Why I'm Here

I got tagged by Valerie at Leisure Pursuit to list the 5 reasons why I blog. I then have to tag 5 people to do the same on their blog.....that might be an issue though b/c I'm not sure if I know 5 people enough to tag them. Oh well, here it goes.

1. I started blogging so that my friends & family in the US could keep up with what's going on in my life here in Canada. Unfortunately that hasn't worked so well b/c most of them aren't exactly tech savvy. My MIL reads it all the time though, so that makes up for it.
2. My blog is a great place to post pictures of us & the kids.
3. I like writing about my life. It helps me remember what we do.....this is especially helpful in these days of pregnancy brain when I forget everything
4. I like meeting new people in the blogosphere
5. I live for comments though lots of people who read this blog don't comment.....you know who you are. :)

Here are the people I'm tagging:

1. Shan @ Fairy Blogmother
2. Deanna @ Daisy Blog

I will try to think of more people to tag but I am drawing a blank!

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Seriously????!!!!!

This was the view I woke up to this morning. That's right boys n' girls....snow....at the end of May! Gotta love Calgary!

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The Interview Game

I decided to participate in the fun & exciting (at least to me) Interview Game that I learned about from Shan’s blog. Basically I asked to be interviewed & she picked 5 questions for me to answer on my blog. Here are her great questions & my answers:

1. Who do you think is the most annoying character on Grey's Anatomy? This is a toughie. I would love to say “None of the characters are annoying” but we all know that just isn’t true. They seem to pass the “annoying” baton quite often. I would say these days the baton is stuck on Izzy. The writers have been handing her a load of crap for lines lately. The whole George thing leads her to these long diatribes where she waxes poetic about love & relationships. It just comes off as a bit phony and annoying.
2. Have you had any major food cravings during your pregnancy? Not really. I went through a major Cadbury Cream Egg fixation right before Easter. This isn’t that unusual b/c I’ve always liked them. I have 4 or 5 in reserve of which I ate the first one since Easter last night. I also really like hamburgers these days. Another is my fixation on the chicken salad sandwich with fruit salad & bean salad from Cultures at the Mall. All of these are more “likes” rather than cravings. I know I like them & I know they don’t give me heartburn. There have been no midnight runs for anything whatsoever though so I’m pretty lucky (or Dewey is) in the whole craving department.
3. What's one thing you really love about living in Canada? Is it the lack of Mexican food? Is it the fact that we don’t get mail on Saturdays? Is it the weather? Oh wait, those are the tings I HATE about Canada…..sorry. I really love living in Calgary (& thus Canada) b/c we live so close to the mountains. We don’t go out there all that often (it’s an hour away) but I can see the mountains from my window at work.
4. Vacuuming or laundry -- which would you rather do? Definitely laundry…especially now that I have my new front load washer & dryer. We even bought the red ones so they even look “fast”.
5. Your favourite way to laze away a day is? Sleeping late & then reading or watching TV. Unless I happen to be at the beach or lake where I do basically the same things except lying on a deck chair.
   

See how much fun that was! So now, I’m sure you want to play to. The rules are:

1. Leave me a comment or email me saying "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

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What's Cooking Wednesday - Sour Cream Banana Cake

For Today’s What’s Cooking Wednesday I made Sour Cream Banana Cake. Yes, I know it’s not called “What’s Baking Wednesday” but I’ve done more baking that cooking lately so deal with it! :)**Will post picture soon***

This is not my favorite banana bread/cake recipe ever but it might be my fault. You see, I decided to "tweak" it which as you know is not always a good idea when baking. It turned out pretty good but not amazing. I would give it a 3.5/5 with the understanding that it would probably be better without my "tweaks".

Sour Cream Banana Cake (original recipe)

Makes one bundt cake (or loaf or muffins)

1/3 Cup Canola Oil
1 Cup Tofutti Sour Cream
1/3 Cup Soymilk
1 tsp Vanilla
3 Medium Ripe Bananas, mashed
2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/4 Cups Sugar
2 Tbs Cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350º F.
Whisk all the wet ingredients together in a medium bowl until smooth. Set aside. Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Spray your bundt pan with cooking spray, or lightly grease. Flour the bundt pan with some of the dry mix, pouring excess back into the bowl when finished.
Mix wet ingredients into the dry, adding a tablespoon or so of soymilk if needed. Batter will be thick but not dry. Pour evenly into the bundt pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before removing from pan.
Serve with powdered sugar and fresh strawberries.

Source: Vegan Yum Yum

Recipe Notes: I used regular sour cream (light) & milk, 4 bananas instead of 3 & 1 cup whole wheat flour & 1 cup all purpose white flour. I think any issues can be contributed to the extra banana. Though this isn't my favorite recipe, it is lower fat than most (my other recipe asks for a stick of butter) & pretty tasty. I will definitely make it again with the correct number of banans.

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Me & Kate

I went to visit Andrea, Jeff and baby Kate on Mother's Day. Isn't she cute???!!!!!! It makes me want our baby to come sooner. :)

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What's Cooking Wednesday - Carrot Cake

Today we had a potluck lunch at work to celebrate our sales level for last year. I decided to bring a carrot cake for my contribution. Please excuse the awful picture but I took it quickly in my office before heading down to lunch. The cake is a recipe from my friend Justine. I ate it for the first time at a baby shower she threw. This is an awesome recipe & pretty easy after go get past having to grate 3 cups of carrots!

Justine's Carrot Cake

· 2 cups white sugar
· 1 1/3 cup oil
· 2 cups flour (you can mix whole wheat and white flour for this)
· 2 tsp baking powder
· 2 tsp baking soda
· 2 tsp cinnamon
· 1 tsp salt
· 3 cups grated carrot
· 4 eggs
· 1 cup drained crushed pineapple

Cream Cheese Icing
· Small Tub of cream cheese (250 ml)
· 2 tsp vanilla
· ½ cup butter
· 2 cup icing sugar

Preheat oven to 375°. Cream sugar and oil together. Add next 5 ingredients & mix. Gradually add the carrots, egg and pineapple. Bake in a 9X13 inch greased dish for 40 minutes.

Bring cream cheese and butter to room temperature & then cream together. Add vanilla & icing sugar. Beat until smooth. Spread icing on cooled cake.

Recipe Notes: I made the icing quite late at night so I did not have time to bring the cream cheese & butter to room temperature. This led to the little bits in the frosting that did not completely mix in. This detracts from the aesthetics but it still tastes super yummy. Definitely 5/5

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Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's, step-mom's & mom's to be out there! We celebrated yesterday b/c Will & Nicole were here. They went back to their mom's for Mother's Day today. Dewey & the kids planned to take me to breakfast at Cora's (my favorite brekkie place of all times). Unfortunately when we got there (at 9:30am) there was a line out the door. We could tell that the kids would never deal with that long of a wait so we had to leave. I must admit that I had a 2 minute meltdown b/c I had really looked forward to it. Oh well. We stopped at Ikea on the way back (we had driven ~45 km to Cora's from our new place) and had breakfast. We also bought an organizer with bins for the kid's toys. They have a toy box but it's full so we needed more space. It's nice to actually be able to buy that kind of thing now b/c we have somewhere to put it.

After that we headed to the mall where I got to pick out a watch for my Mother's Day present. It was my first ever Mother's Day present. The last few years, Dewey has just spaced out on the fact that most step-mom's get to celebrate Mother's Day to. I had a major meltdown about it last year so he decided to celebrate it this year.

We finally got most of the baby's room done. Here's some pictures. We still have to hang pictures & shelves but at least the furniture is put together & the boxes are gone.

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Alien!

Okay, do you remember that scene in the movie "Alien" where the little alien bursts out of the guy's stomach? I almost posted a pic of it but it was a little gross. Anyway, that is how I'm feeling at this stage of pregnancy. I sit at work & watch my belly move, twitch, stretch into weird shapes, etc b/c the baby inside is now big enough to cause some definite shape change when it decides to move around. It's equal parts cool & disturbing. I can just imagine what my internal organs must look like at this point!

I will be 33 weeks along on Saturday. That means officially I have 7 weeks left though I am considered "full term" in only 4 more weeks. I am hoping for sometime between the two dates. I really, really don't want to be late (mainly b/c I don't want to have to squeeze out a ginormous baby)!

Here's a pic of what I'm looking like these days.

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Congratulations to Andrea & Jeff

My friend and coworker, Andrea, gave birth to a little girl this afternoon. They haven't named her yet but I hear she's a real cutie.

Congrats!

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Spring?

Well this was supposed to be a post about how spring had finally sprung in Calgary BUT today it SNOWED! Yep, that's right boys and girls it's the third day of May and it snowed. YUCK!

But anyway, here are some pictures I took on the weekend of the newly bloomed crocuses (sp?).

Hope the weather is better where you are.

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