Do you have a favorite HGTV show?

 I do. Well, I have three.

1. Curb Appeal: The Block - I guess I would like the regular Curb Appeal too but I just never catch it being on. They make over the front of a person's house and their front yard.

2. Rental Property - They redo the basement so it can be rented out. It usually turns out nicer than the main living space.

3. Property Brothers - People buy a fixer upper house and redo almost the whole house. I would love it if someone made over a house for me.

It seems like a lot of HGTV shows are made in Canada. I'm pretty sure # 2 and 3 are. They sound Canad-ish. Also it seems like a lot of children's shows are made in Canada. Speaking of Canadian made kid shows, I've always thought that Brother Bear on the PBS Berenstain Bears sounded like Michael Cera. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I am right! Cause we all know Wikipedia is always right. I could just hear the Michael Cera voice and giggle.  Speaking of Canadians, I just love that guy.

Big drink in a little cup

The things you find on your camera phone when you have a 4 year old

A few weeks ago, I did the coolest thing ever. I was asked to participate in a survey. Doesn't sound too cool yet does it? But the survey was about music. Light rock music. Yes. We listened to about 600 bits of songs and if we liked the song, we turned the dial up to 100. If we didn't like the song we turned it to 1. And any other songs - whatever we felt like rating them.

Yes, play more Mr. Mister, Starship and Heart.

No, never play Rod Stewart or Matchbox 20 ever, ever again.

And keep playing all the Phil Collins and Sarah McLachlan that you have always played.

You're welcome, Utah.

Some people got tired of listening to the music after a while. But not me. I could have gone even longer.

I think I made a big impact. Hopefully the older lady next to me wasn't giving back the exact opposite feedback that I was.

Was it worth it? Yes. Mostly because they payed me $65.
But secondly, it was just fun.

Red hair

When I was a kid, I always wanted red hair. I thought Anne Shirley was crazy to want to change her hair color. And still now as an adult, I've wondered what it would be like to have red hair. So I had to do it. At least once in my life. Otherwise I would never have known. A week and a half ago, I went for it!

Before hair: light blonde on the bottom, dark blonde at the roots- not on purpose. Addie with chocolate face.

After hair: RED!

It has taken some getting used to. Okay, so I'm still not used to it. Because I feel like I don't see it very often. When I'm not looking in a mirror, I forget. Every once in a while, out of the corner of my eye I'll see red and I'm shocked.

 It is fun to have a change though. I've never been any other color except blond(ish). So I'm glad I did it.

Baby Will

Guess what? My little baby Will isn't so little anymore. Okay, he's still little and he's still a baby, but he's just doing bigger things. Like trying to talk and stuff.

Today he sat into the toy box and got stuck and out of the corner of my mind I heard,
"Mama! Hep! Mama! Tuck!

Later, he came crying to me with his hand stuck in this pin toy. Super stuck. Good thing it was already slightly broken so it had some give when he finally yanked it out. (I was trying to remove it gently but he wanted it out faster.) I put the toy back together. Very shoddily though, so I don't think it'll last too much longer. I just can't bring myself to throw away all those perfectly straight pins! (I'm a hoarder.) 

After that, he was climbing onto the toilet lid with his favorite blanket in both hands and lost his grip and fell between the toilet and the wall and got stuck. This was all before lunch! He definitely needs to be able to say the word "stuck" these days.

I just realized a lot of these pictures are of him eating. They are all different days. I guess I must think he's irresistibly cute when he's eating. I also have lots of pictures of him watching TV. He's really cute doing that too. 

One of his favorite pastimes is putting his favorite blanky on his head and walking around. Sometimes he runs into things, sometimes he barely misses. He's a risk taker I tell you!

Do cats usually sleep on pillows?

Well, mine does. I'm not sure if I'm bragging here or if I should be sad about it. I guess I should be more clear: he sleeps on MY pillow. Sometimes I push him away but other times I just let him stay in the hopes that he doesn't go and snuggle/wake up anyone else in the house.

More skiing pics and snow tasting and finally giving up and sitting in the car

Elli

Elli is 10 1/2 years old and in 5th grade. We found out on February 16 that she has Type 1 Diabetes.
Boooooo to diabetes.
(Sorry diabetes but it's true.)
Type 1 is where your body attacks your own pancreas and stops it from making insulin. So now we have to inject insulin before every meal.

Here she was in the hospital. She thought she was pretty special to get to stay up late and watch movies, skip school and order any food item from the menu. Oh and she got lots of stuffed animals while she was there too. She has a weakness for any type of stuffed anything.

A few days later we went skiing in the park. My mom has a bunch of cross country skis straight from Finland. Doesn't she look like a little Finnish girl? I really wanted her to have a Finnish name when she was born. I chose the spelling of her name from a list of Finnish names. 

I did a few rounds too. It's such a great workout!

Elli's doing pretty good with all the pokes and helping to figure out what she's going to eat. She's a kova evästeen (tough cookie). I'm not sure if that idiom translates right into Finnish. My relatives are going to be like: why is she calling her daughter an inedible dessert?

V Day

Addie made a cupcake at her little preschool. Have you ever seen a conversation heart say this?

Trop tard. I've never seen it. I guess it's too late. Meaning that in French it means "too late". Have you ever seen a conversation heart that says "too late"? Hmm. I guess I might have. But of all the popular French phrases out there that we Americans see, I've never seen this one.

Finnish breakfast

Do me a favor... no, do yourself a favor and next time you can't find anything to eat for breakfast (or lunch) do this:
Put some dry, uncooked oatmeal into a bowl- about 1/3 cup. I like the minute oats just because they're smaller but I do use old fashioned oats at times too.

Then you'll need to make a mixture of equal parts applesauce and equal parts cranberry sauce (whole berry). If you don't have these items in stock, then start! You're going to always want to have some of these items on hand. Mix 1 can of cranberry sauce and equal amount (or more) of apple sauce together. Keep it in an airtight container and store it in your fridge. Then this breakfast will be even easier tomorrow.

Spoon about some of your cran-apple mix. However much you want. Maybe about the same amount (or more) as how much oats you have.

Throw some bananas on top.

Then add milk. I usually put as much milk as you can see in the picture but then I lift up some of the oats at the bottom with my spoon and the oats soak up some of the milk. You want the oats to be soaked with milk and not dry. Mmm. It's seriously the best. You'll have to play around with some of the ingredient amounts and see how you like it. I can't give you the exact amounts cause I change it every time too. Sometimes I add way more fruit sauce and sometimes way more milk than I need, but it's always good. It's very filling. Don't feel like you need to add more oats.

When my mom still lived in Finland, her friend taught her how to make this. We grew up eating it as kids. We called it banana breakfast but now I realize that name doesn't describe it very well. I should be named banana apple berry oats or something. I go through phases where I have it every day and then I go for a few months of not having it. It definitely hits the spot when I want something different.

Ice cream cake

 Here's how Addie eats it:

Three weeks before Christmas Brian decided to:

Go Christmas shopping?

No.

Make some Christmas treats?

No.

Construct a new room in our house?

Yes.

Of course, it's just a small room. When you walk in our front door, the ceiling goes clear up to the second floor. Our neighbors who have the same house plan added a laundry room just above the front door. Our laundry room is currently in a small closet just inside the garage next to the kitchen. Our neighbors then turned the old laundry room into a mud room with hooks and places for shoes. We went and saw the neighbors house and Brian was so excited, he couldn't even wait til after the holidays.

The very beginning of construction.

Just inside our front door.

Looking toward our front door. That window up above will be in the laundry room.

This banister will be gone and we will walk right into the room.

This is how far we are now. Like I said, it's pretty small. But it's much bigger than what we have currently. Brian's brother has come and helped him a lot with this little project. There was lots of prep work and then last Saturday they worked all day and got this floor in.

These parts above the stairs will have walls. I'm actually so excited about it also that I don't even care that I had to take down some of my Christmas decorations or that I have tools all over my house.

2011 visit with Santa

 Will - 17 months old. Not so happy. He doesn't even realize who Santa is and what this man can do for him.

 Addie - 4 years old. A little nervous. We had to talk and talk her into sitting on Santa's lap. She didn't say a word though. For weeks she's been talking about wanting to see Santa and tell him what she wanted. We were at the mall a while ago and we waited a few minutes for Santa to start his shift. She was DEFINITELY going to sit on Santa's lap and tell him that she wanted a Lalaloopsy doll. She talkety-talked all about it. But as soon as Santa came walking up he waved at her and she got the most scared look on her face and I said - do you want to go sit on his lap and tell him what you want? She replied with a super slow motion shake of her head without taking her eyes off him. She was petrified! I thought the guy was a little gaunt looking. Not really my kind of Santa. I asked her if Santa looked like how she thought he would and she said no. So here at our family Christmas party this was the real Santa.

 Ben - 8 1/2 years old. He told Santa he wanted Legos and a new robot.



Elli - 10 1/2 years old. Who is this grown up girl?! She is less that a foot shorter than me. Everyone says she's going to pass me up soon. Yikes! She told Santa she wanted 'anything'. That is the best kind of request. Of course, she always has a lengthy list for me. But then I can get 'anything' from it and she'll be happy with it.

Also, her nails totally matched this dessert! Fun.

Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?

You probably think that title is for one of my kids. Nope. A tiny jar of vaseline:

 

It's so teency. I had to have it. I keep it in my purse. When I'm out and about and I get a patch of dryness on my hands, I hate when I only have lip gloss in my purse. I used to use chapstick for this purpose, but my favorite brand is getting harder to find.