Can you believe it more snow in May! It snowed all day yesterday. I had to shake off my raspberries a couple of times yesterday so they wouldn’t break off. I guess I shouldn’t have planted all of my pots and put everything in ground so early! Who knew it was going to snow again! The pink stuff in the garden box is the flower petals off of one of my flowering apple trees. Seems really wrong to have flower petals in the snow.
Underneath this snow is strawberries. I hope they survive!
Adam has the day off. When I picked him up from school today he told me that there was no school tomorrow. I knew that I didn’t have it written on the calendar. But he assured me it was true, something about the water main breaking. Sure enough when I looked in to his back pack there was a letter from the principal that they had to shut down the school tomorrow because they would not have any water. Thank goodness for my parents, they have come to our rescue. He is thrilled, he had too much fun over the weekend and really didn’t want to go to school this morning.
I picked up some contract work this past week.
Let me back up so you get the whole story. Our friend Emma, who is Adam's age, told her mom that the Ace of Cakes made cakes that were almost as good as Chandra's. Emma has been at all of the kid birthday parties that we have had for the kids and if I do say so myself, I have made some pretty cool cakes. Now I have said before and I will say it again, they are not perfect but they were made with love. Here is a sample.
So when Emma’s mom called to see if I would do some contract work, I was a bit confused. It soon became clear, she wanted to me to do a birthday cake for her. I was tickled pink! Here is what I came up with. Again, made with love not talent!
Here is Adam at his recital with his teacher, Mrs Chandra. She has been his teacher for three years but this is her last year. She is having her second child and will not be continuing on. So it was a bit sad! Here is a little sample of his composition piece and his song that he sang!
We did practice really hard but he had a bit of trouble!?!
We are planting!
I had some help yesterday with the planting. It was lots of fun and they actually did all of my digging for me.
Ed dug me a couple more beds to plant some shrubs and more flowers.
And I got this for mother’s day. I will keep you posted on how it works.
So this day did not go quite as planned. In the morning Adam had golf and Isla had dance and then we were off to Isla’s piano recital. We carefully packed her bag, got all prettified and went to pick up Grandma and Grandpa. We got to Sylvan with lots of time to spare and horror! We forgot her music bag at home. Ed jumped back in the van and took off back home to get the bag. It is about a 20-25 minute drive and we just hoped he would arrive in time! He made it just in time, when I say just in time the last person before Isla’s group was on the stage playing her song. Way to close for comfort, my heart was starting to pound wondering what I was going to do! Whew is all I can say!
Adam was a total stinker and started to complain before anything even started. By the end, 90 minutes later, I could kind of forgive him. But he was well rewarded with snacks after the recital and then a walk to the ice cream shop for some Big Moo icecream.
For the record, I had a cinnamon bun ice cream that had raisins in it. Really good but I need to try the Nanaimo bar one next!
It came! Isn’t it beautiful. I needed to use it, you know what I mean I really needed to be able to use it! So I tried out this recipe for Homemade Oreo Cookies. They are so good! Beware they are irresistible (except if you are Isla, she is not a big fan). I made them to take to the kids piano recitals this week but I will have to make something else for Adam’s as they are disappearing too quickly. I got this from my friend Jen.
Homemade Oreo Cookies
2 packages Duncan Hines Devilled Food Cake mix
4 eggs
2/3 cup oil
Mix cookie ingredients until dough is stiff. Roll into balls (size of large marbles I started out this size but they quickly became larger and now we have a big assortment of sizes just made matching them up a bit more of a puzzle) and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake @ 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes (be careful-these burn easily)
Icing ingredients
1 package cream cheese 2/3 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup butter
Cool completely, then mix icing (food colouring optional) Spread an even, thick layer of icing between two cookies. Allow to sit 1-2 hours before storing. (they get quite soft when stored although that is not a bad, they may stick together if not left to sit.)
These freeze well if you can get them away from your kids!
This morning Adam got to say the morning prayer. It involves days of practicing the prayer that they are to read and then on the day you get to go to the principal’s office and speak over the intercom. He did so well. Ed, Isla and I all went to the school so that we could hear him. Isn’t he cute! His class is doing the month of May prayers and after the prayer is read they lead the school in O’Canada. Adam has been volunteering to go and sing O’Canada every day! I guess he gained enough confidence his first go at being an Anthem singer that he likes to do it. I think it is great!
My plants are coming along nicely. Here is a picture!
Isla’s piano recital is tomorrow. She has been practicing, and even sang her song for her class at school today.
I had such a great Mother’s Day! I was spoiled with lots of hand made treasures from my kids. Breakfast in bed and I got to watch a lot of Coronation Street, have a bath and then I had to get to work. We had my family over to my house for supper, everyone chipped in so it wasn’t too much work but we still had to sparkle up the house!
But before everyone came back here we went over to my mom and dad’s place where my sister held a tutorial about how to make Salad Rolls. They may not have been the tightest rolls and some may have been missing a few ingredients but they were awesome! I think we did a great job. Sorry no pictures, just have not got the hang of remembering the camera all the time!
Here is a montage of the boys playing, celebrating hockey!
We ate like kings! We received a huge salmon as a gift last year and it has been in my freezer all winter. Everytime I need to something from my freezer I would have to pull out the fish and by spring time, I was cursing it! We all ate too much and was awesome!
Here are all our lovely faces, except mine. Don’t know how it happened but I didn’t get my picture taken?!?
I hope you all had a great day too!
The weather was about 4 degrees today so it was a bit cold to be thinking about golf but we put some long johns on him and away he went to his first golf lesson.
Isn’t he cute! It is a 4 week program that teaches the basics. Ed was all for it but I think that it is a cover. A cover so that he has an excuse to get some more golf in. While Adam was in his lesson, Ed was hitting balls at the driving range, a pretty good deal I think!
Here is Adam in action learning how to chip.
The sun is out and the green house seems to be calling my name.
Isla and I had such big plans for today. Music in Sylvan Lake, Costco, Once Upon a Child and Petland but this is what we woke up to!
It is blowing so much out there that it is a white out conditions on the highway. Maybe we will try this afternoon to get some of our errands done.
On the weekend Ed got himself a new rain suit and today he got to wear the coat. He was excited until he went outside and realized that the snow was coming sideways and the coat was really not going to cut it. It will feel like a long walk from his car to the office.
Have I also mentioned that our new office does not have the plumbing finished yet? Yes we are using a portapottie in the parking lot. I am so glad that it is Tuesday and Isla and I are at home. I wouldn’t want to have to go out in this to go to the bathroom!
Check out how my plants are growing even in the cool and rain!
And here is Doodle!
He has found a new food he loves! My mom started him eating Johnny Cakes with butter and syrup. I started making corn bread and he only eats it with butter and syrup. A sweet tooth for sure.
Over the last couple of weekends we have been lucky enough to see Ed’s sister Michelle and her kids. Last weekend we traveled up to Edmonton to watch Mark in a curling bonspiel. His team did really well and ended up in the prizes.
After the Olympics the Canadian curler Kevin Martin is the rock star of the curling world and this was his bonspiel. Check this picture out! Mark was thrilled!
Mark is the tall one. His voice has deepened and every time we see him he seems to have grown some more. I remember him as this chubby little boy who drooled and was too cute for words! Where did he go?
Kelsey just keeps growing too! She is only about an inch shorter than me and I am afraid by the time we see her next she will have surpassed me!
Then this past weekend we saw them again. Ed’s sister Michelle is a Music For Young Children teacher in Calgary and a couple of times a year she has a conference here in Red Deer so the kids came to our house while she was at the conference. We took them on a big bike ride. They brought Kelsey’s old bike up and Adam tried that one out to see if he could handle the 20inch bike and Isla tried out Adam’s. Ed put the training wheels on Adam’s bike so that Isla could ride it. When Adam saw that Kelsey’s old bike was pink and purple he did not want to try it but we really just wanted to see what size of bike we should get for him. But when he found out his bike already had the training wheels back on it he decided to give Kelsey’s a try. He did really well but it takes a bit of practice to get it going. So I think that we will get the bigger bike and hope that it lasts more than a year!
Here are a couple of pictures from our adventure!
A combined Happy Birthday and Happy Mother’s Day to me! Woo Hoo! Last year my sister gave me a teapot for my birthday and this mixer will match it perfectly. I love orange!
