Screen saver or Baby saver

Entertaining babies can be very easy.
Sometimes.

Occasionally, all it takes is Window's most fascinating screen saver.

It's also a big IQ booster.

Thanks to Bill Gates
My kids gets A's strait
Through their careers.

A Lesson on Energy

One kid I chummed with years ago loved the movie Monsters Inc. I learned a lot from this movie about energy. (Who knew Pixar was so educational?) Did you know that children are great sources of energy for monsters? Formerly, screams were contained and used to make power, until laughs were discovered to be ten times more powerful.

I've discovered that this is also the case with Mommy's. So, I sometimes use this knowledge to soak up some energy from my kids. Kids do have such an excess of continual energy!

The movie didn't explain anything about negative energy. But that was easy for me to discover on my own--there isn't anything worse than whining and crying in all the world as a drain on one's energy reserves. Just a small amount of whining or crying and all my energy reserves start to drain rapidly. If the crying and whining continues, it doesn't take long until I feel like a vacuum has just sucked out every last drop of energy from me. I feel like flopping on the floor like a lifeless noodle in a state of self-deprecating self-centered-ness.

That's when it's time for some much needed laughter...
to stock up again!

Of smiles, sowing "seeds", slipups, and saddle sore.

Playdough days are happening more frequently around here, since the kids play so well with it now.


Matthew had green contents in his diaper for a day or two after our last time with playdough, so he was forbidden the good stuff this time around.

I think he's drooling over it though!


Melanie likes rolling stuff with her rolling pin...although she's not very good at it yet. It's fun to try anyways...although she gets bored quickly.

She'll stop and smile for the camera anytime.


Nathan is always very busy when he plays now. He has very definite ideas of what he wants to do, and he'll spend a lot of time and concentration on it to get it just right.

And he'll stop to say cheese if he really has to.


Last winter our entertainment was quite limited, but now we have watermains being replaced, and eventually, sidewalks put in. It'll take them all summer, at least, to get it done, so whenever they're on our section of the neighbourhood we have nobody whining about what to do.

The excavator is actually driving over old culverts, then folding them up and tossing them in a dump truck. I wouldn't have thought of that as something to use my excavator for...I'm missing a bit of imagination I guess.


I got tomato plants for mother's day this year--and they're actually still alive!! Hopefully raccoons aren't too fond of tomatoes, then maybe we'll some fresh yummy tomatoes this year! Notice the stump in the middleish of the garden? We had four of them in one garden, then another five in this garden. I removed three of them the other day...but it took a LONG time with my shovel and hatchet. This one, and the others, will have to wait for another day when I'm feeling angry and destructive once again.

Would you like to know how to get stuff super stuck inside a bread pan? I could give you an abundant list of ideas on how to do this, but since you probably will never try them all intentionally, I'll just tell you the way I did it this time:

Yesterday evening I was hurrying to get this in the oven so I wouldn't have to stay up late waiting for it to bake. In my haste forgot baking powder. ALL of the rising was in that baking powder. Since I didn't want to bake another flat bread, I hastily poured all the batter back out of the baking tins into my mixing bowl, mixed in the baking powder, and poured it back into the already dirtied bread pans.

Philip almost had to show up late for work this morning because I almost didn't get it out in time for him to have a breakfast packed along. I did manage to pry half of it out, which was good enough for the moment.


For the betterment of our health, we thought we'd take up cycling as a family again--after having taken last summer off. So yesterday before supper we headed out for a short trip as a trial run. To distribute the work load evenly, I pulled Nathan and Philip pulled the other two.

If I said I was left in the dust, that would be misleading...since the dust would have long been settled by the time I came wheezing along behind. In retrospect, I feel I should have strained even harder to go faster, pushing my lungs and leg muscles to past my maximum(I had been at max), since then I wouldn't have been on my bike seat so long. And then, just perhaps I would not be so tender now. I am greatly relieved that it is raining today, and our other evening are booked--so my saddle sore has a chance to disappear. Maybe next week I'll be in a less sorry state.

I got a lovely chart from my midwife.

Ever since I saw my oldest sister with one even fancier than this, I have wanted one too. Hers was especially cool, since it had pull out tabs for each category, so that you didn't have to write and erase...much more user friendly, I think. Well, having such high expectations of food charts since I was an impressionable teen, I was disappointed with shortcomings of the free one I managed to pick up the other week. If my visit to my midwife hadn't been postponed yesterday (I would have been able to complain to them about it), then you wouldn't have the following details about it. But alas! it was postponed.

First of all, lets talk about Potatoes. Potatoes, I feel, ought to be put in the category with grains. And the category shouldn't be called grains, but starchy foods (or something similar). Many many families I know, like me, will have a potatoey dinner like mashed or baked potatoes, or fries. Then we always have vegetables and meat served with it because potatoes are OBVIOUSLY not to be treated like an ordinary vegetable.

Secondly, you should note that the milk products have 3-4 servings on this particular chart. Am I the only one who thinks that's a little excessive?? What about soy milk and other dairy substitutes--are they nutritionally not valid??
Hmm...after Philip looked at the fine print he points out to me that this chart was made by Dairy Farmers of Canada(Ontario).

I see how it is.

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?

Or can they not be stolen if they're not actually finished being made yet?

I followed the advice, or perhaps, more accurately, the example of someone today. I banished my stay-out-of-the-kitchen-or-end-your-life-early rule. But only for the afternoon.

Both my helpers were eager, curious, and cooperative. Must be because of their lack of exposure to real life experiences. Poor kids. :p


Nathan is adding tonnes of extra vanilla extract. Fortunately the vanilla container is empty, so it's only imaginary extra vanilla. Otherwise the taste would have been a LITTLE off. After all, he was only adding a LITTLE extra.


Melanie's thinking "Those don't look very much like cookies to me!"AND "I wonder if I can eat some now, or will Mom notice?"


If the cookies turn out a little damp it's probably from all the extra drool. (Three sources of drool today instead of only having one source normally.)

What's your favorite show?

"You're watching Treehouse"
"You're watching Neighbours"


Only with a combination of great yelling, stomping and funny noises could their eyes be unglued from the big screen.

The Curse on the Substitute Mailman

Seems like every time there is a mailman that is doing our route, and is not our regular mailman, he gets stuck. There is a meddlesome manhole that catches them every time they slip a little too far to the right, and they can't get out without the help of a trusty tow truck. Philip even offered his help to the very first stranded mailman. The second one didn't get the offer 'cause Philip wasn't there to give it...poor guy. Not that the first guy accepted the help anyways...nor would it have done anything useful...

Can't wait 'til the next time our mailman calls in sick or takes a holiday!!
I think I'm a bit sadistic. :o