I made some cranberry-lemon cake/bars yesterday…

and… they were so good that there is not enough left to get a good pic…

Of course, It did help that I got a call at the last minute yesterday reminding me that there was a homeschooling meeting last night so I packed them up and brought them to share…

I will make them again though and share the pic but for now I will share the recipe…

2 eggs (beaten)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups cranberries (or less if you don’t like them as tart as I do)

1. Beat together eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla.
2. Mix in Lemon zest and juice
3. Add flour and baking powder and mix well.
4. Fold in cranberries.
5. Pour into 9 x 9 cake pan.
6. Bake@ 350 degrees 40-45 minutes .

Well… first… I have signed up for NanBloPoMo so I have the challenge of writing a blog post per day for the whole month… So expect a lot of posts in the next 30 days…

what I realized though is that I haven’t given an update in a while…

The boys are on a video game kick at the moment… Lego Batman, Lego Starwars and Lego Indiana Jones are big hits along with Spore… Colin is more into the Lego games while Xavier is having SO much fun creating creatures and spaceships in spore and having his creatures live and evolve.. and I have to admit that I am enjoying that game also…

Colin has also been having fun on Starfall… not long ago he did not catch how to use a mouse nor did he have much interest in the computer… not like Xavier who was great with the mouse at 2… but when he caught on, he caught on quickly and frequently asks to play the “letter game”… and well he is good at it also… I have a feeling that he will be reading sooner than later…and the funny thing I find is that as much as Xavier wants to hide that he knows more than we think… he corrects Colin and reads things for him when he thinks we are not listening…

As I have said before though… he doesn’t like to show off what he knows if he doesn’t think that he can do it according to his own standards… So I have a feeling that he will not admit that he can read, or sit down with a book until he is certain that he can… yes… I am admitting that Xavier rarely, or almost never looks at books…  but as I have been learning myself… books are not the only places where words exist and they have plenty of time to fall in love with books…

Another thing is that Xavier and Colin are fighting a lot less… they play together a lot more often, and make up scenarios, plan things and talk about things… they are not just brothers but they are also friends…

And Khéna… well he is growing and changing and becoming such a little man… I am realizing everyday that we no longer have a “baby” in the house… he follows his brothers everywhere, wants to have everything like them…but he also plays by himself a lot and has been doing a lot of pretend play… he loves to take care of his “bibi” (baby) and walks her around the house in a stroller and brings her to me to nurse… it is so cute! he is starting to talk a lot more and using more words to communicate everyday… he is such a little sponge…

The decluttering bug has hit me again…it happened at the same time last year so maybe it is just the time of the year?

Whatever it is, I have been decluttering around the house the last few days…

the first thing I wanted/needed to do was the sewing room… All the fabric that I use was piled on a chair next to my desk which not only made the room look cluttered and messy but the fabric was wrinkled and hard to find also…

So.. on Friday I went out in search of a bookcase… and I found one… I didn’t pay much because it was the floor model which was a bonus because then I didn’t have to assemble it either…

So on Saturday I placed all my fabric in it, got rid of some stuff that I won’t use and cleaned up my sewing table… I also fixed the little office chair that I was no longer using because it was not too comfortable and was burried under all of the fabric… and at the same time Simon decluttered his clothes which are in the sewing room also…

Yesterday when making the beets I also decided to declutter my pantry… Now that feels good also…

I still have a lot to do in the house but I hope to tackle at least one thing a day and get the house to a level that I feel comfortable with…

Annie will be proud

I love pickled beets… especially the ones that my great grandma used to make… and my grandmother… and my mom… and well.. now me…

I asked my grandma for her mom’s recipe when she was here last and this week beets were cheap at .99 for 5lbs… so today I decided to make them…

10 lbs of beets In the pot…

boil for about 2 hours…

all cooked and ready to be peeled and sliced…

all peeled…

sliced… (aren’t they beautiful)

6 cups Vinegar, 3 cups Beet Juice and 4 cups sugar…

jars ready

All filled up…

processed for 30min in boiling water…

a dozen jars of pickled beets…

I really love Halloween… there is just a certain atmosphere about it that I love… and when the weather cooperates and kids don’t have to wear coats over their costumes and it is not raining or snowing it is even greater…

What I hate though… those people who ToT in cars…

The kids hop in and out of the car or minivan (with the side door wide open for easy in and outs) and don’t walk the gaps between houses… the goal is to get more candy without having to walk too much and the parents oblige.. or maybe it is the parents that don’t want to walk either…

in any case I hate seeing it…

As Simon and I were thinking we could probably accept it on rainy and cold Halloween nights… but with a night like last… there was no excuse…

So I have been asked by a few people what we do for halloween and the candy…

well.. what we did this year… and will most likely do every year is that we went Trick or Treating quite early after supper and went around the neighbourhood to the little places that we like to see…

Then, when the boys were getting a bit tired we got home and quickly went through it…

All of the candy that they can’t eat went into a big bowl… In exchange I got some treats that they could have…and then we opened our lights and gave away all of the candy (along with some glow sticks/bracelets that I bought) to the ToT’ers that came to our home…

The boys had a blast opening the door and giving the candy and the glow sticks away…

They still get treats and sugar rushes that they don’t get often without eating anything that I don’t want them to eat, or that they are allergic to…

I love halloween…

The crisp air, the kids all dressed up, the sound of the leaves and actually seeing the people that live in your neighborhood… Some of the homes have amazing decorations and some are quite simple but inviting…

Simon took the day off and after I ran a few errands we sat down to carve the pumpkin… Xavier couldn’t handle the texture but he did try…

Simon finished the rest while Xavier drew the face he wanted us to carve….

I carved it out and he was really happy with the result…it looked quite like the pic he drew…

So… Xavier was young Indiana Jones

Colin was Spiderman

and Khéna was supposed to be Buzz Lightyear but did not appreciate having a costume on…

So Simon found an alternative… a ‘Hulk” PJ shirt that the boys have…

and once he saw his brothers go up to the doors… he wanted to go too and had a blast!!!

Here are two of my favourite houses to visit…

I wrote one of these a few years ago… but it was a bit out of date… so here we go again

1. I was born in Verdun (Montreal)
2. I was raised in Nelson BC
3. I want to go back there to live and raise my family
4. I was raised by my mom
5. My mom has been married twice
6. My mom had been widowed twice
7. My dad is still alive
8. My first step dad was gay and died of aids in 97
9. My second step dad died of liver cancer/cirrhosis in 2004
10. I met my bio dad when I was 9
11. I am now starting to get closer to him
12. I am an only child
13. I have both a step-brother and a half brother whom I don’t see or talk to
14. I love being a mama
15. I have three great boys
16. I love being a stay-at-home mom
17. I live about an hour out of Montreal
18. I wish I had more of a community in my area
19. I would love to live on a property with another family or two
20. I met Simon through a BBS
21. I was married at 21
22. Next May (2008) will be our 10 year anniversary
23. I wore ‘Docs’ under my wedding dress
24. We got married at Montreal City Hall
25. We are both Atheists
26. I have never believed in a religion or a god
27. I have a degree in religion
28. I have always wanted kids
29. I would like another child
30. I have always known that I would homeschool
31. On our first date I told Simon that if I had kids I would homeschool
32. We are unschoolers
33. I find Quebec to be a very unfriendly place for homeschooling
34. I advocate Natural parenting and living
35. I don’t wear make-up
36. I don’t use products in my hair
37. I have two tattoo’s that I got when I was 16
38. I have a tongue stud
39. I like seeing women and men with grey hair, I hate dyed hair
40. I dyed my hair red one time at the end of pregnancy with Xavier
41. We co-sleep most of the night
42. I love breastfeeding
43. I have “triandem” nursed
44. Xavier weaned himself just before his fifth birthday
45. I am Tandem nursing Colin and Khéna (4 and 2)
46. I was a peer-to-peer Breastfeeding Counsellor
47. I quit when I was told that I should not have given advice on solids to a mom in the park on my own time because she knew I was a counsellor
48. I get angry when people choose not to breastfeed
49. I feel sorry for kids that are not breasted
50. I was not breastfed
51. I was sick often as a child
52. I avoid doctors now
53. I have asthma but I have not had many problems the last few years
54. Being around smokers triggers my asthma
55. Perfumes do the same
56. I am very sensitive to scents
57. I get seriously offended if someone smokes close to me or my kids
58. Almost all of my Family and Simon’s family are smokers
59. We don’t go to their homes because of it
60. I also get offended if people wear shoes in my house
61. I hate wearing socks and shoes
62. My first birth was a hospital birth
63. I was transferred from the birthing center for failure to progress (49 hours in all)
64. I refused the C-Section the Doctors were trying to scare me into
65. I have had two back labours with posterior babies
66. My second birth was a birth center birth
67. I haemorrhaged after giving birth to Colin because of a managed 3rd stage
68. I had an Unassisted Pregnancy with Khéna
69. I had an Unassisted water birth with Khéna
70. I will UP/UC again
71. I loved birthing in water
72. I find people reactions to UC a bit funny sometimes
73. We don’t do “well baby visits”
74. We don’t vaccinate
75. I love to cook
76. I hate bland food
77. I make most of our food “from scratch”
78. I bake bread every few days
79. We avoid artificial colouring and flavours for allergy and behaviour issues
80. I love Sushi and make it as often as I can
81. Most of the cookbooks in my home are Vegan
82. I am not a Vegetarian
83. I don’t eat enough vegetables
84. We never did “baby foods”
85. I am trying to lose weight
86. I am lazy
87. I lost 50 pounds with weight watchers before I got pregnant with Xavier
88. I try to swim 3 times a week… but usually only go twice
89. I am addicted to the internet
90. I write many blog posts in my head in the shower
91. I have three domains, this one for my blog, Red Threads for my shop, and Greener Pastures which is message board for likeminded non-mainstream parents
92. My best friend lives across the country (we met on the internet )
93. I used the name “paxye” for the first e-mail account that I made about 12 years ago. A hotmail account that I still have and use for junk and MSN.
94. I love to sew
95. I hate patterns
96. My favourite colours are red and Orange
97. I love taking pictures
98. I like to wash dishes but hate drying them and putting them away
99. I listen to talk radio
100. I go to bed way too late every night