Deck Progress

Jay and my dad built the frame of the deck last weekend, but then they were waiting on the hidden fasteners to arrive. Today we phoned to find out when on Friday they would be arriving so we could make plans and the fasteners were already at the store - thanks for the phone call - duh! Anyhow, Uncle Greg and Kevin were good sports to come over on a spur of the moment notice with their drills and help out! Pam came and babysat kids, while mom and I made supper for all.

Today, during the day, mom and dad were chauffered around by me and we hit about 6 different stores and checked out patio furniture, shrubs and lattices, etc. Lots more to think about and decide before this deck will really be finished. Next step... the steps and fascia!

Gardening with Gramma!

When gramma had the "day off" she bought the grandkids some pansies to plant in their fairy garden. They love getting dirty, love using the hose, love using watering cans and love getting wet, so this was just awesome all around! They put a small crystal at the bottom of each hole, as that is supposed to help them grow better.

Salad of the Week

Tonight we had company for Salad Night, as my mom and dad are in town from Saskatchewan. Once again, I looked in the Company's Coming Salads & Dressings cookbook and found Peanut Rice Noodle Salad, page 90. Basically, a base of rice noodles with a vegetable mixture of: red pepper, carrots and cucumber all cut into match sticks, then snow peas, thin slices of red onion and fresh bean sprouts (I also added fresh cilantro). For the salad dressing, I made the peanut sauce it suggests, but you could use a store bought one. The sauce has peanut butter, lime juice, chili sauce, gingerroot and garlic. I used the dressing to cook shrimps in the frying pan, but this was really just to add more protein to the salad. (The recipe does not ask for shrimp). Then we sprinkled peanuts and sunflower seeds (which I realized afterwards was supposed to be sesame seeds - oops!).

This was a tasty salad. Love peanut sauce, especially with ginger and cilantro - yum! The shrimps were awesome, but "the company" and my husband thought I should have pre-peeled the shrimps. Next time, I will... no I won't, I never do - I think it is fun, ha!

Deck Building 101

My mom and dad flew in from Saskatchewan yesterday at noon. By 2:00 we were heading to Home Depot to look at deck supplies and then of course we had to head to the Beer Store for "other" supplies! Last night the boys spent hours fixing up the trailor to haul lumber and then this morning realized it was no where near long enough to haul 16 foot lumber, but at least our trailor is now road worthy and ready for camping season. After the trailor and a series of $2 bets on who was right about what, they came in to have more beer or was it scotch by then, and hatch out some serious plans.

This morning they headed to Home Depot for a deck building workshop at 9:00 a.m. They got there to find out the workshop wasn't until 3:00, but they couldn't wait that long. They started browsing and Home Depot didn't have the decking supplies we wanted (and quite frankly we didn't want to shop there - ticked me off during our bathroom renovation), so off to Rona and sorry Jamie, but they didn't have what we wanted either, so off to Home Hardware who finally had our Trex decking in stock - Madeira Contour is our color and style if you want to look it up!

Mom and I offered to help, but mostly got in the way, so this is how we looked most of the time... well actually we went to rent movies and bought Buster Bars! They seemed happy enough with that. Now, off to make supper and take more pictures. Post progress soon!

Day 1 - 4:00 p.m. and this is what we have so far - looking good!

Spring has sprung!

I say that and hopefully Kharma won't bite me in the ass - it was a lot cooler today and rainy, but overall the weather has been nicer. All the snow has melted and the kid's bikes and swings are out, along with the fairy garden (will post later).

Devin is afraid of his bike. He will sit on it, but does not want to even put his feet on the pedals. My problem is, I can't hunch over for that long to push him. So, tonight I played hard ball and if he didn't put his feet on the pedals it was time to go into bed! So, here I am with time to write this post because he refused to put his feet on the pedals and I am already done the dishes, as he went to bed about 45 minutes early!

Jasmine on the other hand was very sad today when she realized her friend, Nasu,

who is younger than her already has her training wheels off. In fact, when she came home today, she went up to her room for some alone time and when she came back down she had drawn a picture. It had a picture of her with a bicycle and NO training wheels with a BIG smile on her face ... and then a picture of her WITH training wheels and BIG frown on her face - wow! What a way to express your feelings! So tonight we took the training wheels off and Jay ran up the block with her. His favorite saying, "pedal faster". She did quite well for her first time, but Jay already had to establish a few rules like, no talking when you are pedaling. As she was biking she commented on all the birds that were flying overhead. Second rule, no saying, "I'm sorry!"

Hopefully I can take some video of Jasmine on the 2 wheels and post that soon!

Salad of the Week

Tonight's salad was brought to us by Company's Coming Salad and Dressings cookbook. It's called Cucumber and Avocado salad, which I think is funny, because it features smoked salmon... anyhow.

Lettuce leaf base

Slices of avocado

Slices of cucumber

Slices of red pepper

Slices of smoked salmon

Sprinkle of diced red onion

Sprinkle of fresh dill

Fresh ground pepper

The recipe calls for capers, which I did not use and gives ingredients to make your own lemon dressing, but I didn't have sour cream, so we used the Mango Poppyseed dressing from Farmboy!

This salad gets a thumbs up from us, quite tasty and a nice change from the ordinary!

Easter - chocolate overload?

As much as I love chocolate, I really do, I don't love my kids to eat great amounts of it in one sitting. I assume I am not the only parent like this, but yet the Easter bunny continues to bring a "honkin" big chocolate treat, plus all the little stuff. Most of our little stuff is gone now, just Caramilk eggs left really, sorry dad, but most all of that pony in the picture is still here.

With Halloween treats we let them eat them for about 3 days and then they get to choose a few items to keep and the rest gets taken to Jay's work. With these big things it is harder to do that. I'm tempted to leave them in window so they melt - then I have an excuse to throw them away - oops, my bad ;)

PS: You can see me laying on the couch here - this is Easter Sunday, I spent the day on the couch recuperating from a night of stomach flu - ugh! Eating too much chocolate this year was not my problem, too bad!