A Few of My Favourite Things

Just a random compilation of favourites during this Christmas Season- things I'd like to remember.

In the Kitchen:

My new pan: I needed a new non stick pan so when the new Canadian Tire opened up I took advantage of the sale prices.  I picked a new pan- The Heritage Rock Non-Stick pan.  I cannot say enough good things about this pan.  It is the best non stick pan I have ever had and it's scratch proof basically because it's made of rock not that environmentally awful coating that is usually on non stick wear.  I can fry an egg with no fat and have it come up perfectly.  You can't stick anything to this rock pan.  It was an $80 pan on sale for $23 when I bought it.  I went back and got a back up to put in my closet for when I need another new one and don't want to pay $80.  But if I had to, I would.  It's that good. 

picture of the rock surface

Christmas Treats You Buy:

The Peppermint Brownie Cake Pop from Starbucks and the Gingerbread White Hot Chocolate from Tim Hortons.  My friend brought me a cake pop and it was so good I went out and bought some for the family during our Christmas Shopping Day.  So divine.  I loved the gingerbread white hot chocolate from Tim Hortons this season as well.  I'm not a huge hot chocolate fan (or hot drink in general) but really enjoyed this one. 

Christmas Treats You Make:

My top 3 Christmas recipes that I discovered this year and will be making for many more years to come:
Gingerbread Muffins with Lemon Glaze
Nutella Truffles
Homemade Turtles

Cleaning Supplies:

I'm entering into the homemade/natural cleaning supplies arena and I've started with THIS citrus vinegar all purpose cleaner.  I LOVE it.  I won't go back to buying an all purpose cleaner.  I've never had one that cleans so well.  I also love the added benefit that it's natural enough I could spritz it on my salad (I don't- but I could!).  Cole even used it on his glass desk the other day and it doesn't streak as bad as I thought it would- it didn't streak hardly at all.  I'm trying out some new recipes in the new year but this one gets my vote for the simplest.  I used lemon peel, the recipe called for orange.  I also diluted it a little more than she did- I found it too strong.  For particularly tough/dried on messes, I sprinkle some baking soda then spray the cleaner on it. 

My Husband:

Always on any favourite list of mine.  He works so hard to provide for our family and get good grades in school.  He fulfills his callings at church and tries to make sure the kids and I don't get neglected.  He is the most fun playing with the girls and is so good about helping me with whatever I need.  In particular, last Sunday, even though we were both tired, he took care of the girls and told me to nap on the couch while he tidied up .  It's not hard to still be in love with him almost 6 years later.

My Girls:

K-I can see now why so many people say speaking is their favourite milestone.  Finally, K is starting to parrot and trying lots of new words everyday.  She's never been much for speaking but these past couple weeks there has been a barrage of improvement. Specifically, I love when she giggles and calls her farts "fuff", I love when she says "no potty on 'Dot' (her word for Dora), and I love when she says "o-tee" (okay). 

B-I love seeing her sit up and reach for all her toys.  I love that she sleeps through the night now.  I love that she's liberal with her laughter and smiles.  She is so chatty and already says da-da to me and Cole.  She is always making noises and sounds and loves to "talk".  It's been fun because K was such a quiet baby. 

I love that their personalities are so different.  I love that there are different things to love about each of them.  I love that I felt I recognized K when she was born and have related to a lot of what I see emerge in her and I love B for exactly the opposite reason.  I love that I didn't recognize her-she brings a lot of different qualities to the party and I love discovering them.  She is so open and full of feelings that continuously pour out in dramatic ways. 

These are a few of my favourite things...

Christmas 2013

Our girls woke up sometime between 7 and 730, which I thought was quite respectable for their age.  I put breakfast in the oven (Cinnamon Bread and Hashbrown Casserole) and we all opened stockings and presents.  We did Cole's tradition of having a "Santa" (K) who picks a present from the jumbled mix under the tree and hands it to the person to whom it's addressed.  Some of the highlights included K's Hug Me Elmo (from Grandpa), Cole's guitalele (a guitar the size of a ukelele), my kitchen gear, and B's crib toy.  K was more excited this year than last, and was quite engaged with the whole process.  B was well behaved and sat on the couch playing with whatever she could reach.  We had breakfast after and then proceeded to relax...all day long.  It was a really nice, low key Christmas.  Cole and I are very grateful for our beautiful girls with whom we get to spend every Christmas.  We loved being in our own home and spending some quality, unstructured time together and LOVED the break from school.  The time together helped us feel the spirit of the season, celebrating our Savior. 

Oh- also, I received a Christmas present from my Grandma in the mail earlier this month.  It was a beautiful new apron.  She is so talented.  Both my grandparents are masters of their crafts.  I hear there's a matching apron for K on the way. 

We didn't do a turkey dinner this year  because we did the big appetizer night on Christmas Eve and I also we aren't huge fans of the big turkey dinner.  I did make a delicious beef stew that once again I forgot to take pictures of.  Here's my blog link and here's the original Rachael Ray recipe (mine is slightly altered- but hers has a picture).  It was lovely. 

Cole went to bed relatively early as he was planning on going to Future Shop for Boxing Day (he needed a new computer and a few other electronics that had died on us).  This meant I got to stay up and peacefully watch the Downton Abbey Christmas Special.  I thought I would fall asleep but I remained wide awake until 1230 when I finished it (it was 90 mins long).  It was fun to see Paul Giamatti guest star.

Cole was successful at Future Shop.  He showed up before 6am and was home by 730am before I was even out of bed.  He got a new laptop, sound bar for our TV, bluray player and phone (all things that were needing replacing anyways- waiting till Boxing Day meant awesome prices).  This means I get to inherit Cole's old laptop.  So Happy Boxing Day to both of us! 

We spent the afternoon at Beban Park letting K run off her holiday energy (waay too much chocolate in this little girl). 

stockings

playing with K's sparkly bracelets

candy necklace from stocking

always full of smiles

B's crib toy

Hug Me Elmo from Grandpa

"Scout" from Grandpa

Cole's new Oilers wear (toque and sweater)

guitalele

new Dora panties- um..SO CUTE!

Dora slippers

our super casual/don't wear real clothes Christmas

From the Sunday before Christmas after church

Christmas Eve

This year we decided to have a laid back Christmas and stay home.  We didn't go to Vancouver to see my parents like we often do.  We wanted to wake up in our own beds, with our kids in their own room and just relax.  It's been a really stressful semester and we wanted some quiet family time.  We have been very happy with our decision. 

Cole's favourite family Christmas tradition is the Christmas Eve Smörgåsbord.  So we had a table full of appetizers and this served as the main Christmas celebration.  We had a selection of cold appetizers (click on the name to be sent to the site where I found the recipe): prairie sushi (tortilla roll-ups), cheese, pate, meat and crackers, veggies and dip, pickles and olives, quinoa salad, devilled eggs and bits and bites.  Our hot selection included buffalo chicken dip, spinach and feta puff pastry bites, jalapeno popper puff pastry bites, and baked brie with apricot jam and hazelnuts.  Our sweets consisted of homemade turtles and nutella truffles.  Everything was delicious.

Cole's dad came up to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us.  We don't often get to see him at Christmas so it was good he could come.  As K only had a vague understanding of what Christmas entails, she was ready for bed at her usual time.  She was sleeping by 7/7:30 pm.  But first we opened the Christmas Eve pajamas and story.  The girls got matching fleece sleepers and Cole attempted to read the First Christmas Story book to the girls.  B was very attentive but K has never been able to sit still so she was back and forth. 

I tried to get a picture of the girls in their new pajamas- but it's a near impossible task to get them (really, it's just K) to sit still long enough to get a nice picture of both of them.

 

I couldn't get over how much this is a Cole expression

After K went to bed, the rest of us watched It's A Wonderful Life as we have every Christmas Eve since Cole and I have been together.  My favourite Christmas movie!  K and B's Christmas present to us was a quiet night.  We didn't hear a peep out of K for 12 hrs and B was up once around 5am but just needed a quick snuggle and she went back to sleep.  B has been sleeping through the night (12 hours) with no feedings for the past few nights.  Just randomly, all by herself.  Merry Christmas indeed!

Potty Training

Potty Training. Oh how I've dreaded you.  K has been pretty quick about all her transitions and doesn't put up a whole lot of fuss and I assumed it would be the same for potty training.  And it was- but still, potty training sucks.  It just does.  Whether your kid is quick to pick it up or not- teaching your kid to pee in the potty instead of on the floor or in the diaper- it's just no fun. And the only thing worse than changing a poopy diaper is changing a poopy anything else- toilet seat, floor, whatever. 

I decided to wait till Cole was done with exams so he could help.  I just didn't have it in me to potty train K by myself while still nursing B.  I am not super mom.  I decided to block off 3 days this week to just commit and do basically nothing else.  K spent the whole time naked the first day (except for when I was watching a friend's child for an hour) and naked half the time the second day and in just a pull up the 3rd day.  For 2 1/2 days we barricaded ourselves in K's room.  It doesn't have carpet, so there would be easy clean up.  I could easily heat it and there was a safe, pee-free zone (the crib) for B to play.  I took out all the toys that couldn't be put in the dishwasher and removed all the bedding (she was also not allowed on the bed).  We brought in the little potty and either Cole or I sat in there with her while she figured it out.

Day 1 wasn't too bad.  She had some accidents and some successes.  It was an exhausting, all consuming process though and by the time I needed to go make dinner K was wiped.  I put her up on the change table to put a diaper on her so she could come into the rest of the house with me while I cooked and she fell asleep before I could finish putting on her diaper.  She was so exhausted. See video HERE.

The benefit to such a gruelling day is that both kids slept like...well not like babies, they slept like rocks.  What a terrible saying- "slept like a baby" -must have been someone without kids coining that one!

Day 2: one (pee) accident, Day 3: no accidents.  Day 4/5: a couple pees in her pull up and one ugly half accident that I literally just dealt with (I had to stop this post to go clean it up- one of those half in the pull up, half in the toilet beauties).  But I'd say it's going pretty good.  We've emerged from her room and we're back to living life again.  But it makes it a tad harder for her to remember she needs to go to the bathroom for her business now that she's not walking around naked. She's not even 2 1/2 so really, my expectations are fairly low at this point.  Even if we can remove poopy diapers from our life, I am ok waiting longer for the pee ones. 

She has been so proud of herself when she gets it right, though.  She claps her hands and says "I did potty".  Also, my favourite part of this whole process was introducing her to her Dora pull-ups.  I explained to her that we don't pee or poo on Dora, that we have to go to the potty.  She says, "no potty on Dot (how she says Dora)"- it was pretty cute. 

Unfortunately, she has realized that she has another excuse to prolong bedtime.  The ol' "I gotta go potty" excuse. 

This parenting thing is a messy business.  Literally.

Christmas Baking

The thing I love about Christmas baking is I get to try out a bunch of recipes, sample them but then the rest gets given away.  This year it was my Sunday School kids, Cole's home teaching families and a few friends that got packages.  As always, there was a few recipes that I will be keeping and few I won't bother with again.

Christmas 2013

Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies (with reeses pieces, pretzels and chocolate chips). 
-I've used this recipe before- it's a keeper
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/08/peanut-butter-pudding-cookies.html

Homemade Turtles
-suuuper easy - will definitely keep this for next year
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/12/homemade-turtles-done-in-half-hour.html

Toasted Coconut and Toffee Bit Cookies
-not bad, recipe found HERE but I prefer THIS recipe (also coconut)

White Chocolate Craisin Cookies
-again, not bad (found HERE) but I should have stuck with my mom's recipe:
1c butter

2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 c packed brown sugar
2/3 c white sugar
2 1/4 c flour
1 c rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 c dried cranberries
1 c white chocolate

greased sheet, 350, 8-10 mins

The Pièce de résistance: Browned Butter Nutella Stuffed Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
-delicious -didn't STUFF them as much as recipe -so much work I probably won't do them again but so so good
-while I may not make them again, I will probably use the browned butter technique again for chocolate chip cookies- DIVINE!
http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2012/09/nutella-stuffed-brown-butter-sea-salt-chocolate-chip-cookies-my-favorite-cookie-ever/

Gingerbread Muffins
-not included in people's packages but a delicious Christmas recipe discovered this year that our family devoured!
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/12/gingerbread-muffins.html

Christmas 2012

Here are the links to the keepers from last year:

http://partiesandholidays.blogspot.ca/2009/12/few-of-my-favorite-christmas-treats.html
-the chocolate covered peanut butter rice krispie balls (about half way down the page)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/02/skor-bars.html
-these are the BOMB! still don't have a picture but trust me- so delicious!
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/04/brownie-cookies.html
-these are the cookies I grew up on - don't know the name, but I always call them brownie cookies because they have the texture I want in a brownie
-my FAVOURITE cookie recipe
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/
-this is my favourite sugar cookie recipe -I love it with a classic buttercream icing
-love to sub almond extract for vanilla

If you are a cookie connoisseur like me, here are some of my favouite go to cookie recipes:

The Brownie Cookie (again, my FAVOURITE- in case you missed that)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/04/brownie-cookies.html
Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/07/chewy-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies.html
Gluten Free 5 Ingredient Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/gluten-free-soft-peanut-butter-cookie.html
No Bake Chocolate Mint Fiddle Diddles
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/3y0cb1i1/chocolate-oatmeal-no-bake-cookies.html
-I use this recipe but use mint extract instead of vanilla and no peanut butter
Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookie
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/magic-peanut-butter-middles/
Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/08/peanut-butter-pudding-cookies.html
Cowboy Cookies (chocolate, coconut, cinnamon)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/cowboy-cookies.html

Christmas Tree

We went to chop down our Christmas tree on a beautifully sunny, cold day at GoGo's.  Love that every tree is $25.  We bundled our kids in their snow suits and went on the search for the perfect tree.

We traipsed for quite a while, K fell down every few steps in all the brush but she was super padded with her snowsuit and the little bit of snow on the ground. 

her "flower"

We finally found our tree and Cole proceeded to saw it down and I tried to keep K from getting trapped under the falling tree.

Can't believe this is K's third time accompanying us to GoGo's and that we are now a family of four!

  

We all had a lot of fun and the girls did so good in the cold.  This was my favourite Christmas tradition growing up and I'm glad my girls are getting to experience it.

 On Sunday we decorated the tree.  We listened to Christmas music and ate some yummy food: quinoa chili with sour cream, cheese, lime, avocado and chips, devilled eggs, sausage rolls, and gingerbread muffins.

B had a small window where she stayed up to watch and then got too cranky and I put her to bed.

B's ornament from Grandma

  

 K wanted desperately to help but is still probably a year away from being able to put decorations on the tree without help.  She loved to pick them out but I had to help her hang them. 

   

Cole putting on his Oilers ornament:

 K helping with the star:

Family pictures:

 

The outtakes:

watch B in the background

ahah love it- faceplant!

K not looking

fail

fail

The next morning while I was in bed nursing B, I heard K break an ornament- and so it begins.  Every morning since we put up the tree she has woken up saying "it's a tree!"

B watching the lights this morning

MERRY CHRISTMAS!