Hello Spring!

The much anticipated spring weather has finally arrived.  

 

 

A sure sign spring has arrived.

 

The love birds are out.

 

The plants in our front flower bed are starting to poke through the soil. Such a beautiful sight as we patiently await to see what will come back to life this year and bloom.

 



 

 

 

Another sign of Spring ...

The Lil Man has found the perfect muddy puddle!

The sunsets have been beautiful!

 

 Enjoy your Tuesday Everyone!

 

In like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb ...

Here we are at the end of March! This winter is definitely a never ending one.  Great for some (the ski resorts), depressing for others who aren't big fans of old man winter and are ready for Spring to arrive.

Last Friday it felt like Spring had arrived. The sun was shinning, it was warming up outside, the snow was melting (no more snow on the deck) and the birds were singing such a lovely tune. It was so nice and calm. I could finally see part of my flower bed underneath the thick gross blanket of snow.

 

 

 I even saw green ...



I was almost jumping for joy. A sure sign that Spring was near or had maybe finally arrive.

Then Saturday, March 22 arrived and with it much to our surprise so did another 25 cm of snow (possible a bit more) all throughout the night. Old man winter had done it again and it's not very funny any more.

 

The snow was almost as high as Roxy and it just kept snowing. It was so disappointing. I must add that Friday night we had NO SNOW on the deck. Before the weekend was over, the sun began to shine again but with it the temperatures started to drop again and Winter was back. Local Ski resorts are considering staying open till possibly May.

Roxy was not very impressed ...

 

With all the crazy weather outside I think our Christmas cactus has became a bit confused and has been blooming again. 

 

The burst of colour it has brought to our living room has been lovely.
 

When I was out and about this week (feeling a little depressed I must add), I came across these colourful beauties.

I could not resist and had to bring them home with me.

 

So happy I did as they have brightened up our living room also.

 

The weather has became mild again. It rained today and is suppose to be mild this weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the old saying in like a Lion, out like a Lamb holds true.

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Sunny Skies

We have definitely been enjoying the beautiful sunshine we've been getting lately. It sure helps cheer us up especially since another nasty cold bug has struck our house again. We are so done with winter.

I decided to get some suets for the birds this year. Finally put one out on the tree this past weekend. Now we just need to wait for the birds to discover it. I miss seeing and hearing the birds singing outside. Hope they return real soon.

Hope everyone enjoys their Monday!

Baked With Love

February is finally coming to an end and I could not be happier. It feels like the Lil Man has had a different bug each week this month, which has made life at our place a little unpleasant. He's had two different cold bugs, and two different stomach bugs. Waking up to your little one throwing up during the night can be quite scary. One of my biggest fears is that he will choke while he is sleeping. So lets just say I do not get much sleep when the Lil Man is sick. Someone once told me that they find some days when they are at home looking after their child the day can be more stressful than when they worked outside of the home. All I have to say is I could not agree more. A stay at home mom is a  24/7 job. Each day is different and unpredictable. One day this month Mr. H decided to wake up before 3:00 a.m. and stay up of course. It was an extremely long day. This kind of craziness that has been taking place around our place has resulted in Mom not having much time to blog lately.

The day before Valentine's day the Lil Man was feeling ok to help me with our annual Valentine's day cookies. If you missed the cookies we made last year you can find them (here). He is a great baking assistant with the exception that he almost ate all my dark chocolate chips while I was measuring all the other ingredients. He did however patiently wait for the cookies to cool down.

 

The Lil Man decorated the paper bag for dad's Valentine's Day Sweets with "xo". Once hubby went to bed I put it into his lunch bag for a special Valentine's Day surprise.



Hope everyone had a much better February than we have had. Happy Friday!

Happy Love Day

I can't believe it's Valentine's Day already or should I say ... overblown, Hallmark-ed, commercialized day ... because that is how I feel about Valentine's Day. We don't get caught up with Valentine's day at our place. We show and tell our loved ones we love and appreciate them 365 days a year. But we do like making their day a little extra sweet with some homemade goodies and some smiles. Just wanted to send a little love and smiles to all our readers ...

Hope your Day and YEAR is filled with lots of Love, Hugs, Kisses & Sweet Wishes!

January 2014 Update & Chicken & Brocolli Casserol

Well here we are at the end of January and this is my second post this year. Boy was I wrong when I thought things would slow down this month. Its been the exact opposite and It's made me realize that I don't know how much blogging time I will have over the next couple months. I am aiming to have a post every other week but we will see how that goes.

Not sure what the winter weather has been like where you live, in our small town this January has had some really frosty winter cold days.

We have not had a winter like this for a couple years now. The first week back from the Christmas Holidays schools were closed one day because it was so cold. I think that was the second time this has happened in the last 8 years.

We have also received a fair amount of snow.

 

 

The snow was almost higher than the cars but luckily we had a bit of a January thaw and the snow banks went down a bit. But it has been really cold again for the past two weeks. The wind just keeps howling and blowing the snow all around as I sit here typing this post. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Groundhog predicts a short winter this year... we shall see.

We have been staying warm drinking lots of these and will continue to do so until it warms up ...

Different Teas (Apple Pie Tea)

 

Hot Chocolate (this was a special one Hubby made with 

Real Whip Cream we had in the fridge)

There has been some big changes going on at our place over the past couple weeks. Over the Christmas holidays we changed the Lil Man over to his new big boy day bed. It hasn't been the greatest transition as he can now get in and out of bed as he pleases and that is just what he does. He has decided his new bed time is a lot later (some nights 10 p.m.) and he is waking up early. This has resulted in less time for mom to work on things such as blog posts (as I use to do this when he went to bed or before he woke up).

The Lil Man has started preschool a couple days a week and lets just say ...

... it has been a difficult time and a really big adjustment for all of us.

 

It's been a while since I have shared a recipe on here and I thought it was time. Before I share the recipe I just wanted to share a little background on why I tried this particular recipe.

 

One of the most  frustrating  things currently as a parent for myself is dinner time. Our Lil Man has become so picky with meal time. One day he just loves spaghetti and can not seem to get enough of it and then when I make it the following week, he refuses to eat it or even try it. Some days I just feel like pulling my hair out. The other week I thought I would try a new recipe that I thought the Lil Man would like since it had pasta and broccoli two things he seemed to like.

It was a Chicken Broccoli Bacon casserole. I must admit hubby and myself ARE NOT casserole fans but we figured if the Lil Man eats it we can deal with it. Well ... the Lil Man would not even try it {inset an extremely disappointed face}. To be quite honest I have lost all motivation to try any new recipes lately. Heck I am even starting to dread making dinner.

Here's the casserole recipe if you feel like giving it a try - Chicken Broccoli casserole. I added some bacon bits and made it with pasta instead of serving it on a bed of rice. It wasn't bad ... not one of our favourite dishes but we are not casserole dish fans.

That's it for today. Hope everyone had a good January. Happy Friday!

 

 

Sending everyone some happy smiles for the weekend!

 



 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is hard to believe that 2013 has come to an end and 2014 has arrived. November and December went by so fast for us as we were busy with a lot of different things. I expect that things will slow down for us the next couple weeks which will hopefully allow me to give our blog a little extra love (it's been a little neglected lately). Hoping I can get caught up on blog posts.

Do you have any special New Year's Eve traditions? We usually have an early dinner (this year we ordered panzerotti from our local pizzeria). We spend the evening snacking on appetizer type foods, eating dessert and playing board games (Scrabble & Monopoly).
 

May 2014 bring Happiness, Peace, Good Health and an abundance of treasured memories!