Valentine's Day Sweets

I know Valentine's day has come and gone, but I really wanted to document what we made this year - Pink Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

At Christmas each year, we always get chocolate letters from Byron's parents, it's a Dutch tradition. Usually we have a lot of sweets at this time of the year, so I freeze the letters for a later date. This year I used them to make these cookies and they turned out GREAT!

 

 

 

I used my go to chocolate chip recipe but substitute the chocolate chunks for the chips and I added a bit of food colouring to make them pink for Valentine's day and voila!

 

 

 

Almost looks like ice cream

 

 

 

 

Before getting packaged for dad

to take to work and share

I designed and printed onto paper bag.

 

 

 

 

Close up of bag, it's a bit hard to read due to the photo - but it says -- hope you have the sweetest day ... love Hugo!

 

I also made Reese's Peanut Butter Bars on Valentine's Day for dessert. I will post them soon!



9/52 - H U G O = 16 M O N T H S + BULLDOZER/TEDDY SEPERATION

WARNING: THIS IS A PHOTO HEAVY POST.

Hugo being himself - silly @ 16 months
 

On Sunday, Hugo was a bit of a grouch. I guess he just wasn’t feeling the greatest --- those darn teeth. As a result, he did not want to leave Teddy in bed where he belongs and insisted on him sitting with him while he ate.

 

When he was almost done eating he started to tickle teddy -- it was funny watching him. He just LOVES Teddy. I don’t know why he was having Teddy Separation Anxiety though. He did end up letting Teddy sit on the table while he ate his apple. I have been cutting his apple into bite size pieces in order for him to get more practise using his fork. It has been working out well.

 



 

 

This week we brought out a new toy for Hugo. He’s a little young still for it, but he loves playing with it. We keep a close eye on him while he is playing with it and remind him he has to be gentle with it, and so far he has been listening. He just loves it though. When we first brought it out, Roxy had to investigate it {as she does with any new thing we bring into the house, she is such a great inspector}. The new toy is a Bulldozer he received for his Birthday ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugo quickly figured out what buttons he had to push to make the bulldozer move on its own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, I just love watching him play and figure out his new toys.


Today Hugo is 16 months. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he co-operates so we can snap his monthly photo later today!

 

S N O W

A couple weeks ago Hugo had his very first adventure in the snow. He has such sensitive skin and I always hesitate to take him out to play in it. When NEMO, the winter  storm of this year hit us and brought with it some snow, we thought it was a great opportunity to take Hugo out to play in the snow... or at least we tried ...
 
 

 

 

Byron plopped him in the snow ...

 

 

 

 

He didn’t really like it and started crying. [I later discovered that the snow started going into his boots when Byron did this. Thus, he was cold and Hugo NO LIKE being cold!]

 



 

 

 

We pulled him out, brought him in for a bit to warm up ...

 

 

 

Taking a break inside, trying to warm up a bit.



 

 

Not too sure about this whole thing.

 

 

 

"Do i have to go back out there?"

 

 

Roxy convinced him to give it another try ...
 
 
 

 

 

Not so bad this time ... this white stuff looks interesting.

 

 

 

Time to touch the white fluffy stuff ... neat ...

 

 

 Wow Roxy's playing in it, this isn't so bad ...

 

 

 

 

 

But wait ... 

 

 
 

Things were going well ... but then he fell face first into the snow and changed his mind ... "It's cold, get me out of here, I want to go back inside" {crying and screaming}... 

And that was Hugo's first experience in the snow.

 

 

DATE. DAY.

I can't believe the weekend has already came and gone. Time sure does fly when you are having a good time! Had a busy but productive weekend. Friday evening my cousins from the city came up for a visit and picked up my goddaughter on the way here. We had a lovely visit. We must try and do it more often! When I found out they were coming I quickly prepped a Kelsey's Four Cheese Spinach Dip (not very healthy, but oh so creamy and tasty to enjoy with others).

I used fresh spinach

All mixed up nicely.

It's so good that it disappeared before I could take a picture of the end product!


Saturday was another great day -- it was a date day. This year we are trying to either have a date day or date night once a month. On date days we usually go to Barrie and run a bunch of errands (i.e. go to Costco and anywhere else we need to grab stuff from), and then we go to a restaurant and have a sit down lunch. The day seems to be so productive because Grandma and Grandpa look after Hugo, so we are so much quicker running from one place to another. On a date night we will go out for a nice dinner. It's nice having a couple hours were it's just Hubby and me. It also gives Hugo an opportunity to spend some time away from me {you know how horrible it is to be around me 24/7}. So far this year we have been able to do it for both January and February. We'll see how long we will be able to keep it up.

We went to Kelsey's for Lunch. I had the Kelsey's Lunch Trio - 1/2 of their Smoked Turkey Club Sandwich, served with Broccoli Cheddar Soup, and a Caesar Salad ...

Byron had their Messy Chicken Parm Sandwich ...

Overall lunch wasn't bad. We did enjoy the lunch we had at Swiss Chalet {I had the Rotisserie Chicken Club Wrap and Byron had the Southwest Rotisserie Chicken Flatbread} at our last date day though more. I've been craving a St-Hubert white meat Club Sandwich since spring last year, but the only place we can get them is in Quebec {insert sad face}. They are sooooooo good.  I often  think about my in-laws driving through Quebec last summer and just driving past St-Hubert each time they saw one and not stopping in for a bit to eat because they thought it was like KFC {insert head shake}, if only we had informed them.

I guess for now the closest I will get to one of these is by looking at this picture {insert tear}, unless we head to Quebec this summer for Byron to attend the Mountain Bike event at Mont-Sainte-Anne. We shall see how the lil man is in the car.


While we were in Barrie, we also went to Bonnie Togs and found some great deals for the Lil Man on winter and some summer clothing. We were able to grab him a Columbia snowsuit for 70% off for next winter!! We aren't the type to buy brand name stuff at regular price, especially for kids clothing items because they outgrow it so fast {a snowsuit only lasts one season}, but when we find a deal, we snatch it!!!  MUST MARK MY CALENDAR FOR NEXT YEAR ... I went to Bonnie Togs around this time last year and they had good deals then too!!


Sunday was also a good day -- productive ... did laundry, cooking and finally got around to something we've been meaning to do for a while. I'm getting closer to launching my small business venture, finally {my initial goal was to get it up and running at the beginning of January this year, but it didn't happen}. Once things are up and running I will post info here.

And that was our weekend in a nutshell!

8/52 - Monkey See, Monkey Do!

Hugo loves to talk on the phone. As soon as he hears the phone ringing he looks at it and starts to make a sound like he's answering the call. For Christmas, Santa brought him his own cell phone. It is made by VTech and targeted to children slightly older than what Hugo is now, but he enjoys playing with it. It teaches numbers and counting and the alphabet ... it is very educational, which is awesome and I would highly recommend it [only complaint is it's kind of quiet until you slide it open]. I was finally able to snap some photos of him playing with his own phone.

 

 

 

 

So Focused

 

 

 

Hugo chatting on his phone

with his crazy curly hair ...

 

Also snapped some pics of Hugo playing with his police car and making the sound with his lips. I love watching him play ... it is so entertaining some days.

It went under the ottoman, so he peeks under to try and find it.

Vroooom .....

Hugo Update:

Hugo has started to do the hand motion for itsy bitsy spider [the part when the spider is going up the wall - he puts his index finger and thumb together on each hand, and taps the other hand]. It was amazing watching him do it the first time.

This past weekend Hugo opened his first door on his own  ... we are in trouble now.

He started to do the following about two weeks ago, but I forgot to mention in my weekly post - he now points to his nose when you ask him where it is.

Last week Roxy jumped up on the chair I sit on to feed Hugo [occurred when I went to grab Hugo's fruit] and sat there staring at him while he finished off his lunch. Within seconds, Hugo looked at her and said "Down" and pointed to the floor. I guess he has really been paying attention to me every time I tell her to get down off that chair. At first I was not sure if that's what he was saying, but then he did it again this week and it was clear and very funny to see.

While we were out on Sunday Hugo had a fluff on his finger from my very fluffy scarf. You could tell it was really bugging him, so I tried to blow it off and Hugo instantly tried to replicate what I was doing and quickly learnt how to blow with his tiny lips ... so cute.

 

I must admit there is never a dull day in our household any more!