House update: the stove and pancakes

Our last house was fully equipped with gas when we moved in so when we bought appliances we decided we'd get a gas stove, even though I was a bit nervous about the idea. Turned out I would love it so much I wouldn't be able to handle the idea of ever going back to an electric stove.

So when we had to buy all new appliances again this time I knew I wanted a gas stove, even though this house didn't have a gas line in the kitchen (cost a pretty penny to bring it in - WORTH EVERY PENNY!) We ended up buying a pretty basic Kenmore because my needs aren't very complex - I just want to be able to cook with gas! But it turns out this stove has a few nice features that I'm really pleased with.

1) The grills are cast iron instead of the porcelain coated kind that we had on our last stove. Porcelain is prettier... until you accidentally chip it. Then it looks like crap!! Know how I know this? Oh ya, cuz I chipped it tons of times. I can't chip these. They may scratch the bottom of my pots and pans a bit... so... don't examine the bottom of my pots and pans next time you're over, k?

2) The last stove had this little simmer burner in the middle. I didn't use it once. This stove has this long and narrow burner down the center. I wasn't sure I would use that either. Until I opened up the box that I thought had the broiling pan in it only to find a skillet thing. I take off the middle rack on the top of my store and place this baby on it and I can cook straight on the stove!!



Know what this is perfect for???
Pancakes!




This was my first time out so obviously I need to learn the intricacies of the thing... the back apparently doesn't heat quite as hot as the middle.



Tada!!! Pancakes made right on the stovetop. I love it!!



Wow. I need to work on my food presentation skills before breaking out as a star food blogger. Note to self, clean stove better, remove cutlery and extra crappy bits of pancake from the plate before taking a photo.

But they were yummy!! And in case you're ever wondering, vanilla flavoured almond milk in my favourite non-dairy replacement when baking and making pancakes.

Cheese

Melted and gooey on a pizza
In Eric's grandmother's homemade lasagna
On my burger
On top of a casserole
Melted cream cheese pasta
Brie
In my sandwich
Melted and crunchy on a cheesy breadstick or bun
Cheese nips


I miss you. A year is a long time, and we're not done yet.

Outings: the children's museum

We are really lucky to live in a city with so many fabulous places to take the kids - indoor and outdoor. There are still many that we want to explore, but there are a few that are tried and true favourites that we make visits to at least once a year.

The Children's Museum over at the museum of civilizations is one of them. We've been going at least once a year since Kiernan turned one. The museum is great because there is so much hands-on stuff for the kids to do, and they can enjoy it at so many ages.

I also love that by going to the same museums over the years, you get to see how much your children have grown in size and development.

Here is a peek at the Children's Museum from Kiernan's perspective over the last 3 years.



,





Kiernan and Daddy put on fabulous puppet shows.


Miss Carmelina went to the spa this past year and buffed up a bit it looks like.




Our budding musician. This has always been a highlight of the museum for K.




As the kids get older they have more and more intricate things for them to do and work on. Here the kids were actually embroidering.


Another year and I bet we get elaborate productions on this stage.



These photos give only a small snippet of the stuff to do at the museum. The kids can get dressed up in costumes, serve their parents lunch at the kids' cafe, swab the deck and load and unload freight onto the cargo ship, do arts and crafts and when there are special exhibits there's even more to do. I highly recommend the museum as something fun to do with the kids. And the family pass (2 adults and up to 3 kids) for $30 is a pretty good deal!

Wordless Wednesday

Crafts : the making of a sock

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out with A Crafty Mom when I realized I couldn't stop staring at her feet. Now, before you start thinking I have some kind of weird foot fetish let me tell you that ACM was wearing the most gorgeous and comfy looking hand knit socks. I inquired about them and it turns out that ACM "only wears hand knit socks"! Wow. Her mom knits them for her, and I was quickly coming to covet her socks.

And then I saw her again, and again with the foot obsession on my part. Another pair of equally gorgeous hand knit socks - they almost seemed to taunt me.

And so I did what anyone would do when socks are taunting them. I decided to try to knit myself a pair ;)

Now, I'm no expert knitter. I can knit and purl with the best of them, but knitting a sock involves a little more expertise and finesse I'm told, so this is me taking on a challenging project. And lucky you, I'm going to take you along with me.

Sock v1

I'm really happy with the yarn I chose, but I quickly realized that my sock was looking very big (I didn't use anything to show scale so I know it's hard to tell), so big it was starting to look more like a leg warmer than a sock.


And the ribbing was quite messy. So many mistakes that it bothered me despite my ability to ignore mistakes I make because I really don't want to start over.


So I tore the whole thing out. HOURS of work. And I know this is totally normal for knitters, but man, for someone who loses momentum quickly on projects... it broke my heart!

But... I REALLY WANT THESE SOCKS!

So I started over, and it's all going really well!

Sock v1.2 (would that be the correct way to number these? :)


The whole thing looks much tidier, and smaller. Although I find it looks more like a mitt than a sock. I guess once we have a heel it'll look like a sock. And that's my goal for this week. To "turn the heel".

Wish me luck. I am a champion at never finishing a project that takes more than 2 hours. And this project will take at least 10 times I'm figuring. Or instead of wishing me luck you can always just take bets on what the chances are I'll finish even one let alone both of these socks! ;)

House update: the playroom

When I was pregnant with the twins I read a lot of twin blogs, advice articles, discussion groups, etc etc to try and learn about what to expect. One thing I read and heard in multiple places was to have a dedicated room where you could safely leave the babies. And it wasn't an option because our last house has no extra room that could be used for such a purpose - unless it was the basement and I certainly didn't want to spend the whole day in the basement every day.

But our new house. Our big house with lots of room to grow into? It has a nice big living room. And we don't have any living room furniture. So we set up the family room, and it has quickly deteriorated into the same chaos/mess/comfortable room we're used to. And with the living room.... we did this:




The area behind the playroom has a couple of IKEA chairs and a table I want to set up with crayons and activity books. And I am LOVING this room. We've had our first ever playdates since it's been set up and it's so nice to have a big room to let all the kids hang out in!

Wanna come over and play? :)

5 for 5

In January I heard about this sort of meme going around on Facebook called 5 for 5 and I thought it was a FABULOUS idea so I did it. And lately I've been thinking a lot about how much I like to create things, especially for people, so I thought I'd post it on here too. I love the idea of reaching out with a more personal touch to my bloggy friends.

Here's how it went:

The first five (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year (2010).
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be a mixed CD. It may be a poem. I may draw or paint something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! [not me either]
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange or kind of perverted.

And in return, all you need to do is post this text into a note of your own and make 5 things for 5 others - if you do not post a note of your own, then I cannot make and send your item!

That last bit, the part about you having to do this for others, seems to be daunting to many people though, so instead I propose you either do 5 for 5 as well, or, pay it forward in some other way and let me know (see how flexible I can be? :)

Make sure to include an email address (or email me at lara(dot)wellman(at)gmail(dot)com) so we can figure out my getting your address to send you your item.

best brothers

I always hoped my kids would get along, of course. But I never really put much thought in it. Yet one of the things that warms my heart most with having multiple kids is seeing the way they interact with each other. Kiernan and Quinn have a very special relationship. Quinn thinks the sun rises and sets on Kiernan. Kiernan walks into the room and Quinn lights up. He thinks that just about anything that Kiernan does is HILARIOUS and as a result Kiernan enjoys putting on a show for Quinn.

Juliette sits back and watches the whole thing quietly, not seeming particularly interested in getting involved. But these two boys - how they have fun together. And I really hope it lasts through the years.

My things: class ring

While we were moving my mother in law came upon my high school class ring. I don't even remember where she said she found it, but it certainly wasn't the kind of place you keep a prized possession.

And since she found it I've been thinking a lot about this ring and how much of a symbol of my years in highschool it really is.

- I remember looking at the styles of rings and thinking that anything small and dainty would be lost in my fat hands. So I went for the chunky ring for the chunky girl.
- The ring is very personalized. You got to choose what images were stamped on to the sides. I put band instruments on one side - I was in the band for a couple of years but wasn't in the band any more by graduation. I did it, but I never really loved it. On the other side, I couldn't come up with a single other symbolic thing to put on the ring, so I had them put a flower there. Completely un-symbolic.
- There's a viking under the stone. Our mascot. I'm assuming. Because this is how much I cared about that.
- I never really liked this ring, even when I first got it. I never really liked highschool. But I think I needed this symbol to punctuate the end of a fairly unhappy stage.

And maybe the flower is symbolic after all because right after I graduated I really did bloom. I found my voice and my courage and my self.



I just hope highschool is an easier journey for my kids.

9 months old!

Somewhere around the 6 or 7 month mark I realized I no longer felt shocked that the babies hadn't JUST arrived. They've been around for a long time now - 9 months in fact. And they're doing so much!!

Quinn

- scoots around on his bum. Not very fast, but he's starting to make his way across rooms.
- rolls across a room to get something
- pulls himself up to kneeling (mostly only on Kiernan's bed)
- is eating a lot better than at the beginning. He'll eat most anything as long as it's well pureed or puffs or cheerios or cookies.
- has his 2 bottom teeth only. His top teeth have seemingly been ON THE VERGE of coming through for about 5 months. I've lost hope. He will have 2 teeth only forever.
- thinks the world revolves around his older brother. He is delighted by him and Kiernan puts a lot of effort into getting Quinn giggling as often as possible. When I put Quinn on Kiernan's bed K performs in front of the bed and Quinn pulls himself up to kneeling on the bed rail to get a closer look. He flaps his arms and giggles incessantly in excitement.
- has slept through the night a few times. And by slept through the night, we're talking 7pm to 7:30 am!!
- Is wary of strangers. Or even people he knows if they aren't us. Takes him a good 10 minutes before he'll warm up and start being his jovial self.
- weighs 20 lbs. Just for comparison, I believe Kiernan was about 18 months old before he hit 20 lbs ;)

Juliette
- army crawls all over the place and gets at anything you didn't move out of the way. What's that WAYYY over there, a tiny piece of plastic from god know's what? Don't worry - Juliette will find it and EAT IT!
- is an amazing eater. Inspired by some other bloggers who use baby led weaning as a way to feed their kids I decided to try to let the babies try their hands at some big hunks of food. Quinn was disgusted. Juliette went to town. Yesterday she ate an entire avocado and two huge hunks of potato from my stew on top of some big hunks of carrot and sweet potato I'd made her. After two picky eaters, she amazes me.
- is cutting her SEVENTH tooth. Perhaps she stole all of Quinn's teeth.
- Weighs about 16.5 lbs.
- Has slept through the night a few times.
- Is still the smiliest baby ever. She is uber social and will grin from ear to ear at anyone who smiles at her.
- Wants to stand all the time. If you try to sit her down she'll often plank her body and what she wants is for you to sit on the floor and hold her upright. It wouldn't shock me if she started furniture walking soon. Kiernan started doing that around this age and took his first independent steps at 10 months.

They are both very easy babies. They don't fuss a lot, they take naps and they have great dispositions. And I am enjoying them more and more... especially as I'm getting more sleep and settling into the new house :)

Sometimes I wonder....

... what it would have been like to have lived in a huge manor house in the 1800s and have servants and have my only responsibility be to do needlework and do charity work. But I'd probably been a washer woman or something anyways.

... if I could have had an international life of intrigue and adventure. But then I remember who I am and realize, no.

... if I'd have made a good YaYa. And I think yes.

... how much I would get done without the internet. Probably a lot more, but I'd be a lot lonelier and pretty bored.

... if I'll ever go on a vacation again. Chances are yes, but it feels like a lifetime away.

... if anyone wants to go for drinks this weekend? Mama needs some time away.

What do you wonder about?

I'm an adult now

I often wonder when it will kick in.... this "I'm an adult and should act like one" thing.

There are a lot of things I've kept thinking I would start to do, once I had a home of my own, once I was married, once I was a parent. And a lot of them still haven't happened.

My house is a mess. I would rather sit and blog, or read blogs, or watch tv than tidy up the house at the end of the day. I kick dangerous stuff out of my kids' way instead of making sure it wasn't there in the first place. Dishes pile up in the sink for days. Having clear counters in my kitchen must mean company is coming over. Most of the couch is covered in stuff... from clean laundry, to dirty laundry, to kleenex boxes, to mail, and well.... my computer.

And I want to be better about it... but I have such a hard time finding the will. But I vowed I would be better in our new house. And tonight was a success. After dinner I washed all the dishes, put away all the tools, ingredients, etc and put the leftovers away before doing anything else in the evening. And it's kind of sad that I felt pretty proud for what ought to be a routine task. But I was. And it gives me a little hope that eventually we will get there and set a relatively good example for our kids. Or at least sort of. :)

(do you remember that Pursuit of Happiness song? :)

Kaplow!

You know how I didn't think I'd be spending this week?

Caring for 3 sick kids who I had to take to the doctor.

Juliette has an ear infection, Quinn's cough is making him miserable, he keeps throwing up from it and I think he's still teething, and Kiernan isn't bad but is kind of being a pain in the ass. Trying to comfort them, not getting much sleep and still trying to organize getting the new house painted and such... kind of feels like getting kicked in the head.



Even sick, they're still cute though :)

Today's the day!

We get our new house today and I am beyond excited. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to enjoying:

- Having a bedroom for my husband and I again
- Eating at a kitchen table instead of at the dining room table
- Not being stuck with no clothing to put on one of the twins because the other one is asleep in their room
- Not tripping over a step stool every time I go to brush my teeth (yay ensuite!)
- Having a bathroom on the main floor (this would have be amazing during my pregnancy but will also be super helpful with young bathroom users)
- Not hearing my neighbours through the wall or worrying that they can hear us
- Having a garage
- Having more room to spread all our crap around. I swear, this will make it look less cluttered for at least 2 years until we can catch up :)

We won't actually be moved in for almost 2 weeks, but we're getting there!!

8 months old!

The babies turn 8 months old today. As I feel every month, I can't believe it's been so long since I was begging for them to leave my body, and yet, it's been a long run. I'm tired and not sleeping well and I am stressed out (more than I want to admit) about our move in a couple of weeks.
All 3 kids on New Year's Eve


Here are some updates.

Juliette:

Her blocked tear duct seems to be getting worse instead of better. Although she isn't waking up with her eye glued shut as often, it seems to be running even when she's awake and causing her right eye to always look a bit swollen and like she's got mascara on. It's also irritating her cheek under the eye. Even when I try to clean her up, her right eye doesn't look quite right. Hopefully it'll clear up soon as massage and warm wash cloths don't seem to be doing the trick. Kiernan's tear duct issue had been cleared up by 8 months - I'm really hoping we don't end up having to see a specialist.
- Our little miss is definitely the front runner for bringing in teeth. She has 2 top teeth (the one to either side of the middle ones) cut and I think the middle ones are right behind them. 4 teeth pretty much at once. She hasn't been very happy, and maybe that's one of the reason her whole face is running.



Quinn

He loves to interact with us one on one and has little games he's figured out to play with us. He is still a cuddle bug and it's nice to have someone to sit with you and snuggle instead of jumping up and down while trying to kiss you, hug you, pull your hair and tell you a story!

After some false starts a few months ago, this last month Quinn actually brought in some teeth. His two middle bottom teeth are completely in - way better than the snaggle tooth scenario we feared a few months ago when he seemed to be cutting teeth at the back of his mouth first!


They are both:

- eating solids like mad. I think they eat 2 or 3 times as much as Kiernan did at this age, if not more.
- playing with toys really well. They got some new toys for Christmas and they will sit and play with them for really long periods of time. It's impressive. It's also nice to just be able to sit them on the floor to play and entertain themselves for awhile.
- interacting with each other. They are unintentionally cooperating in their play already, passing things back and forth to each other, accomplishing a task together they couldn't have done alone (for example turning the pages on the fisher price piano - One starts turning the page, the other gets it the rest of the way there). It is very cute. They are also already fighting over toys - grabbing them back and forth from each other/
- both showing signs of wanting to crawl. They flip onto their stomachs all the time and flop around. They slowly can make their way almost across a room with small turns, pivots, rolls but it is still pretty unplanned on their parts. Kiernan was immobile until about 10 months old. I am FINE with them staying in a controlled small space until we get to the new house.
- still not sleeping very well, although the last two nights they have have both had more than one 3-4 hour stretch. I, of course, couldn't sleep so am still exhausted.
- getting lots of hair and I think they will both have darker hair than Kiernan did.
- notice when the other is getting attention and they aren't and don't really think that's fair. Unfortunately, they're going to have to get used to that one ;)

By next month's update - we'll be in the new house!!

A little house game

I would like to introduce you to our little house. It has been a great starter home, and really it's not THAT small. It's a 3 bedroom house with a completely finished basement that has a rec room as well as another room that could be a guest room or craft room or some such thing. Most of these photos are from our house listing when we sold the house.


We've lived in this house for what I think will likely be the most dramatically changing years of our lives. We've been here for 4.5 years. In that time we got married and had THREE kids. Many many changes happened in this house.

Now, I'd like to play a little game. Here's how it will work. I will show you a photo of a room - you will guess what purpose this room currently serves us, and then I will tell you if you are right or wrong.

Photo 1 - what's your guess?

A room for twins to sleep in? Ha! I think we've managed to get them both asleep in here at the same time a handful of times, and none of those have been in the last 2-3 months. I'm not sure why we still have 2 cribs in here except that we may as well leave the second one there until our move. Both babies sleep in this room, just not at the same time. These babies wake each other up every time they wake in the night. They do not remotely follow this whole "the babies won't wake each other" thing that advice about sleeping multiples seem to assume is a given.

That chair? Ugly but SO comfortable to sleep/nurse in. See those wings? It holds up my head instead of letting it loll to the side and get a crick that takes the rest of the day to get rid of.

Photo 2

Basement rec room you say? Of course, but it also doubles as my husband's bedroom. Why? Because after 5 months of waking many many times a night, he was no longer functioning. This is obviously an issue for work (and we NEED him to have a job) but also, on the weekends when he's home, I want him to be actively taking on some of the burden, something he can't do if he is too exhausted to function.

Photo 3

Our bedroom - yes, but it doesn't look remotely like this. First of all, at the base of the bed there permanently lives a playpen. Generally that's where Quinn sleeps because he is the SLIGHTLY heavier sleeper.
What generally happens is that Quinn sleeps in the playpen until he wakes up in the night after I've gone to sleep. At that point I bring him into bed with him to nurse and immediately fall asleep. He spends the remainder of the night in bed with me. I would SNEAK in for fear of waking up Quinn (hopefully I remembered to get some PJs out of my room before he went to bed) and just lie on the bed and try to sleep. I hate falling asleep without reading to unwind.

This is why I was in such a hurry to get a bigger house. Why I was willing to move in the winter and sell in December. When we move in, we are starting hard core sleep training. I have no issues with cry it out - with a few caveats. I can't handle letting them scream when they're in pain so there's always some regression during teething time. Also, I also don't think it's fair to let them suffer through the other baby's crying. In the new house they will have their own rooms and we can really get things back in order.

This past week I was sick and not only was I was afraid to sneak into my room at bedtime, I knew that my coughing would wake him up. So you know what I did? I found somewhere else to sleep, where I could still hear all 3 kids if they woke up and needed me.

Photo 4

My "nest" in the stairwell. I've been starting my nights here and eventually spending the remainder of the night split between my bed with quinn and the chair in the nursery nursing. The unexpected bonus, reading before sleep again, which I really really enjoy and missed (couldn't risk turning on a light and waking quinn. heck, i couldn't risk finding my book and book light and turning them on for fear of waking him up). I'm tired folks, and the stress of the move on top of it all is making me fed up and frustrated.

Less than a month to go. Less than a month to go. Less than a month to go.

Remember when it was fun to party til 1 in the morning on a weeknight?

The other night I got invited to this party, but it started late - around 11, and I was tired. And sick. And I didn't want to go.
And the organizers were all, "c'mon! it'll be fun!"
and I was all "I am tired and I don't want to party!"
and they said "that's fine, but we're partying with or without you"
and I said "I am too old for a party at 11 at night on a Tuesday night!"
and they said "c'mon! it'll be fun!"
and then at midnight I realized I couldn't fight it anymore and joined the party, or rather, I had the party come to me. And I took photos.









At 1am I declared the party over, much to the dismay of the party goers who yelled and screamed that it was too early and too much fun to end already. Fun times ;)

If I were to start a book club...

A few years ago I started a book club. It was fun, but I started to really dread reading the books people chose and eventually I quit. I thought that maybe I just wasn't made for book clubs. But earlier today I was sitting in the glider nursing a baby (nice to know the blog title still applies ;) and I thought "maybe I just need better guidelines".

If I were in a book club I would want to read books that:

- weren't too heavy
- weren't too deep in meaning
- were fiction. NO non-fiction.
- weren't too slow. Sorry to say it, but I find most Canadiana sloooow and borrrring.

Here are some examples of titles of books that I would have been happy to read as part of a book club:

- Twilight (ha)
- Outlander
- City of Bones
- Wicked
- Da Vinci Code
- Ender's Game
- Book of Negroes
- The Red Tent
- Time traveler's wife
- Galilee

If I were to start a book club I think I would have my first book be Hunger Games.

Also, I would want my meetings to be a social thing. 2 hours long, socializing, eating, some discussion into the book that wasn't too highschool english class / deconstruct the book and then some more socializing.

Would anyone join a book club like that? :)

Some goals for 2010

Instead of resolutions for 2010 I have some general goals for the year (in no particular order except the first).

1. Sleep more.

2. Work on improving my photography skills.

3. Learn how to be a stay at home mom with a good routine and a well balanced schedule.

4. Find some regular freelance work to make some extra money and justify not going back to work full time.

5. Find some more me time to get out of the house on my own.