The Very Hungry Caterpillar...

read by Kaley. This has been Kaley's favourite book for a couple of weeks now. I didn't realize how much she like it until I heard her reading it word for word to her woof woof a couple of weeks ago. I got it on video for us to remember before this phase passed!

Happy Birthday Erica!

Happy Birthday Erica! Love from all of us:-)

God gave a gift to the world when you were born—

a person who loves, who cares,
who sees a person’s need and fills it,
who encourages and lifts people up,
who spends energy on others
rather than herself,
someone who touches each life she enters,
and makes a difference in the world,
because ripples of kindness flow outward
as each person you have touched, touches others.

May the love you have shown to others
return to you, multiplied.
I wish you the happiest of birthdays,
and many, many more!

By Joanna Fuchs

Halloween 2010

This year was a lot of fun for Halloween with Chloe being here and Auntie Sharlene visiting us. It was difficult coming up with a theme that would fit for a dog, baby and toddler. Since Kaley was into princess things, we decided that the girls would both be princesses and that Baracus would be the knight in shining armor. Then, when Auntie Sharlene was going to be coming out then, we added her to the group as their fairy God mother.

It was a blast and Kaley really enjoyed herself. We took pictures the night before, but Baracus wasn't having anything to do with it, so we let him off the hook. Here they are, all dressed up!




Kaley got to go Trick-or-Treating with Auntie Sharlene while Chloe stayed with mommy to help hand out candy. Daddy was at the church handing out candy for the Trunk N Treat.






In the end, Kaley got a TON of candy for such a small amount of time that she was out. She had fun, Auntie Sharlene had fun, mommy and daddy had fun, Chloe slept through most of it and Baracus enjoyed it all from the couch sleeping:-)

Halloween Fun

As most of you know, our family (or, I should say me and the rest just come along for fun) enjoys very much all of the festivities around this time of year. Perhaps it is just the fun of dressing up, my love of candy, or my love of the fall season--whatever the reason--I love this time of year. Thankfully my parents allowed us as kids to join in on the fun with Trick-or-Treating when the church at that time had much different views on the matter.

Before we had kids, the dog was the lucky one who got dressed up every year, and although we didn't take him out trick-or-treating, he did get some special treats at the end of it. This year, however, he received a "Get out of jail free card" with the addition of Chloe to our family. It was just too hard managing all three of them in the picture without losing my mind:-). Just for fun, here are a few of the costumes Baracus has worn:

2002-2005:Didn't realize there were costumes for dogs!!!
2006: Power Ranger costume (it was too small and I didn't get a picture before I took it back)
2007: Firefighter


2008: Yoda & Princess Leah





2009: Monkey and a Banana


2010: Knight in Shining Armour guarding his princesses (didn't make it into the photo)


Lots of fun and some good memories (at least for mom!)

Proud Moments as a Mommy

Next to being a wife, being a mom is one of the greatest gifts that I have been blessed with in my life. I love it when there are those precious moments that occur that I will never forget. Tonight there was one of those moments...

Kaley was playing with her woof woof and babies and had put them to bed, pulled their covers up and she came running into the kitchen and said "Mommy, I put my woof woof to bed!" I then asked her if she prayed with them before they went to sleep and she had said "No, I better go do that." She leads me into the livingroom and, without my help, she goes up to the bunk bed where she has put them, kneels down, folds her hands, lowers her head and prays for her woof woof and babies. *sniff sniff*

It was so precious! It makes me teary eyed just thinking about it. There is no greater thing that I want to teach my girls, than the importance of prayer and praying for your children. What an awesome and huge responsibility, but worth so much more than manners, academics, housekeeping skills and all the rest.

I pray that our sweet little Kaley continues to have a loving and caring heart and is concerned about the needs of others. To God be the glory!

Baked Bread...yum!

I absolutely love the smell and taste of fresh baked bread!

Much like the cloth diapers and homemade laundry detergent, I am a huge fan of being able to make those much needed items from the comfort of my own home- and making my own bread is just another thing that is so easy to make at home. I don't like to have to run out to the store every few days to pick up the necessities, and it is much easier on the budget to just make what I can at home. Trust me- if I could figure out a way to have our own chickens for eggs and a cow for milking, I would:-) I never really liked shopping before, but since having kids, I REALLY don't like having to go to the store more than I need to.

Considering having the time and the ease of making bread, I found that the easiest and cheapest way of making bread at home is to buy the frozen loaves. It is sooo easy and only costs about $1.20 per loaf. The bag of frozen dough was at first very hard to find and I only found two stores around us that carry it! The brand I buy has 5 frozen loaves and costs around $6.

Whenever we are running low on bread, I just go get a loaf from the freezer in the evening, spray a loaf pan with butter spray, and put in the frozen bread dough.
Then, I just cover it and let it thaw and rise over night.




In the morning, I set the oven to 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.



Voila! A loaf of bread ready to eat and a yummy smell of bread to linger throughout the house.


From the prices of bread around us, it is about 1/2 the price of the brand name bread, and about 1/3 less the price of the generic brand. My next step in the process is to use our bread machine to make my own frozen bread dough, which I bet is going to be even cheaper, but for now this works great for us.

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

We had a nice sunny and warm Saturday that was just perfect to go the Pumpkin Patch. You never know what the weather is going to be like in October, so when those nice days come, you have to take advantage of them.

We had taken Kaley last year, but she was still very young and could only do a few of the activities. This year was a lot of fun. Our local pumpkin patch is great because it has a ton of family friendly activities to do and lots of room to run around and play. Kaley had a blast! She rode the tractors, ran through the hay maze, played with the animals and in the water play, BUT her favourite activity was the play structure. Go figure!

We attempted the ride to the pumpkin patch to pick our own pumpkins, but she was a bit scared of the whole operation, so we decided not to push it. They had a bunch of pumpkins at the entrance to pick from, so we got some already picked ones. Great day with the family!