Easter M&M/Oreo cookie bark

            




      I love spring. I love that it's the beginning of everything wonderful and everything that I love. Flowers bloom and our little mama robin comes back to her favourite nesting spot on our deck and lays her perfect blue eggs that we get to watch hatch into cute little baby birds. I love how the rain washes away the last of the dirty snow on our street, everything smells fresh and impromptu street hockey games start popping up throughout our neighbourhood. It's like a message is sent out to everyone that springtime means a fresh start and people come out of their homes where they've been hibernating all winter long. Spring wreaths hang on people's front doors, the sun comes out almost every day and the excitement (for me) of another holiday--Easter--coming up makes me smile until my cheeks hurt. I'm thinking Mya is already realizing that this season is just as awesome as I think it is. Her cute little smile and giggle has filled our house all week long. I just love this little girl more than I can even explain.

And I can't even tell you how excited I was to see THIS when Mya and I were playing outside the other day.

I brought her over and (with more excitement than I'd like to admit) I explained to her that these were my tulips popping up and that they'd soon turn into beautiful flowers. I encouraged her to touch them (and although her tiny little fingers almost smushed them completely), I love that she fed off of my excitement. She looked at those little green leaves as if they were the most amazing thing she had ever seen.
   This little vision of spring made me instantly get excited about Easter and all of the crafts, baking. decorating to come. So...introducing delicious M&M/Oreo cookie bark (recipe to follow below).

     It's March break this week and we spent most of this past weekend outside enjoying the sun and warmth. Terry, Mya and I started our weekend by walking to our local market and buying all sorts of delicious fruit and veggies from all of the vendors. I love how close the market is to our house and love the hustle and bustle of squeezing by people to try to get to each stand.

We then took Mya and our dog for a nice long walk and ended up at the park where we pushed Mya on the swings, ran through the sand and I watched, waving like a proud mama, beaming, as Terry took Mya down the big red twisty slide over and over again. She absolutely loved it, and I loved watching her enjoy it all.

It's not even the end of the week yet, but it feels like we've packed so much fun into only a few days so far. And the best part is that most of our fun has been pretty spontaneous.

Tuesday we went to look after Val and I took Mya outside when her physiotherapist arrived. We ran through the grass (yes, my little munchkin can RUN)..cutest thing ever. We breathed in the wind and warm air that blew through the fields and threw sticks for our dog (Meika). It felt good. It felt like spring was here.

This picture just makes me smile. Mya and her best bud running off together to find more adventure.

Then yesterday Jen, Oliver and our friend Kim and her sweet little boy Everett and I went for a morning walk to the park and watched as Mya ran through the field chasing the dog.
I love this picture. She just reached over as we were walking and grabbed hold of the leash and held onto it until we got to the park. I'm sure it makes her feel all grown up.

 And you see...lesson here: If you hand a dog a stick, she WILL run away with it and you WILL have to chase her.

We then headed home for a quick lunch together before the babies went down for an afternoon nap.

The day ended with a trip to Victoria park where we met up with our friend Jen and her 3 adorable boys. You want to see a super mom, Jen is it. I look at her and see what I want to be one day. A mom with lots of kids (all close in age), lots of love to give and a magical way of handling three little people wanting every ounce of her attention. AND they all have beautiful red hair..cutest kids ever.

    We sat on blankets, ate snacks, watched the boys go down the big slide and finished our afternoon at the park with a walk/bike ride around the paths. It was absolutely beautiful out--we were in our t-shirts for most of the afternoon. I love how this kind of weather makes you feel so alive.

I think Oliver is trying to tell us that he's almost ready for solids.

One of the things that I love most about our little Mya is that she absolutely LOVES her cousin Oliver. She just can't give him enough hugs and kisses. He handles it pretty well too--good guy. And his mom (another super mama) lovingly lets this little munchkin get all up in her son's face and smother him with goobery kisses all day long.
With another visit today from our friends Alex and Ayva, then a dinner from my wonderful mother-in law (Judy) which awaited us tonight, I'd say this March break has been pretty stellar. The funny thing is that I had nothing planned for the week originally. Everything that we've done was planned last minute, decided with a quick phone call or email. I was a bit upset thinking that we weren`t going on any kind of fabulous vacation this break. But what I`ve learned now is that some of the most wonderful moments can come from having no plans at all, staying home with the ones you love and enjoying spontanious adventures and moments with friends and family. It's these little moments in life that make me smile. Mya and Ayva sharing tea time together, sitting at Mya's little table like big girls and actually understanding what tea cups are supposed to be used for. I love watching their minds work through life as they figure things out.

Talk about knowing a lot of amazing moms. Alex is one stellar mama too. So loving, so caring and amazingly able to still manage to care so gently and amazingly for her young daughter as she works through the incredible nausea that pregnancy brings. I love seeing great moms have more kids. Only a few more months until we get to meet Ayva's little sister!

 So anyways, back to my original point of loving spring...with spring time and Easter just around the corner, I thought it'd be fun for Mya and I to make up some yummy treats and give them to some of our friends as early Easter gifts. These are so incredibly easy to make and SO delicious. All you need are some M&M's (preferably the expensive Easter coloured ones that are out in stores now), Oreos, pretzels and chocolate.

Here is how we made them:

1) Place parchment paper over a cookie tray and lay out a layer of broken pretzels, M&M's.

2) Cut up some Oreos and place them down on the cookie sheet as well.

3) Melt your chocolate in the microwave or on a double broiler (you can use the chocolate wafers, or just buy those 1lb chocolate bunnies that are out now in stores and you'll save a bunch of money--chocolate is expensive!). I chose to do both milk chocolate and white chocolate (one whole bunny per batch), but choose whatever you'd like.

4) Pour the melted chocolate over your cookie tray then add more cut up Oreos and M&M's on top.

5) Put in fridge until chocolate is hard, then break into pieces.

6) Put in cute little Easter baskets (these are just from Dollarama) and you're ready to give away (or eat all yourself!).

     Here's hoping for more sunny days and spontaneous adventures to come before the week is up. I hope you're able to get outside, enjoy the sunshine and feel alive with whatever makes you happy this week as well. And if you have no plans at all but want to feel a moment of joy...just go outside and find all of the little tulips popping up all over your neighbourhood or your own garden. You just can't help but feel happy seeing that!

terrible horrible no good very bad day (well, kinda)

     




     Yesterday was a day that made me want to just crawl into bed, turn out the lights and be done with the day. 

      I have a theory that I shouldn't allow myself to have a horrible day all day long. Sure, you're allowed to have bad moments in the day (we all do). But I always try to snap myself out of it and purposely try to find something to make me feel happier so that my whole day isn't wasted. It might just be by heading over to Bulk Barn and buying a huge bag of chocolate caramel balls (my absolute favourite), or cranking up the tunes as loudly as I can and forcing a song to make me feel better, or cleaning something (somehow I always feel better after cleaning), or watching trashy tv or taking my dog for a walk and not coming home until I've walked myself out of my funk. But Thursday was a day that really tested my usual ability to snap myself out of it.

Insert happy photo from the day here:

    
     I have Thursdays off since I'm working part time and so this is the one day of my week that I absolute cherish because it's one of the only days in my week that I get to wake up and Mya and I get to stay in our jammies as long as we want to. We can have a slow, lovely breakfast and just enjoy eachother. We can choose to stay at home or go out..the day is totally up to us. And I love it.
    But this past Thursday didn't exactly go as planned.

   Mya woke up whining and crying and she didn't stop all morning long. Everything was a battle (and this little 16month old certainly put up a good fight). From getting her dressed, changing her diaper, eating breakfast, to offering her toys...everything was done with screaming, crying and squirming out of my arms. Terry just looked at me and he kissed my forehead as he headed out the door for work that morning and said "I'm sorry. Try to have a good day" (knowing the reality of that comment was asking the impossible).
 
    As this little mini human being fell to the floor (just to add some drama to the screaming) and thrashed around throwing a real, true full blown temper tantrum I took some deep breaths and told myself over and over again that this is my lesson in patience for the day. But when the screaming continued on for the next 2hrs with no breaking even when her most beloved toys were offered to her, I felt my head spinning.
     Oh how I wanted to yell..I knew it would make me feel so much better. But I just kept reminding myself to be patient and not lose my cool. So after many many deep breaths, I pulled all my mommy love and patience that I could muster and I calmly told Mya to finish her temper tantrum because we're going outside (convincing myself that she could actually really hear me). So I called my sister, with Mya screaming bloody murder in the background, and told her we were going for a walk and we were going NOW.
     Jen lives just a street over from me, so I wrestled Mya's boots and coat on her (which is really not so easy with a screaming, kicking child) and I put her snow pants, hats, mitts and blanket in the stroller with the hopes of being able to get her settled enough to finish dressing her mid-walk. I then grabbed my dog, somehow managed to strap Mya into the stroller and we headed towards Jen's house.
    
     Jen just laughed at me when she saw me walking towards her. Mya's half dressed, I look frazzled and the dog is pulling me down the street. Geeze.

     I've learned though just how much I appreciate the outdoors now. Somehow the magic of being outside cures everything. Bad moods can't last long when you have the wind blowing at your back, birds chirping, trees swaying and the crunch of snow at your feet. It's like a magic pill that seems to work every time. And it did work. Mya was quiet, actively taking in the world as she was pushed down the wet, snow-melted streets. We managed to get the blanket wrapped around her legs, hat and mitts on and spent almost an hour walking through our beautiful neighbourhood. It felt good, and both Mya and I were definitely out of our funk. I was exhausted, but the grumps were gone.
    
      Our day got much better by noon since our wonderful neighbour (who is also on mat leave) came over to my house with an amazing lunch that she had made for Jen and I.

We spent the early afternoon eating delicious lasagna, salad and a beautiful cake that she had made while both Jen and her nursed their wee babies and Mya ran around our feet quite happily showing off her fancy sunglasses.

     

    I thought for sure that our day could only continue to go uphill from this point on...however, I was apparently very wrong. With more screaming and complaining to come as she woke from her nap, I immediately got her bundled up and we went straight outside again. I was determined to make sure that the rest of our day wasn't as tough as our morning. It was muddy, wet, cold, quite miserable out actually...but the magic of outside worked once again. I figured the muddier the better.

Nothing better than finding broken dirty dog toys under the piles of melted snow

      So I encouraged her and clapped for her when she stomped in puddles, and laughed when she went straight for the pile of mud behind our shed. I just relished in the joy of watching her explore, play with the dog and get dirty playing under our deck (and oh, did she ever get dirty).

     Her whole snowsuit, hat and mitts went straight into the washing machine when we got inside and I had to give the dog a mini bath with a bucket outside before I let her in our kitchen...but it was worth it.
     In the end, here is what I've learned about bad days:
-do whatever you need to do to snap yourself out of it before it eats up your whole day
-go outside
-eat a good meal with friends
-send an S.O.S. out to your family and make them come FAST!

By the time Terry got home we had cleaned the mud out of our hair, my dad had come over, my sister was there too and we were playing in the basement as if the day had been wonderful from the moment we woke up.

     Our sweet little munchkin ran to greet her daddy with that same little smile that melts us every day and she splashed and laughed as she always does as we gave her a bath that night. Our funk was definitely gone and my sweet little Mya was back.

    I always think to myself "What if I die tomorrow and this is the last day that I have on earth. How do I want to spend it and what do I want people to remember about me?" It's what gets me through those tough days because I unfortunately have had too many experiences in life which have taught me the reality of life and how fragile it actually is. I don't want to waste a moment of it (and certainly not an entire day). If Thursday was my last day on earth I know that I can at least look back and know that I tried my best. I didn't lose my cool on Mya, I loved her and was patient with her through the tears and screaming and I tried my best to turn our day around while recruiting the help that I needed. I wasn't at my absolute best that day as there were many moments when I thought I was going to lose my mind, but I tried.
     The funk is definitely out of our house. Thank goodness. Looking forward to our chocolate chip pancakes tomorrow morning and the start of a new day.
    
    
     

 

Super easy breakfast in a hurry

   




     So I don't know about you, but I think one of the hardest things to do is to get out of bed and out the door in the morning. I'm exhausted just dragging myself out of bed and then my eyes are constantly on the clock, making sure that I'm getting each step of my morning routine done on time so I'm not late for work. I wish that mornings could be more relaxed, slower and more enjoyable. I wish we could have more little morning moments like this...

    But the reality is that it's tough to get up with energy, enthusiasm for the day and a smile on my face. I'm trying to learn from Mya on how to start my days right. She wakes up ready to run, ready to laugh at everything we do and ready to start her wonderful day without a care in the world. It's like she wakes up every day thinking that it's the best day that she's ever had (and it's only just begun!). I'm working on getting as good at mornings as she is. She's an expert.

    She can do things like take her toothbrush and her dad's belt and find such fun and joy in them both. Somehow dragging a belt around is simply hilarious. Literally every morning it's just as funny to her as the day before. I need to find something to do every morning that brings me that much joy and laughter. I'm working on it.

       The days before I started back to work after being on mat leave I thought a lot about mornings. I was so stressed about the idea of getting out of the door on time, because now all of a sudden it wasn't just me who had to be ready. I had a 15month old who also had to be ready, fed, dressed, diapered, bag packed, loved on, bundled up and put in her car seat (which usually involves at least a bit of kicking and screaming) before even leaving the driveway for work. I also had to leave enough time to drop her off at daycare (which is thankfully in my school, but I still didn't want to just  drop her off and run. I wanted to hold onto her as long as I could before I stepped out the door and left her for the day).

     So Terry and I sat down days before I started back and we actually made a morning plan so that we both weren't stressed about getting out the door. I kind of like mornings now...I don't love them, but I like them (sometimes). I like that there's no thought to it anymore since we both know what we need to do (and when/by what time we need to be doing things). We help eachother, we get our stuff done and we've learned to do most of the work the night before (ie. setting out Mya's clothes, our own clothes and making our lunches). 

    In a nutshell, here is how our mornings usually go:
    
1) wake up by our own personal (yet very cute) alarm clock. She's up around 6:15am (or 5:00am on weekends when we can technically sleep in of course).

2) Terry gets up and goes straight downstairs and makes Mya's scrambled eggs, cuts up her fruit and gets her bib and everything out. I go in and change her diaper, get her dressed and get my morning cuddles.

3) I drop her off in her highchair for breakfast with Terry, and I go shower and get completely ready. When I'm done, I go eat breakfast with Mya on my lap while Terry goes and showers and gets ready.

4) We both bundle Mya up, get her bag of cloth diapers packed for daycare and head out the door together. Oh and of course throw in the occasional Mya meltdown, forgotten lunch and "I really have nothing to wear" disaster.

So..seems pretty easy peasy most mornings. However, I thought one of the things that could cut down on our morning rush even more was if Mya's breakfast was already made. Since she eats eggs every morning it means there's always time needed to actually make the eggs, and then you're now stuck with cleaning a pan/spatula every morning. So I decided to find a way to pre-make all her eggs in one day so our mornings could be a little slower and more enjoyable. Welcome to mini omelets in a muffin tin.
  
Here is how I did it:

1) grab about 16 eggs, crack them into a bowl and mix' em up with a fork.

2) add whatever you'd like, or nothing at all (I just added cheese and diced green peppers)

If you don't have a chopper...YOU NEED ONE. This is the best thing in the world. Throw some green peppers (or anything else you want chopped up) and with one push you've got beautiful diced food. Brilliant! I use mine all the time (and conveniently, you can chop up anything using only one hand when you have a baby on your hip).

3) butter/spray your muffin tins REALLY REALLY well and using a soup ladle, pour the eggs in.

4) put in oven at 350 for about 20-25mins and watch as they puff up beautifully!

5) let cool, remove from pan and put them in the freezer. I put each one individually in a ziplock bag to ensure that they didn't all freeze together, but I'm sure there are other ways to freeze them as well.

Now all we have to do is take a muffin egg out of the freezer the night before, heat it up in the morning and serve it to Mya for the quickest breakfast ever. No work, no mess,
no fuss = more time and a little bit of a slower, more enjoyable morning. Hallelujah.

An unexpected birth at the farm

   




       I've decided that I love how life can be so unexpected at times. I'm usually a big planner. I like to have a plan. I like to know what is going to happen. I like to feel prepared and I like to feel organized with what is happening in my life. However, I've recently started to let life just happen and let go of some of my plans.
      It all started when Terry and I started planning our pregnancy with Mya. I had it all planned out. I was going to have a summer baby (obviously ideal for a teacher). We were going to start trying to get pregnant at a certain date, and we would therefore be pregnant by the appropriate date and it would all line up perfectly with my career and my life in general. However, I learned pretty quickly that none of that was going to work out the way that I had planned and I obviously had no control at all over it. It was probably one of the hardest (but best) lessons that life could have taught me. Sometimes it's not always good to plan. Sometimes you can miss out on the little moments in life when you plan out every aspect of what you think life is supposed to be. I also learned that life will happen the way that it is supposed to happen and everything happens for a reason.

        We learned after Mya was born that regardless of what I had originally planned, she actually came at the absolute perfect time. Only a few weeks after Mya was born, my mom was attacked. She is a nurse and was working alone in the middle of the night in the lower level of the hospital, with noone around, and a male patient began to physically attack her. I can only imagine how terrifying that must have been as she screamed out for help while noone could hear her. She had the bruises and scrapes to prove how horrible this incident really was. She ended up taking time off of work after this happened and spent the majority of these days at my house holding and loving on her newborn granddaughter.

      We realized in this moment that Mya could not have come at a more perfect time. There's nothing like newborn therapy and after calling my mom tonight to check to see if it was okay if I wrote about this, my mom reminded me that she still believes that she couldn't have gotten through that experience without Mya.
   
     Anyways, my point is that I've finally learned that although I will still try to plan certain aspects of my life, I will also try to just trust and enjoy the unexpected and spontanious things that make life so wonderful. Mya and I, for example, were looking after Val this past Tuesday as we do every week. However, something amazingly incredible happened this week that we were so priviledged to witness. When one of Val's nurses showed up, I decided it was the perfect time to be able to get Mya out of the house to get some fresh air and a change of scenery, while knowing that Val had someone caring for her for a few minutes. So I got Mya all bundled up and we headed outside.
    Val and Brad live on a beef farm, so I love that Mya gets to learn all about cows and farm life from them (and what a fun thing to be able to just walk out the front door and see fields and cows right infront of you). Mya's first animal noise was even "mooo", from showing her the cows every week. Anyways, we walked towards the barn with my dog tearing past us, excited that there were finally people to play with outside. I brought Mya over to the bails of hay and she waddled around taking in all of the new smells and interesting things around her.

     I then brought her over to see the cows. As we approached these massive animals, I noticed something white laying on the ground in then pen. I moved up to get a closer look and realized that it was actually a little baby calf that had literally JUST been born. The white that I saw was the birthing sac that the calf was still in, and the mother cow was gently trying to tear it off of her new baby. It was the most incredible thing to witness. I was just in awe, trying to take it all in. I held Mya and excitedly tried to explain to her what was happening, as she just stared intently, watching as closely as I was. I wish I knew what was going through her little head. But I know that she knew it was something extrordinary as she silently watched.

I couldn't get a great shot since there were so many huge cows in the way, but you can see the mom to the left of the pic  pulling the sac off of the calf lying on the ground. The sac at this point was still around the baby's head, so she had to quickly rip if off so that the calf didn't suffocate.

      We continued to watch as the new mother licked her baby clean while nudging it, trying to encourage it to breathe. As we watched this miracle happen infront of us, I was overwhelmed by this unexpected moment that Mya and I were having together. I hadn't planned this. I didn't know that our venture outside that day would end in this type of experience. And I love that it reminded me that some moments in life shouldn't (and can't) be planned.

     However, as we contined to watch this amazing little calf being licked clean, I started getting worried. This baby calf had been born outside, in the winter, on the mud, and it was cold. I don't know a thing about cows and the birthing process, but I did remember a story Brad told me about having to bring a baby calf actually into his house to warm it up since it was so cold even in the barn for the new calf. So I quickly left the cows and started back for the house so we could call Brad to come home to do whatever he needed to do for this new little life.

    But on the way there, we ran into Brad's dad who just happened to be working in the barn, helping Brad out that day. I told him about the calf that had just been born, and he quickly went over to check out the situation. As we stood by the fence, watching the mom continue the natural instinctual process of cleaning her baby, Brad's dad started telling Mya and I all about the cows, the birthing process and the details of when and why the mother cow was doing what she was doing. I felt like Mya and I were on our own little personal field trip with a farmer. It was just a magical moment.

And this is what happens when you think you're all brave and march up to the cows, only to have one of the cows let out a huge "MOOO!". Poor little thing.

       

       Although I've been waiting literally for years to actually see a calf being born on this farm, this was better than I expected since there was something amazing about being there just Mya and I and walking into this miraculous, unexpected scene just the two of us. I'm sure one day I'll get the chance to actually see a calf being born, but I love how this moment with Mya made me realize that life is full of unexpected moments and if you try to plan them all out for youself, somehow the magic in the unpredictable is lost.