Valentine's Day was a huge hit in our house. Austin woke up to this:

While he was sleeping, I filled his room with red and pink helium balloons and attached little notes that told him reasons that we loved him. Early this morning I crawled into his bed before he woke up. He rolled over cuddled in and opened his eyes. He looked up and said "I like my room all decorated". We read all the notes to him and finished with great big hugs.

Naturally Gordon was sick this morning so getting out the door was a little hectic but after we got on our way, Austin and Amelia's day was filled with hearts and pink balloons

and pizza

and heart shaped watermelon bites (but I didn't get a picture of those).

For G's valentine, I had wrapped up little gifts for him to open at 14 minutes past each hour. Since he slept most of the day, that didn't work out quite the way I planned it but he appreciated it all the same.

I always try to make sure not a day passes that I tell and show my husband and children how much I love them. Extra hugs, butterfly kisses, an unexpected coffee at work these things go a long way. I am by no means perfect and life is definitely not all roses but I try and I think that is the main thing. For now my munchkins are sleeping soundly and I have a "man cold" that needs some attention.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day!





Sending a little love out east

I remember when I was in University and my mom would send me care packages. Every now and then a box would show up with something I had forgotten, something I needed and a few treats from home. It made me feel a little less homesick. When Austin and I were talking about Valentine's Day, I told him that we would make special cards and send them in the mail. We happened to be making raisin bran muffins at the time (in a heart shaped pan!) and he asked if we could mail some. I decided that we would send a package to send to Aunt Janice. I had a lot of ideas and this was the perfect excuse to bake up a storm and package it up before consuming calories that my waistline really didn't need and Austin has loved helping get everything ready!

Here are our the treats. While they may look complicated and or time consuming, they really aren't. I love that Austin had his hand in helping with everything that we made.

"I Want S'More Lovin'!" Cookies

We made homemade marshmallow, coloured it pink and spread it on a cookie sheet to cool. I couldn't find graham flour so we made chocolate rolled cookies instead of graham crackers. If anyone knows where I can get graham flour in HRM, I would really appreciate it if you can let me know. Bulk Barn in Bedford doesn't carry it.

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I spread the back of a cookie with melted chocolate and pressed a marshmallow cut in the same size heart to it. I then took another cookie, spread more chocolate to the back of it and pressed that on to the top of the marshmallow. At first I had dipped the small cookies into chocolate and covered them with love day sprinkles but I didn't have what I needed to do it right. I still have half a batch of dough to roll out so I will try to get it right with them. (Pictures to follow!)

"You make my heart Pop" popcorn


photo is from the Nest of Posies website

This is sooooo good. I promptly had it all packaged up so that I would eat anymore than the bite I had sampled to make sure it tasted okay. I used white chocolate chips instead of the melting wafers and Valentine's Smarties instead of M & M's. Next time I will add a nut of some kind. It is missing a salty crunch to round it all out.

"Be My Ooey Gooey Valentine!" Cookies

I started with the basic chocolate cookie recipe from this post at My Baking Addiction. I added 1/2 cup Skor toffee bits and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips.  Austin scooped out the dough onto the cookie sheet. He then unwrapped caramel chocolate hearts and pressed one into each cookie. He is VERY good at that job! We sprinkled the cookies with a little Fleur de Sel (course sea salt will work too) and popped them in the oven. The caramel will ooze out of the heart. I froze them solid and it still happened so these are now ooey gooey cookies!

Cover my Heart!

Anything better than a homemade marshmallow? I didn't think so until we dipped them in milk chocolate and Austin added sprinkles. YUM!



Our goodies are all packed up, the box lovingly covered with stickers by sweet Aislynn and should arrive on the big day. Happy Valentine's Day Aunt Janice and Uncle Mark!

Hearts for breakfast!

I am always watching what our family eats. While I post a lot of the treats that I make on the blog, the majority of them are sent off to G's office or given away so that we don't consume the whole lot! I often tinker with recipes to make them better for us. One of Austin's favorite breakfast's is buttermilk pancakes. I changed the recipe to use 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. I also add 1 tbsp of ground flax seed to the batter. This past weekend I divided the batter in half and added a few drops of red food dye to one half (I had planned on using strawberries and beet to make them red but I didn't have either on hand).  Then I took out the cookie cutter:

Voila! Pancakes with hearts. Austin wouldn't eat the red pancakes though. He thought the red tasted "esgusting" but the plain was just fine. Oh well at least he like that they were "Special" pancakes!

Love is in the air!

Pinterest is inspiring me! I wanted to prove to myself that all that time spent on the site was worth it so I have taken Valentine's day on as a challenge! Would you like to see our mantel?

The great thing is that it was very easy and very low cost but it really does add some festive spirit to our home.
The subway art is from eighteen25. She has some great stuff and it is all free! I downloaded the image and had it printed at Walmart. The vases I had, the branch is from the backyard, candy from Bulk Barn and the rest of the decorations came from Micheal's, Dollarama and Walmart. Austin helped me make the candy vases and decorate the tree. He had a great time doing it so I decided that we would do another Pintastic craft:

Austin loves that he gets a "kiss" everyday to count down to Valentine's Day. He has to find the right number and we count the days that have passed and the days to go before he gets to have a chocolate. I'm trying to be educational and not just pump my child full of sugar. He decorated it himself and was very proud of his handy work.

I am enjoying having little projects that I can (mostly) do with Austin. He is learning things and I am learning new skills, getting us organized and pushing myself to be more creative. Big bonus~ we are having fun in the process!
Watch the blog for some goodies that we created. The heart shaped cookie cutter is getting a lot of use in our house these days!

A visit from Aunt Janice

I know it's February but I neglected to get this post done sooner so here is a moment from January. Janice was up for a Pharmacy Conference and we took advantage of our time!


We went glow in th dark bowling...

We brunched with the Colemans at the Mustache





Aunt Helen getting some love!


We skated at the Oval





It was awesome to have a bit of time to take the kids out on some adventures and have Janice come along. We went skating on the Oval on the most bitter day! We were all frozen but Austin had a great time showing off his skills! He really is going to be quite the skater. All good things come to an end and Janice headed back to St. John's. Only a couple of months until we see her again!



A new month

Do you need a smile??

There you go! The pictures in the blog header were taken by Nancy Snow Photography  at her Be Mine Valentine's Day session last weekend. I can not wait to see the rest of the pictures. She got some amazing pictures of my handsome man as well as my blue eyed beauty and I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the pictures to come my way.

We've been busy the last few weeks and I will post the pictures to follow. We're on a mission to get organized and Pinterest has been a great inspiration. Our laundry room, living room and parts of our kitchen have been reorganized and it is making life so much easier. We have a lot more projects to tackle but it's coming. I'm following 52 Weeks Organized Home Challenge and I have to say that so far it has been helpful. I am going to follow it through..what's the worst that can happen? My house gets cleaned up and less chaotic??? lol

I've also been busy with Valentine's Day project. Austin has helped me make some special cookies and some candy displays for the mantle. I have a couple of elements to complete and then pictures will follow. Austin is pretty proud of his work! (He also ate about 25 red jelly beans when he thought I wasn't looking)
This is going to be a busy month and I can't wait to share all of our great projects!