This post is sponsored by Disney Story. To find out more about this brand-new story-creation app – and how it puts the power of storytelling in your hands - click here.

Living with a musician may have it’s difficult moments (lots of touring), but all of the little things in between more than make up for it. Little things like family jams after dinner on a weeknight.

Something so simple brings a huge smile to everyones face in our little family and can wash away the stresses of the day. Trev will go back and forth between taking my requests to playing some of the kids’ favourites and teaching them how to play along. Abby is still a bit too young to fully grasp the strumming thing, but Wyndham is ready to start some guitar lessons, clearly.

The magic of creating music with little ones is hard to deny, as you can see from this little peek inside…

If you’re curious about what additional apps I used to edit my photos (addict!) check them out:

Phoster 
Camera Plus
Snapseed
Pics Play Pro
VSCO Cam 

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Download the Disney Story app from iTunes  – for FREE – right here!

Disney Story Twitter

Disney Story Facebook

Until the next. xo

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It’s taken 2 years, 2 spring, summer and fall seasons; to actually USE our second floor balcony. There are 2 reasons for this. One, being that I was a tad bit over-protective in letting my little ones actually step foot out there.

I read far too many headlines about babies and toddlers falling to death or serious injury. That such a thing could happen in the blink of an eye. In the presence of any of us, not just neglectful parents. Which is how I rationalized my irrational fears about our balcony.

Then I grew up as a parent a little bit. As in I’m slowly becoming a less obnoxious helicopter parent as the years go on. So this year? This year we’re actually enjoying this space. I’m just not letting them out there by themselves…

That second reason? It had much to do with the fact that we only just bought this house 2 years ago, on top of having two kids back to back and the slow process of renovating and adding furniture to the inside is all our budget had room for. Still does. So instead of buying new stuff I’ve been scouring the thrift stores (but not you, NAYE YOU Salvation Army), for gently used or salvageable items that I could repurpose into something lovely.

The pillows you see in that picture are from my couch back in college. I pulled them out of storage instead of buying new ones. I spray painted our (very old), wicker chairs a bright and glossy white. The plant table is my most favourite, most recent addition. It was once rusty and worn. I saw it’s potential and the ease with which I could quickly freshen it up and give it a brand new look.

Me and spray-paint are thick as thieves. I LOVE me some spray-paint. I dream about the different projects I can take-on involving spray-paint. Just so we’re clear on the spray-paint front.

This DIY was as easy as pie. As long as you use primer. Primer is your friend. GET THE PRIMER. Do not skip this step when spray-painting something if you want it to actually look good.

MATERIALS: (including ideas for planters, plants, etc.)

• Second hand tiered table. Can be wooden or brass and glass, they made a ton of these in the 70′s, I remember my mom having one similar. You’re looking for good bones here. As in still sturdy but in desperate need of a face-lift. I mean, I bought mine for $5 on one of the weekly 50% off days at Goodwill.
• Spray paint primer (read the label, you want one that works on metal/wood)
• Spray paint (your colour of choice, again – choose one that works with metal and/or wood. I have a thing for varying shades of retro aqua)
• Various thrifted pots or vessels from the kitchen and home goods areas of thrift stores that fit your aesthetic. A flower pot is what you make of it, ya feel me? I used over-sized brandy snifters and crisp white planters I was lucky enough to find over the years, (I got the snifters a couple of years ago). I found the metallic planter more recently and the only new items are the mason jar solar lanterns, the mini ceramic air plant holders and of course the plants. I’m not really into annuals – I’m more of a perennial type gal. I like to bring as many plants into the house as I can during the colder months. A couple of the succulents you’ll see below, I’ve had for years!

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INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Wash everything down well and good and let dry out in the sun. Choose a still day, wind is the devil when it comes to spray-painting. WAIT at least 20-30 minutes in between coats. I find that spray-paint dries faster on metals than on wood. If you don’t wait, you’ll get drips and runs and spotty business.

2. I used a plastic scrubby and castile soap to get as much of the rust off the glass pane inserts as I could. Worked like a charm. As you can see I spray painted something else that day, a thrifted wall mail organizer. to match the light plates in our kitchen: brass.

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3. That’s it! Now you get to tinker and putter with plants and knick knacks. As you can see, I need two more plants.

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I am now on the hunt for a second-hand wicker love-seat to spray paint to match the chairs and some sort of coffee table.

Until the next. XO

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Looking for an easy dish that you can whip up in 20 minutes? A crowd pleasing, mouth-watering, low-carb pasta dish for the seafood lovers?

While this is most definitely a summer-time favourite using top fresh picks from our local farmer’s market, this is something that you can make year round if you’re serious about your seafood.

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Pickerel cheeks you say? OH HECK YES. If you haven’t tasted these delicious morsels, get on it. Most Canadian fishermen at your local Farmer’s Market will have them, I don’t know about anywhere else as I’ve never seen them frozen.

STEP ONE:
Fill a large pot with water and a dash of salt and set to the stove-top on high. Cover it to bring to a rolling boil for the pasta, while you prep your ingredients. Next, melt your coconut oil, adding in the lemon zest. Put aside.

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STEP TWO:
In a large, cast iron skillet sauté the shallots and garlic in the coconut oil and butter for about 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, juice the lemons and limes, set aside.

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STEP THREE:
Your water should be boiling now if you put it on before starting anything else. (Do like mama says.) Add your gluten-free pasta (or regular if you’re not concerned about that or are not celiac), cooking until al dente, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. I like to use TruRoots grain pasta or rice pasta. Drain when it’s finished, keeping 1 cup of the water for later.

STEP THREE: If you’re quick on your feet you’ll get to this while the pasta is cooking…
Start with the scallops, don’t be scared of them! Place scallops down in hot oil, butter and garlic combo. Don’t move them for 3 minutes. Immediately add in the shrimp and pickerel cheeks around them. Everything can touch of course, try and make an even layer. The less fussing about the better, especially for the scallops. When ready to turn, wiggle them slightly with tongs before turning, to make sure they are not sticking to the pan. Then turn and let cook on other side for 2-3 minutes. Turn and flip the pickerel cheeks and shrimp (pink when done, don’t overcook!) around the same time too.

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STEP FOUR:
Toss in the spinach, followed by the cooked linguine, lemon / lime juice combo juice, salt, and pepper. Use a cheesecloth lined wire strainer to strain the lemon zest out of the reserved lemon zest infused coconut oil, add it in and toss to combine. (Toss the zest.)

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STEP FIVE:
Add some of the cooking water you kept aside to your liking. Serve up right away while hot!

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Mange, mange, enjoy! This dish was melt in your mouth delicious and honestly easy enough to throw together last minute on a weeknight!

Until the next. XO

Welcome to Real Mama Life! <<< (click there to learn more about how you can participate.)

‘Where we embrace the glory and humour in the chaos. Un-staged and imperfectly beautiful.’

It wan’t just your average weekend. We had extensive landscaping plans. Raised beds to build. A ton of vegetable, fruit and perennial planting to do. With 4 kids to care for in the mix…

I suppose most folks arrange for child-care or ship off the little ones to the g-rents (or other family or friends), for the weekend when they have epic renos or landscaping over-hauls to manage. Not us. After all, we had the expertise and assistance of two more adults weighing in on the crazy.

Besides. Isn’t this some new concept? That parents can’t get anything done with kids around? That children have to be entertained by said parents at all times?

Nope.

Sure, it was bonkers (and really loud), for the most part – but all in all we had a grand time. So did the kids! Me being on mixology and kitchen detail helped a great deal. Good food and delicious drinks is KEY to keeping hard-working individuals going.

Exactly how did it go down? Well, I didn’t plan anything ornate outside of the menu. There were no craft and art stations. We essentially let them play with whatever they wanted, wherever. (Mostly.) They ruled the house and our crescent with their myriad of sidewalk chalk art murals, bikes, trikes, baby strollers and other various forms of toddler paraphernalia. I was amazed and amused at how incredibly FAST 4 toddlers/small children can destroy a playroom. And every other room in the house shortly there-after.

There was only one minor catastrophe where my son thought the inside of the lower level of our home needed a good flushing out and hose down while filling up the pool.

They were all only naked for half the time, and even then it was mostly kept in the backyard.

Our neighbour watched the madness, in amusement – and offered us her grand-daughter’s mini grocery cart. That thing kept my youngest entertained for a good couple hours. She literally walked back and forth, back and forth with all of her babies and bear bears (she now has a thing for miniature plush bears to act as lovies for her babies), like she was on a mission. For what, I don’t know. Who cares?

Like I said – she was ‘entertained’  for a surprising chunk of time.

All in all we just went with it and got shit DONE son. Today? Today we are all sore, exhausted rockstars of the suburban farming variety.

Visual Proof…

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Side-note:
The work done for all of these grandiose landscaping and suburban farming plans is part of a nifty trade we are doing with the afore mentioned couple of expertise. What do they get in exchange? The wife of said couple will be receiving a shiny new WP website for her food blog, complete with new logo, media kit and some branding, social media and marketing consultation.

Want to join? Link-up your own blog-post of this vein here, or share bits of your mad and lovely life on Instagram or Twitter – by simply by using the hashtag #RealMamaLife.

If you dig buttons, grab this one to wrap up your post when you join in!

Until the next. XO 

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Earlier this morning this arrived…

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Because for weeks I’ve been tending to a lot of this…

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Lots of raised bed action is about to get built and planted today…we may even enlist these for potatoes and carrots.

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Wish us luck! Updates (nad lots of pictures), next week.

 Until the next. XO

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If your’re looking for a delectable, chewy, dark chocolate chunk cookie that you can feel less guilty about eating or giving to your kids, this recipe is for you.

Refined sugar free, made with coconut and light spelt flour…these cookies were a hit and they may just end up being a weekly addition to our cookie jar. I’m just going to jump right in here…

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

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*I should say straight away that I missed a couple of somethings (made some typos – sort of), in the ingredients up there and was just too dang lazy to fix it. Nothing missed is of the upmost importance anyways.

You can use organic cow’s milk (as listed), or almond or rice milk. Whatever floats your boat. I used almond. I used pure, organic almond extract. NOT vanilla extract. Again, use whichever you want. Although I tend to think that the almond flavours (milk and extract), combine delectably with the coconut flour.

If you’re wondering about those chocolate chunks and just how they are refined sugar-free, you can follow this recipe like I did. I’ve started to make a double batch once a month and BOOM! Sugar-free chocolate chunks for a month’s worth of baking. Or, you can order them online, or most likely find them at your local health food store. Just make sure the fair trade organic chocolate you buy doesn’t contain this! Or get these ones, which are very low in sugar and don’t contain any soy.

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STEP ONE:
I like to prep all of my ingredients first. Which includes taking out the butter and eggs out of the the fridge 45 minutes prior to using them. Ingredients mesh better at room temperature. Baking is a science yo. I measure out all that I can. Then I obviously partake in taking pretty pictures of everything. You can skip that part, unless of course that’s your jam. Preheat your oven to 375 F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

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STEP TWO:
Combine the sweet stuff (coconut sugar and real maple syrup), almond milk and butter. Beat with a hand blender, or if you have one of those fancy stand mixers, (of which I do not, ahem), bust it out and use the paddle attachment at a high speed for 2-4 minutes. You want this action to be fluffy. Add in one egg at a time, and whip until fluffy AND creamy. Around 60 seconds. Add in the almond extract and set aside.

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STEP THREE:
Combine and sift together the dry ingredients, (coconut and spelt flours), baking soda and powder (oh! Yet another typo in the pretty ingredients listing picture found! Don’t drink a third beer while editing photos after midnight!) and salt.

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STEP FOUR:
Add in the dry ingredients a little bit at a time, mixing on low. Scrape down the sides of your bowl every now and then to ensure you get all that goodness well and mixed. the spatula is also key for folding in the chocolate chunks, which is what you should do next.

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STEP FIVE:
Using an ice cream scoop, ball the cookie dough out on your lined baking sheets. Desired ball size is your choice, although if you make ‘em too big, bad things will happen. True story. Next? Freeze them. That’s right. Make some room in there. You know you can do it. Keep them in there until they are hard. Then they’re ready. Frozen balls and high heat is always a good cookie baking combo. Also? I just like to type anything having to do with frozen balls and hard balls. Dirty kitchen talk is my favourite.

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Hard frozen balls in their prime ^^^ ready to go!

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STEP SIX:
Bake ‘em up in that preheated oven (375 F), for about 12 – 15 minutes, but make sure to check in on them at 10. All ovens are different. No, that’s not too hot. It’s perfect. Keep baking till the hard, frozen balls are all gone.

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See? Coconut sugar crystallizes wonderfully when baked and these cookies are an orgasmic mix of chewy and crunchy decadence with way less guilt involved. Don’t take my word for it. Other people ate them and told me so. Outside of my family even. Well, they didn’t say they were orgasmic exactly, but there was pleasured moaning involved, which is usually a good thing. Unless you’re a prude. Get out of my kitchen ya prude!

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If you’d like to check out more dirty talk (but hardly, in the grand scheme of dirty talk), on BALLS, check out these salty chocolate ones!

 Until the next. XO

Welcome to Real Mama Life! <<< (click there to learn more about how you can participate.)

‘Where we embrace the glory and humour in the chaos. Un-staged and imperfectly beautiful.’

You know, I don’t really miss this baby. I LOVE(D) that baby and will treasure the memories.

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But I am all about this kid business.

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We’re nearly diaper free (1 more to ‘train’), and I have a boy who reads books and tells me he loves me and helps his dare-devil sister up the big kid jungle gym to venture down the twirly slide.

Is it supposed to be bittersweet…the passage of time from baby-hood and toddler-hood into childhood? Am I supposed to get all wishy-washy and teary eyed when I look back on pictures of my boy as a newborn, mewling babe?

Truth?

I’m glad to be out of the newborn and baby stages. I’m looking forward to big kid stuff.

Want to join? Link-up your own blog-post of this vein here, or share bits of your mad and lovely life on Instagram or Twitter – by simply by using the hashtag #RealMamaLife.

If you dig buttons, grab this one to wrap up your post when you join in! 

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Last week I shared a quick little avocado dressing recipe, perfect for sandwiches, salads, and coleslaw! Oh heck yes, coleslaw lightly dressed with that green goddess dressing will have you on your knees. If fresh, delicious food does that sort of thing for you.

Now for the irresistible crunch and delicately layered with flavour quintessential tast of summer: coleslaw! I make a big batch to have left-overs for the sides of sandwiches and a quick grilled dinner side throughout the week.

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So easy. Gather all of your ingredients. Prep and wash them thoroughly.

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Chop and thinly slice the cabbage first, then wash.

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I like to give cabbage a good flushing, like one would with leeks – dirt and sand gets trapped in all of those nooks and crannies.

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Peel carrots, mince the spring onions and the pea shoots. Add into a big bowl.

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Get that delicious green dressing out (or make it), and drizzle all over the fresh washed, dried and sliced, peeled and minced ingredients. Add in the apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Mix and toss well.

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Enjoy!

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Preferably with a side of grilled steak (we like bacon wrapped elk filet medallions). Seen below with sweet potato frites and asparagus. All grilled on the the BBQ.

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 Until the next. xo

Welcome to the 6th edition of Real Mama Life!  <<< (click there to learn more about how you can participate!)

‘Where we embrace the glory and humour in the chaos. Un-staged and imperfectly beautiful.’

This right here? This would be my children watching a show that I had until very recently, completely hidden from their radar.

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But sometimes, sometimes children go to their grandparents and very bad things happen. Bad things like being introduced to Barney.

Clearly it’s not really a bad thing so much. How’s an innocent grandparent to know of the horrific brain-melting effects that Barney can have on parent’s brain from being subjected to Barney on a daily basis?

They can’t.

Because they aren’t there every day. We are.

(The idea of a ‘Barney’ was surely ludicrous. Impossible! Back in their days of parenting.)

Now, I’m one of those moms who whole-heartedly supports (heck i’ll even advocate for it), children watching T.V. They key is in moderation and the qualtiy of programming one lets their kids watch. While Barney’s song and dance may cause a deep shudder to cascade over me each and every time, my kids love that big purple freak.

So.

Could be worse. Begrudgingly, I will admit that they are doing some learning and loving the songs. Which is more than I can credit the likes of Cailou providing any sort of valuable brain food to my kids. That bald kid and his snivelling, whiny self with his perfectly white-washed, ass-backward family can kiss my grits. But seriously. How many mommy-pills is that kid’s mom ON?

Psh. So now my kids watch Barney, sometimes while eating breakfast.

And that, my friends, is #RealMamaLife. 

Want to join? Link-up your own blog-post of this vein here, or share bits of your mad and lovely life on Instagram or Twitter – by simply by using the hashtag #RealMamaLife.

If you dig buttons, grab this one to wrap up your post when you join in!

Do stories really tell a picture? Of course they do. The ones we want them to at least. With photographs we get to filter – and not just with phone apps. Take for instance, one of the most popular hashtags on Instagram, #tbt.

Throwback Thursdays…

I have about a half dozen pictures from my childhood, including a couple of newborn pictures of myself. They are sweet and hint at not an inkling of how things really were, behind closed doors. They show sisters, cuddled up and smiling happily. Bonded then by what eventually caused us to become estranged.

As I dig deep into sessions with my therapist (yea, that’s happening – I shouldn’t have ever stopped), it’s important for me to remember that there were good times. That I am breaking the cycle and recreating how I feel about what I’ve experienced  Building my own new life, with my new family. That as I type – the memories of my own little children are starting to develop and flourish.

I can only hope that as they one day look back upon their own pictures from childhood and see those images with a fondness for how things were, not how they appeared to be.

For whatever you my friends and readers may think (being vague means that these are not only my stories to tell), about my upbringing, know this. I have love for the one(s) who raised me. Just as they are in these pictures and even for all of the things these pictures don’t show. (Even though that kind of empathy and compassion is like fighting one’s way through a field of zombies and I’ve only just begun to kill them off.) We are after all – only doing what we can, the best we can; with what we’ve got. Only the truth will set us free. (So cliche, yet so very, very true.)

Damn you #tbt for making me all melancholy. (Excuse.)

Yes, that’s me. Little brown baby.

My sisters and I on a ferry to PEI

My Mom & I

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You there. Quiet reader, filled with shame. Tell your stories, even if they aren’t pretty and ‘perfect.’ You matter. There is far too much silence for fear of hurting our perpetrators (no matter the damage done by by continuing to keep bottled up), or making those with less tragedy or abuse in their lives feel uncomfortable.

Enough.

I promise you, your voice – the POWER of your voice and your life stories, will evetually, oh eventually…they will set you free.

Please email me if you need to talk, are looking for a friend, support, help with finding a referral or simply someone who will hear you and listen without judging you or feeling uncomfortable about what you have to say. This sort of community building, I’m beginning to to recognize; is a big part of my life’s work.

I’m no professional, I am simply someone like you.

***Disclaimer: Please be aware that by law I have to report anything where you or a child’s life, physical and mental well-being is in threat. Trolls will be ignored and blocked.

For those who might wonder why I might open up the gates to something like this, I ask, why wouldn’t I?

It is what it is. I’ve chosen to stop fighting who I truly am and to do the things that come naturally to me.

Until the next. xo