Helping

I've posted this on my family blog but also wanted to post it here, because I know there are different readers at each blog.

So I was going to write today about all sorts of things going on in our lives right now. I figured that since it had been so long since I last wrote, it was time to update you all.

But instead, when I logged onto facebook this morning I was greeted with a request by a family I knew back when I first became a mom. We were both very young moms together and spent a lot of Micah's first year playing with them. Then I moved to the city and we lost contact, other than through facebook.

I heard last year that her youngest daughter was born at 24 weeks and has been struggling ever since. Her lungs didn't have any time to develop and so she has been fighting to breathe and has not yet left the hospital. Her family live about an hours drive from the children's hospital here and if that wasn't enough of a burden with five other children, they've just received news that they'll have to travel to another province on Monday to see a lung specialist.

This is not a well off family. They're not even middle class. This is a young, struggling family with a child who desperately needs help.

Her aunt posted today asking for any financial help people can spare. One of the downsides of being poor yourself, is that most of the people you know are poor too. I've contacted her aunt about how to donate myself, but I thought I would pass on the request to anyone else out there who might be in the position to give.

If you would like to read more about little Amy Lee, visit her facebook group herehttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=150526628308&v=wall

April Decluttering

It's been a busy month and so I've barely gotten rid of anything. I've also not posted on here or my other blog. Oh well, there's always next month.

So the list:

70 clothing items
3 pairs of shoes
1 necklace
1 iron-on frog thing

Most of this came from going through the older two boys' closet a couple of weeks ago. I still have the boxes and boxes of clothes in the basement to go through as well as the younger two boys'. All of the items were donated to a used clothing store.

Mom's no-bake cherry cheesecake

One of my favorite desserts growing up was this cherry cheesecake my mom made. It was usually for summer time or special occasions but now that I'm making it for my own family, we tend to have it a bit more often.

Yup, that's all cream cheese; I choose to turn a blind eye to the calories.

Um, and whipping cream...

This last picture just did not turn out right. I have no idea why the cherries are orange? Whatever color, this is sooo good.

The recipe:

Graham crust prepared to package directions (sometimes I use Oreo)

2 250g pkgs cream cheese

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup sugar

Cherry pie filling*

Press crust into 9 x 13 dish* and chill. Blend cream cheese, whipping cream and sugar; beat until smooth. Pour over crust and smooth for even coverage. Spoon pie filling on top and chill for about an hour.

*I've never tried but I'm sure you could use any type of pie filling or even fresh fruit as your topping.

*I've always used a 9x13 dish but you could also use a 9" pie plate and have your crust come half way up the sides.

declutter challenge: late to the table

I've decided to join Amy and many other bloggers in their quest to rid their homes of 730 items of clutter in 365 days. I of course, am slow to the table and missed the first two months. But fear not! This house can use an overhaul and with four kids Im sure I can manage a measely 2.39 items per day.

I didn't really keep very good track through out the month of March but I did write down every little thing I got rid of when I cleaned out my bathroom cupboards.

So, the list:
5 bottles of nail polish
3 broken/old eye shadow pots
2 bottles of soothing cream for breast feeding
6 eye/lip liners
3 tubes lip gloss
4 bottles of lotion
concealer
mascara
expired peroxide
mini baby lotion
2 bottles of perfume I don't like
old travel size toothpaste
dried out package of face wipes
2 old medication bottles
old makeup case
baby wash that causes irritation
toothpaste that kids don't like
various bath beads/salts
shower glove?
single shower cap sample
various knick knacks

My total for the month of March is 42.

Way behind where I should be at this point, but also a good start!

Swistle's Muffins

One of the very first bloggers that I found was Swistle.

Awhile ago she posted a muffin recipe and at the time, I rarely made muffins from scratch. I don't even know why, really. So when I saw her recipe, I decided to try it and am I ever glad I did.


The great thing about this recipe is that it's really just a base. You can make any flavour of muffin, in any size you wish. Our favorites are pumpkin, cinnamon apple, or banana chocolate chip. Sometimes, I even mix a little of everything in.

Mmmmm, we like cinnamon!

When bananas go on sale, I buy double what I know we'll eat and I freeze them. They end up looking a bit gross but they're fine. An added bonus for this recipe is that when you freeze the bananas, their insides turn mushy so they're much easier to mash.

Anyway, on to the recipe:

Swistle's muffins

3.5 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

0.5 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp salt

1-6 tsp spices (optional)

1.5 cups chocolate chips (optional)

4 eggs

2 cups mashed stuff (apple sauce, pumpkin, banana, baby food)

1 cup margarine/butter, melted

1-2 tsp extract (optional)

1 cup nuts (optional)

1 cup dried fruit (optional)

In seperate bowls, mix wet ingredients and whisk dry ingredients. Add dry mixture to wet and stir until combined. Divide into mufin tins. Bake in a preheated 350* oven for about 20 minutes. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of your muffins and your oven.

This usually makes about a dozen large-ish muffins and a dozen mini muffins, which are then gone within a few hours around here.

Happy baking!

My favorite things, kitchen edition

There are a lot of reasons why I fell in love with this house. It's not the biggest house and it's not the nicest, but to me it's perfect. Today I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite things that were a part of the house, before we moved in. Maybe Ill even make this a permanent feature!

So, today Ill start with the kitchen, just because that's what I took pictures of.

We have an eat-in kitchen with no formal dining room. We spend a lot of time in here, as you can imagine and it's the one room in the house that I insist on having clean.

Neither Jason nor I could remember what color the walls were painted or what the window treatments looked like when we left after signing the papers, before moving in. Thankfully, the walls were ugly and gave me an excuse to paint! But the even better news was that I looooved the window treatments. There are two windows in this room, one in the eating area and one above the sink.

This one is above the sink:

And this one is by our table:

If you can remember my post yesterday about my kitchen mat, you'll notice the similar colors in the curtains. That is one of the reasons why it ended up in the room.

I absolutely love the way these curtains look. They're easy, no-fuss and keep out a good proportion of light. My younger brother (who lives with us) likes to take them down though to block out the sun while he is on his lap top. I cant tell you how much it drives me crazy! I can just never get them back the way they were. Other than that though, they are perfect.

The other great thing is the chalkboard painted directly on the side of our pantry. It goes all the way to the ceiling so there is lots of room and the kids have somewhere to color, other than my walls! That artwork was actually done before we moved in, but I cant bring myself to erase it. Ha!

So there you have it: my favorite things, kitchen edition

Total post time: 18 minutes

This post is part of the mom's 30 minute blog challenge

the story of a mat

When we moved into this home one of the main things on our "to buy" list was a rug of some sort for each of the main rooms. Our last house had mostly carpet and floor coverings just wasn't a priority. But this house is crazy cold on the feet. Directly below my living room is Jason's unfinished workshop/mancave, so of course I wanted to start with that room.

I've searched many a store and have yet to come up with the perfect one. A few months ago I found one I really liked but it was like the baby brother to what I actually needed. I thought maybe it could go in the hallway that's adjacent to the living room, so I brought it home.

Annnnnd, it didn't work.

It looked terrible and the cats tried to use it as a play thing.

So I moved it into the kitchen, where it actually really worked. That room has just kind of fell into it's color scheme and somehow random things I bring home, end up completely working in there. I guess Im just drawn to a certain color set.

Within minutes, I started to have my doubts about this mat and my house. It wasn't big enough for my living room, it just didn't look right in the hallway, the cats seemed to really like it and now it's too slippery for my linoleum kitchen! What the heck could I DO with it?


It was actually Jason's idea to add the non-stick mat. He had some from his bachelor days hidden away in a box and came to my rescue when I was out of ideas.
It's been there for probably three months now and the non-stick thingy is actually holding up really well.

In the end, Im pretty happy this wasn't available in a larger size. I mean I like it, but it just wouldn't have looked right with the new color scheme for the living room. Which, by the way, I can't wait to show you. It's seriously turning into my favorite room in the house and I've barely started it yet. Now, if I could just get Jason to finish all those lovely projects I've asked for...