Now with 100% more baby and 300% more laundry!

It's hard to believe the last time I wrote was before Christmas. So much has happened since then. We moved, Colin turned two, mom got married, Derek lost his job and was home with us for 3 months before starting a new one last week and most importantly, our family is now complete. Samantha Rowan Katherine was born June 14th at 1:24pm, 8lbs 8oz and looking just like her brother and her Auntie Jo. Nursing has been a struggle, small baby and big boobs, but we're getting there. At this point her diet is about 65% formula and 35% breastmilk but some is better than none right?

So now that we've come out of the new baby haze I've got a few projects to start. The first is the FLYlady system. Since Sam was born I realized my old cleaning system of just doing it during naptime and after Colin was in bed was just not working anymore, leaving me running around until 11pm at night trying to get the house presentable. It's only day 3 but I like that she eases you into it slowly rather than trying to do it all on the first day.

The second is a home preschool program for the boys. My friend Melissa sent me tons of good info and links and I'm just starting to plan it all out. I'm going to try to make it Thomas themed as much as possible, Colin will pay attention to anything if it's even remotely connected to Thomas.

One thing I've been thinking of lately is what I want to do when the kids are in school full time (so not for 4 more years). As much as I would love to be a full time SAHM forever we could really use the extra money a job would bring. One option I am considering is going back to school to get my ECE diploma. Doing that would allow me to start an actual home daycare and if the home preschool thing works out then I could use that as a selling point. Then again I'm also thinking it would be nice to have something PT outside of the house where I would get to talk to adults again. Oh well, I've got 4 more years to figure it out.

Midwife appointment and Christmas

I had the first appointment with the midwife this afternoon. I can already tell that this is going to be a complete change from the OB care I had with Colin, and I'm so looking forward to it. It was so nice to have a conversation about my plans for delivery and to be treated like an intelligent adult who knows her own body.

I left Colin home with Derek and went to the appointment by myself so after I took advantage of the time alone to get a bit of Christmas shopping done. All that's left is to pop by Old Navy and grab two more gifts and then by Canadian Tire for some outdoor decorating stuff. Everything else is done, including stockings, and about 90% of it has already been wrapped. It looks like I might actually achieve my goal of not setting foot in a mall during the entire month of December.

OMG!

I seriously overestimated how much food we were going to eat last week. Add in a couple of spur of the moment dinners elsewhere (once at my Mom's once at my sister's) and you've got almost a whole week's worth of leftovers and uneaten meals to take care of.


Tuesday
pizza

Wednesday
bbq pork sandwiches, red pepper strips with dip

Thursday
turkey and rice soup with homemade bread

Friday
pork and baked beans, Caesar salad

Saturday
spaghetti, Caesar salad

Sunday
leftover turkey and rice soup with homemade dinner rolls

Monday
western omelets, fruit salad, toast

To see what everyone else is having for dinner this week, go over to Orgjunkie.

In other news, since Derek had the day off today I decided he should spend the day at home with Colin and I headed over to my sister's, sans baby. I think I spend so much time in Babyville that I forget that my niece and nephew aren't babies anymore. Right now, they're upstairs playing in the playroom by themselves. I'm just not used to not having to always be right there with them. It's 6:30 at night and I'm having quiet time. This concept is completely foreign to me, but I like it.

Bagels!

Ever since we discovered Colin's red dye allergy I've become a label reading maniac. I don't think I ever realized just how many foods have artificial colouring in them. Of course, most labels will just say "colour" and won't tell you WHAT colours they used so we've had to take out so many things. The upside to this is that it's got me cooking from scratch again. Tonight it was blueberry bagels.

I use this recipe that I got from the lovely 4Hats. I've made the recipe as is and it's fantastic but this time I decided to substitute 1c. of frozen blueberries for the raisins.

The dough

Letting them rise

Boiling

The finished product

I don't know if it's the lighting in my kitchen or something with my camera, but these pictures don't do justice to the colour of the finished bagels. They are a really rich indigo/violet with dark navy pieces of blueberry throughout. They're not nearly as perfect looking as store bought bagels but they taste amazing and as an added bonus my kitchen now smells like cinnamon and blueberries.

Tackle it Tuesday: The Toybox Edition

One of the things on my fall cleaning list was to clean out and organize the toys. I've been putting it off because, honestly, it seemed kind of pointless. In this house the only time that toys stay nicely put away is if the boy is sleeping. I did need to go through them and start weeding out the ones that were too babyish or missing pieces though, so that is my tackle for today.

Step 1:
Drag all the toys to the middle of the living room.

Step 2: Let the sorting begin!

Blocks, Little People sets, bath toys, books and things with wheels

Big blocks, push toys, random toys, stuffed animals and balls

Step 3:The finished product



One bin has random toys and stuffed animals, the other has blocks, balls and things with wheels.

As I predicted, the toys are once again all over the floor but I'm hoping that now that things have a place it will make end of the day cleanup easier.

To see what everyone else is tackling this week head over to 5 minutes for mom.

The month of laziness has been fun but after seeing how much money we've been spending on takeout and junk lately, it's time to get back to the meal plan. Pork tenderloin was on for $0.97/lb this week so I stocked up. They're about 5lbs each so the plan is to cook one at the beginning of the week and use it for meals for the next 2-3 days after that.

Tuesday
-pork tenderloin, rice, mixed vegetables

Wednesday
-bbq pork sandwiches, brocolli

Thursday
-pork and baked beans, red peppers with dip

Friday
-turkey and rice soup, homemade dinner rolls

Saturday
-pizza

Sunday
-leftover turkey and rice soup, homemade dinner rolls

Monday
-blueberry pancakes, bacon