Tales From the Minivan

We’ve been trying to get Mackenzie involved in an activity of interest for quite some time.  She turned down; Girl Guides, swimming, soccer, yoga, & music lessons, but when I mentioned an art class, her response was, “Maybe?”  Maybe?!!!!..this was progress as it wasn’t a definite “NO!”  Two days before the class was to begin, she finally said she’d like to join and I quickly called to get her registered!  So on Saturday Mornings she’s been going to our city’s Art Centre where she’s been enjoying one-on-one instruction, focusing on both the fundamentals of drawing and painting, as well as techniques and styles.

Here’s a pic of her latest creation:

I have been feeling so energized lately! On a whim 2 weeks ago, I moved Finn’s crib into Liam’s room. I was really overtired and rundown, don’t get me wrong I’m a huge advocate for co-sleeping it really worked well for us, but when you’re sick you get desperate! The first evening was not too bad, I had a lot of trouble getting him into the crib without waking him, as the railing was too high for me. When I lowered it everytime I’d raise it back into a locking position it would wake the little guy! He woke up about 3
times between 8pm and 12am, and Andrew went in to settled him down, he’d pick him right up and cuddle him and once he was back asleep he put him back down. From midnight until 8am….he slept right through! The next night, he only woke up once around 10pm and since he has slept through each night for 13 hours! He has dropped one daytime nap but I’m OK with that! Here’s a well rested Finn:

Since I’ve been so well rested I’ve been trying some new recipes, and my pal Sarah recommended this one! It was so good, I decided to take photos and show the steps! She’s a big fan of Rachael Ray and tries a lot of her recipes. The original recipe can be found here: Turkey Stuffin’ Meatloaf

I made a few modifications to it, as a few of the ingredients were American and I made due with what I had in the house. Here’s my version:

4 T butter
1 large Carrot diced (not in original recipe, but I added for colour)
4 stalks of Celery
1 large onion (I use a sweet vidalia, I love these)
5-7 cups of stale breadcrumbs (I seasoned mine with Bell’s season..a combo of marjoram, thyme, sage etc and baked them in the oven I also added salt and pepper)
1.5 lbs of ground Turkey
3 cups of chicken broth (may not need all of this)
2 eggs
EVOO- extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

I started by preparing the stuffing to set aside to cool before adding it to the ground turkey. Melt butter over med-high heat, once the butter is melted add carrots, celery and onion and cook until tender. Add breadcrumbs and broth and combine with veggies, you may not need all of the broth as you don’t want the stuffing to be too gooey.

Here’s a pic of the completed stuffing:

Once stuffing is complete set aside and let cool. For the next step I used my Kitchenaid mixer, but I’m sure you can do it by hand just as easy, I just love to put my mixer to use! Once the stuffing has cooled down a bit mix the ground turkey , 2 eggs and stuffing mixture together until combined. Make 2 long loaves, I set down plastic wrap to form the loaves and lined my pan with non-stick foil (I love the Reynolds Release Wrap!) then drizzle the olive oil over the loaves.

Bake at 375F fr approx 1 hour until the internal temp reaches 165F, I find a meat thermometre is one of the most useful kitchen gadgets I have!

Here’s a shot of the finished product. I made smashed potatoes as a side dish, they were really easy.

1 Bag of Mini Red skins potatoes
3/4 cup sour cream
1 onion sauted with 1/4 lb bacon (you can substitute bacon bits)
3/4 cup of grated marble cheese

Boil Potatoes with skins on. Once cooked add the remainder of ingredients and mix well. I found a mixer with combine them the best. Once they are smashed together put in oven safe casserole and bake for another 20 minutes! Enjoy!

It was a big hit with Andrew Mackenzie, Finn and myself! Liam on the other hand told us, “His brain wouldn’t let his hand feed it to him!” , and Ciaran filled up on the “tatoes” his favorite. I think the only reason he would try the meatloaf was because Liam wouldn’t. ARRRRGH!

I can hardly believe Finn is a year old today! He really has brought a lot of joy to our entire family. To commerate his first year with us, I thought I’d share his “Birth Story” once again!

Friday morning, when I woke up I was sore but thought it must have been from doing too much the night before. I notice that my uterine tightenings, were more than that, as the were accompanied by pelvic pressure too, I was starting to lose my mucous plug, as well I could really feel that the baby had dropped so of course I got comparison pics! The photo on the left was taken 5 days before.

DH came home for lunch and I was still having irregular somewhat painful contractions, I told him to go back to work but to have his Blackberry with him at all times (he tends to leave it on his desk). Around 3:40pm I called him and told him he better come home…I wasn’t sure if this was just the early stages or not, but I wanted to try and start timing them, and the boys were driving me crazy!

Here’s me at 8:15pm, I had to check the camera and see when the pic was taken as I didn’t believe it!
Birthing Ball @ 8:15pm

It’s funny as my plan was to listen to really relaxing music, Enya, PM Dawn & Enigma, but when the time came, I was listening to Dance Music! Usher, Ice Cube and Black Eyed Peas! When I finished on the Ball, I decided to go and try and pee. After this no more ball for me…I decided to sit up in bed. Contractions were pretty much right on top of one another with a lot of pressure. I sent Andrew out to get someone, and the person (not sure if she was a nurse or receptionist) at the desk said everyone was busy and I’d have to wait. He was too nice, and said, “Ok I’ll let her know.”. I then said to him, “ If the next contraction is like the last one, they better get their butts in here!” Just then, I could see and hear a heard of people walking past my room and commanded Andrew to, “GO GET THEM NOW!”Fuming

They got there and checked me, and I was fully dilated, and my water still had not broken, I warned them once it did, that the baby was going to come with it! There was a lit of commotion in the room and then I felt my water break, and told them, “ I have to push now! “ Doc said, “ That’s fine go ahead!”, thinking that he still had time to get his gown on. The first push and his head was almost out, and he told me just to do little tiny pushes. After his head was born, one more big push and he was out! Born at 8:41pm! The doc put him right up on my belly, I was so happy as this is my first time that’s ever been done and Andrew cut the cord.
Here’s Finn right after he was born on my belly.

Finn Charles Miller weighed a healthy 7lbs 14 and ¼ oz and was 21 inches long which surprised me as he was 10 days early. Once he was cleaned up and weighed he latched right on and nursed like a pro!

After being in the birthing suite for another hour or so the nurse then told me that they had to keep Finn in the NICU overnight for observation because I didn’t have the antibiotics in my system 4 hours prior to his birth. This upset me a little as my doc told me not to worry about getting to the hospital too early. The nurse assured me that he would be brought to me when he needed to be fed and to get some rest. I barely slept as every time I heard foot steps I thought it was them bringing him to me. He was only brought twice between 11pm & 8am which upset me a little. The next morning the Pediatrician on call, gave him a clean bill of health, but wanted him to stay one more night to be on the safe side because of the GBS. Sunday morning we were released and headed home! Finn only lost 200g while in the hospital, and as of Tuesday morning he’s back up over his birth weight again!

Here’s few more pics!

First Sling Ride in the Hospital

Going home outfit

Proud Big Brothers

Loving Big Sissy

Doctor Dad?

Happy Birthday sweet boy! This year has gone by too quickly!

Here’s a few shots of Finn enjoying his First taste of Birthday Cake! It really was a small slice, however he manged to make it look like a lot more!

Happy Holidays to everyone that has followed along in our journeys throughout 2007! It’s been a very memorable year and a lot of fun, thanks again for following along, and I appreciate all of those comments!

I can’t believe the Holiday Season has passed us by again so quickly! It was nice to catch up with family members we don’t see as often, and spend time home together without school or work distractions. We didn’t do too much travelling as I came down with a cold leading up to Christmas, then a bad bout of the FLU leading up to New Year’s. Why do I always get sick close to the Holidays or Vacations? I know why, I’m running around like a mad woman trying to get everything ready ,and not eating properly, not sleeping enough, and just not taking care of myself! This is going to change, I’ll talk more about this later on.

So after my Cookie Exchange, the next day my BIL, SIL and two nephews arrived from Nova Scotia to stay the weekend at Andrew’s parent’s house. It was great to see them, and get the boys together to play. Their sons, Zack and Josh are 6 months younger than Liam and Ciaran, needless to say that there was a lot of energy filling the house! On Sunday, I decided to do a Christmas Dinner at our place for everyone, we had a total of 15! (9 adults and 6 kids) including Andrew’s Sister Colleen, her fiance Ben who were also home from NS, and Andrew’s older brother Peter.That afternoon, the littler boys Josh and Ciaran wanted to go out in the backyard to play in the snow, so Mackenzie graciously offered to take them out. They had an absolute blast! Josh and Mackenzie stayed out the longest and when they returned, Sean asked Josh who is favorite cousin was (none of the other boys were around at this point only Mackenzie), he had a huge grin on his face and whipped around to point at Mackenzie with a huge, “HIM!”. It was priceless, and I know Mackenzie loved it! I did a full turkey dinner and the spiral ham I picked up in Maine a few days before. Of course since I was busy cooking and normally I’m one to take all of the photos I don’t have very many from our dinner. If any of you have any feel free to email them to me and I’ll add them!

Zack!

Joshua!

Mackenzie and Josh playing!

On Christmas Eve, Sean Tracey and the boys headed back to NS, and I got things prepped for our annual Christmas Eve tradition of Seafood Chowder and Lobster Rolls. We actually got out the door on time too! Actually it was funny, we lost the power that morning around 11am for a few minutes. I arrived home just after the power returned. For some reason I thought it was an hour later than it was, so I set a few of the clocks for 12pm instead of 11am! Well normally I would have been upset at myself for doing this, but it actually worked in our favour. We got to church with plenty of time to spare, ad not scrambling last minute to get a seat, like usual. The service was really nice, Andrew’s Parent’s actually sing in the church’s Folk Choir, and even though we could not see them as they choir loft is up and above the congregation, Mackenzie kept mentioning she could hear “Papa”! I thought that was funny, he has a very unique bass sound! After church we all headed over to our house where my Mom and Stepdad were waiting for us. The chowder turned out great, if I must toot my own horn and if you’re interested in my recipe you can find it here: Christmas Eve Seafood Chowder
After the chowder and lobster rolls, we got the kids dressed in their matching snowflake jammies,and attempted to get some photos in from of the tree. This was easier said than done, between my Mom, Andrew’s Mom and myself here are the better ones and a few others candid shots from the night. Bedtime went relatively well which left time for wrapping, filling the stockings and getting everything under the tree!

Andrew and Liam trying to find Nanny and Papa in the choir loft at church. I din’t notice this until now, but it looks like the man in the background is aghast that I’m taking photos in church, remember we were almost an hour early!

Ciaran waiting for the service to begin.

My mom holding Finn and Andrew’s dad, waiting for the chowder to heat.

The two “Nannie’s” helping with the “jammies”

My less than successful attempt at getting a group “jammies” shot.

The gifts getting settled in!

Mine and Andrew’s new stockings, I made them myself. They look a little distorted from the over stuffing!

Christmas Day was a little different than other years. Since my dad was working Christmas Day,and my little brothers (Nathan 12, and Jonathan 10) were visiting extended family in Ontario with their mom, we stayed home that morning instead of having our usual Christmas Morning Brunch at my dad’s house. The kids were up at about 7:45am, (I know not that bad) but I was up quite late finishing off the last of the wrapping. I was a little upset as we asked Mackenzie to not wake the boys if she woke first. This lasted about 15 minutes, the excitement got the best of her! Just as I picked up the phone to call Andrew’s Parents (they come over every Christmas morning to watch the kids open their gifts) they pulled into the driveway, so it was all-around good timing! The gift opening went well, we had a lot of excitement and a few surprises (I got Andrew a Zoombox, he got me some Home Design Magazines…..more about this later), the kids were really pleased with their gifts, Mackenzie especially with her new 3 bin laundry sorter, Ciaran with his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Liam with his new Planet Heroes figure. After the gift opening wrapped up, we headed to the kitchen for a delicious breakfast and I decided to try something new: Helen’s Egg Nog French Toast, it was a big hit! At the same time, I put the turkey in the oven and extra stuffing in the crockpot, yes you did read this correctly, this is the second turkey I’m cooking in 48 hours! After breakfast we packed up the van and headed over to my mom’s for the afternoon, where my brother Curtis was waiting for us. The kids barely recognized him, it seems since he bought his first place out on the country has has taken on a new lumberjack look. Alright Curt…give it up it’s time to shave…LOL! We ended off the day with another turkey dinner at my place. Yes it was a lot of work, but I didn’t have the heart to refuse my dad. With the boys being away,and him having to work, I just thought it would be a nice end to the day for him. His “lady friend” Linda came over as well, and we have a really nice meal.

Liam digging into his stocking!

Ciaran posing with his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Kenz sitting pretty under the tree!

Finn sporting his new iPoo’d shirt from Mackenzie over at my mom’s.

My brother Curtis with his new “lumberjack” look!

Catching my stepdad Gearry by surprise!

I’m almost finished…just one more thing…Boxing Day! Andrew’s Mom’s side of the family has an annual get together on boxing day, it’s really nice to have this tradition and I hope it lives on for years to come! living in the city , on his mother’s side of the family he has 7 cousin’s and they all bring their kids, and it’s a great gathering potluck style. A big thanks to Kim and Mark for hosting again this year!

Andrew’s mom with Finn at the Boxing Day Bash!

Andrew and Liam- the three boys had on matching shirts that said “I’m One of a Kind” with a plaid snowflake on them. Everyone got a kick out of them!

Andrew’s Uncle Ralph!