best day ever again

My grandparents brought their children to Canada from Guernsey when my Dad was just a baby. Guernsey, for those who don't know, is a little island in the English Channel between England and France. It's also the setting for the excellent novel, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, such a great read. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you pick it up pronto.

Anyway back to the post at hand. When I was a kid my grandparents belongs to a Channel Islands Social Club, as did my parents and various Aunts and Uncles. We attended lots of picnics with that club in parks around the area. Since such a big chunk of my extended family belonged to this club, us kids logged many hours playing with first cousins and second cousins and visiting with great aunts and uncles. It remains one of my greatest childhood memories.

That's why I was thrilled to spend the day doing the 2011 version of just that. We packed up some eats and spent the day at a local conservation park. Where there are plenty of tall trees offering shade so we could sit and visit. A great lake that the kids were in an out of all day. And a whole mess of aunts, uncles, cousins and grand parents to play with.



The kids, of course, declared this the best day ever! Little MyPie put another million miles on those water wings as she doggy paddled after Abby and the bigger kids all day. She crashed for 12+ hours when I got her into bed.



The Abster, my little fish, spent more time under the water than she did on top of it. My entire day was spent watching where she went under and trying to predict where she would come up.



Luckily we had Grandma there for an extra pair of eyes and hands with all the little ones in the water.



I think I too have to declare this one of the best days ever! I hope I give my girls many more of these! My only regret is I didn't take more pictures, but I was too busy swimming.

And for Allison because she called me a "badass" which I loved because I am so the opposite of that. A very scary in the lake, swimming hair, no make-up picture of my nose piercing.



The stud didn't photograph all that well, but it is a sparkly purple stone.

friday high five - vacay

Tonight we did dinner and a movie with good friends who don't get to do that kind of thing near enough. It was a simple low key night. We had some dinner, sans kids. Well ours were here, but I fed them early and they were busy with their own thing by the time we sat down to eat. Then we sat down to watch The Town, which is a great movie. Highly recommend.

So let's recap..... great friends, great conversation, great dinner, great movie.... seems like the perfect kick off to another week of vacation.

And for this week's Friday High Five, what else I am looking forward to on my holidays...

in no particular order...

1. Celebrating Grandma Linda's birthday!

2. Visiting Auntie Yoli in her new much much much closer to home apartment.

3. Jammie Movie Night!! Seems so long since the last one!

4. Picnic and swimming with my family.

5. Volunteering at the Festival of Friends and running a couple of social media giveaways while I'm there. Also volunteering in the school fair building for judging day.

And that's just the first half of the week! May have to take the next week off just to recuperate.

she's a peach

The other night Maya was playing in the toy room while I was internetting across the hall in the living room when the following conversation occured.

Me: Maya!
Maya: What?!
Me: I love you!
Maya: I love you too!

45 seconds of silence.

Me: Maya!
Maya: What?!
Me: I love you!
Maya: You already told me that!

45 seconds of silence.

Me: Maya!
Maya: Don't say it again!!
Me: I love you!
Maya: argh!!!!

45 seconds of silence.

Me: Maya!
Maya: DON'T SAY IT AGAIN!
Me: I lo......
Maya: You are giving me a headache!!!!
Me: ......ve you!
May: You are so annoying!!!!

wordless wednesday - who is that masked girl

Go check out more Wordless Wednesday posts at my pal Merry's blog.

what's cooking wednesday - grilled pizza

I have been meaning to try grilled pizza for quite some time, but just haven't gotten around to it. I finally found some free time and whipped up a batch of dough. This is going to be more of a how to than an actual recipe so feel free to use your favourite pizza dough recipe or buy some dough from the grocery store.



Preheat your grill until it's nice and hot. While you're waiting for that you can get everything else ready. Trust me on this, it's best to have everything ready to go because once things gets going it goes quick and you can very easily end up with a burnt pizza before you know it.

Roll your dough out. Don't worry too much about making it a perfect circle. Rustic is good in this situation. I ended up making four individual pizzas which was easier to handle and I could get the kid's pizzas cooked and set aside to cool for a bit while I got ours ready.

Grate your cheese and get all your toppings ready. Pizza doesn't take very long to cook on the grill, so if you don't like your veggies with a bit of crunch in them I suggest giving them a quick saute. Grilled vegetables would actually be excellent on this. We went with ham, onion and mushroom on ours this time around.

So your grill is preheated..... now what. Turn it down to medium-ish heat. Bring your rolled out dough out the grilled, I transferred it on to a cookie sheet and place it on the grill. Keep a close eye on it because it only takes a few minutes to cook. You want the bottom to be crispy with some browning. When you get it to the desired done-ness pull it off the grill and put it back on the cookie sheet grilled side up. Like I said this will go quicker than you think, just a few minutes.

Dress the cooked side of the pizza with your tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and it put it back on the grill to cook the other side and melt the cheese. This side will take a bit longer because you've turned the heat down, but keep an eye on the crust so it doesn't get too brown. You can always move it to one side and turn the burner off on that side to keep cooking the pizza via indirect heat.

Like I said once you get going it all happens pretty quick so make sure you've got all your toppings ready to go. It also helps if you know your bbq, where the hot spots are and such because the crust can burn quickly if you aren't paying attention.

The kids loved this pizza and so did Mike and I. It comes out with a much thinner and crispier crust. Almost like a cracker bread. It's a nice change from regular pizza crust which can sometimes be a little doughy for me. It's also a great way to have pizza in the summer without turning the oven on. I love homemade pizza because it lets you have fun with the toppings, be as creative as you'd like. I will certainly be grilling pizza again and again.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday

blogmother psa

So I know that some of you out there are considering doing the very thing I just did.... Hi Merry!...... piercing your nose. Now I am no expert on piercing. I had my ears done when I was 11-ish. I think my Dad took me on one of his weekends. I think, details are hazy that was over 25 years ago. The fact remains that my body went piercing free for the next two decades and then some.

So why did I do it? I love the look of a nose piercing, just a small stud. I'm not down with the hoop... for myself... if that's how you want to rock it, you go right ahead and let your freak flag fly. Robin and I had been talking for years about getting it done and then.... you know... she actually went and did it. I guess after that I figured I'd probably never do it. Fast forward to last month, the movie was sold out, but we had a babysitter lined up and suddenly nothing to do. Before I could even really think about it I was sitting in a chair picking out a stud.

So did it hurt? Well, duh. They are pushing a needle through your nose. It doesn't exactly tickle, but it's really just for a moment. My eyes watering lasted longer than the sting and I had one of my best girls with me for hand holding purposes.

So here's the public service announcement part - deciding to go and get my nose done was a spur of the moment kind of thing, even though I had wanted to for years and years, so there was no time for research. Oh I went to a reputable and clean place, but I really had no idea what to expect after it was done. Sure, the girl that did it explained how to clean it and that I shouldn't change the jewelry for a long long time. I didn't know how easy it would be to knock out of my nose. I did it twice in the first 36 hours and several more times since. I didn't realize that bumping it, knocking it out, or handling it can cause it to become infected and when it is infected the pin is going to want to pop out and sometimes does pop out. Word on the street is nose piercings can be problematic and take a long time to heal.

All that being said I don't regret for a minute getting it done. Now that it's finally settling down and healing I LOVE it. Some times I stand in front of the mirror and can't believe I actually did it. I really didn't think I ever would as much as I wanted to. If you are thinking about it I suggest doing some reading online about what you can expect once you get your nose home.

sunday randoms

Mike is watching True Blood. I cannot understand the appeal of this show. I like my vampires to be a bit more white bread.

This weekend I didn't do much of anything which was nice for a change. Weekends around here are pretty busy normally, so I didn't even feel bad about the little nap I had or that I read The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks in a day.

Today was not a stellar Mom day. It wasn't my worst day, but it could have been better.

Dinner and a movie with friends was just the recharge I needed. Thanks ML and T for bringing dinner.

The Pioneer Woman's iced coffee is soooooo good. Mike may have had three of them today. I managed to hold off at one.

Only five more sleeps between me and holidays.

Koodo now offers the iphone. Are you kidding me? Mike doesn't think I need one and he's right, but I soooooo want one. The cornerstone of my argument is he didn't need a blackberry, but he wanted one and now he has one. I believe Matlock would call that precedence.

touch a truck

So I know you're all dying with curiosity, just wondering what the latest project is that I am working on. It's Touch a Truck. I know... what the heck is Touch a Truck?

Well it is an event that was organized by the seven local public schools last year. They arranged for dozens of large vehicles to be displayed around the local fairgrounds and kids of all ages were encouraged to get up close and personal with all the equipment. There was a helicopter, fire trucks, EMS, horse trailer (Abby's favourite, go figure) and lots more. Or so I'm told. I didn't get much further than the fundraising booth we ran for the school.



Crowds were huge and our corn "sand" box was a busy place. It was really one of the most fun things that I have been a part of. So when the seven schools weren't interested in keeping it going I helped to move it from the schools to our local agricultural society. We put together a committee and here we are knee deep in planning and organizing.



So on top of helping to organizing the main event I'm also helping to organize the fundraising booth for the school. We'll be selling balloons and letting kids play in our corn "sand" box.

How can you help? Well if you're local please spread the word about Touch a Truck. It takes place on October 22, 2011 from 10am - 3pm at the Ancaster Fairgrounds. Come find us on facebook and like our page. Please come on out in October, it's an event you won't be disappointed with especially at only $5 per kid... adults are free with a child admission.

friday high five - dear santa

Only about 5 months until Christmas... do you think it's too early to start writing my letter to Santa?

So for this Friday's High Five.... the five things I'd most like to see under the tree this Christmas

1. A Kobo!! My sister in law got a Kindle earlier this year and I have been pea green with jealousy ever since. I like the Kobo over the Kindle largely because it's compatible with the local library. How awesome is that? My bank account and Michael would thank Santa forever.

2. An ice cream maker. How much fun would that be?

3. Old Navy gift cards. So I have a reason to put together a shopping trip with some of my best girls.

4. DVDs! Modern Family Season 1 or 2. Season 6 of The Office. The Flight of the Conchords. Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother.

5. Passes to the movies. Love going to the movies, but we never go with out the movie package from Costco.

What will you be asking Santa for?

you capture - flowers

So You Capture this week was flowers, babies or trees. Can you believe I spent two evening with my pal TC's beautiful new baby and only snapped one grainy cell phone picture of her? Actually to be honest, Maya snapped it. I was too busy cuddling that little girl up. Gosh she is sweet. So I do apologize for the lack of baby pictures... because really.... who doesn't love looking at sweet baby pictures? Instead I give you flower pictures, from ML's garden.








you capture hosted by...

wordless wednesday - wanna ride bikes

what's cooking wednesday - grilled cheesy appetizer

We had friends coming over for a evening of conversation and visiting and minutes before they walked in the door I remembered seeing this recipe in the latest What's Cooking Magazine. I'm going to apologize in advance for the picture. I snapped a quick one with my cell phone just as I brought it in.



Grilled Cheesy Appetizer

1 brick cream cheese
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced tomatoes
grated mozzarella
Greek feta and oregano salad dressing

Preheat your barbecue to medium high heat. Make a little tray out of tinfoil. I used double thickness and rolled the sides up to keep things from rolling off. Place the brick of cream cheese in the center. Top with onion, tomato, a good handful of mozzarella and a fairly generous drizzle of salad dressing. Place your tinfoil tray on the barbecue and leave it until the cheese is melted and the cream cheese has softened. Serve with crackers.

This was fantastic. I threw it together in minutes and it didn't require me to babysit the grill while it was cooking. This recipe is only limited by your imagination. You easily change the toppings or the dressing or the cheese. It was a huge hit and I can see making this lots over the summer.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday

babies

My baby girls are off for a couple of days with Grandma Sandi. We dropped them off around six and I miss them already.

Our friends were over last night with their week old baby girl. Gosh do I miss the newborn stage. And the rolling over stage. And the crawling stage. And the cruising stage. And.... should I go on?

I asked Abby if we should have another baby. Her response... no! Maya was enough. And that is true enough.

So I already have plans to go and borrow some more of that newborn experience. Thanks TC.

best day ever

The girls dubbed Saturday the "best day ever!"

All thanks to Granny of course who had the great idea to spend the afternoon at a local campground. She packed up a little picnic lunch, grabbed some blankets, shovels and pails and we were off.



I hadn't been out there in years and I really don't know why we don't go more often. The water doesn't get too deep too fast and there lots of shade to be found under the large trees near the water.



Maya loved digging around in the sand and once I remembered we had water wings in her swim bag she was dog paddling around behind her sister trying as hard as she could to keep up.



Abby who is very likely half mermaid spent hours and hours in the water swimming here and there and then back again.



Thanks Mom for a fantastic day... how could I tell it was a fantastic day? Well we came home water logged, exhausted, not sun burned and with butter tarts! So yeah... best day ever. Hope to do it again soon.

ward

Today Mike and I attended a funeral for a very dear family friend. Ward was a character in the truest sense of the word. Always quick with a joke and never without a smile or a twinkle in his eye. He was a man that loved many things, but nothing more than his family, his farm and his community.

Sitting in the service today listening to the stories about Ward, many of which I already knew, it struck me what an inspiration he is for how I want to live my life. How I never want my family to doubt that they are the very center of me. How I want to give without expectation, to be kind because it's right and repay because I can. How I always want to have joy and fun and laughter in my life. How I want to be present and embrace whatever life brings my way. I can only hope that I do it half as well as he did. The packed chapel and the incredibly long funeral procession today was a true testament to the good he did in his 90 years.

Rest in peace Ward. It was an absolute pleasure to have had the opportunity to know you. Thank you for the gifts you have given this family, it means more than I can say.

wordless wednesday - loving it

what's cooking wednesday - deviled eggs

Well deviled eggs are pretty much a barbecue staple, but I don't make them all that often. Not when I can usually coerce Robin into making them for me, but this past weekend we were having some of my favourite peeps over for dinner and I decided to put them on the menu.



Bacon and Cheddar Deviled Eggs

12 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cup mayo
4 slices bacon
2 tbsp shredded cheddar
1 tbsp mustard

First peel your hard boiled eggs, cut them in half so you have two ovals of egg. Scoop out the yolk and put them in a medium sized bowl. Mash the egg yolks with the back of your fork and then add in the mayo, bacon, cheddar and mustard, mix everything together until it's well combined and then pipe or spoon back into the egg white halves.

Recipe Notes: I had high hopes for this recipe. I thought it was just going to take Robin's fab deviled eggs to the next level. Sadly it did not. I mean it was okay and I'll definitely try them again, but I'll up the bacon and cheddar (the flavours were there, but not strong enough) and cut the mustard back by half at least. So not a total fail.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday

not sure how i got here, but i love it

As luck would have the the wonderful Widney Woman was spending the Canada Day weekend up here in the Great White North and we were having our annual Weenie Roast, so I invited them to join us if they were able.

Wait, what?

Yep you read that right I invited them to join us for the evening.

You know, sometimes I just sit back and wonder who this person is I have become.

The Widney Woman has the distinction of being my very first bloggy meet up and to be honest it almost didn't happen. Although we'd been following each others blogs for some time I just couldn't get my socially awkward self past my socially awkward self. I was giving myself an ulcer over the whole thing, but in the end I went and of course she is just as lovely in real life as she is on the internet.

Then I finally had the opportunity to meet Karen of Virtually There fame in person. Karen is one of my very first bloggy bffs. I met her and her kids on my own and it was awesome and not at all weird and really made me wish that she would buy the house down the street. In fact I'm still holding out hope that she'll buy a house down the street. She has Jersey Girl written all over her.

And then I did this really fun social media thing that had me meeting strangers for three days straight. That was so much fun and I cannot wait to do it again this year.

So I invite the Widney Woman and her guy J, who I hadn't had the chance to meet before and instead of wanting to puke when they said they'd love to come I was so looking forward to seeing them. I will admit to a moment of -"oh my gosh" when they pulled up in front of the house. It's kind of a surreal moment when you're meeting some one in person that you've only interacted with online before, but it's gone the second you start talking. ML was actually asking me what it was like, but it's one of those experiences that is hard to explain unless you've been there.

I am so glad and thankful they took time to visit with us. It was great to further reaffirm what I already knew about them online. Conversation was easy and Mike and I would have loved the chance to chat with them longer. We'll have to try for a more one on one visit the next time they cross the border. Big thanks to the Widney Woman for showing me real life bloggy meet ups are awesome!

Have you ever had a bloggy meet up?

sunday randoms

Well here we are at the end of another week of holidays. At first glance I'd say that we didn't do much, but that's probably not exactly true.

The girls attended VBS at a neighbouring church, so that really messed with my plan to sleep in every day, but they loved it and they were home by lunch time.

We finally had Abby's "birthday party" which was a trip to the movies to see Cars 2. We had another couple and their kids with us and reviews were mixed. The kids (five of them ages 5 - 10) loved it while the adults were pretty meh about it.

Mike and I attempted to see Bad Teacher, but the movie was sold out... curses for not realizing it was cheap night.... so instead we went and got my nose pierced. I wasn't really going to say anything and let people notice on their own, but Mike and Abby have been shouting it from the rooftops since I got it done. In the first 36 hours I managed to pull it out of my nose twice and made Mike put it back in both times. Not fun!

We did manage to sneak away and see Bridesmaids.... soooo funny. I wasn't expecting it to have such a sweet storyline. Really enjoyed it.

I cleaned up on the $2 book table at Chapters.

We had dinner with family, an evening of snacks and conversation with friends, movie night with the kids, ordered in pizza, made pizza at home on the grill, celebrated Canada Day with 40+ of our besties, finished Tina Fey's book and The Lovely Bones and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of....

So yeah I guess we did do a lot.

knowing me, knowing you - july 2011

It's time once again for that monthly interview project that I like to call knowing me, knowing you.

1. It's less than 6 months until Christmas, have you started your shopping yet?

Yep, I sure have. Okay don't throw things at me. Have I told y'all about the big stocking? It's a really big stocking.... like five feet big... that gets passed from one family to the next. This year it's Papa and Grandma Linda's turn. The rest of us all pitch in to fill it, so I have begun the big stocking stockpile. As for actual gifts... not yet, but I'm planning my shopping out.

2. What's your guilty pleasure?

Oh my... where do I start? With the two Selena Gomez songs that I bought off itunes this week? Or farmville... I'm only at level 100, whatevs. Big Brother, I was thrilled to see Jeff and Jordan back. Sweet Valley High Confidential. The Shopaholic series. That's all I'm willing to admit to right now.

3. Are you on Pinterest?

I am, because I needed another time suck in my life, but I do love that I can pin recipes I want to try to my board and then when I finally get a chance to try them I'll know where they are.

4. Popsicle or an ice cream cone?

Ice cream. Always. Popsicles just don't do it for me, unless it's a fudgesicle. Then maybe.

5. Are your toes painted?

Yep, burgundy. I usually go for the darker colours... black, brown, blue... I don't care much for the pinks and reds.




So now the rules, they're pretty simple. Post your answers to these questions on your own blog in the next few days. Remember to link back here in your post and sign the Mr. Linky too, so we can all see what you have to say. Please make sure you link to your actual KMKY post and not your blog's front page. Any front page links will be deleted. And most importantly, have fun! Have suggestions for next months questions? Leave me a comment or send me an email and let me know.

friday high five - food network

Anybody who knows me knows I spend a lot of time watching the foodnetwork. It may just be my favourite channel. I have actually learned a lot just by watching my favourite food shows like Diners, Drive ins and Dives.

So for this week's Friday High Five - the five best things I have learned watching the foodnetwork.

1. The garbage bowl! It seems simple right, but it never occurred to me to keep a bowl for garbage on the counter while I chopped, diced and peeled. Thanks Rachael Ray.

2. The proper way to hold a knife. I've seen a lot of different chefs on a lot of different shows, eventually the way they are doing things starts to sink in.

3. Season your meat. Since starting weight watchers I've been making our own burgers out of ground beef because they end up being a fraction of the points that the pre-made frozen ones are. They're pretty good, but just about every time I see someone make a burger on Triple D they season the pattie with salt and pepper. So I gave it a go and Michael declared them the best burgers I've ever made.... and s&p was the only change I had made.

4. That I can make really great pie crust in my stand mixer. No more pre-made pie crusts for this chick.

5. That a man can pull off pinkie rings, flip flops and a bowling shirt. Thanks Guy Fieri.

you capture - patriotism

Well I am going to attempt to get back on the You Capture band wagon. I used to take sooooo many pictures and now I rarely find the time to actually pick up my camera. Largely I think I got out of practice because my rechargeable batteries decided they had been recharged enough and I'd be lucky to get a picture or two out of them before they were dead again.

So this week was patriotism... which was fun and easy considering we just celebrated Canada Day.

With fireworks!







you capture hosted by:

wordless wednesday - not digging it

what's cooking wednesday - citrus punch

This week's post is a repeat, but it's summer time so it bears repeating, also The Widney Woman..... who was at my house this past weekend!!! Oh yes she was! Requested the recipe, so it's a two birds one stone kind of situation.

This recipe is perfect for those summer parties. Actually I don't even wait until summer. I make this every month for Jammie Movie Night. I use my punch bowl for movie night and my kick ass drink dispenser for parties because it holds a double batch!

Citrus Punch

1 can limeade frozen concentrate
1 can pink lemonade frozen concentrate
1 can orange juice frozen concentrate
3 juice cans of water
2L bottle of Sprite or 7up

Mix all the ingredients together and serve in a punch bowl.

Recipe Notes: Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Also delicious. I get lots of requests for this recipe. Make it for the next get together you have, you won't be sorry.



There is my little monkey trying to drink punch right out of my super cool drink dispenser. That's the other thing people ask me about... where did you get that? Granny picked it up for me at Bed, Bath and Beyond, it is awesome and I love it. I highly recommend getting one if you entertain a lot.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday

reporting part 2

And now it's Abby's turn. My poor Abby girl. She had a tough year. She was far from enthralled with the intense reading program she was in. She disliked the time spent away from her class and hated missing gym and library, but in the end even she had to admit it was all worth it. Her reading has improved leaps and bounds. She is enjoying reading more because it's so much easier for her. I am so thankful for that. She finished the year with B+'s in reading and writing. Awesome!

Her teacher even commented in her notes that Abby was a hard worker who worked hard on setting goals for herself, especially in reading. She also wrote something that I think I just may repeat to Abby every day this summer - Abby usually approaches new tasks with a positive attitude but should try and feel more confident in her abilities to complete these tasks. She will always persevere ...... It's so true. When we are doing her homework she's very quick to say, I can't do it, but of course when you get her to take another look at it she can work out the answer.

Abby is right where she should be in regards to her learning skills and work habits, bringing her independent work up from a satisfactory to good and scored a excellent in peer to peer relationships and all the other things that fall under the collaboration category.

Of course Abby was most interested in reading the remarks in art and music. According to her Music teacher she sings in tune (hear that Auntie Mel!) and capably uses the tools of musicianship in musical performances. I have to thank our amazing choir director at the church for making music fun again for Abby. Her music homework is to listen to a variety of music over the summer...... and that's my excuse for downloading that Selena Gomez song this afternoon.

I loved that her teacher's comments were so encouraging and a true representation of this past school year. I appreciate the time she must have took with them. My favourite line..... You were a joy to have in the class...... What Mom doesn't like to hear that?

So now my number one baby girl is off to the fourth grade, very excited to have the teacher she was hoping for.

love

Well what a weekend that was! It was hands down my favourite kind of weekend. Full of lots of fun stuff with a lot of my favourite people. A weekend like this is just good for the soul.

Friday morning Mike and Abby walked in the Canada Day parade.



There's my baby girl handing out pencils. She had such a great time and learned a very valuable lessons. When walking a very long distance it's always a good idea to where good comfortable shoes and not cheap falling part Hannah Montana slip-ons. Your feet will thank you for it later.

I am so proud of her for volunteering to go with Mike to these parades. It's a lot of walking and smiling and dealing with strangers, but she really loves it. This is her dipping her toe into volunteering and I just love seeing it. So proud that kid!

ML's kids were in the parade too, so we gathered everybody up afterwards and had a bite of lunch in the park and then hit the pool. After thoroughly cooling off we all piled on the hammock. Picture it... Me and ML at one end, The Abster and Ben10 at the other end and MyPie tucked in between us......



and then ML got a charley horse! I'm not quite sure how the rest of us didn't go tumbling out of that thing as she tried to get up.

After a hardcore nap by Maya, we hit up the fireworks with friends and their kids.





Saturday night we hosted a record crowd for the 7th Annual Roast Your Weenie Event. It was great to have so many people there. Great folks, like the uber awesome Widney Woman and her husband, who as luck would have it were in town and able to stop by for a too short visit that really deserves a post of it's own. The funny thing was The Widney Woman was telling her guy that we Canadians are pretty low key about Canada Day in comparison to how they celebrate the 4th of July in the States and then they get to my place and meet these folks....



the winners for best Canada themed outfit. Nice work ladies, two years in a row I might add.

Here's the deal, Roast Your Weenie started out as a work thing for Michael. Over the years it's kind of grown into a pretty hardcore Canada Day themed party. We give out prizes to those who know their Canadian trivia, have an old school candy toss for the kiddos and we make them cook their own dinner. How perfect is that?

My only regret is I didn't have a chance to get my hands on my camera as much as I would have liked. So now I'll have to hop around facebook downloading everybody else's. I wish every weekend was like this one.

And what did you do this weekend?

reporting

Now what kind of Mommy Blogger would I be if I didn't post about the girls report cards? They'd probably toss me out of the union.... just sayin'.

So here it is the obligatory report card post.

Maya.....

This was her first report card. The one she got earlier in the year was more of a how she's doing report than a true progress report. At least that's what they told be, but really isn't that what a report card is anyway... something to let me know how she's faring with the curriculum? I guess the only difference, really, is there's no letter grades on Maya's instead they use a system of consistently, most of the time, sometimes and needs additional time.

Maya's report was a solid collection of mostlys. Which I wasn't surprised by, she is a super evil genius after all. She did score two sometimes, one for demonstrating an ability to use problem-solving skills in a variety of social contexts. I know, shocking right? Her teacher did say she interacts with her peers in a positive manner and she demonstrates an awareness of how to make and keep friends, but long time readers know that the social thing has been a long time coming for Maya. She is way more comfortable in her skin than she ever has been before and I have marveled at how well she settled in to kindergarten because I never really did believe that she was 100% ready to be there.

The other sometimes was for her ability to express responses to a variety of artforms, including those from other cultures. Again, not surprised. While Abby has always been my artsy fartsy girl, Maya is perfectly happy to colour an entire page with a green crayon and call it a day. Her only two consistently's came from gym, which surprised me a little bit, I guess. Maybe she's going to be our jock. All in all it was a great report card and Maya is super excited to have graduated into SK, but not super excited that her amazingly awesome teacher is leaving for another school. I'm not going to lie, I may have had a little pout about that too.

While I'm sad to see her leave as well I am grateful that my kids had the opportunity to be in her class. She is an amazing teacher who I just can't say enough good things about. I hope her new school knows how incredibly lucky they are to have her.

Now since this has gotten longer than I intended I'll close for now and give you all the lowdown on The Abster's report next time around.