Tales From the Minivan

Well kind of! Since Many of you read on my Facebook Status that I was making this and I got a ton of feedback here’s the details!

Ground Chicken and Turkey was on sale this week, so I decided to make a dish I blogged about once before Click for the recipe—->”Turkey Stuffin’ Meatloaf“. Tonight I decided to try a new take on this and instead of making meatloaves, I decided to make this more kid approved dish and cooked the mixture in muffin and mini-muffin pans.

Here’s a picture precooked:

I normally serve this with mashed potatoes so I though to myself, what are my cupcakes missing? Frosting, so of course They needed a topping of “Mashed Potato Frosting”. I cheated this evening and made a package of instant potatoes with an attached gravy mix. I love gravy, it’s a big weakness of mine!

Here’s the finished product! I overcooked it a smidge, I’ll have to perfect it next time!

This week’s must have iPhone app is called Little Chef!

I can’t say just how much I love this free App!

Math, fractions and measurements have always been one of my strong points, but growing up in the 70’s & 80’s had me learning both metric and the old imperial measurements. Often I can’t remember the conversions between the two and I find a lot of my recipes tend to have a combination.

What Mini-Chef will do is convert your kitchen measurements for you! So if you’re doubling a recipe and don’t want to have to measure out 8 tablespoons of something, you can just measure out 1/2 cup instead! Or maybe your recipe says 32 ounces of something you’ll know that is 4 cups! Very handy for both moms and dads!  It is lacking grams and milligrams, maybe I’ll email the developer and see if they’ll add them!

Last night and all day today I got to resurrect a very neglected hobby of mine…Scrapbooking!  I started scrapbooking this exact same time of year 3 years ago.  There’s something about the fall that gets my creative juices flowing.  Maybe it’s my internal calendar where fall is the start of a fresh new school year that kickstarts my brain, or perhaps it’s the fresh colours of the fall foilage? I’m not sure, but whatever it is I like it.

I felt completely unprepared to go to a scrapbooking crop earlier in the week . You may be asking what is a “Crop”? For those that are not scrapbookers it’s an event that brings scrapbookers together in a huge hall, where all sit together and do our thing.  We eat laugh and bounce ideas of of one another.  Everyone is great about sharing supplies and and helping out one another.

I was a really nice break after a long week of Andrew working late almost every evening. Another nice thing about the event was that the proceeds for the raffles, Silent Auctions and the sale of other items and part of the registration fee was going to help a 32 year old mother with Breast Cancer.  It was found out that some of this mother’s medications were not covered by her drug plan and she could not afford them.  An account was set up at her pharmacy to donate all proceeds from the day for her.   How great is that?  I’m pretty sure that over $1000 was raised.

Naturally “Pink” was the theme of the weekend and we were told to wear pink and design and make a name tag.  I literally whipped one up Friday afternoon!  Here’s a couple of pics of Tracy and I at the crop.  It would not have been the same for me had Tracy not been there. I absolutely love scrappin’with her and we laugh all day long!  Thanks for bringing me into this world Tracy, I truly love it!

My Name Tag- a little jean purse I made from a pair of Finn’s jeans that had a big hole in the knee

Tracy- Deep in Concentration

Some of the Christmas Cards I’m Making

So today inspired me to get back into my papercrafting and start preserving some of those memories captured on film that have been neglected.  I love the feeling of taking something bland and reviving it with my own personal touch.  I’m planning to make about 60 cards for Christmas, and I managed to complete 20 of them and each one is different and unique from the others!  Only 40 to go wish me luck!

After I dropped the kids off at school, I decided that it would be a good time to vote.  So I parked the van in the driveway and strapped Finn into the Ergo and walked to the polling station and then down to the waterfront to see one of the last few cruise ships that will be using Saint John as it’s Port of Call.  This morning the Princess Cruiselines Jewel of the Sea was docked. I’ve driven by these boats all summer, but haven’t actually gotten up close and personal.  This ship was almost a whole city block long.  I’ve been on a few of the bigger vessels on vacation but I guess you really don’t realize the scale when you see them in your own city and have something you see everyday to compare it to.

Here’s a few shots I took from my iPhone (as you can see I couldn’t get the whole boat in one shot)

I finished my walk to stop and admire this  beautiful piece of historic property for sale on the corner of my street.  It’s called Caverhill Hall and it truly is a piece of Saint John history.

It was built after the Great Fire of 1877 for a brewer named Simeon Jones to replace his former estate lost in the fire.  It’s architecture is much different than most homes built at that time in Saint John, it was actually a replica of property in Montreal.  Another neat fact, in 1901 the home was loaned to the City of Saint John to serve as the royal residence for the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall during their stay in the city.  One more little piece of trivia you may not find in the history books- Caverhill Hall also was a popular nightclub/danceclub in the late 80’s early 90’s called Caper’s.  Can you believe that this 10,000 sq ft 6 bedroom, 8 bath house is on the market for only$699, 900!!

I rounded the corner back to our little house and started being grateful for it.  Can you imagine what it would cost to heat $10,000 sq ft?? I grabbed a quick shot of our place which then reminded me I need to get my Halloween decor up.!! I’m a little late this year, I normally have it up well before Thanksgiving!  I’ll get some pics later this afternoon. It’s mornings like this when I truly appreciate city living!

I decided to add a new category to my blog for iPhone Apps I think are cool and or useful, I’ll try and add a new one each week.  If you have one you recommend email me canadianparents@gmail.com , I prefer to feature free Apps, but if there’s something you think is great then let me know!  I have an iTunes card burning a hole in my pocket!

So as you read in the title, I’m going to tell you about Smug Shot for the iPhone.  As you’re probably aware the iPhone has a built in camera, and I must say the quality is pretty good!  You can see some photos I took with it on my entry titled A Burst of Fall Energy

So what Smug Shot will do is after you have taken a photo on you iPhone you can then choose to upload your photo to SmugMug an online photo hosting site.  No it’s not a free one, but for the minimal cost it’s worth it in my eyes over the free ones. The process has been seemless and all of my photos I chose to upload are now already uploaded making blogging them so muck quicker! Thumbs up to SmugMug & SmugShot!

SIXTY SEVEN PAIR of underwear!  shhhh!  Yes I’m embarrassed to say this is me!  I have been doing so well with keeping up with the laundry lately, that I was beginning to notice, everyone’s dresser drawers were overflowing!

I decided it was time to start getting rid of the clothing that we’ve accumulated over the years and keep the stuff that the kids actually are wearing.  There’s no sense holding onto something “just in case” .  Your dresser is prime real estate in your home and if your undies drawer is overflowing with uncomfortable unmentionables it’s time to clean up that hot property!  So clean up and out I did!

First I emptied the entire drawer and divided into stuff I like and wear often and  stuff that only gets worn when the laundry gets low.  The pile started to grow and grow.  I honestly have no idea how it all fit in there or how I ever found anything in the morning.  In the end, I counted 67 pair of panties!  I held onto 20 of my most comfortable pairs of knickers.

Next was the bras… THIRTY TWO! Again I’m embarrased to say that more than half of them were nursing bras, and some of them were over 12 years old, as I know I bought them when I was nursing Mackenzie!

Ladies do yourself a favour, ditch the ill fitting ginch!

So now that I have all of these drawers out of my dresser drawers what can I do with them? I’m not going to donate them, yuck!  So any ideas for them, or should I accept defeat and let them live their resting days at the landfill?  Does anyone really want to see me wiping down my walls with my Joe Boxers?

It seems that someone at CBC  has been reading my blog and when the time came to do a story on a recent study done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety they contacted me!  Why me though?  My boys are not yet in booster seats.  I think the reporter was surprised at first when I told him my almost 6 year old was still in a 5pt harnessed car seat.  He was intrigued by this fact and asked if I’d be willing to talk to him about this on air…in one hour!  Nervously I agreed and secretly was happy that I actually put on a little makeup earlier!

We arrived at Liam’s school and  the reporter Chris Corday was waiting for us, he interviewed me and I like usual rambled on about car seat safety and my loathing of the 3-in-one seats (which I might add are some of the ones not recommended in the IIHS study).  I told him that Liam who is now just over 40lbs could be in a booster, but I choose to keep him in a harnessed seat, and used a line from our great moderator of CPO’s Car Seat Safety Board TamC  “A step up in restraint is a step down in safety!”   I also said yes he does complain sometimes that he’s still in a car seat, but I tell him that he’s just like a Race Car Driver as they wear 5 pt harnesses just like him to keep them safe!

I wish I had been able to grab the clip that was online to post here, but I was so busy the day after it was on, I didn’t get a chance to!  CBC only keeps their news casts online for 24 hours!

Here’s a couple of pics we took right after the taping:

In the pic above you can see Finn is still happily rear facing, and we borrowed Sarah’s The First Years True Fit seat to try out.  Very nice, I’m still thinking I may have to get one for that extra 5 pounds I can keep Finn rear facing.  Actually Ciaran could be rear facing in one still, he’s still only 33-34lbs at almost 4 years old!

Oh and you can probably see above in the pics the t-shirt on the seat.  This is also another great tip I stole from SarahNB.  It works great to keep your seats clean when you have a walking toddler that’s rear facing.  When the shirt gets dirty,  you take it off and wash it. So simple!

This morning was a typical lazy Saturday morning.  I always have great expectations to get up, and go to one of the markets but relaxing always prevails.  Instead the boys had a great time playing Mario Galaxy on the Wii and I lazed around watching The US VP debates that I downloaded from CNN to put on my iPhone.

Everyone was getting ansty and needed to get some fresh air, so we headed toward Rockwood Park.  For anyone reading not from our area, it’s a HUGE Municipal park right in the middle of the city, it’s truly a gem!  I’ve been noticing on some of my friends Facebook photos that there is a new trail open, part of the Trans Canada Trail so we decided to check it out.  Here’s a few photos I took on the iPhone and uploaded them directly to my Photo Hosting site (SmugMug) directly from my phone.  Pretty cool eh?

As you can see fall is definitely amongst us!  The air was cool and crisp and it really gave me a burst of energy.  I really need to do this more often. I’m a huge procrastinator when it comes to physical fitness, but when I’m out there doing it I really enjoy it!  I need to just get some more self-motivation!  Any tips??