we spend most of our day, playing and reading and colouring and dancing. Again, I have storage bins! This one is my oldest storage bin that I purchased from good ol' IKEA about 5 years ago. This baby has been in most rooms of the house and when my kidlets were babies, it was a change table with a change pad strapped on top. We also have our table and chairs that are from IKEA, which is the most used piece of furniture by far!

Next we have our Reading Corner.  This is actually MY favorite place in the whole house. I wish I could snuggle up with my own books in this space but I would have a kidlet jumping on top of me in no time. This space is actually the closet and we had the electrician wire a lighting box in it for us. We removed the doors and had the inside of the closet painted the same colour as the rest of the room. I purchased the wall decal from Uppercase Living and custom picked my colours to match. I purchased the book shelves from IKEA which are actually picture ledges. The hanging pendant, also from IKEA, was a plug-in pendant light that we converted to wire into the light box. You can see it hanging better in the next photo.

On either side of our reading corner we have our dress-up and our stuffed animal section. Our dress-up is simple hooks mounted to the wall and a large plastic bin for all of the smaller dress-up bits. On the other side, mesh hanging baskets house the smaller stuffed animals and a larger bin goes underneath for the larger ones.

On the opposite side of the playroom we have our train table, play kitchen and our IKEA mirror (to check out all our cool dress-up characters we come up with). The train table is the second most used space in the room as it is a great place for tea parties and building of any kind. Above the train table I have our Circle Time Board that we use for my preschoolers at Circle Time. I'll go more into detail on that in another post ;)

Lastly, another view of the playroom. I am loving a room specifically dedicated to MOST of the toys!!  Although it does not look like this most of the time, it's a space for the kids to mess up freely and clean up at the end of the day.

Thanks for stopping by as always. See you soon ;)

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Spooktacular Healthy Kidlet Lunches

As Halloween is inching closer and closer, I have more spooktacular, healthy, kidlet lunches, as promised. Tonight at dinner we where having carrot sticks and Croque Monsier (a specialty of the hubbies) and my little guy came up with this concoction...

ZOMBIE FINGERS 

He just started poking the carrots into the bread and then used the ketchup for blood. Ha Ha Ha, I love it!!! I guess I have made him a few wacky lunches in his day ;) So of all the lunches that have ever come out of our kitchen, this is by far my favorite! Okay, enough gushing about my totally awesome little man ;), and onto more lunches!

BLOODY DEVILED EGGS 

This cute little lunch was made with an ordinary deviled egg recipe, egg yokes and mayo, and some green and red food colouring. I made the egg yoke mixture and added the green food coloring and cut off the corner of a Ziploc bag to pipe it back into the egg whites. I used red food colouring and a toothpick to create the eyeball 'veins' on the egg white and finished it off with a couple black olives. To create the rest of the face I used a carrot and carved some nostrils into the sides and some halved cherry tomatoes. I used mayo under all of the pieces to secure them for their travel to school.

MONSTERS INC. - MIKE WACHOWSKI SANDWICH 

This one is another super simple one and super cute. To make Mike Wackowski from Monsters Inc., you need two circle shaped cookie cutters or round objects you can use as a cookie cutter. I think I used a jar lid for the shape of Mike's face. First cut your top and bottom out and then assemble any kind of sandwich you like in between.  Cut a smaller circle out of cheese and place in the area of your monsters eye. Use the crust of the bread to cut two triangles for his ears and a crescent shape for his eyebrow. Attach with mayo or peanut butter, anything sticky that goes with the inside of your sandwich. Next cut some teeth shape from a piece of cheese and attach near his mouth area. Lastly, get your edible markers in black and green and draw Mike's pupil and iris and colour your mouth piece green. All done!

VAMPIRE TORTILLA TEETH

 And lastly, Vampire teeth and bat. Again, create any type of sandwich you like but use tortillas as your bread. I used a vampire teeth cookie cutter and a bat cookie cutter and drew the details on with the ever so trusty edible markers. Add a toothpick tomb stone and viola, yet another spooktacular lunch ;) Happy Haunting, more to come next week.

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I've Got An Eye On You-Spooky Cheese Eyeball

As we all know, Halloween is just around the corner. I don't know about you but I am SUPER excited!!! Since the move into our new neighbourhood, I seem to be extra excited this year. In our old home we had a grand total of 6 kids ring our bell and this year, that will not be the case. I can guesstimate that we will have some where around the 200 mark for kidlets and I just can't wait!!

Our old neigbourhood was so snore bore that we actually drove our kidlets to a different neighbourhood to trick or treat. Are you allowed to do that? Hope so ;)

Anyhoo, although the neighbourhood was not into the festivities, we sure were. Last year I had big plans to make this cute little Frankenstein Cheeseball for my little guys class party, but I got sick and couldn't convince myself to give up extra "get well" sleep was in no shape to make him. Soo, plan B. I had all the ingredients for a  regular ol' cheeseball, but that's not very fun or spooky. What to do, what to do? Concoct a BIG BLOODY EYEBALL!

This sucker was super easy to make and delish as well. I used the same recipe from the Frankenstein Cheese ball above, minus all the decorative parts. I made the mixture and rolled it up into a ball inside some saran wrap and placed in the fridge over night. In the morning I placed the ball in a bowl and halved a colossal olive, placed it in the center and then drizzled red food colouring from the olive down the ball. It's a little hard to see here but the food colouring really bleed into the nooks and crannies of the cheese ball and looked like the nerves. I placed the ball on a dish with blue/black corn chips, pretzel twists and crackers. Added some tomb stones and pumpkin carving knives as the cheese spreaders. That's it! Super simple and super easy!! I have more Halloween goodies to come, so poke back next week ;)

 

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Yes, You May Play With Your Food!

We all see those posts out there of all different kinds of kids lunches that quite frankly must take hours to make. Making cute lunches doesn't need to cost tons of money, nor should it take hours compiled with frustration. It just needs to be fun!

I have gathered a few of my average lunches that I send my little kidlet to school with each day. Remember if you are new to making fun lunches, perfection is not what you are striving for, a simple smile from your kidlet is the goal!

This year my son has changed from 2 snacks and 1 lunch period per day to 2 "Nutritional Breaks". His breaks have more food than a typical snack but not quite as much as his old lunches. I'm not sure how I feel about this new system because it is not very true to real life, hmmm.... Anyhoo, you will see both below.  I like to send him a little note every now and then, letting him know that I am thinking about him and miss him and love him. I will do this until he tells me to cut it out because I'm embarrassing him ;)

Hopefully you will take a little inspiration from some of these and start having some fun with your food!!

Babybel Cheese with star cut out, Olives, Tomatoes & Face Pick and Fish Shaped Boiled Egg

Yogurt, Lychee fruit, Cookie, Grapes & Fruit Pick, Carrots, Pizza Loaf roll-up with dinosaur cut out & Fruit Leather

Babybel Cheese with edible glitter sun, Crackers, Fruit Leather, Peach, Coleslaw & Pork Skewers with Face Pick

Milk, Tomatoes, Apple sauce, Cheese with Pick, Dinosaur Kielbasa cut outs & Crackers

Juice, Pickles, Olives, Car Shaped Boiled Egg & Peach

Milk, Cheese string, Cookie, Greek Salad with Heart Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Feta and Greek Dressing

Juice, Carrots, Peach & Ham & Cheese Sandwich

Carrots, Wafers, Cheese string, Juice & Turkey Roll-up (face drawn on with edible markers)

Milk, Fruit Salad & Raisin Bread with Strawberry Cream Cheese

Go get out your cookie cutters and fancy picks and go play with your food. Next week I'll show you how to have fun with some Halloween lunches!

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