Mountain out of a molehill

I decided to blog about this because I have not blogged in a gazillion years. And I guess it would kind of be long to just post it on Facebook. So here goes!

Ps:
#1: Mom, do not read this. 
#2: For the awesome moms who iron their babies onesies, this is also not for you...😘

I discovered something new today. It is very much, not a new concept...At all...
Jonathan has been gone now for almost 3 weeks and I'm home with the kids and my giant protective guard dog Brutus.

Jonny is my laundry man. He always does the laundry, folds it while he watches a movie and 90% of the time puts it away. I am beyond blessed. Because laundry is not my forte. 

Now that he is gone I have six loads of laundry that have stacked up on my bed. It is quite sad haha (at least they are clean) I think...

The only good thing about it is that I feel like at night time he is there lying beside me. Until I feel no heartbeat after I put my hand on the pile. Unless it's the "guard dogs". 🐶
Today, at the kids swimming lessons, I was chatting with my good friends about the six loads that I had to fold waiting for me at home. And one of my friends said, "do not fold it! Put in piles and stick it in their drawers!" haha. I felt like a light bulb turned on in my head I said oh my goodness that is so awfully wonderful. 
When I fold all their laundry I stick it in the drawers and they get all messed up anyway! (I do fold my clothes and hang what ever I don't want wrinkled.) 
My lesson from today is to choose your battles. For this period of time in my life, I will make piles and stick it in their drawers and when we get back to Jonathan in our new home in Quebec he can get back to his favorite job; Laundry. And maybe one day I'll do the Marie Kondo method and fold the clothes with my oh so obedient children whilst we singe wonderful worship songs in harmonious unison.

Ok,  now that the piles are made, I have to go put the clothes away. Ta Ta for now!
Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Or out of laundry...😬 Give yourself grace. One hour at a time ❤

Busy Birthday month

This month has be quite full with birthdays, house projects, baby kicks, TONS of Braxton Hicks and tons of naps! I am now 33 weeks pregnant, almost there!!!! 😦😖😃
I have so many pictures to share. Sometimes a "picture means a million words" right?!.
Also, it is evident how important prioritising is as a mom. Especially when pregnant and have zero energy. It's a juggle between cleaning, playing with the kids, blogging, napping and alone time (not like I remember what that feels like. haha)
Every day is so different. I just THANK GOD that Jonny boy never complains about the messy house. That would add on so much stress and guilt for sure! Instead he comes home after a long day and plays with the kids and CLEANS!! Thank you Jesus for such a gem. 💜🔹
 Things should get back to a "new normal" soon enough.
PICTURE TIME!!

I'm back in the blogging game!

Hello, long time no blog! haha. My Jonny boy bought me a laptop! I have therefore decided to start blogging again. I couldn't stand typing on the tablet I had because it was small and harder to use. It is now the kids "go on the couch and watch Netflix to give mommy and daddy some peace and quiet time for at least one hour please" tablet.

I am not even sure where to start off, it's been so long!!

I will start with where we are in life right now and share some highlights of the Sante summer 2018...

Surprises

I have to admit sometimes I'm a bit of a Blog slacker. To be fair I did not have my tablet for about a week and a half due to repairs. (Excuses, excuses...)

The past few weeks have been pretty eventful. Mostly emotionally and I'll tell you why a bit later...

Firstly, my mommy sent this awesome picnic table for Li'l Gal  and Li'l Guy. I put it together and set it up outside as soon as I could!

We love it!

I surprised Jonny boy with a "surprise date". The kids were babysat while we went to a 2.5 hour bee keeping class! We learned a whole bunch of things about bees and one day we want some of our own! Yummy honey......

Cool building eh! It looks like a bee!

My friend Tine asked me if I would teach 26 teen girls how to paint a painting! I took the challenge with delight! 

Tine and I first went to this bridge at "Mount Traber Bible camp" before the class started. The Rapids were soo beautiful! 

I had a lot of fun teaching these girls.

They didn't have any easels so they used these long benches to support the paintings and a stack of chairs for my painting! I thought it was genius!

Here are the results! 

I just love how different everyone's ended up!

The Sante girls duck hatched her ducklings and Li'l Gal was infatuated by them!

Can you tell?!

Now for the second "surprise" (That's how I try to think of it anyway), and to make a long story short, Jonny Boy and I have had our eyes on this house for a few months. And of course it's pretty much sold and we were pretty disappointed. This actually happened 3 times in the last 2 years... I find since we have been trying to sell our house I've been consuming my thought with finding a new home and of course in my head, the homes that we like are all decorated and I know exactly were all our stuff will go once we move in. I enjoy daydreaming about my "Pinterest  DIY crafts" list that I have for the next house. 

This is all good and dandy until I started an emotional roller-coaster mindset because it isn't happening now.

 My focus needs to be first on Jesus, then Jonny, then my children. Not on a house that is not even ours!

All that being said, my sister Shannon challenged me to not look for a house until ours sells! 

That's no fun, BUT, I took the challenge! 

I need to trust that God will have something wonderful for us if we are patient and can wait. It will be a "surprise"... Even if for some reason we have to rent while we find a house I have to use my situations and always seek to put God first. (I sure hope we don't have to move everything twice, but I'm also grateful that my house is not flooded like in my home town, Gatineau :(.  )

I'm not a very patient person. I like things in my timing.  God knows that, and that's probably why it is taking forever to get a bigger house.  I have to learn somehow! Right?!

My mom's advice to me was: "if ever you start thinking too much and becoming overwhelmed by "stuff", GIVE IT ALL TO JESUS! Rebuke it, then give it to jesus."

 I actually have to cut myself off In my though and say, "Stop it and give it to Jesus!"

An other thing shannon said to me was: "worry does not add a day to your life". 

I have pretty wonderful women in my life let me tell yeah! 

Also, this could totally be a placebo effect, but I have been taking these calcium/magnesium/vitamin D vitamins. I heard that they can really help with your focus, having more energy and being less crazy (hehe). I also felt like I was more "normal" while I was "PMS-ing". I find that I do actually feel better and less moody and mean. Weird... Even if it is a placebo effect, I'll take it! I recommend it! It was like 11$ for 360 pills from  Walmart... should,  last me about 6 months...

Until next time, God bless <3

My Li'l Guy is 1 years old!

This week was a pretty busy week!

 A good and busy week.

Sunday night I went to my friend Kaitlyns baby's shower. It was nice to get out of the house and get a bit of a different scenery. I helped decorate and it was a lot of fun. I just know God was there because of how everything fell into place. 

I painted a painting for Kaitlyn and needed to wrap it. I had some brown wrapping paper left and brought it with me to wrap it since I went early. (That was my friend Megans idea since I was going to wrap it at home but would have been late to the party)

The paper ended up being a perfect fit for the colour and size for the decoration on the wall! It hid the large bible verse sticker that was on the wall and there for we could see "Brody" better... it is just funny how things can just fall into place like that.  God is so good. I love his little surprises. 

Have a look at the cake Megan made. It's so cute!

  Tuesday we had tea/art class at Jenny's house. We painted ostriches! We enjoy standing in front of the hung paintings and point out how different, cute and funny they are. It's so much fun! I really enjoy teaching and seeing the results afterwards!

Wednesday was Li'l Guys 1st birthday! I wanted to have a huge celebration for him. 

The theme was Noah's arc! 

I had fun making the waves and seaweed with streamers, the clouds with doylies and the rain with gommette. (Not sure what that is called in English!)

Jenni and the girls lent me the boat with all the animals. I hung it up with fishing line.

We had a lot of yummy food! Tortillas, pulled pork and ground beef with rice and black beans and a lot of veggies and sauces to fill it up!

          

I am sooo happy both kids had a good nap before everyone showed up haha! 

Over 20 people showed up! I love it! 

Then Dairy Queen ice cream cake!

Yummy....

We then opened some beautiful gifts. 

I love my birthday boy. 

For the tortillas I made a garlic sauce that I love! And here it is:

Garlic sauce:

1 box cream cheese (roughly same amount of cream cheese and sour cream)

1 cup sour cream

5 garlic cloves (to taste)

Blend it all VERY well. Until all the garlic is pulverised. If you want it more garlicky, add more garlic! :D

I suggest the cream cheese to be room temperature for easier blending.

I hope you all had a wonderfully week! <3 

Easter of 2017

Last week had been a more mellow week. More of a "stay at home" kind of week... I have been very blessed to have Jonny boy with me for the past two weeks. Weather depending he will go back to work Monday.  Then it will be just me and the kiddos again. 

Jonny boy had to put down my neighbour's cow because it broke a leg. He only has one cow left for she is roughly 25 years old. We went to visited her because she is lonely since her 4 cow friends have past away now...

She is very beautiful and huge!

We also had my good friend Martha and her man Pastor Caleb over to cut down some rotten trees. We were worried they would fall on our house. And they also stayed and had dinner with us. With their two beautiful twin girls Elia and Louise.

Apparently this is how "real men" hold hands during prayer

(This was a remake after the prayer.  It was too good not to capture it on picture!) We had a good jolly old laugh.

Jonny boy cut down a branch from an old tree from me. I thought it looked very pretty. I thought Nanny Luba would appreciate it!

Li'l Gal stood and watched her Daddy heroically cutting down the branch for mommy with his chain saw. She was impressed.

She is so cute.

Today we had a couple come to our house for a viewing. I try and not get my hopes up too high because it is very easy to get disappointed with selling a house! I could go into more details, but today I am happy and don't feel like ruining that haha.

I tried to de-clutter my house and get rid of things to attempt a "less is more" type of lifestyle. I only kept my kids most importent toys and the rest I stored in the shed. It cleared up a lot of room in their room. And it will make it easier to clean. 

I also hooked all my belts on a hanger to clear out the bottom of my closet. It looks much bigger now!

Jonny, the kids and I went for a walk down by our river. Jonny said there was eagles flying around. And so there was! Three!   This is a pretty terrible picture.  I wish you could see them live! They were so beautiful and even did a flying show for us!

This is the river. I will miss it when we move!

This Friday we went to celebrate Jesus resurrection with our church. We are so blessed beyond our knowledge to be able to celebrate our beliefs in the open! Isn't it just awesome that Jesus came back from the dead to prove to us that all his promises are true, that we can fully trust him and we can have eternal life with him in heaven one day!

We ended the day with a nice bonfire/bbq at Pastor Ken's house. My friend Tanya, Ruth and I played worship music for a few hours! I had my ukulele (that i am ecstatic to have, thank you Christine Brady) and Tanya on her guitar So much fun! I didn't want to leave.

To end on an "yummy in my tummy" note, I want to share with you an easy meal idea that the kids loved! And that was so easy to make. Probably not so easy on my "diet" though... hahha

Here it is!

Tomato, pesto dish

-1 small jar of green pesto

-1 can of tomato soup

-Honey garlic sausage (I got mine at walmart, 16 sausages for 10$ not too bad. I'm sure Italian sausages would have been good too)

- 1/2 Red pepper
-1/2 Green pepper
-1/2 Onion
Noodles. (Half a bag)

#1: cook noodles and sausages at same time. While sauteing your chopped up veggies in some butter in a separate pan.

#2:when everything is cooked, slice your sausages up, add the pesto and tomato soup. Stirr it up until it's heated. 

#3 And VOILA!  serve with some cucumbers or salad just to add more veggies.  
Enjoy!
Until next time! Enjoy the sunshine, I know we are!

Don't loose it, reuse it! -Rocky

This past week was a week of new beginning, unexpected surprises and creativity. (No I am not pregnant haha)

Li'l Gal and I planted out first seeds of the year! This is also her first time planting 

Seeds!

Ps: I suggest you say a little prayer before you plant seeds with a toddler because geesh you need lotsa patients! 

I ALWAYS need to remind myself that she is 2 years old, not 26!

I cut the top and bottom on a yogurt container then cut little rows from the middle of the container to mark my veggies with a permanent marker...

I also put my dirt and seeds in the egg part (not lid) of  cardboard egg containers. Then placed them in "breakfast in bed trays." I added the water only in the tray, as the water will rise and wet the seeds  and dirt.  I don't pour water on top because the dirt might fly everywhere. 

Li'l Gal loved the experience.

Last year I used wooden  popsicle sticks with permanent marker and the water washed it all off in no time...

Our unexpected news was Christian James lajoe!

He just so happened to be in Nova-Scotia and had supper with us! 

(I was secretly hoping the pretty lady to his left would jump out of the back seat :P)

An other thing I did (and I was so proud of myself) was making home made noodles! (Thanks to Lisa Penner for the recipe and encouragement!)

First, prepare a big pot of water and bring to a boil. Then, add 1 heaping tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of butter.

 (The butter is so the noodles won't stick together in the water)

 I mixed 5 eggs and roughly 3 to 4 cups of flour. Kneed until your arms fall off and your start to sweat. About 10 minutes. Until it forms a nice hard perfectly blended ball. If you have a kitchen aid then by all means use it!... 

Cut the dough in 5 or 6 sections roll very flat and slice in VERY thin slices.

(The noodles almost triple in size when they boil!) Again, if you have a noodle maker device, then by all means use it!..

Add small sections in the water at a time so they don't stick together. Boil for 5 minutes, or until the noodles taste how you are used to noodles tasting.

Add your spaghetti or what ever sauce you desire and enjoy! 

I am also quite loving the water paint my mother bought for my last birthday.  It is so simple, and I can even paint on my lap while watching a movie because of the little supplies needed!

To end my week, my sister in law Naomi and good friend Martha had a girls night out together! We went to a Thai restaurant on prince  street in Truro called "Yoka". I had sushi and it was soooooooo good! And good prices too!! I forgot to take a picture to share. Just imagine three women sitting in a Thai restaurant smiling in the camera having a blast all the while thinking, "Ugh, finally I can get away from those kids and have FREEDOM!!" Haha, I'm exaggerating slightly. 

After that we went to the movies and watched BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! What a good movie. I did not want it to end. 

It brought me back to my child hood. 

Until next time friends!