First birthday: the fourth coming

Does that title even make sense? 

We've celebrated yet another birthday in our house and I think I'm getting the hang of this birthday thing. Plastic tablecloths, buntings, streamers, and sad, half-deflated balloons are in competition to replace vases and throw pillows as my new home decor style. It's the whole four kids thing.

Belated Post-Holiday Post

I started writing this post more than a week ago and have just now come back to it. I really don't know if there will ever be anything that really resembles a flow in our house but I do know that getting back into that barely-existent flow after a mere two weeks of holidays was more difficult than it should have been. Chalk it up to the late nights, fun get-togethers, overeating and sleeping in. Throw in daddy taking a couple weeks off to be home with us and the fact that we made the most of our family time, with all play and zero chores, and you've got the makings of a back-to-routine disaster.

Suffice to say, the Christmas trees are finally down and everything is boxed and ready to go back into storage or out to the curb. We may have finally caught up to nearly two weeks of not doing laundry. Everyone is able to wake up for school/work with only the usual amount of eye rubbing and complaining. And I think I may have enough time to finally finish this long overdue post of the flurry of baking and sewing that happens over the holidays. Here's a photo recap. Some further posts may follow with more pictures of the projects that I was especially happy with.

The First Annual Minivan Express was a Success!!!

I have a love-hate relationship with the blogosphere. Love for all the great ideas that people share. Hate for not having the time nor talent to explore all of those pinterest-worthy projects. Our cousin on the west coast often shares many of these great ideas on her FB feed but usually they end up on my to-do (then forgotten about) list.  The Minivan Express from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler though was totally within my reach and had the added bonus of being time-sensitive, meaning that I had to get off my butt and get the gears in motion.

I'm only three or four years late...

... But you can now find me on instagram.

I first started this blog because I wanted to chronicle and share all my adventures in creating, learning and making. I'm beginning to realize though that adding ever more children to my life has really cut into my blogging time. So while I am still trying to blog as much as I can, I wanted a way to share my smaller projects without a whole blog entry, my longer projects before they are finished, and some of the poor quality pictures that I snap quickly with my phone. Hence instagram.



Check out all these pictures I took this autumn that I thought I'd have a chance to blog about....

... Obviously those blog posts never happened.

So if  you wanna see some of the daily pics of new dinner recipes, crafting with the kids, small sewing projects, or you just like being barraged by a stream of my self-indulgent photos then please follow me on instagram (@MakeJanemake).

Mini dumpling factory II: Gnocchi!

I know some people think it's a little crazy to cook or bake with kids. The mess and the bickering and the inefficiency and all. But when you love to do something, you want to share it with those that you love. (Besides, I'll never be able to kick back and enjoy a meal made by my kids if I don't start training them now).

I love that the kids can surprise you and learn skills and have perseverance beyond what you (under) estimated for them. Check out my son in action. Turns out that little fingers are ideal for perfectly dimpled gnocchi. (And yes, the video is almost completely silent cuz that just how serious my little number two is).

It's also true what they say about kids being more interested in eating a meal they had a hand in making. I'm sure that my veggie phobic four year old would not have gobbled down these chard gnocchi in quite the same way if he had not made half of them himself. Never mind that they were a dreaded green colour and tasted fairly strongly of chlorophyll.

Additionally, I hope that my kids will grow an appreciation of food; where it comes from, what goes into it, and the people who prepare it for them. This chard gnocchi even gave them a glimpse of "from farm to table" since they picked up the chard, potatoes and eggs from the farm (Round The Bend Farm) with me earlier in the day.

Just because they can't bring home the bacon, doesn't mean that they shouldn't kiss the cook who fried it for them!

P. S.
Yes, the dishes and many other chores in our house often get ignored in favour of doing stuff with the kids. And no, we did not drink all that beer in one sitting... It was at least two.

Mini Dumpling Factory

We're having a cool summer which has been fantastic for kitchen work. Normally in the summer, my kitchen feels like some kind of medieval torture chamber... Except instead of being slowly immersed into a dunk tank, I'm drowning in heat and humidity. This year, we've barely had the a/c on at all and the windows and doors are open most days with a cool breeze flowing through the whole house.

Recently, we capitalized on the cool weather and had the kids help out in the kitchen to produce some delicious dumplings. We had some vegetarian dumplings to wrap as well, so the younger ones could help without running the risk of inadvertent raw meat consumption.

Of course having three kids do anything in the kitchen (or anywhere for that matter) will eventually result in all kinds of silliness; and these industrious faces were quickly replaced by laughter and giggles and dumplings made in every possible shape you can think of.

And as annoying as it was to endlessly repeat that "dumplings which are not closed at both ends will not stay together when mommy cooks them" I had to remember that my brothers and I used to play the exact same games when we "helped" in the kitchen.

There'd be the biggest dumpling ever. The smallest dumpling ever. The flattest dumpling ever. The dumpling with the thickest skin ever. The dumpling with only one piece of choy (vegetable). The dumpling that was only meat. The square dumpling, The triangle dumpling. And so on and so on.  I remember, my mom would separate any dumplings that she could recognize as our handiwork and make the offending party eat them. In fact, if my mom and dad are reading this right now, they are probably laughing about my brother's specialty dumplings that would only contain "one snot of filling" and thinking that I deserve whatever my kids dish out to me for the endless grief I must have caused them.

In any case, I hope that the kids enjoy learning about our food and culture. I look forward to the day that they will be able to share these things with their own families... cause what greater joy can a parent have than to one day witness their children passing on beloved family traditions and have karma come and bite them in the <fattest dumpling ever>?

And pause...

Once in a while, the stars align and everything goes more or less according to plan. Hubby and I actually sat down to a quiet adult lunch while the boys are at school, one daughter naps and the other plays happily in her jumper.

Now I sit and digest (both are strange and rare sensations) and contemplate what I shall write to my neglected blog. Or rather, what I can write given the limited time that this total eclipse of child-demands will last and my proficiency on a phone keyboard.

Perhaps, I should stop while I'm ahead and simply say that Martha's tomato tart with its roasted garlic crust was heavenly, eaten in a quiet and clean (as can be expected) kitchen. And that soon my blog should be awash in photos and entries about Halloween prep.... If the heavens allow and all goes according to plan, of course.

P. S. And inevitably, I'm no longer sitting and digesting. Instead I'm nursing a baby to sleep and embellishing this post with pictures from my phone camera.

"Where do you get the time?"

"Where do you get the time?" is a question I get a lot. Where do I get the time to bake? Where do I get the time to sew? Where do I get the time to blog? The answer is always twofold - "after the kids go to sleep" and "you just gotta make time".

So right now it's quarter to twelve on Friday night and instead of heading out to a bar or club (which would be so 1999 anyway :), I'm sitting in my kitchen writing a blog post on my tiny smartphone screen and waiting for a couple of pies to finish baking. This is a particularly late "after the kids go to sleep" scenario as the bedtime has gotten later now that school's out and my youngest is very unpredictable in her feeding habits.

Now often my hubby and I would spend this precious time between the kids' bedtime and us passing out watching some late night TV and talking about our days. We'd probably crack open a bag of chips, maybe some beers, possibly a Dairy Queen Blizzard that we had stashed in the freezer...  Oh yes my children, you were right all along to suspect mommy and daddy telling you to "just go to sleep, we're not doing anything fun, we're just sleeping too"... But I digress...

Anyway, today instead of dulling my mind with unnecessary reality shows and indulging my own waistline with unneeded calories, I'm baking up enough butter pastry goodness to indulge our ten or so dinner guests coming over tomorrow. Of course, I could always just buy dessert but this is where the "you just gotta make time" comes into play, "gotta" being the operative word. Believe me, making time extra time at the end of the night to pursue leisure activities was, and is still not, easy for someone who would consider themselves a morning person and who would prefer to up at the crack of dawn rather than the stroke of midnight. However, it's easier to count on the children staying asleep than relying on them not waking up, so the making of time has "gotta" be at night.

But I guess the bigger question, bigger than "Where do you get the time?" is "Why?" And my only answer is that despite the four kids, or perhaps for their sakes, I don't want to let myself drown in the drudgery that comes with the title "mother of four".  I want to think that I don't have to give up Jane, the baker or Jane, the knitter or Jane, the runner just because I became Jane, the woman who couldn't stop getting pregnant. ;) I want the kids to know that you can become a parent and still have other identities too - that I'm their mom but I could also be their powder hound buddy or their fellow foodie or their nerdy mmorpg partner. I want them to know it and I want myself to believe it.

I stay up late to nourish and maintain some interests of my own in the hope that I don't forget who I am while I love and care for four little people who are slowly discovering who they are.

Happy belated Canada Day and it's been a year since I've blogged...

It's been at least a year since I've devoted time to this blog and much has happened since then, most notably...

Yes, our "little" family of five has now become a family of six. Life is busy, happy and full.

And since I'm feeling ambitious, I figured now would be as good a time as any to once again attempt the plunge back into chronicling our household adventures.

Here's a short visual recap of ten moments from the past year that I thought to photograph but hadn't the inclination (or time ;) ) to write about:

On a Rainy Hallowe'en...

I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately owing to a lot of changes in our home lives... back to work (for me), back to school (preschool for the middle son and grade one for the eldest) and a new bun in the oven! Been tired and sick and trying to figure out how to juggle school, the midwife, work, swimming, Chinese school, etc. and still find time for my few pursuits and blogging.

Anyway, three months have gone by and I'm feeling a bit more like myself again and I am game for bringing this blog back up to snuff in the few months left before the next child hits our household. So here's a look at what's on tap for tonight's soggy trick or treating and I'll follow up later with some pictures of the costumes in the making.

I had a request for dinosaur costumes this year and because they are still subject to my will, I interpreted that to mean Dinosaur Train.

The general pattern for the costume can be found on the PBS website and I made a few modifications to make the hood more realistic.

That pattern also served as my template to create Tiny Pteranodon and Mr. Conductor (seen above without his signature uniform and below with all the pieces together).

Hopefully, hubby can get some nice pictures of the kids tonight before they step out and get soaked. Happy Hallowe'en to all!

The smell of spring...

Lilacs are the smell of spring for me. 

This bunch smelled especially fragrant as they were picked after a child-free and very productive day of house-cleaning and veggie-planting.

And this is why I don't start seeds earlier...

Yesterday, dear hubby and I were out de-thatching the lawn... in the pelting hail! What kind of world do we live in when Mother's day is sprinkled with snow? Needless to say, our weird weather and late frosts (...calling for frost tonight...) are the main reason I don't aim for early vegetable harvests.

Also, I'm still in the process of refining my indoor planting schedule. For instance, my tomatoes have been stunted at the small seedling stage because of the sudden loss of sunlight. Whereas I have an especially ambitious cucumber that has broken its soil block and is threatening to invade its neighbours.

And speaking of invasions, one of the local rabbits was bold enough to come explore my empty gardens while we were raking yesterday. It was lucky that I didn't have the garden spade in hand because the only thing that stopped me from launching my rake spear-style at said rabbit was the non-lethality of my weapon. You won't be so lucky next time rabbit...

Potting On and on and on...

Man, I wish I had planned my planting better so that I could have potted on about a week and a half ago... that would have been awesome. But as it happens, I didn't do that kind of pot on that day.

We had a sunny day...

We had a sunny day yesterday and now my arms and back ache from the raking and seeding and other various outdoor chores that are the price we pay for sunny days. Our whole front yard is seeing a makeover courtesy of my even-more-back-sore hubby. A season of leatherjackets and skunks digging for the leatherjackets left our front yard looking a lot like an old minefield with craters and upturned soil everywhere. So no pictures of the gardens this year, even though we've had the pleasure of seeing the galanthus bloom and fade and are enjoying the first of the crocuses now, because I'd have to wade through grass seed and top soil to get to them.

Inside the house, we've done some planting as well...

Look at my new toys!

Went to Lee Valley last week and picked myself up some new toys. While my egg shell seedlings worked very well last year, I decided that I could improve my yield and variety by not wasting valuable  sunny window space on eggshells that didn't germinate.

Now I just need to get to the garden centre and pick up some supplies to make my soil blocks. Can't wait to get started...

A Girly Easter Basket

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter/holiday weekend and did not mess up as royally as this mommy did. What happened, you say? Well, in typical "plan ahead but still end up doing it at the last minute" fashion, I started designing my daughter's egg basket about two weeks ago and ended up finishing it 10 minutes before we had to leave for our egg hunt.

Like a 50's Housewife...

... I made some cookies for St. Patrick's day this week.

My motivation was partly wanting to eat some iced sugar cookies but mostly wanting to use these great cookie cutters (passed on to me from my mom when it became evident that I actually enjoy being in the kitchen).

Happy Belated Valentines Day!

Yesterday, while dropping my second son off at preschool, I realized that it was Valentine's day and that I'd run out of the house without even giving hubby a kiss goodbye.

"So this is where we're at, huh?" I thought to myself.

Though, we've never made a huge fuss out of any special occasion, being in too much of a rush to give my DH a kiss seemed a far cry from our young and wild days of early marriage when everyday would be like Valentine's day... And while we weren't going to have a extravagant dinner or drink wine until we were silly, I figured that we could at least get into the spirit with something of the season.

A Super Fifth Birthday!

Like some kind of clockwork child, my eldest son is now into superheroes.
His current favourite? Batman.
Why? "He has a cape and a mask and spiky things on his arms."

Ahh, accessories. Men love them too. Just in a different way. (For instance, my husband said he always wanted to be a hockey goalie because of the cool pads and gear... but that's a story for another day.) Today's story is about my son's super fifth birthday.

Saving extra egg whites for that special occasion...

So the custard you made used 6 egg yolks... now, either you're in love with egg white omelettes or you need to find a way to save up those egg whites for another day.