Rylan James

This is Rylan James. He was born December 31, 2009 at 6:54 am. He was 7 lbs 10 oz and 21 inches long. Of course now he's 8 weeks old and growing like a weed! He had his last midwife appt today and he now weighs 11 lbs! Yay! He's been sleeping very well and is a joy to us! Maya is being a great big sister (even if Rylan gets hit every so often!)

Valentine's sugar cookies

Dave wanted to bring his seminary kids a treat for Valentine's Day so I jumped at the opportunity to make some sugar cookies to decorate. (He was going to just pick up some cookies or doughnuts, but I said, "Nonsense, it has to be something homemade and Valentine's appropriate) I must say I LOVE sugar cookies but always hated decorating them, but since discovering royal icing, it's pretty much a breeze to decorate and they look much more appealing than having some frosting slathered on them with some random sprinkles (although they still taste good).

Apparently the kids totally thought they were store bought (apparently it was too early for them to really see them) and just loved the flavour. Royal icing is notoriously terrible tasting but I bought some potent flavouring (blueberry) and that did the trick! I was quite pleased and still have a long way to go with learning how to decorate well, but it's fun and the results are delicious!

The outlined cookies

Filled in

Deliciousness in a ball

I had a hankering to make these cookie dough truffles the other week after seeing them in a blog I subscribe to. Bad idea!! They were so easy to make and so good that I'm pretty sure I ate them for more than one meal! I did manage to give some away since it was Valentine's Day and all (I'll have a separate post for the sugar cookies I made too). They turned out quite delicious and I would definitely make them again but have a plan to get rid of them right away. That's the problem with making things that are bite-size. They're so cute and easy to just pop in your mouth as you're walking by!

Baby Shower

Vanessa had a baby shower for me last Wednesday. It was really fun, we played a couple of games (match the celebrity to their own baby/child photos) and guess the baby food (thank goodness no tasting!) She did some great food and it was really nice. Thanks Vanessa!!

My new favourite breakfast

Ok, so I like oatmeal. I don't love it simply because I feel like I can never get the consistency right and then it usually doesn't have enough flavour for my liking. I have come across 2 kinds I have liked and one I made just this morning. First is one from the Quaker Oats website and it's a banana bread flavour one and the second is a baked oatmeal from the Brown Eyed Baker website. I really liked this one because it made a great amount and I put the leftovers in individual containers so I've got a quick (and filling) breakfast for the week. I added some cinnamon and vanilla to the recipe. To serve it I put a dollop of vanilla yogurt and drizzled a bit of maple syrup! Yum! Oh, and I used dried cranberries instead of the raisins. I think I would try some frozen blueberries in it next time because I LOVE blueberries! You can follow the links to the original recipes.

Banana bread oatmeal

Baked oatmeal

Yay, updates on the kiddies

I found this website in a magazine and thought it seemed pretty cool, so I've been checking it out. You can post about your kids and follow along in their growth, daily occurences, etc. So family and friends can follow along too. I have one for Maya and one for Rylan. I am just using the free one so I guess you can have up to 3 kids on it. The storage amount is a bit smaller, so we'll see how it goes. It's kind of fun!!

Maya

Rylan

Another project

I decided to recover the old infant car seat we had before Rylan was born. It needed a little spicing up so I picked out some neat fabric, got a tutorial off Etsy and went on my way. I have to say it's not bad for my first try (especially with outlining it all with bias tape) although it took a while. The most tedious part was pulling the old cover apart, tracing the pieces to make new ones, then sewing it all back together. Otherwise it wasn't difficult and I'm more than pleased with the result...a custom car seat cover! Car seat before: