Vancouver Getaway

A few weekends ago we got to get away to Vancouver for night!  Hooray for grandparents who are willing to take the little ones for night!  We had a great time, walked along the sea wall and discovered a delicious little Italian restaurant.  They made their own pasta DAILY!!  I was so impressed.  The food was delicious and our server's name was Niko!  How perfect!

We were quite close to Granville Island, and so we hopped on one of the little ferries that takes you across the channel to have supper and to explore.  We ended up buying our supper in the food court of the Granville Island Market.  Steve got a really amazing crepe with ham and cheese in it, and me?  Well I got the world's worst Chinese food.  No joke, the vegetables were HARSH freezer burned.  I ended up eating just the rice and was hungry about 30 seconds later.  There were some jems at the market, though.  I found THE mangos.  These mango's were no grocery store still-somewhat-green-because-they-were-pickede-too-early mangos.  These were I-just-picked-these-off-the-tree-in-the-tropical-country-they-grow-in MANGOS!  Oh snap, I have not eaten a mango like that since I was in Australia.  DEEEElicious.  This is a big deal to me, mangos are my ultimate FAVE!

The second morning we took a walk along the sea wall, it was a really nice day, a little overcast, but not raining...nice and cool.  As we were walking, I was lamenting the lack of camera use in my life as of late.  So I prayed that God would show me something really cool that I could capture and display in our house somewhere.  We came across a memorial for individuals whose lives had ended as a result of contracting AIDS.  Along the top of the memorial was a poem.  It was quite a long poem, but there were four words which really stood out to me...

Because really, my life is SO rich.  I have so much to be thankful for, even when things seem like they're not working out in my favour.  So this will be framed and put on our wall to remind us that our lives are most defnitely RICH!

I am full of shame.

I don't know how long it's been since I picked up my camera....and it's been so long since I posted on here that I had to try 3 times to remember the password.  Shame on me.  There's a reason I've not been posting recently though, and that is because I feel like absolute garbage.  I feel like puking my guts out at random moments during the days and nights.  For this there can only be one reason!

There's going to be another Baby Boldt around here!  So Zeke had better enjoy the youngest stage while it lasts!  I've really got nothing else new to post here, so I'll just fill up some space with some cute pictures I took semi-recently and hopefully get back to this quicker than last time!

Daddies and Daughters

I am one of the most blessed women on the planet.  I have the best husband in the world, a man who knows how to be a great daddy to a little girl.  A man who is endeavouring to lead his family in a godly way, who looks at his children and sees blessings rather than burdens.  A man sensitive and confident enough to sit on a tiny chair and have a tea party.  A man who is right now snuggled up in a hammock on the deck, reading a night-time story to his sweet girl.  I am so lucky.

I could totally make that!

I have inherited something from my father that is mostly great.  I see something in the store and I think "I could totally make that!".  Lots of times I can't, but it sure is a wonderful feeling when I actually succeed at one of these projects!!  One of my most favorite things that I've made is my magnet board in my kitchen.  That board cost me $0.  For serious.  I love it.

Lately I've been venturing out in to the culinary world of "I could totally make that!".  My most recent discovery is that I can make my own Ranch Dip!!  This is especially exciting for me because I put Ranch Dip on EVERYTHING!  It's great with veggies, pizza, pasta...you name it, I'll dip it.  I found this recipe online and in my opinion, it is amazing!  So I'll share it. 



1 3/4 cups sour cream

1/4 cup milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tsp seasoned salt

1 tsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp garlic powder

pinch of thyme

pepper to taste

Enjoy!

Out for a walk when the sun is shining!

My sweet girl.

It rains, SO MUCH!  So today we had a sunny break in the morning and I had to take advantage of it.  Add into the equation that Zeke just started walking and we had a super fun morning walk!  Watching my two sweethearts walk together holding hands just melted me.  They were so adorable!  And for the record, kids totally listen better when you take them outside more.  Maybe they're just too tired to put up a fight, but I'll totally take it.  

Zeke learning about his shadow.







Sweet Toes!



Flowers are blooming in our front yard.  Molly took this picture!

I give myself freedom.

I am a lousy blogger.  There.  I said it.  I'm not good at remembering to post, or take pictures, or really to follow through with a fair number of things.  All that said, I'm having quite a great time with life currently!  I just finished watching a dear friend's little boy for 4 days (only during the days) which gave me two one-year-olds and a four-year-old in the daytime.  I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't tired at the end of the day, but it was FUN!  They all had their moments of melt down and disobedience, of course, but overall, I could totally handle the three kid thing.  Plus I got a kick out of how many old ladies asked me if I had twins. 

Some other goings on of late...my oldest girl turned 4 today!!!  And just like a lot of other four-year-old girls, Dora is a favorite around our house.  So I bought a Dora cake pan (with a coupon, so I got a mega good deal) and went to work.  I invited my sister over thinking we'd have a cup of tea and visit, but then she saw the cake and soon we were elbow deep in icing! 

Can I just say, I LOVE decorating cakes this way?  I mean with the little rosebud thingys all over.  It just seems so...old school and comfortable.  This is how I remember my cakes, don't get me wrong, fondant cakes are BEAUTIFUL and all, but these just give me that cozy feeling.  I plan on making this type of cake as long as my kids let me.

Can I call this day 10?  I think I shall.

Days 8 and 9.

 

 Because underneath my savvy exterior (HAH), I am a giant nerd and I spend large chunks of time trying to memorize algorithms.

ALGORITHMS.

Day 7.

It's not sunny, but it's not snowing either!  I'll take it!  We've currently got 6 cars in our driveway that Steve's working on fixing.  One of them is my cousin's vintage Valiant.  Cool car.

Missed day 5. OOPS! Here's day 6.

Terrible lighting, terrible flash, but how adorable is this little guy?  I have the pleasure of watching him for the next 3/4 days! 

Sarah, you make really cute kids!

 Also, dear sun, please make a comeback so I can use natural lighting again!

Day 4.

Love.This.Kid.

Molly and me.

Day 3.

Ok, I know tons of people who have done super artistic photos every day, but today I whipped the camera out only in time to catch Zeke attempting to eat with a fork, and to take a picture of Molly giving me a cute smile.  Then we ran around like mad getting ready to catch the bus to Grandma and Papa's house.  With Zeke strapped to my front and a backpack on my back I just didn't have room to grab the camera as well, so this is all for today.  :)

Day 2.

Some freaky settings on my camera.  These are just red beads hanging from my light fixture.

Picture a day. Day 1.

I'm succumbing.  I used to take a ton of pictures, but it seems I've lost my drive.  So I'm going to start the 365 picture project.  So if I don't have anything to say, at least there'll be a picture to look at!

Fun times at our house

 Words cannot describe how much I love these kids!!  They're just so much fun!  I can't get enough of their faces.  Zeke thinks it's just the funnest thing to play "hide and seek".  It's great to watch him laugh and laugh when he peeks out from behind things.  He just thinks he's the funniest thing going. 

 Here's Molly writing on the white board I made.  She likes to hide what she's written under a paper towel and then whisk it off to reveal the secret message.  The message this day was "mom".  Melt my heart, she's learning to write all on her own!

 This was a day we broke out the bubbles at the dinner table.  These kids were beside themselves with excitement!

 Molly and I often bake cupcakes and it's one of her favorite things to decorate them.  They usually turn out like this.

Waiting for her beautiful red toenails to dry.  She wasn't impressed with my taking her picture.  She was much too busy watching Tinkerbell.

Seriously.  Look at that face.  I should have a hundred more of these.  Well...that might be an overstatement, but still.  Look at that face!

The question on my mind these days...Did He see MY face?  When he was hanging there, life seeping from him.  When he thought about why he was doing this?  Did MY face flash before his eyes?

Yes.  And yours did too.

Some Goings On

I've finished a project that has been on my mind for ages!  When we redid our kitchen, my dad built a cabinet right beside our fridge, so there's not a lot of space for my magnetic things.  (We have a stainless steel fridge, so the front is useless for such things).  So I took a giant picture frame and painted and distressed it, Steve cut a piece of metal to fit inside and I covered it with some fabric I've had in my stash for years.  Here it is in all its glory, it's already been filled with pictures drawn by Molly and her friend Finn.  I can't express how incredibly happy this makes me!

I also managed to make a skirt for the Mollster out of an old t-shirt my mom donated to my fabric stash.  I think it turned out pretty well!  I think Molly will be wearing a lot more home-made skirts in the near future.  She had a lot of fun modelling (she was super excited to get to stand on her chair).

Shortly after I finished these projects, my dad showed up at our house with these cupcakes!!  Aren't they amazing!!?  My mom went to a cupcake decorating class and learned how to make these adorable cupcakes.  Needless to say, there will be a lot more of these at our tea parties in the future!

I got a package in the mail today!!!

And there were BOOTS inside!!!  And a pair of pants for Steve, which is exciting, but hardly as exciting as footwear!  I had also ordered a super cute pair of ballet flats, but they turned out to be too small, so back they go!  I have been looking for a pair of boots like this for AGES, and it turns out they're so comfy, I might just employ them as slippers as well!  And while I'm on the subject of my feet, I thought I'd just show you the other newest addition to my footwear family, my red pumps.  Aren't they delicious?  I love them.  So much, in fact, that I wore them to the grocery store the other day.  I felt amazing!  It's the little things.

Speaking of little things.  I find that when I blog I want to write down every little thing that my day has held.  I was thinking about how incredibly boring that would be for others to read, but then I spoke with a friend of mine and SHE knows someone who does just that and then prints out the whole blog at the end of the year and saves it for her kids to read when they get older.  Genius.  Hats off to you Mrs. Schulz!

Having said that, I don't really have much to report about today.  Other than finishing painting my bathroom.  Which was a super dark aqua blue, and is now the colour "Parliament" (which translates to pale yellow).  That's a pretty exciting thing for me.  I love finishing projects!  It seems that these days there are endless lists of things to finish around the house, so this was a biggie for me.

Well I'm off to clean my house (glory be) before Zeke wakes up so we can spend some family time together outside before we welcome our dinner guests!

Such a lovely day!

I've had a ground-breaking revelation.  To preface, I've been having a bit of a tough go with Molly.  We're both really opinionated and we both LOVE to be right.  How to deal with that??  I had no idea.  We just kept having super rough days being majorly mad at each other.  And then, it hit me!  If you play with your kids lots, they'll be happier.  Yep, for serious, I'm that dense.  She just wanted to be played with!!!!  Oh my goodness, we have so much fun!  She's such a super sweet little girl (still opinionated, but not nearly as disobedient!).  She always was sweet, but it seemed to be getting clouded over by both of us butting heads.  So these days Steve doesn't get a clean house or food on the table when he gets home, but for the most part, the children are happy.  Ah, thank you Jesus for these wee ones. 

Part of our great day today was going for a walk.  We prayed that Jesus would show us something super special and interesting on our walk.  He never lets you down.  We walked down the road and came to a park and a whole bunch of the field was flooded.  Doesn't sound super interesting maybe, but to an almost four-year-old, this is incredible stuff!  She was wowed by the "lake" and looked at me and said "I think this is the special thing Jesus did for us."  Oh how my heart soared! 

See that smile, it's real!!  Zeke wasn't as impressed, but in his defense, he was a bit tired. 

So there you have it, play with your kids and ask Jesus for cool stuff on your walks and the days turn out pretty fantastic!

It snowed again!

The impossible has happened!  The forecast was for snow, and it SNOWED!!  So we enjoyed a super fun day filled with snow man making, snowball throwing, hot chocolate drinking, movie watching, and puzzle doing!  With a trip to the supermarket stuck in the middle. 

Molly and I made an awesome snowman in the backyard, named it Pat, looked out the window an hour later and his head had fallen off.  Rest in peace, Pat.  It was fun while it lasted.

Handmade Gifts

I am required by a recent Facebook post to make 5 things for 5 friends who commented on the post.  Each item has to be completely handmade by me and sent out to them sometime in 2011.  A great idea!  I decided to get right on it and started searching the web for good handmade gift ideas.  So far I've made 3 pillows (only one of which will work for the giveaway, there are a few "practise" pillows, and one tote bag (which is flimsy, so it'll just be a bag for my kids to play with).  I'm well on my way with one real gift completed!  Hopefully the production will pick up a bit as I figure out which materials work better. 

This is the tote bag, which is made out of an old tank top (GENIUS idea from Craftynest, if you want to make one here is the tutorial).  I found that the tank top I used was quite a flimsy material though, so I'm going to try again with a sturdier one.

And this!  This is the pillow I made using an old sweater and a black shirt for the flower.  On my red chair which I love.  I'm very excited to send this pillow of to its new owner!

It Snows!

This is the view I get to wake up to these days...well, probably only a few more days, if I'm being realistic.  Around here it snows and everyone gets excited and the next day it rains and all the white delight melts away into nasty dirty slush.  BUT I will say when it's here, it's glorious!  My husband and daughter are currently out frolicking while I get to stay in and learn to blog while my little one sleeps.  Oh, I should probably introduce myself if I'm going to be telling everyone in blogland about my life!  My name is Angie, I'm married to the most WONDERFUL man on the planet, Steve (seriously, he's amazing!).  Together we've got two kids, Molly, who is at present just shy of 4 years, and Ezekiel who has just turned 1.  They are absolute delights (most of the time) and I love being their Mom!  Here's a shot of what a morning moment around here looks like...

These are my two lovelies jumping around being general goofballs on Molly's bed.  I adore these children.