Sweet little face

My nephew Edward is adorable. Every time I see him, he's grown and changed so much. Here he is at Easter, discovering a pack of gum - this kid loves sweets: gum, candy, chocolate, pop. But he's already had 2 pieces of gum from this pack: the first he swallowed almost right away and the second he threw in the garbage because it was too "hot".Of course he wanted another one.Gum? Who could resist this face? Mean old Auntie Amanda had to tell him no...

My digital camera has a setting where it takes 3 pictures in rapid succession. That way, at least one of them has perfect focus and lighting. I love to use it with this fast-moving 2-year-old - you can catch small changes in his expression. Like here - smile for the camera Eddy:I'll bet you can't help but smiling right back!

Item of the day: Bunny Coin Purse

Even though Easter is over, I still have bunnies on my mind. Here's a cute coin purse by fieldofroses featuring some gorgeous blue flowers and sweet white bunnies:

Easter Egg Hunt!

I'm back in Hamilton, and - lucky me - I have the day off. I plan on catching up on some sleep, but first, I wanted to post some (lots of) pictures of the Easter egg hunt my mom had for the kids. She also made a bunny cake (I helped decorate :) - it was delicious lemon cake with cool whip icing. mmmmmmmmmmm

Let's start the hunt with one very excited little boy:He was moving fast!Jaden found an egg behind a cast iron chicken! And Eddy just added a few more to his basket! Mine!Eddy found another egg behind this ceramic chicken - then smiled for the camera:Look, a big one!Getting a lift from dad (while smiling for Auntie and grandpa):Had to take a break to pet Rosemary, our bunny and the Easter bunny's girlfriend. Comparing their findings (recognize the baskets?).After finding a few eggs in this lego blimp, Edward decided to move all his loot into it.Afterwards, my mom went through a box of used clothing she got from one of my Aunts (clothes that no longer fit her daughters). There was a cute tshirt with a farm scene that fit Eddy. He put it on himself ... and managed to fit his head in the arm hole! I wasn't fast enough to catch a picture of the sleeve up around his face, but here he is struggling while everyone laughs at him. With a little help from grandma, we see that the shirt fits well. Show us your nice new shirt Eddy: Cheese!You can expect more pictures of my sweet nephew coming up soon!

Easter Weekend!

We're heading up North this evening, going home for Easter weekend. I'm really looking forward to it, we don't get to go home very often - mostly because it's a 4 to 5 hour drive and we don't have a vehicle. But we've rented a car for the long weekend, and we're driving up with Pat's sister and her boy friend (who's also from the area).

This is what my parents' yard looked like last time I was there:Apparently, there's still a little bit of snow but it should be a lot warmer than it was at Christmas.
Brrrr. Remind me to pack my boots and a warm scarf.

Hehehe, who am I kidding... I'm still wearing my boots every day.

Like I said, I'm really looking forward to going. And there are some little ones looking forward to seeing their Auntie. Probably because I'll be bringing these up with me:This one is for Eddy, my brother's brat. Or little angel, depending who you talk to. OK, fine, he's a little angel no matter who you talk to. And he has quite the sweet tooth, just like his father (and aunt).

This one is for his older brother, Dustin:This kid's 12 and hard to buy for... but he collects rocks, so I slipped a few agate slices in here. You can see an orange one peaking up at the front.

This last one is for miss Jaden:Obviously, buying for a princess is easy. Plus, almost all Easter packages have 3 or 4 eggs: a blue one, a green/yellow one and a pink one ... guess who got the pink?

Now all 3 of them got 2 of these, a surprise ball:They have a plastic egg core (filled with chocolate) and are wrapped (and wrapped) in streamers... with little toys and gifts hidden between the layers. They're really fun to unravel - I first made them some for Halloween last year. Jaden has already been asking my mom about when I'm coming up ... and whether I might be bringing some of these!

Fun fun! I can't wait for tomorrow, which is when my mom is having her supper and we're giving out treats. Saturday will be at Pat's parents' place, and then Sunday evening we're traveling back. Poor Pat has to work Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone - I know I will!

Green

The only kind of plant that I can keep alive in my North-facing apartment (not even sure what it is... looks sort of spider-plant-y with a palm-ish stem).

I'm going to have to find some shade-loving plants if I want to spruce up my balcony this year (last year it was pretty depressing out there - only cement, soot and bikes ... soot because I live in smoggy Hamilton). I think impatiens might work. Any other suggestions?

Fixed!

My Gateway CX2724 is fixed!!!! WOOHOO! Thank goodness Pat knows computers. He just switched out the hard drive (after testing to make sure that was the most likely problem) with a brand new 250G one... and it's running beautifully! I'd been having problems with the tablet part as well, (the pen was no longer being recognized) but now that's fixed too. I'm so happy to have my baby back!

Now I just have to reinstall everything. I already got the gimp and picture resizer for my photo editing, but I still need to dig out my Office CD, and get Window Blinds, SPSS and GraphPad (totally legal versions too... hehehehe ~ again, I'm glad Pat's a computer person).

I just downloaded vlc when I realized I didn't have it to play some Fleetwood Mac. It'll be interesting to see what else I need and don't even realize it!

Recipe: Lentils & Rice

I found this basic recipe online, but the seasoning was left up to the chef. The recipe gave a few suggestions - Middle Eastern, Mediterranean - and since I was looking for a Middle Eastern flavour, I took their hints and tweaked it to the spices I had. Of course, when I went to repeat this on Saturday, I couldn't find the recipe online... but I remembered the gist of it and it turned out great.

Lentils & Rice

Ingredients:

1 medium onion (or half large one), chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, diced
oil
1 cup lentils
1 cup of brown rice
4 cups broth (I used chicken, but feel free to use veggie or just water)
spices: cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, chili powder, cumin, salt & pepper

Methods:

1. Chop the onion, celery and garlic and fry in oil on medium until translucent.

2. Rinse the lentils and rice. Add to the onion mixture and add in the broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed, and lentils and rice are tender (but not mushy).
3. You can add your seasonings at any point. I added salt and pepper while frying the veggies, and the rest of the spices once I added the broth. The amounts of each spice depends on your tastes, but I tried to balance the sweet and spicy. I added about a tsp each of cinnamon and cumin, about 1/2 tsp of ginger, chili powder and turmeric. If you have curry powder, you could use this instead of the chili powder and turmeric (and the cumin, though I think this adds a nice flavour). Go lightly at first, taste, and then adjust.

Enjoy! This is also delicious heated up the next day (as seen in the photo below - it's just a little less juicy as the night before).

Measuring Cups

I'm a sucker for cute little things. Especially tiny ceramic bowls, dishes and cups. Which is why I couldn't resist these when I first saw them on The Pioneer Woman's website.These adorable ceramic Matryoshka dolls (from Anthropologie) look perfect in my kitchen - which is decorated in yellow, hot pink and orange.
What a sweet little face.

But these are just decoration. Nor are they only cute little cups. They're actually...
MEASURING CUPS! The large one is 1 cup and 1/2 cup, the middle one is 1/3 and 1/4 cup and the tiny little one is a tbsp and a pinch.
How adorable? And really, was there any way I could possibly resist? I think not.