Ladybird, ladybug, coccinelle

In all its glory with apologies for not fully wiping the plate for this picture

Well, I must say that I was quite pleased with the loveliness of this ladybird cake and it was pretty delicious too. I felt the licorice legs I had planned might contaminate too much cake for those who do not like it so I left them out. Six spots for my six-year-old Z1. Hurrah. I have also included a gratuitous shot of how happy Z2 was to bash the piñata. Enjoy!

The party spread (before arrival of pizza)

A VERY happy piñata bashing boy -he had been waiting DAYS for this moment

Sneak preview of this year's cake with a purpose

Last year, Z1 had a beetle cake. It was quite a chocolatey and wondrous thing. This year will also be chocolatey and wondrous as I mostly believe that cakes should be chocolate. We have decided upon a ladybird and I have planned as you can see in the lovely picture below. The party is on Sunday. Baking shall take place on Saturday. I am quite excited. 

 

On a side note, I was speaking to a friend here who had a book that talked about a ladybird. She thought it was a rather amusing typo or weird mistake. In Ireland and in England, we call them ladybirds but I do accept that the North American version - ladybug - makes more sense.

 

Snowy snowy snowy snowy snow

Snow excavation (possibly a dragon)

This has been a winter in which I feel I am earning my Canadian stripes with snow shovelling and lots of cold temperatures and so on. I was feeling guilty at the pristine blanket of snow in our back garden - it seemed terrible not to be making footprints and snowmen and forts in it. So, on Family Day, I insisted that we rectify this. Up - breakfast - snow gear on and out to enjoy the snow or be damned.

Trailing through snow

I had been organised enough to save some washing up liquid bottles to fill with food dye to do painting on the snow. Husband had even got some scientific grade blue stain which seemed potentially unwise but turned out to wash out easily.

The snow was not very sticky so we piled it up and excavated it rather than really building but am pleased to say we disrupted the blanket sufficiently. Ten centimetres of fresh snow are forecast for tonight, though so we may have to do the same again next weekend.

Eating snow

Painting snow

Life gave us mangoes (so we made not-banana bread)

 

This cakey bread delights me for a number of reasons:

1. When baked in a loaf tin, I consider cake to be somewhat wholesome and I put it in Z1's lunchbox with pride
2. I have a very lovely friend who hates bananas. Really, really hates them. This means that any time I bake with bananas, I feel a little like I am betraying her. This is irrational, particularly given that she is very unlikely to pop in for a cup of tea and be repulsed by my offer of banana-based baked goods as she doesn't live on the same continent as me. For this cakey bread, I substituted mangoes for bananas in the recipe so I didn't have to betray her at all.
3. By substituting mangoes, I was able to use up the tinned mangoes that I thought would delight the Zeds but, unfortunately, were rather tasteless and not really worth eating. Using up things like that fills me with quite a lot of happiness (see here for a previous example of this )
4. It tasted nice and the Zeds and even Husband gobbled it up which, as I have mentioned before, doesn't always happen in my house.

You may also be interested to know:

I used a recipe for "chocolate banana cake" (but put my drained tin of mangoes in instead of the required banana) from the BBC recipe website but the page isn't loading at the moment so I can't link directly to it.

 

Conquering Canadian Camping - Illustrated by Z1

Please take a moment to delight in the details of Z1's drawing of camping - the zip for the door to the tent, the torch hanging from the roof, the blue, bubbly air mattresses, the toasting of the marshmallows!

Conquering Canadian Camping

Me and Zeds

I consider myself something of a veteran camper. Not a hardcore, out-in-the-woods-with-nothing-but-my-tent, camper but a civilized-campsite-with-toilets-and-showers camper.

Throughout my childhood and up to my teens, I went camping in France on family holidays. I have innumerable happy memories of these trips - hot sticky car memories, Vivaldi's Four Seasons while feeling slightly carsick, early morning zip sounds, discovering unexpected playgrounds, smelling other people's dinners in the evenings, earning a franc for finding a forgotten tent peg, the joy of parents coming into the water to splash, speaking Irish to confuse small Dutch children who spoke good English, walking up to the campsite shop in pyjamas to buy bread in the mornings, terrifying and exciting thunderstorms in a rattly tent...  With all this and the addition of living in Canada where camping and campfires seem almost obligatory, it is no wonder I was keen to bring the Zeds camping.


Preparation really started last year when I bookmarked a tent so that I'd be emailed if it was about to become a bargain. I read the reviews and ignored the bad ones. I am quite good at that. As it was our first family camping trip and, as I only realised after booking the site and buying the tent, Husband's first camping trip ever, we picked somewhere close to home. We did a test run of the tent in the garden and the Zeds slept in their sleeping bags for the week before we were due to go.  I was more proud of getting the tent back into its carry case after putting it up than I was of putting it up all on my own (with a little help from Z1).

I packed up the car , thinking of my dad all the time as I tried to do it as efficiently as possible - squeezing squishy things into tight spots and making maximum use of the space. I had lists stuck up in the kitchen and ticked them off as I got things done. I was the queen of camping organisation. Z2 had just graduated from nappies meaning less bulk to pack but also leaving me wondering a little anxiously how far away the toilets would be from our tent.


The Zeds on site

Our site? Oh, our site was glorious - large, shaded, secluded, backing onto the little river, not too far from the toilet but not so close we could smell it. Glorious and wonderful. Never mind the noisy, radio-playing neighbours across the river. Husband hadn't really expected neighbours, let alone noisy ones.

We put up the tent with careful attention to which way the door should face and started pumping up the mattresses. I was very impressed with the luxury of the air mattresses - a far cry from the canvas and rubber lilos that I was used to. I was, in fact, rather excited to try out our grand queen size air mattress but that fell through when I unfolded it to find that the stopper was not attached. I valiantly attempted to keep the air in by leaving the pump attached and sealing with bubble gum but, in the end, the Zeds top-and-tailed on one single mattress and me and Husband shared the other. Thankfully, we are somewhat of a miniature family and it was reasonably comfortable.

For the Zeds, a lot of the focus of the camping trip was on marshmallows and s'mores. I had bought a fancy extendable toasting fork, Husband set the fire and the Zeds were assured that after the hot dogs and burgers, they could toast marshmallows. Our fire was very smoky indeed. In fact, I think it contributed to my worst-headache-in-the-world-ever ™ (with apologies to those who suffer truly debilitating migraines - that phrase kept echoing in my head all night as I tried to sleep). However, we had deliciously smoky burgers and delectably charred hot dogs. Turns out the Zeds don't really like (smoky) toasted marshmallows.



Not the weather when we woke
after our first night but later on

We woke up in the morning, ready for Nutella on bread for breakfast only to find that we had committed the rookie mistake of leaving our cooler bag in the open. There were no bears to worry about but a pesky raccoon stole all our bread, marshmallows and chocolate biscuits. This was not a great start to a rainy camping morning but, luckily for us, it turned out that some campers in another part of the site were putting on a free-for-all pancake breakfast so all was well.

Despite smoke, headache and no double mattress, despite rain and stolen food, despite noisy camping neighbours and more trips to the toilet with Z2 than were really necessary (not 'cause he has just toilet-trained, though, turns out there was a bridge on the way to the toilets and he kept saying he needed to go so that we could play Poohsticks on the way back), I loved it. I have already been researching other sites which are radio-free and further away. I had memories triggered from unexpected sources  (notably the blast of warmth and smell of toothpaste intermingled with toilets in the wash block) at every turn and I welcomed them all.

You may also be interested to know:
On our return, when packing up the queen mattress to be returned for a refund due to the lack of a stopper, I found the stopper. Perhaps I was not the queen of camping organisation after all.

Impossible Coconut Pie

I didn't even need to think up a catchy title for this post as the name of the recipe is pretty catchy in itself, doncha think? I believe the pie is called "impossible" as it forms its own crust when baked and you don't have to make pastry. I found it in the ever-flowing fount of inspiration and was curious to try it but felt I should find a reason to make it.

I bought the coconut on Tuesday and was still looking for a reason to make it. The problem with baking in my house is that, while I usually have enthusiastic helpers in a Zed or two, they aren't usually very enthusiastic eaters of the results. I don't understand why as we've only had one baking result that was really and truly not worth eating. We do have willing neighbours, though.

Yes, I am cruel , I banished
these happy small people.

In fact, one neighbour, an old lady (84 on the 5th of July, I believe), gave me a perfect reason to make the coconut pie. We had a rather sad conversation with her on Wednesday about how her bingo was finished and she is at home alone all day and all evening and, though the neighbours are friendly, they are busy with their own lives. We pass her most mornings on the way to the bus stop and wave and remark on the weather but now we're making a bit of a bigger effort to stop for a chat...or, indeed, to drop off some coconut pie. So there was reason number 1 to make the pie - we could use it as a pretext to drop into B at the weekend. As it happened, I had also booked tickets for Z1 and me to go and see the Wizard of Oz this weekend but was keeping it a secret to avoid conflicts with Z2 (who, I felt, would be just as happy at the cinema with Husband) and to avoid over-excitement from Z1. From this a plan emerged - Saturday morning would be spent making the pie, once it was baked and Z2 was napping, Z1 and I would take the pie around to B and then I would casually mention to Z1 that we were going to the theatre. Marvellous!


After our usually summer Saturday morning routine of me getting the Zeds breakfast and then attempting a peaceful breakfast myself in the sun on the front porch (after growing up in Ireland, I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this proper summer that we get in


Breakfast on the porch

Toronto, despite floods and storms, it is WARM.), we set to work. As is usual when I bake with the Zeds, I got a bit more irritable than I should about them dipping fingers in the bowl and tasting and so on. In fact, I banished them after we finished mixing. It was for their own good. Also, the entertaining bit was over, really.



Slightly over-toasted
coconut pie

I baked it and then put it under the grill
(for slightly too long) to get the coconut toasty looking. I tasted it and approved. I sliced a bit for B and put it in a container. Z2 was put down for his nap by the Husband and Z1 and I set forth. B was out but I came prepared and we left it on her front porch with a  note. We went off to see the Wizard and B was waiting for us on Monday morning with the container. She didn't actually mention if the pie was good and the Zeds haven't tried it (though Z2 did express some interest in it this morning) so I can't give an unbiased report. Husband has said he will try it. I liked it, it's better warm. I tried it with raspberry coulis that I made for cheesecake and that was quite nice.

You may also be interested to know:
 - the recipe (halved from Pinterest) can be downloaded from the downloads page here
- Z1 loved the Wizard of Oz and I rather enjoyed it too. The merchandisers really missed a trick not selling ruby red slippers in the foyer, though.

Even Sadder Sunflower Story

It is with deep sadness that I write today. Yesterday, I went to check on our brave beacon of a sunflower that had been growing tall despite the odds, only to find it had been cut down in its prime, leaves chewed to pieces and stalk cut brutally. I blame the caterpillars. Next year, we shall be guarding our sunflowers with more care and attention. This year, we shall have to make do with white hydrangeas as big as Z1's head.

 

(For the full saga of the sunflowers, check out here, here, here and here) 

Sad Sunflower Story

Oh people, I am sorry to have to come here and tell you that I think our sunflower shade circle is not to be this year.

I could blame the caterpillars or slugs who seem to have made a meal of a few of the seedlings that did manage to push through
but I really feel that I must take the blame on this one.

Firstly, I didn't really prepare the ground for planting. I didn't shave the area cut the grass to define the circle so that trampling feet would avoid it and to ensure that enough light would shine on the ground to warm it and nurture the seedlings.

Secondly, I dug with a spoon. A spoon, I tell you! I should have used the proper tools which would have been more effective at digging sunflower seed-appropriate planting holes.

Finally, despite Z1's excellent planning and helpful diagrams, I did not carefully space the seeds and make sure they were evenly distributed around the circle. I did things hurriedly and haphazardly and my punishment shall be no shady, sunflower circle for me or the Zeds this year. Alas and alack.

Having said that, there is one seedling doing quite well, reaching up tall against the odds so I think we shall have a solitary sunflower. This strong sunflower will shine as a beacon to remind us that next year, if we prepare and plan AND execute the plan correctly, we could be the proud and happy cultivators of a shady, sunflower circle fort.

Sunflower Seedlings Succeeding

I must admit, I was a little incredulous that the seeds I shoved crudely into hurriedly spoon-dug holes in our lawn would actually grow. Z1 seems to have mostly forgotten about the project despite her detailed and meticulous plans but I have been regularly checking the small, barely uncovered earth patches in our rapidly growing grass.

I am pleased to report that at least two of the seeds seem to be succeeding in growing. Now, I am aware that two seedlings does not a sunflower circle fort make but there was lots of rain last night and lots of sun forecast today so we might get a few more.

Stopping to watch the woodlice

In the mornings, we have a short walk to the bus stop. Well, it should be short but we have a five year old and a nearly three year old so the walk that takes an adult nine minutes (according to googlemaps) can take up to half an hour with the Zeds.



I find myself enticing them to walk a bit quicker by saying "Come on, I think there are more woodlice across the road" and "ooh, let's see if there are any dead worms up there, near the wobbly wall". In winter, it tended to be more about finding a really good crunchy iced over puddle or a crystally icicle.



 


It's the preschooler/kindergardener equivalent to stopping to smell the flowers, you see,  and I try to encourage it in general but, you know, sometimes we really do need to hurry up and get on the damn bus. However, I do like to stop and smell photograph the flowers.

A book review - Survival of the Ginnest (with brief musings on internet friends)

Survival of the Ginnest ©

I shall be honest from the outset - I know Aimee Horton of Pass the Gin. She is an internet friend. Those of you who don't have internet friends may think that internet friends are not real or that it's a little sad and pathetic to have them but you are very, very wrong. Internet friends quite often know things about you that real life friends don't and you don't have to worry about them popping 'round for a cup of tea before you have managed to make some attempt at tidying up. (Not that my real-life friends would worry too much about the state of my house but I might.) So there you go, she's an internet friend and I offered to review her book but I hereby promise that, having been honest about my relationship with her, I will also be honest about the book.

Also, in the same week as I offered to review this, I was awaiting my copy of Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures by the very amusing Amber Dusick from crappypictures.com. I say this to show you that my standards are high for humorous, irreverent, honest parenting blogs and books. Amber makes me actually laugh out loud quite regularly as well as nodding along and inspiring my infographic posts.

Survival of the Ginnest is written entirely in Facebook status updates. This makes it very readable by a) those of us who like Twitter and Facebook and b) those of us with jobs/small children/too little time. I chuckled out loud to myself several times and silently many more while reading this on a rather dreary wintery day in spring. I think that alone should be enough to make you want to spend a small bit of your hard-earned cash on it but I shall continue. I love Aimee's affectionately grumpy nicknames for her children and I like how she writes "pooh" not "poo" - I feel it expresses the disgustingness rather well.  I thought that I would tire of the status update format but, in fact, it just kept me reading as there is always time to read just one more sentence, right? I will warn you that you are likely to end up craving alcohol or pizza or Haribo or possibly all three as you read. In fact, I had to interrupt my reading to go in seek of Haribo and was rather sad to have to make do with Maynards Sour Cherry Blasters. So yes, go out there and follow Aimee on Twitter but also, go and get her electronic book 'cause you won't regret it. You can buy it here - http://t.co/EQumosdlzx .

And now a cake with purpose, meaning and significance

Unlike the previous cake (or, indeed, this gingerbread) , this cake was made for a reason. That reason was that Z1 was having a birthday party to celebrate reaching the grand old age of five. I rather pushed the beetle theme* and had been mentally planning this cake for quite a while. However, I am not one for trial runs of cakes so, when the day before her birthday party dawned, the pressure was on.

Chocolate Beetle Cake

The Husband took both Zeds out for the day and I had the house to myself which was very novel. The secret to this cake is mostly cocoa. The recipe I used specifically said to use hot chocolate powder, not cocoa, but I ignored that and just added in some extra sugar. I had hoped for green or blue sprinkles for the wings but the shop I was in offered up only orange. I also had to buy Sherbet Fountains in order to acquire the liquorice for his "twuntlers" (as Z1 likes to call them). Note also the broken up biscuits (cookies) around him to represent the soil with a few leftover-from-last-time green sprinkles to denote grass. My attention to detail is astounding.

Overall, I felt the children were not sufficiently impressed with my glorious chocolate beetle but they did eat him and I upped the enthusiasm by offering them slices of beetle's bottom. Show me a five year old who doesn't think bottoms are funny and I'll eat my hat**. He got mostly eaten and the parents came forward to have some too so a success overall, I feel.


* I am not really sure why I became committed to a beetle theme but there you go. I did mention it here and as far as I can fathom it mostly grew from my inspired idea about using paper fasteners on paper plates to make beetle wings (more to come on that one) and a general appreciation of beetles.
**terms and conditions apply

Exhaustion - when even the thought of craft is too much

I asked Z1 what she would like our next project to be yesterday evening. She said "A television day" shortly before falling asleep on my knee before bedtime. While we may well go ahead with this project, I don't think I will be reporting our exploits here.

A Bed 'Hanopy' for Z1

One thing I found when I started looking at Pinterest is that I began to see ideas for projects everywhere. This idea for a bed canopy was from a drawing in a Fancy Nancy book that Z1 borrowed from the school library. I am not a big fan of the books but Z1 is and I do quite like using the word fancy so it's ok overall.

The "hanopy" in place

The main inspiration from the book was the use of brush handles to hold it up. Dollarama sells patterned brush handles and I have a rather great love of Dollarama. I bought the fabric from an ebay shop for around $10 including postage. My part-time job from my undergrad days came in handy in figuring out how much fabric I would need -  knowledge of bed measurements and duvet sizes is a transferable skill that I use more often than I ever thought I would.

The corners at the head of the bed are tied to the curtain rail which is ugly and unnecessarily extends to the corner of the room rather than only across the width of the window. I reached this by holding onto the window frame and balancing precariously on the bed head while praying it wouldn't crack. It's quite hard to tie a knot with one hand while balancing like that and I used my teeth to pull it tight. I'm terribly innovative.

Z1 picked two different brush handles which irked me a little.

I, fairly predictably, lost my will to live enthusiasm for the project a bit when attaching the handles to the bed got a bit tricky. I used sticky tape and various long pliable items found in Z1's room in a haphazard manner to attach them with minimal swearing. I am pleased with how it turned out, even with non-matching brush handles. Z1 says it looks like it is made from fairy dust and charmingly refers to it as a "hanopy". It does make the bed unsuitable for jumping on but I was never that keen on the bed being jumped on in the first place so that's fine.

Bed-Hopping (or why there may not be crafts done today)

 

As a result of this night of bed-hopping, Husband thinks we need to replace Z1's mattress as it's not very comfortable. I think.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.