100 Days

Today was my hundredth day cycling to work this school year. We'll see if tomorrow will mean 101 since Environment Canada is predicting a significant dump of snow.

Fall Family Days

A few weeks ago we went to Brantford for the weekend for a wedding and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary. The kids enjoyed seeing their relatives. We got some great pictures on town square in Brantford as well as Grace with her Great Grandmother Beth.

Pears

Well that was a first - I tried to hot pack pears this afternoon with mixed results. I'll wait to see how they last. Maybe I could pack the jars tighter if I cut the pears into smaller pieces. I also had my first lid failure of the year.

Salsa

I just finished my fourth batch of salsa for this year. This is my 4th year of making this salsa with pretty consistent results using a recipe from Canadian Living Cooks at Home. I'll have to see how spicy this batch is - I used jalapenos from the East Lynn Farmer's Market.
The shelves in the basement are beginning to get full with my other preserves form this year including: strawberry jam, peach jam, plum jam, tomato puree (from a bushel of San Marzano tomatoes), oven dried tomatoes, and peach chutney. I'd like to do something with beets, make some applesauce and perhaps do some pears.

Summer!

School ended this week and now the whole family is ready for summer. Tomorrow we begin our bi-annual road trip out west. Too bad we're packing this weekend as the weather is perfect for relaxing at the cottage.

A new bike finally!

Last week I picked up my new Trek 7.5FX. It's truly a pleasure to ride to work these days (the beautiful spring weather helps too.) I've added a rack for my panniers and fenders for rainy days, but it's still much lighter than my old Bianchi. My old bike has served me well since 1992. It will now be relegated to winter service.

Happy New Year!

I can't believe a decade has past since our Y2K party at our apartment on Yonge Street. Lots of changes have happened: two houses, three kids, two sister-in-laws, a niece and two nephews, my parents moving to Edmonton and a new teaching career are among the highlights.

For New Years, we spent four quiet days up north where there was lots of snow. Grace mastered climbing the stairs and kept saying "No, no, no" to the fireplace! She is also blowing people kisses which is really cute. Grace is saying so many words these days along with cruising along the furniture and trying to open cupboards. I should write her words down before I forget. Some of them are: baby, book, milk, nose, head, hat, clap, Miam (Liam), Mama, Dadda, up, nap, night-night and NO! And her favourite sentence is "No night-night!" Yes, we are still working on that. She did not enjoy sleeping in the Pack and Play at the cottage. In fact, I am pretty sure she cried each and every time, including for naps. Well, I guess we were bound to have one child who is a difficult sleeper. I keep saying one of the reasons we have 3 kids is because Luke was such an angel baby (Liam was sweet too but Luke really was an angel).

Luke is a different kind of angel now and he sure is funny even when he doesn't realize it. On our long journey home from the cottage (snowstorm) Dan pointed out some wild turkeys at the side of the road. Luke exclaimed "Oh, those are the turkeys that survived Thanksgiving!"

Happy New Year and all the best for 2010!

Playing in the Garden

Happy Thanksgiving!

So thankful for both our families, good health, delicious food, a cozy home, a wonderful husband and 3 beautiful children.

8 Months!

Grace is 8 months! (HELP! We need to stop the time...my little girl is growing too fast!) She's talking up a storm, enjoying lots of new foods, working on her top teeth and still trying to get her bum up to crawl. Grace is cuter than ever...even at 3 in the morning.

We were planning to go apple picking yesterday but it was too cold and rainy. I really wanted to take a photo of Grace in the pumpkin patch, but we'll have to settle for this photo on our porch with the pumpkin Luke brought home from his farm trip.

Aside from the weather yesterday, I really love this time of year - especially when the sun is out. There are so many little things to be thankful for: the cool morning walks, the leaves changing colour, hockey season and of course, pumpkin pie!

Local Strawberries!

My mom brought these over this evening. She found them at the market down the street. It seems early for Ontario berries, but they taste like the real thing. Jam making time is just around the corner...

Changing Faces

With Spring definitely here now, I can shed my fall and winter faces.