Follow Us Friday - Agribtion 2014

Today is one of the most exciting days of the year!  Our annual trip to Agribition!!!  I have been going to Agribition for as long as I can remember and I still look forward to it every year, and this year you get to come with us!

7:00am - Breakfast
Of course the one time I plan my day around Roman being up at 6:30am is the day that he decides to sleep until 7:00am..  Not that I'm complaining because I'd much rather have a happy, well rested toddler with me in public!  Today for breakfast Roman is having a bowl of Apples & Oranges toddler cereal.  He really enjoys this cereal and because it is on the stickier side he can feed himself without making a huge mess,   I had oatmeal and brown sugar for breakfast, big surprise there.  I wonder how long this oatmeal kick will last?

8:00am - On the Road!
I made sure to pack all Roman's snacks last night so I only had to grab the bag and jump in the car.  This was Roman's first long trip forward facing in his car seat so I was a little apprehensive.  He did fairly well but got bored looking at snow covered fields pretty quick.  I'm sure that will improve with time.  He sure did seem to perk up when he saw Grandma pull up next to us!

9:00am - Agribition!
For those of you who don't know, Agribition is pretty much the most amazing event in the world!  It's one of the largest agricultural shows in North America and has a ton of animals, equipment and every else farm related on display.  My personal favorite is always the cow barns because I have a strange love of cows; I happen to this they are the cutest animals ever!  Especially the Maintainers!  I didn't know this breed even existed, but as soon as I saw these adorable spotted cows with rounded ears I was in love.  Roman really seemed to enjoy the alpacas as well as the horses but he wasn't really sold on the entire animal thing.  Which was a little surprising to me because he loves all other animals. 

This however will not shock you, Roman LOVED the equipment!  As soon as we walked into the arena he was clamoring to get out of the stroller.  As soon as I set him down he took off like a shot and didn't stop until he had sufficiently inspected each and every piece of equipment, and of course all the tires.  I apologise in advance for the blurry pictures.  There was no way to catch a picture without Roman darting around.  Once he had seen all the equipment he decided to "stomp around like a cow" (as Mom said) in the wood chips around a tractor.  I think he probably would have stayed in there all day if I would have let him.  I did however manage to drag him away from the tractor and the chips with the promise of a snack!

Roman munched on some yogurt drops, rice puffs, toddler cheesies and a granola bar while we wandered around a few of the exhibits.  With the snacks demolished we headed into the Brandt Centre to check out some High School rodeo.  Roman seemed to enjoy watching the horses walk around in the arena but he really got excited once the calf roping event started up.  I'm not sure if it was the calves & horses running or the music that was pumping through the building but Roman got really excited.  So excited in fact that he was jumping up and down in my lap and proceeded to throw his soother into the empty seats below us.  Mom saw it take a rogue bounce on a stair but what happened after that is a mystery.  Unfortunately the teal monster soother was never seen again.

12:15pm - Dairy Queen!
Not the healthiest choice but once in awhile a couple chicken nuggets are delicious.  I was pretty impressed with Dairy Queen's kids meals though.  They give you the option of having a banana or applesauce as a side!  I know other places do apples or applesauce but I think it's genius to have fresh bananas as an option for kids that don't have enough teeth to chew an apple yet! 

I saw a commercial the other night for Dairy Queen's chicken strip basket and I've been dying to have them since then.  Mom had a cheeseburger and poutine.  We really must have worked up an appetite at Agribition because most of the plates were cleared, except Mom who can actually show some self control, unlike myself.

12:40 - Homeward Bound
Or so we thought.  We were about 5 minutes out of the city when I got a call from Mom.  Turns out we forgot to move the 15 pound bucket of honey from my vehicle to hers.  Why did I have a 15 pound bucket of honey you may ask?  A friend of mine from college, who lives out of town, actually has a honey farm and Selby bought this pail of honey from him so I met up with him and picked up Selby's honey pot (HA! Winnie the Pooh reference).  So back to the city we went to transfer the honey. 

The adventures of the day finally caught up to Roman and he passed out before we even got back to Regina.  He slept right through the honey switch and all the way home.

1:30pm - Back in Moose Jaw
I'm sure other mom's can relate to driving around town with a sleeping kid in the car.  Roman really needed the nap and I knew if I stopped the car he was going to wake up.  So I toured around Moose Jaw while Roman slept peacefully in the back.  There were a few red lights that almost did us in but luckily he ended having a decent nap.

2:00pm - Sleeping Beauty awakens!
With Roman rested and ready to roll we headed into the house to play with cars.  I was a little excited to see that Roman was happy to play with his toys by himself for the most part because this Mama needed a little rest.  I think all the walking around Agribition and driving around town aimlessly finally caught up to me.

Of course there is always a catch when kids let their Mom rest.  I caught a whiff of something not so pleasant and took Roman to his room to take care of it.  **Warning - if you are not a parent you might be utterly disgusted by the following details.  Even if you are a parent you might be...**  This is by far the worst poop Roman has ever have in his life.  There was more poop in the leg of his pants than there was in his diaper.  In fact, it was all the way to his ankle.  That's one way to wake your Mom up....

3:30pm - Snack Time
Today Roman pulled an apple out of the fruit crisper so I cut that up for him to munch on.  He had an apple fruit pouch left over from Agribition this morning so he also sucked that back.

It was a pretty low key afternoon.  Roman and I spent a lot of time reading and doing other activities that didn't involve a lot of running around because I was spent!

5:45pm - Supper
Tonight for supper we had roasted chicken with potatoes and beets.  I attempted to make this for supper last night but I didn't get it in the oven in time so we had to have leftovers, which worked out great because I didn't have to cook tonight!

6:30pm - Tubby with Daddy!
Roman was very excited to have John home in time for tubby tonight since it doesn't happen that often now that it's John's busy season.  From what I was told both Roman and John had a blast!  John had Roman full on belly laughing by holding a bath toy in his mouth and shaking it like a dog. would a toy. 

For once in his life Roman actually found getting his pjs on more fun that tubby!  Roman normally screams when e gets his jammies on, so when I came home and saw these photos I almost thought it was someone else's kid!

7:00pm - DanceFit
I wasn't completely sure I even wanted to go tonight, but when John made a point of getting out of work in time for me to go, I knew I'd better go.  The longer I take this class the more I love it.  You would think that it gets easier to longer you go, you're wrong.  I think the instructor secretly loves trying to kill us.  Each week she comes up with new dances to keep us on our toes and I love it.  This week she had this dance to a song that was all drums and ad a jungle feel to it.  It was awesome!  I hope she does this one every week from now on!  The only down side?  It's one of her marathon dances and about half way through I always wonder why I like that one so much...

7:15pm - Bed Time
John said that bed time was a breeze, which is always good to hear when I'm not there to help.  I'm not surprised that he passed out so easy because he had a very busy day!

After DanceFit, and a much needed shower and clay mask, John and I hunkered down on the couch to watch some TV.  It must not have been anything to fantastic because I can't even remember what we watched now.  Probably something on the Food Network since that's usually the go to channel.  Or maybe Seinfeld.  John loves Seinfeld, I could live happy never seeing it again but that's just me.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Who doesn't love a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup on a cold day?  Or any day for that matter!  Soup is a great way to use cheaper cuts of meat to make a delicious meal; in this case I used chicken thighs.  People often avoid thighs because they are a little higher in fat and quite honestly I think people tend to forget there is more to a chicken than breasts. 

Chicken thighs are super juicy and full of flavor, which makes them perfect for soup!  I prefer to use skinless and boneless thighs because it cuts down on prep time.  If you find a great sale on regular chicken thighs you could use them as well just remove the skin prior to cooking and remove the meat from the bone after cooking.  You could even boil the bones in your stock to add extra flavour.  Just be sure to get all the pieces out before serving!

Chicken Noodle Soup
20 chicken thighs
1T oil
2 sweet onions, diced
1t salt
3 cups chopped carrots
4 cups chopped celery (approx. 1 bunch)
4 cups chicken stock
6 cups water
1T fresh rosemary, chopped
2 bay leaves
2T fresh parsley, chopped
2 cups broad egg noodles

Melt butter in a large pot over medium high heat.  Fry 4-5 chicken thighs at a time for 5 minutes on each side, making sure not to crowd the pan, until cooked through.  The chicken will stick to the bottom of the pot a bit but that's exactly what we want!  Those stuck bits are going to make a delicious broth!  Chop chicken into bit size pieces and set aside.

Add chopped onions and salt to the pot.  Cook over medium high heat scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon as it cooks.  The juice from the onion will loosen all those bits and the onions will turn a brown color.  Add carrots and celery to the pot and cook for 2 minutes.  Stir in stock, water and herbs and bring to a boil.  Add chicken and simmer over medium high heat for 30-40 minutes or until carrots are cooked through.  At this point you'll want to fish out the bay leaves, nobody wants to eat those bad boys.  Stir in the egg noodles and simmer until tender about 5 minutes.

When I make soup I like to make a large amount of it so I can freeze some.  Once the soup is cooled, ladle it into labeled freezer bags, seal, and freeze.  You can reheat the entire batch on the stove, or do individual portions in the microwave.  In no time flat you will have supper on the table that is not only delicious, but good for you!

I should also mention that soup always tastes better when you put it in a cool bowl!

Toddler Snowflake Painting

I am officially in full on Christmas mode, and by association so is Roman!  Obviously Roman can't do too may Christmas crafts just yet, but when I came across this snowflake painting on Pinterest I knew this was something he could do.

Roman has done a few paintings in his time but I was really excited to see that he seemed more engaged in it this time rather than just absentmindedly touching the paint and canvas and then taking off.  You're probably thinking that I'm insane for letting my toddler ran rampant with paint in my house.  Even I am not that crazy!  I made sure to sequester Roman in the tub with his paint and canvas so that I only had to hose Roman and the tub off.

While Roman was napping I taped off a snowflake on a canvas with masking tape.  Canvas' can be expensive so I picked this up at Dollarama for $1.25.  If you're having trouble finding masking tape in stores, try looking near the painting tape.  Maybe I'm the only person that didn't know that's where you find it?

Now for the fun part!  With Roman and his canvas in the tub, I squeezed a good amount of regular craft paint right onto the bottom of the tub.  I kept Roman in his diaper to prevent paint getting into places that aren't nearly as easy to clean as the rest of him.  After a few times of me sticking his hand into the paint and onto the canvas he got the idea and ran with it.  I figured he would attempt to eat the paint at least once but I guess it didn't look very appetizing today. 

With the canvas soaked in paint and Roman cleaned off, we headed off to play for a couple hours while the paint dried.  It probably shouldn't take this long for a painting like this to dry but the paint was pretty thick in some spots.

Once the canvas was dried I carefully pulled up the tape to expose a beautiful snowflake.  This is going to make a great addition to our Christmas decorations this year!  I love looking at the ornaments on Mom's tree that Selby and I made when we were little so hopefully Roman will be the same!

Follow Us Friday - Christmas Times a Comin'

Today is one of the most exciting days of the year in our household  No it's not a birthday or an anniversary.  It's the day we put our Christmas decorations up!

7:00am - Breakfast
Roman and I were extremely lucky this morning because John made us all French toast!  He tells me that he is the French toast master and that he is not to be messed with.  I'm quite okay with that as long as it means he's going to be making breakfast!  Fry away toast master, fry away!  Of course you can't cook alone in this house and Roman was there to help every minute of the way.  By help I mean play with caramel balls and somehow open a chocolate spider and gorge on half of it before John realized what he was doing!  He is so much like his mother it's scary most days.
**Proud Mama moment!  My big boy no longer uses a sippy cup!  Only big boy cups in this house!

7:30 am - Getting ready with a snowman!
There is little more that I enjoy more than being able to get ready by myself in the morning, and today was another one of those glorious mornings.  Since today was our Christmas decorating day I decided to bust out my Christmas Micky Mouse shirt!  Granted I wasn't completely alone because Roman and John were right outside the door but it was close enough.  Roman was however extremely quiet and happy because John sat on the bed and played "Do you want to be a snowman?" for him.  Now if you have a kid that is into Frozen you're probably twitching at the mere mention of the song, but because it's all new to us we are unaffected.  I don't know what it is about this particular video but Roman loves it.  He will literally sit there and watch it for 5 minutes straight without a peep and without moving, which is an incredible feat for him!  Might have to keep this video in my bag of tricks for those times when I need him to be quiet.

8:15am - Look at all the snow!
We had a few odds and ends left to pick up for our lovely holiday display so we headed over to the great Wally World first thing in the morning.  The great thing about going this early in the morning is that the store is basically empty to Roman could run around and I could dance down the isles - not that a busy store has ever stopped me (much to John's dismay).  It really is amazing that John will even go shopping with Roman and I.

 

 

9:30am - Winter has arrived!
Once we got home we finally let Roman run wild in the snow while John shovelled the little bit of snow we received off the drive.  Well, not too wild since he clearly wasn't dressed for playing in the snow, but just enough to wet his appetite for it.

Next it was time for the part of decorating that nobody enjoys, cleaning.  First things first we needed to reorganize Roman's stuff to make room for the tree.  We ended up having to move is table near the back door and move his toy bins in front of the window.  Not an ideal situation but we'll make do for a few months. 

I figured if I was moving all the chachkies on the entertainment centre I might as well dust while I was at it. I love these sponge clothes that I buy at Dollarama.  They come in a three pack; pink for the sink, yellow for the tub (because it matches ours), and blue for the pooh (or toilet).  This way you don't have to worry about wiping your counter down with the same sponge you used to wipe down the base of the toilet!  My secret cleaner is super simple; water, vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.  All safe for little people but still kills all the nasty germs and bacteria!  While I cleaned, John and Roman started supper.  How did they get the fun job?

11:10am - Lunch
Again Roman and I were treated to the culinary stylings of John and his delicious tuna sandwiches.  John holds his tuna recipe close to his chest but I did manage to find out that it includes mayo, garlic, chives and lemon juice.  I was told that John is a tuna master and that he is not to be messed with.  Anyone else notice a trend today....

11:40am - The decorations have arrived!
The giant bins of Christmas decorations ascended the stairs, thanks to John, and we all dived in to find the treasures!  With our new entertainment centre we have a ton of space for Christmas decorations, which is perfect because we have a ton of decorations.  They've all been collected from various craft sales, stores, and some I made myself.  I picked up come inexpensive window clings from Dollar Tree to jazz up the front windows.  Mostly they are toys for Roman but while they stay up they look good.

Oh and we also locked Roman in the decoration bucket.  He seemed to enjoy it as much as we did!  *Note: no children were harmed in the making of these photos.

12:20pm - Nap Time
It's nap time for Roman and time for John and I to kick into high gear!  The goal was to get the tree up and decorated before Roman woke up.  You might think we would want Roman to help us, but if you've ever met Roman then you know he would be absolutely no help at all.  This is the first time we've set this tree up so it took me a solid 30 minutes just to fluff all the branches.  I say "me" because John hates fluffing branches, and isn't very good at it, so he got a break while I fluffed.  I like to hang all our favorite decorations first and then fill in with the others.  I would go into more detail about the tree and all the other decorations, but I'm going to do a special post dedicated to all our decorations.  So keep an eye out for it!

 John was a real sport when it came to moving the tree into place.  I originally thought we should have the tree in the middle of the windows in the living room, but didn't take into account an extension cord running there with a toddler running around, so we had to move the tree into the corner.  Then John got stuck under the tree and hand to do the worm to get out from behind it.  I really wish I had taken a video of it but I was laughing so hard my mascara was running and my stomach hurt.

2:45pm - Snack
As always, Roman woke up as hungry as a bear after hibernation.  John was in charge of the snack this time and made Roman a delicious peanut butter & jam sandwich.  It must have been delicious because there was not a crumb left!

3:00pm - Outdoor Decorations
It was pretty chilly outside and we knew we would be out for awhile so we bundled Roman up in his warmest winter gear.  It was actually nice to get to test out his new snow suit and boots before it was -50.  My Mom knitted him this fabulous balaclava style toque which kept him toasty warm!  Back to the decorations!  John took care of all the inflatables while Roman and I put together the tree.  This tree was the one we used in our house in past years, but now that we have a new tree we decided to move this one outside!  John's planning was spot on and everything worked out perfectly!

4:00pm - Back to the warmth!
It's always nice to come in to a nice warm house when you've been outside for awhile.  Except when your glasses fog up.  You would think with all the technology in the world these days they could make glasses that don't fog.  Maybe they do and I just don't know about it.... 

4:45pm - Escape!
John and Roman were having a whale of a time together so I decided to sneak down to my craft room to work on some Christmas decorations I was working on.  There will be a post coming soon on it I promise!  Man this post has a lot of promises weaved into it! 

6:00pm - Supper
While I was crafting, the boys made a delicious roast beef meal with all the fixin's.  It was so tasty in fact that I was more concerned about eating it than photographing it, so I'll I got was a photo of the leftovers.

6:30pm - Tubby Time
Today tubby time was full of splashing, swimming, toys and bubble blowing!  Roman hasn't been a big fan of having his teeth brushed lately since he's in the process of cutting his molars.  Hopefully once these teeth are in he will go back to his happy brushing routine!

7:00pm - Bed Time
Ahhh peace and quiet!  We don't get a lot of that in our house so it's nice to sit and enjoy for a few hours each night.  Well, other than the occasional dog fight (play fight) it's quiet.  Around this time I hunkered down for some blogging!

Grandma's Peach Crisp

I came across these giant cases of peaches at Superstore, and for $25, I knew I had to take advantage of them.  Even Mom jumped on the band wagon and bought a couple cases!  What in the world was I going to do with 42 peaches the size of softballs?  Make peach crisps, that's what!

Peach crisp is a classic dessert and I'm sure everyone and their Grandma (ha!) has a recipe for it.  I however happen to this that this is the best one.  Why?  Because it came from my Grandma!  The same woman who introduced me to other delicious meals like her Hash and Homemade Pie Crust.  It has just occurred to me that I really should have spent more time in the kitchen with my Grandma.  This woman was clearly a culinary genius whether she knew it or not.  Little did we know back then how well we had it when we ate at Grandma's house!

Peach Crisp
6 medium size peaches, peeled and sliced
lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.  Arrange peach slices in a buttered 9 inch square baking dish.  Sprinkle with a little lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon.  In a bowl combine butter, flour and brown sugar.  Spread the mixture over the fruit in an even layer.  Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes.

 

 

This is the same recipe my family uses for apple crisp and it is equally as delicious!

Obviously I didn't make one large peach crisp.  I decided to make many smaller crisps to freeze so that I could take out just enough for us to have with one meal.  This prevents me from eating the rest of the pan the next day as it stares me down from the second shelf of the fridge.  Sometimes you need to be one step ahead of your dessert loving self!

*TIP - if you decide to freeze your peach crisp, instead of allowing it to thaw on it's own, pop it into the oven frozen for 45 minutes at 350°.  This will warm it right up and make the crumble nice and crispy again!

Salisbury Steak

When I was in elementary school the cool thing to have for lunch was Michelina's.  Healthy, no.  Delicious, yes!  One of my favorites was the Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.  I swear I can smell it now just thinking about it.  Just thinking of how much sodium is in one of those bad boys makes me twitch.  But I have found salvation in this amazing Once A Month Meals recipe!  If you only try one recipe from my blog, I beg of you, try this one!  This has become a family favorite in no time flat.  John actually gets excited when he sees that I've taken it out for supper, and Roman has been known to gobble down an entire patty himself!

Salisbury Steak (serves 4)
1lb ground beef
1 package Lipton onion soup mix
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
10oz can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup beef broth
8oz sliced mushrooms

In a bowl combine beef, soup mix, milk and bread crumbs and form into patties.  I used a 1/3 cup measure and get around 8 patties.  Cook the patties in a pan over medium heat for 5 minutes on each side.  While the patties are cooking mix broth, cream soup and mushrooms together in a large bowl.  Remove patties from the pan and pour in the broth mixture.  Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

To freeze:
Prepare as above and allow to cool completely.  Divide patties and sauce between two 8x8 tin pans, wrap with foil and freeze.
To Serve:
Heat the foil covered pan for 40-50 minutes at 350°

I think this meal is best served with it's classic paring of mashed potatoes but we've also been known to eat it solo when I'm out of potatoes, and it's just as delicious!  It may be 9:00pm right now but I could totally go for some of this right now...

Follow Us Friday - November 14, 2014

With winter quickly approaching and John being in the tire business, he isn't home a lot these days.  Since John was home today we decided to make the most of our day and get a bunch of stuff done.  No rest for the weary right John?

I'm going to apologise in advance if there seem to be any blank time slots in this Follow Us Friday.  I usually make notes on my phone of what we did that day since my memory tends to fail me, and a recent attempt at an iPhone update sent me back to factory settings and lost all my notes, among other things.  I'm calling on the memory Gods for this one!

6:30am - Breakfast
I'm going to have to start putting my camera in the kitchen the night before I plan on photographing a Follow Us Friday because I'm really bad at getting pictures of breakfast lately.  Not that it was anything earth shattering.  Roman had some delicious cheesy eggs that John made for him and John and I both had oatmeal.  Good ole' brown sugar for me and brown sugar with raisins for John.

6:45am - Getting ready & planning
As soon as I headed to the bathroom to get ready Mr. Roman made a dash for his favorite perch.  Lately he's been loving standing on the toilet and playing with the taps and water.  He's pretty good about just sticking his hands in the water and not splashing too much.  Hey if that's what it takes to keep him happy while I get ready for the day that's what we will do.

First thing on the agenda for the day was to drawn up a plan-o-gram for Christmas decorations for the front yard.  We live for Christmas and are working on becoming the Griswolds this year and that takes planning!  After Christmas last year we scored some great deals on Christmas decorations so our collection is growing.  I also managed to find a couple brand new, never out of the box, inflatables at a garage sale for $5!  The yard is going to be pretty full this year so we need to figure out what is going where, how many extension cords we need, and how in the world we are going to power it all.  If you live on our block and loose power this holiday season, I apologise in advance!

8:30am - Snack Time
John fixed Roman a super tasty snack consisting of strawberries, cheese and yogurt.  If you shop at Superstore on a regular basis you probably know how hard it can be to get a good batch of strawberries, especially this time of year.  Someone must have been smiling down on me the last time I was there because this batch of strawberries is the most delicious I have ever had in my life.  They were all super dark red and perfectly sweet.  My mouth is actually watering just thinking about them!  While the boys enjoyed their snack I got Roman's bag all packed up to go shopping and to change my tires.

 

 

9:00am - Tire Change Over
John being in the tire business can be a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because I don't have to think about my tires or general vehicle maintenance at all because John can look after it all at work.  A curse because I'm always dead last to get my tires switched.  Yes I am that fool driving on studded tires a month after the snow melts because I have to wait for everyone to change over first.  I love my studded tires, and living in a city where snow removal seems to be optional, they make a huge difference in town as well as on the highway.

Roman was in his glory being in the shop while John changed the tires.  At first he was a little unsure of all the noises and machines, but as soon as he saw the tires he was all smiles.  What boy doesn't want to be surrounded by cars and tires?

10:00am - Divide and Conquer!
With the tires changed and our Christmas plan-o-gram in hand, it was time to spread out and gather our supplies.  John and Roman headed to Peavy Mart and Home Hardware to get extension cords and power posts, and I hit up Wal Mart to get a few Christmas craft supplies, milk and cheese strings.  Basically the essentials in our house.

11:00am - Lunch
Once we all got home we sat down to a delicious grilled cheese lunch.  I almost forgot to take a picture of lunch so you only get a photo of what I could peal out of John's hands before he demolished it.  Roman finished his grilled cheese off with some Apple & Sweet Potato Corn Puffs; one of his new favorite snacks/desserts.

What does Roman do once he's refueled?  Run wild of course!

12:20pm - Nap Time & Quilting
Much to John's pleasure, Roman went down for his nap after he burnt off all that extra steam.  While John took a much needed chill break, I headed down to my craft room to work on the quilt I was making for Trellyn's newest addition, Chloe.  Thankfully I have a big enough room that I could lay out all the squares to see what the quilt will look like before I sew it together.  It's supposed to be a "scrappy quilt" meaning you just randomly sew the squares together.  But knowing my luck I'd end up with all the different patterns in a line so I decided to lay them out first.

2:30pm - Up & Snack Em'
I managed to get a good portion of the quilt done before Roman woke up.  Of course Roman woke up hungry so we headed to the kitchen for some Asian pear and milk.

3:00pm - Christmas Decoration Prep
Then it was time to prep the front yard for all the decorations!  We bundled Roman up in his winter gear and headed out to figure out where the power posts needed to be.  These power posts are the most amazing thing ever invented!  They are basically an outdoor power bar that sticks into the ground.  With these we won't have 6 extension cords all running to the house and having to find a way to plug them all in.

I also had to replace one of the Command Hooks we have on the outside of the house because it broke of during the summer.  Last year I had the idea to hang bows under each of our front windows on the outside of the house, but I didn't want to puncture the siding in order to hang them.  I thought the Command Hooks would work great but I wasn't sure if they'd hold up.  Well it's a year later and all 4 were still hanging on!

 

4:00pm - Inside play
We came back inside to play cars and read stories.  At least I assume that's what we did.  Like I said I lost my notes and I don't have any pictures from this time so I can only assume that we did the typical stuff that we do throughout the day.  I guess I could make something more interesting up.....We went to the stables to find our trusty steeds to take us on a joyous ride through the countryside on this beautiful autumn day!

6:00pm - Supper
Today we decided to clean out the fridge at supper time, so there were leftovers all around.  Roman and I had leftover cannelloni and John made a Thai inspired pho soup with spaghetti and mushrooms.  It was actually pretty tasty, but not quite as tasty as my cannelloni.  Of course Roman loves any kind of pasta smothered in sauce so he was happy as a calm.

With supper done it was time to get naked and play for a bit before tubby & bed.  Well, at least for Roman.  Something about this kid in a waffle knit onsie and socks just screams super cute Christmas to me.  Maybe all the decoration prep is starting to cloud my judgement?

6:30pm - Tubby Time
Roman has recently learnt to say "bye" and as soon as you tell him it's tubby time he starts waving and saying "bye" as he heads to the bathroom.  About half way there he comes back to say "bye" again and wave.  This is usually repeated a few times before he finally goes to the bathroom or John retrieves him. 

7:00pm - Bed Time
Roman has this routine down pat!  After he gets dressed he comes out to the living room and then heads into the kitchen for his bottle.  He patiently waits while his milk is warmed then we repeat the "bye" and waving routine until one of us can herd him down the hallway to bed.

8:00pm - The Walking Dead
The highlight of our Sunday night is always The Walking Dead.  Even more so since daylight savings time moved it back an hour and we no longer have to miss the first half while we put Roman to sleep!  There are very few shows that John and I actually make an effort to catch every week but this is the exception.  This week's episode was a little uneventful but I'm sure the next one will be action packed!