Big and Little.

A lot of people say that Ivy looks just like Seth. I don’t usually see it. I think people just think that because they both have brown eyes/dark hair/etc.
But then I took this picture, and I thought maybe people might be a little bit right.
Seriously, how cute.
I sat Ivy on Seth’s lap for a few minutes while I cleaned the kitchen. She sat there contentedly for a long time, watching a movie with her big brothers. Four kids might be crazy, but it’s also darn cute.

Right?

I wish.

Sometimes don’t you just wish you were a kid? Napping every afternoon, sleeping 11 or 12 hours at night? Maybe it’s just because I have a baby that’s been getting me up several times a night for the last four and a half months, but sometimes I wish I could sleep as much as a small child.
Plus, they’re just so sweet looking while they sleep, whereas I am not so sweet looking while I sleep. More scary than sweet, probably. Sigh.

No, there are no pictures of a sweetly sleeping Ivy. Not just because Ivy does not sleep as sweetly as I would like, but also because I’m always too terrified I’m going to wake her up if I try to take a picture!

A little behind.

I was browsing my pictures and realized I’m sort of behind on blogging. Like I never shared any pictures from Oliver on his birthday. We didn’t have a party, really, just a little cake at home. Oliver was really excited about his “cars two!!” cake. Him blowing out the candles was possibly the funniest thing any of us had witnessed in a long time. Seth and Ben almost fell off their chairs they were laughing so hard. Wish you could have been there.
After we sang Happy Birthday (twice) and Oliver blew out his candles (twice- it was just that funny!), I took the candles off and went to get a knife to slice the cake and some forks for the kids.
I wasn’t fast enough.
The big boys thought that was Oliver was a genius and decided to get in on the action.
Oh what a sweet, sweet birthday boy we had.
He still talks about his birthday. “Happy birt-day! Cars two!”

Sewing :: For nursing.

A looooooong time ago someone asked me to sew them a nursing cover.
I finally did it. Even got it done before her baby was born, phew.
I love the fabric I used, and I even added a corner of flannel to wipe up any milky messes. If her baby is anything like Ivy, who sputtered and coughed every feed for the first couple months, she might find that that little bit of flannel comes in handy. Or maybe she’ll be one of those lucky mothers whose baby never spits up? I’ve heard that such a baby exists, although I’ve never personally had one.

Whatever kind of baby she has, I’m sure he’ll like nursing under this cover.

The artist in residence.

Ben’s been including more and more details in his drawings. Like Seth, he draws a lot of strange little creatures and dragons and “bad guys”. This is one of his recent drawings:
Here’s a close-up of some of the bad guys he drew:

After he draws all these little guys he always asks which one you’re cheering for or which one you think is going to win, and then he has an imaginary race with them and you almost always win. If your guy is losing, he’ll tell you so you can switch guys. This is a game that is played at least a thousand times a day in our house.
Another drawing Ben did that really impressed me was this one of a zoom boom:

If you don’t know what a zoom boom is, it’s kind of like a forklift that can reach really high. Oliver got a toy zoom boom from Seth and Ben for his birthday and that’s what Ben was drawing. Here’s the toy zoom boom:

Not bad, right? And Ben wasn’t looking at the zoom boom or anything while he was drawing it. He just did it from memory. Can you say genius?
I’m pretty happy with my kids’ mean drawing skills. Even Oliver is in on the drawing action, often for hours of each day. They all enjoy it, and it’s a lovely, quiet activity, so you know I encourage it!
Today the kids were looking at their new magazine and they saw this ad for toothbrushes you can decorate with stickers. They really want these toothbrushes. Seth has asked for one for his birthday and Ben said that he would buy it for him. They were talking about them a lot, and really studying this ad. Then they came and brought it to me and told me, “Mom, we need a LOT of money to buy these. They cost $114.”

technically it’d be $141 if they had read the number right.
Thank goodness that’s the number of stickers you get, not how much toothbrushes cost these days. Seth just might luck out this birthday.

Breakfast from scratch: homemade greek yogurt with granola.

We eat so much yogurt in this house, it’s crazy. Sometimes I spend $20 or more just on yogurt on my weekly grocery shopping trip. That’s a lot. Lately I’ve really been lovin me some greek yogurt. Except the greek yogurt costs even more than the regular yogurt. I justify it because it has more protein and less fat but then I end up eating twice as much of it so it’s gone twice as fast and costs twice as much.
Anyway, I decided to try to make my own yogurt.
And it worked! I made about two litres of homemade greek yogurt and it cost me about $6. That’s a savings of about 50-75% depending on what brand of greek yogurt you buy at the store. Next time it will be even cheaper because I’ll use my own yogurt as the starter instead of a little bit of store bought yogurt.
Besides saving a little money, it tastes really good and I feel good about eating it because all that it’s made of is milk (and a little bit of yogurt from the store). No sugar or any of those weird ingredients you can’t pronounce.
To be honest, I didn’t make homemade yogurt to be healthier or just to save money. I just wanted to try it out. I thought it might be kind of fun to make my own yogurt, and it was. I’m not a hippie or anything like that, but I do like making things from scratch if I can. I’m a stay-at-home mom and I’ve got the time to do it, so why not. I’m not sure that I’ll forever be making my own yogurt, but maybe I will from time to time, just for the heck of it.
What do you like to put on your yogurt? Sometimes I like to put a drizzle of honey and a handful of crushed walnuts. I also like it topped with some crunchy granola and fresh fruit. I decided to make my own granola because it’s yummy and also because I have a 50 pound bag of oats in my possession. For reals. My father-in-law works in an oats plant. I have no idea if that’s the proper term for his workplace, but anyway, he supplies me with loads and loads of oats, for free! So great!
So what do you do with 50 pounds of oats? Make granola! Even if you don’t have 50 pounds of oats, you should make some. It’s soooo good!

And when you’re sitting at your kitchen table eating your lovely thick fresh greek yogurt topped with your deliciously crunchy granola, you’ll feel pretty proud of yourself.
If you want to be a hippie for a day and make your own yogurt and granola, here’s how:

Homemade Greek Yogurt (Or just regular yogurt if you like!).

You need:
A crockpot
2 litres of whole milk
1 cup of plain yogurt that contains live cultures.

Making yogurt is easy but takes a long time. I started mine at about 5 in the afternoon and it was ready in the morning. Perfect.

1) Pour your milk in the crockpot. Cover.
2) Turn your crockpot on low for 2 1/2 hours.
3) Turn your crockpot off. Don’t open the lid. Leave it for about 3 hours.
4) After 3 hours, stir in one cup of your plain, store bought yogurt. If you made yogurt before, just save one cup from your previous batch and use that.
5) Wrap your covered crockpot in a nice big towel for about 12 hours. Go to bed.
6) Open your crockpot. Yogurt!

At this point your yogurt is done if you want just regular yogurt. It will be a little runnier than regular store bought yogurt, and it won’t be as sweet, because you didn’t add any sweeteners. You can add fruit or jam or honey or whatever you want if you like.

If you want to make your yogurt into greek yogurt:
7) Line a strainer with a cheesecloth or coffee filters (I just used coffee filters) and sit it over top of a large bowl.
8) Pour a bunch of your yogurt into the strainer. Put it in the fridge and wait a few hours.
9) Greek yogurt!!

The stuff that strains from the yogurt is the whey. You know, like Little Miss Muffett eating her curds and whey. You can keep it or toss it. Apparently you can use whey as a substitute in baking, like instead of buttermilk and that sort of thing. I haven’t tried it. Google it if you want.

Granola

2 cups oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup flaked coconut
1/8 cup sunflower seeds, if you feel like it
1/2 cup chopped nuts, if you want
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp milk
1/2 cup oil
1/3 cup honey (melted or use the liquid kind of honey)

1) Combine all the dry ingredients.
2) Mix together the milk, oil, and honey, and then add to your dry ingredients, stirring till combined.
3) Spread on a baking sheet so it’s about 1/4 ” thick.
4) Bake at 300 degrees 20 – 30 minutes until browned. Stir 2-3 times during baking.

I doubled this recipe when I made it a week ago and we’re almost out already. So what I’m saying is, double it!
This is my mom’s granola recipe, and yes it has oil and honey- I’m not a health food nut or anything. You can try to substitute something healthier if you want. Or just make it like this and see how yummers it is.

Now you know how to make yourself a delicious breakfast from scratch. One that isn’t toast. Enjoy!

4 months.

The baby is four months old now. The last month has been so much more pleasant than the first few. Ivy’s been more settled and content on her own and is happy to just take in her surroundings. She will smile for anyone anytime. She is likely the smiliest baby in the world.
A lot’s happened in the last month. She’s reaching and grabbing for toys now. She’s also found some fingers to suck on. Her favorites are the first two on her right hand.
In the last week or so Ivy has even been sleeping in her own bed! By her own bed, I mean a playpen in our room. She’s still waiting for Oliver to get out of the crib. When she’s sleeping longer stretches at night she’ll move into his room with him. Right now she puts herself to sleep at around 7:30 or so every evening with barely a fuss. She looks pretty cozy sleeping sucking away on her fingers.
Ivy rolled over this week too! It was kind of funny. I was talking to my mom, saying I was wondering when Ivy was ever going to roll. I was sure the boys had rolled by this age and Ivy hadn’t even made any kind of attempt to roll. I hung up the phone and Ivy promptly rolled from her tummy to her back, just like that. Then she did it twice more. She’s not one to be outdone by her brothers apparently.
She’s really been loving being on her tummy lately, too, and is already pulling herself up on her knees and has even done some reaching and trying to pull herself forward. Whoah baby, settle down. Meh, never mind, she may as well get in on all the action in this house.
Ivy had her check-up and vaccinations today. She was a meagre 12 pounds, just squeaking in at the 25th percentile. A couple pounds smaller than her big bros were at this age. We really do love our tiny little Ivy though. She’s pretty darn sweet.
I’ve decided officially that we will indeed keep her.

Snacks outside.

If you know my kids, you know that they love snacks. I must hear “I’m hungry” or “I need a snack” or occasionally just a grunted “Food!!” at least a hundred times a day. They come by their love of snacks honestly, at least. Neil and I are snackers too.

Anyway, what’s better than a snack? An outside snack.

These pictures are from a month or so ago when it was just starting to warm up a bit outside. The kids were playing outside but they wanted to come inside for a snack. I wanted to keep them outside so I asked them if they would like a snack outside. They thought that was basically the best idea ever.

I got their snack ready and when I opened the front door to bring them their snack, this is what was waiting for me:

The big boys had gone into the garage and gotten everyone’s little lawn chairs out and set them up right in front of the steps. It was just so funny to open the door and see them sitting there patiently waiting for their snacks. Oliver thought it was so fun.

It’s like carrot sticks taste 10 times better when you’re eating them outside.

Mother’s Day, belated.

I really do love being a mother. I enjoy it mostly all the time, although I am not always good at it and I am occasionally very jealous of child-less people. I think I’m fairly good at mothering, but I am in no way perfect. Sometimes I have days where I feel like I did a really good job of loving my kids, but there are days of crazy where the way I’ve mothered is really just embarrassing and I’m thankful no one was around to see. These days come more often than I’d like to admit, but hopefully I’m improving with practice. I really am blessed with truly lovely children and they make being a mother to four easier than you might expect. It is still really hard, but it’s okay. We’re in a very busy season right now, and it’s overwhelming at times. But it’s just a season, and a short season, so I’ll try to just treasure these little children instead of be irritated by them. I’ll try to enjoy their little kisses while they’ll still give them to me. I’ll try to enjoy the early mornings with a luke-warm cup of coffee while they still hop of out bed happy to play with me. I’ll enjoy the nighttime cuddles and the after-nap snuggles and Elmo-watching. There are so many wonderful things about my little children and I’m really so lucky to be their mother.

Danger Boy.

I mentioned on Tuesday that we call Oliver “Danger Boy” sometimes.
These pictures are a month or two old, but here’s some pictures of Danger Boy when he fell into danger.
Well, fell is more like jumped. He jumped off the arm of my parents big recliner chair and landed face first on the corner of their fireplace surround.
There was immediately a lot of blood pouring from both nostrils, and his lip split a bit. He was pretty upset and cried hard but not for long. I think he was more shocked than anything. He sat there with a dazed look for a good long time.
Poor little danger boy. He healed up quick though, and was on to new and even more dangerous adventures in no time.