GingerBabyMama

Teacher Gifts for a Summer of Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Hello my friends! I’m back with a project – finally!! I have a bunch of projects in the works, some that are finished, and photographed but not yet written. It’s just been crazy busy with the kids, school, life and all that fun stuff.

Can you believe it’s June already? I can’t! It seems like just yesterday I was happily purchasing school supplies and labelling them with my littles’ names in preparation for the first day of school. Now here we are at the end of the school year and it’s time to celebrate the year that was.

Miss A is finishing up first grade and she has learned so much this year – she can read independently, she can do math equations and she knows much more about life under the sea than I do! She has also started to really love Irish Dancing. She competed in her first Feis this year and although she didn’t take home the great big medals, she tried her best and I couldn’t be prouder of my little dancer.

Miss E was in preschool this year and her biggest accomplishment would have to be how many friends she has made! She started the year sitting quietly on the carpet listening to her teacher. Now she shows up in class and half of the kids call out her name and want to play with her. She has another preschool year ahead of her before she’s off to kindergarten, but my baby is definitely growing up!

Alright, enough proud mama-ing! It’s time for the project! Last year the girls and I put together these adorable gifts for their teachers. We filled insulated cups with drink mix and candy and added a thank you card.

For the teachers this year, I’m going with a Summer Fun theme! I found these adorable bright and sunny beach towels at Walmart in the states. Miss A was my helper in putting the gifts together.

To the beach towel I added some candy, sunscreen and some bright summery nail polish for a fun beachy pedicure, and a pair of flip flops. I wrapped it up and added a little card signed by the girls.

The card reads “Thanks for making learning fun, now enjoy some summer sun!” I mounted the sign on some summery cardstock and tied it onto the ribbon I used to bring the gift together.

I also made some cute cards (if I do say so myself!). The girls will write messages to each of their teachers inside, plus there will be room for a note from me!

We are giving these gifts to their preschool, first grade and dance teachers. I hope they will love them!

Thanks for stopping by today, and if you like this post, I hope that you will Pin It!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Menu Plan Monday - June 10, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 04:58:00 +0000

Hello everyone! I hope you had a fantastic weekend! We had amazing weather and spent the weekend doing family stuff - we cleaned the house, had dinner with family, I got to have brunch with some lovely ladies and the hubs took the kids for a bike ride. All in all a perfect weekend!

Things are finally starting to calm down schedule-wise for us. The girls' activities are finally winding down for summer. Miss A is finished Irish dancing today, and she can't wait to give her teachers the presents we put together last week. I'm putting the finishing touches on the post showing how we threw together a summer fun kit for the teachers in our lives.

This week when not chauffeuring my children around town I'll be spending my nights in the kitchen, oven on! Miss A has a summer birthday, so she always brings "un-birthday" cupcakes to her classmates to celebrate her upcoming birthday. She has already requested caramel cupcakes with chocolate drizzle. I think my girls are spoiled in the cupcake department for sure!

We are also having a birthday celebration at work this week and I volunteered to make the cake. I think a chocolate/chocolate/chocolate cake is in my future!

I am proud to say that we managed to stick to last week's menu plan! We had proper dinners every night of the week, and that almost never happens! We usually cave at least once, but last week we ate healthy, nutritious meals every night we were home.

On the Menu This Week:

Monday Dinner on the go for the kids, pizza for the hubs

Tuesday Teriyaki steak stir fry with veggies

Wednesday Turkey burgers and yam fries

Thursday Savory pasta with prawns and vegetables

Friday Camping!!

Saurday Camping!!

Sunday Father's Day dinner with family

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Menu Plan Monday - June 3, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:12:00 +0000

Oh what a glorious morning! The perfect way to start a week filled with sun, fun and adventures! We had a lovely weekend away camping.

The girls went horseback riding with their cousin and we had gourmet s’mores made with fancy chocolate. All in all, it was a perfect weekend.

Even though I haven’t been posting them on the blog, I have tried to keep on menu planning through the chaos of the past few weeks.

We had a new addition to our family, my sweet little nephew Pierce (more on him in another post to come!) and Miss A competed in her first ever Feis (Irish Dancing competition).

All of this real life excitement has kept me from posting to my online life here.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Dinner on the go! Between dance and swimming lessons, we’ll have to grab something en route!
Tuesday: Beef tacos and cheese quesadillas

Wednesday: Ravioli Lasagne
Thursday: Roast pork, salt and pepper potatoes and veggies
Friday: Shake and bake chicken with rice
Saturday: Father’s Day dinner with my in-laws
Sunday: Steak, stuffed mushrooms and baked potatoes

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

All Natural Oven Cleaner

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Hello my friends! Hope you are having a fantastic week so far! I can't believe I am actually going to put these before photos on the internet for the world to see. I am so embarrassed that this disaster exists in my house. Well, it existed, it's gone now, thankfully!

My kitchen gets a LOT of action. I make about 15 full dinners a week (since my kids don't actually eat the same dinner I make for the hubs and I) and I bake two to three times a week. My oven is on all day and night some days - it takes many hours to bake 200+ cupcakes! The end result of all of this baking, cooking and frozen pizza heating is a really, really nasty looking oven.

I absolutely HATE using my self-clean option on the oven. I hate that it takes four hours, that it puts my smoke detectors on overdrive and it makes my entire house smell like ash. I am also not a fan of using harsh chemicals to clean the oven. The last time I used those I thought my throat was closing up on me! So, I took to Pinterest to find an all natural (and hopefully cheap!) way to get my nasty oven clean.

The only two ingredients in my cleaning arsenal this afternoon were extremely inexpensive and items I have on hand all the time - white vinegar and baking soda. I used almost an entire box of baking soda for this project, but I think that's likely because my oven was so gross!

I just took the baking soda and layered a large amount all over the surfaces on the oven, inside the door, on the base of the oven.

Then poured a bunch of white vinegar all over the surfaces. The powder/vinegar combo sizzles a little when the ingredients combined.

I set the timer for 20 minutes, and took a little puzzle break with my kitchen helper. When the timer buzzed, it was time for the elbow grease.

I'm not gonna lie, it took a LOT of elbow grease to get the mess out of my oven. Make sure you have some old kitchen cloths to do the scrubbing, because they will need to be trashed after! I probably scrubbed for a good 20-30 minutes to get all of the gunk off.

However, a total time commitment of an hour (from baking soda to waiting and scrubbing) and my oven was clean without my house smelling like chemicals or smoke!

When the oven door dried, there was a little bit of white residue from the baking soda/vinegar, but it wiped away easily with a wet cloth. Thanks for stopping by for a read today! Hope these little tips can help your kitchen to sparkle!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Ravioli Lasagne Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:01:00 +0000

Hello my friends! I hope today finds you healthy and happy :) I'm back today with a delicious recipe to share with you. I was inspired by my husband, and his love for all things cheese when putting together this dinner. It was a definite hit and I'm sure your family will love it too.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that this recipe is low-fat or healthy, because it's not! It's rich and delicious and I will definitely be making this recipe again and again. But in moderation, of course, and served with a side salad!!

You could use any type of ravioli for this recipe (and if you're really talented, you could use homemade ravioli, but I'm not that talented!). I found ravioli stuffed with farmer's sausage, my husband's absolute favorite thing. I added one of my favorite ingredients, Boursin cheese.

I was really hoping for leftovers of this meal that I could bring to work for lunch the next day, but there were none. My husband ate the ENTIRE dish of lasagne!

Ravioli Lasagne

Ingredients

1 package prepared fresh ravioli noodles
1 brick Boursin cheese (I used garlic and fine herb)
2 cups prepared pasta sauce (I used my crockpot marinara sauce and added ground chorizo sausage, but any sauce will work)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375F. In a medium bowl, break apart the Boursin cheese and combine with shredded mozzarella.

In an 8x8 baking dish layer your ingredients. Start with 1/3 of your sauce mixture. Next place a layer of ravioli noodles on the sauce, and cover with 1/3 of the cheese mixture. Repeat two more times, ending with the last of the cheese mixture.

Cover the baking dish with tin foil and bake your delicious lasagne for about 45 minutes, until the cheese is luscious and melty. Remove the foil and keep baking for another 5-10 minutes so the top layer of cheese bakes up nice and crispy.

I hope you love this recipe as much as we did! Thanks for stopping by for a read today, I really appreciate it!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Menu Plan Monday - May 6, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:02:00 +0000

Oh what a glorious morning! The perfect way to start a week filled with sun, fun and adventures! We had a lovely weekend filled with bbq dinners with amazing people.

We actually managed to stick to our menu plan pretty successfully last week! Yay! The ravioli lasagne that I created for dinner one night was amazing and I’ll have the recipe all ready for you guys tomorrow hopefully.

The weather this week is supposed to be amazing all week long. I am looking forward to stooping with the neighbours during the week and then having a few lovely dinners with my mom and my mother in law on the weekend. I was really hoping to get a super cute Mother’s Day craft done and ready for the blog this week, but I just don’t see that happening with weather like this!!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Lasagne Monday
Tuesday: Perogies and Guinness brats
Wednesday: Teriyaki salmon, rice and salad
Thursday: Beef tacos & cheese quesadillas
Friday: Shake and bake chicken with mashed potatoes
Saturday: Mother’s Day dinner #1
Sunday: Mother’s Day dinner #2

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Spring Mantle - Go Canucks Go!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Hi Everyone!! Today begins a big week in our house, in our town, province and country. Playoff hockey begins this week, and specifically for our house, Canucks playoff hockey starts tonight!

After taking down my Easter mantle, I promised my friend Krista that I would not put up another "theme" mantle until at least fall or Christmas.... yeah, that didn't happen!

Our playoff hockey display is filled with our favorite Canucks memorabilia. We have our Christmas nutcracker that comes out at Christmas and in late spring, some repurposed car flags and a teeny tiny Canucks emblazoned Stanley Cup (free from a case of beer years ago).

Front and centre in our display are some family heirlooms. My husband's Auntie Trudy and Uncle Harry were BIG time sports fans and loved Canucks hockey. When Auntie Trudy passed away, Brett brought home this vintage 1970's Canucks beer stein and a tiny little Canucks ring. Auntie Trudy must have had tiny finger, because this is one tiny little ring.

My girls, dressed head to toe in their Canucks tshirts, hoodies, and socks helped me decorate the mantle. Miss A let me use her blue and green beaded necklaces, we used the hubs' hats, and a headband that Miss A made in preschool. We also have a commemorative banner from when my favorite Canuck, Trevor Linden retired.

Although I am sure some of my husbands friends would say differently, I know that nothing I do will affect how my favorite team plays, but any little bit of positivity has to help their chances, right??

Thanks for stopping by today. Oh, and GO CANUCKS GO!!!

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:20:00 +0000

Hello my friends! Hope this lovely day finds you happy and healthy.

I am so excited to share a recipe with you today! For those of you who know me well, you know my favorite restaurant is White Spot. I freaking love White Spot. They make the best burgers, and have awesome fries. No meal would be complete, however without my favorite White Spot Honey Mustard dip for my fries (and occassionally for my burger!).

Over the years I have bought every type of honey mustard on the market trying to find one that tasted like my favorite dip. It simply does not exist. Rather than give up, I have honed my honey mustard making skills over the years and have come up with a nearly perfect honey mustard. I think if I tried this recipe with full fat mayonnaise, it may well be perfect.

This recipe makes a fairly large batch, but with the amount of chicken nuggets and fries we go through in my house, it doesn't actually last that long!

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup honey
1/4 regular mustard
1-2 tbsp curry powder

Instructions
In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients. Chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to allow all of the flavors to come together. Serve with chicken strips, french fries, or anything really!!

Store in the fridge in an airtight container.

Thanks for stopping by for a read today!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Menu Plan Monday - April 29, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:01:00 +0000

Good morning!! Happy Monday everyone! After a couple of crazy busy weekends and baking a couple of hundred cupcakes, I’m back and ready to menu plan!

For the past couple of weeks we have been menu plan-less. Meaning we had to (GASP!) willy-nilly make meal planning decisions – never a good thing in our house. The first week I was attending wedding events for the beautiful bride in the photo above (doesn’t she look gorgeous!!). Mandy’s wedding events meant that I was eating delicious Indian food all week long! The downside of that is the hubs was working so he had to fend for himself most of the week. Since I usually cook dinner at least five times a week, I felt bad leaving the hubs to fend for himself!

Miss A's dance performance night - sorry for the lighting, but doesn't she look cute??

I am trying out a new recipe this week. We usually have lasagne for dinner at least once a week, on a night when the kids have dance/swimming/some other event. Most weeks we have a Costco lasagne that we cook on those evenings. I saw a recipe (not sure where, but probably on Pinterest) for a lasagne that is made with ravioli noodles instead of regular lasagne noodles. I picked up some yummy filled ravioli last night and will be trying out a complete made up recipe later this week. If it turns out as fantastic as I hope it will, I will be sure to share with you all!

Just SOME of the cupcakes I made for Miss A's performance night:)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Roast Chicken, Rachel Salad & buns
Tuesday: Cashew Chicken in the crockpot, stir fry veggies and rice
Wednesday: Ravioli Lasagne (recipe to come!)
Thursday: Chicken parmesan, spaghetti with red sauce
Friday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and veggies in cheese sauce
Saturday: Dinner with our friends Kim & Mark!
Sunday: Salmon, Rice and veggies

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Menu Plan Monday - April 15, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:08:00 +0000

Good morning!! I hope you are having a fantastic Monday! We had a great weekend here, lots of playing outside, Miss A finally figured out how to ride a pogo stick, and Miss E sunk a few baskets on our neighbourhood kid-sized basketball hoop. We all had a great time.

Yes, I gave my kids knives - they picked out peppers and wanted to learn to cut them!

As many of you know, I have a VERY picky six year old eater on my hands. Miss A only eats about 6 things on a regular basis. It’s absolute torture when planning dinner at a friend’s house, or a big family feast – we know she’s either going to eat a bun with butter, or we have to bring our own food for her. Well, last week we started a new ~~bribery scheme~~ challenge with Miss A. She gets to pick what new items she wants to try and when she tries at least a bite, she gets to fill in a square on her chart. When the chart is full, she can pick a Lego set from the toy store.

Yes, I know that this means I am basically paying my child to eat, but I’m at the point where I will try anything!! I tried the cookbook where you “sneak” veggies into your kids food, but sneaking cauliflower into meatloaf only works if your kid will eat the meatloaf!!

I don’t know how much actual cooking I’m going to get done this week!! My friend is getting married and is having a full on Indian wedding, so this week I will be getting all done up for a Ladies Party, Wedding and Reception! Throw in Miss A’s dance performance night, and there are a whole bunch of nights I don’t need to cook dinner! Oh well, that gives me time to suss out some new recipes for next week’s menu.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Lasagne Monday!
Tuesday: Stuffed chicken, potatoes, veggies & stuffing
Wednesday: Dinner out at the Ladies Party! Pizza for the hubs & kids
Thursday: Meatloaf, spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce
Friday: Perogies, beans and Guinness brats
Saturday: Miss A’s Dance Performance!
Sunday: Wedding Reception! Indian food tonight!

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:02:00 +0000

Good afternoon everyone! Hope you are having a super fantastic day!! This is a crazy busy week for our family, it seems like I am running all over town playing chauffeur for the kids – even more than usual!

I found the time to make some super delicious, made with love cupcakes for some special ladies over the weekend. I made a batch for my younger sister’s baby shower on the weekend. These delicious little nibbles were chocolate cupcakes from this recipe, topped with chocolate fudge sauce and vanilla buttercream.

I also made these yummy desserts for a friend’s bridal shower at work this week. These are chocolate cupcakes (again from this recipe), filled with Jello Cheesecake Pudding and topped with vanilla buttercream. I have been asked time and again for my icing recipe, and since it certainly isn’t a trade secret, I thought I may as well share it here for all of you!

I have been making this very basic vanilla buttercream recipe for years. I am not sure where it originally came from, because I don’t need the recipe anymore, it’s stored in my head!

No cupcake is complete without a fancy swirl of icing on top, am I right? The swirl which looks so fancy and difficult is actually really really really easy! I use a 16” featherweight Wilton icing bag (though a smaller one would be fine, I just tend to bake in BIG batches, so I need a BIG bag to hold the icing) and a Wilton 1M icing tip. To make the swirl stand nice and tall, pipe a little wee star in the middle of the cupcake, then pipe in a circle around and over the star. That’s it! See? I told you it was easy!!

This icing recipe will cover 24 regular cupcakes, fancy swirl included!

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

1 cup butter, at room temperature (don’t take it out of the fridge and thaw in the microwave, it never turns out right… just leave it on the counter until it’s nice and soft)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (yes, one tablespoon!)
4 cups icing sugar
2-4 tablespoons of milk, a splash at a time

Instructions

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter until light and creamy. Add a tablespoon of vanilla extract and mix another 20 seconds until well combined. Add the icing sugar, one cup at a time, beating between each addition.

When all four cups of icing sugar have been added, leave the mixer a-mixing for another minute or so, you’ll find it will come together a bit more. At this point, add milk, one tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency for your icing. I like my piping icing to hold up, and be sort of the consistency of room temperature butter. If I was using the icing to frost a cake, I would add a bit more milk to thin it out.

Assemble your icing bag, with the coupler and the tip, fill the bag, and get piping!! If you are new to piping icing, lay some wax paper on the counter and practice! Anything you pipe you can throw back into the bag and use again. This icing also colors well. My favourite icing colors are made by Duff. You can also freeze this icing if you make a huge batch and have leftovers. Just put the icing into an airtight container and use it the next time you are baking.

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Menu Plan Monday - April 8, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:38:00 +0000

I made these lovelies for my sister's baby shower on the weekend!

Hello my internet friends!! I hope you are having a fantastic Monday! After a crazy weekend filled with birthday parties and baby showers, and a week off of menu planning, today I’m back with a plan – one that I hope I can stick to!!

I have been menu planning for about a year now and I can definitely see how much it has helped my family stay organized and on track. It only takes a few short minutes to create a plan for the week, and when we stick to it, it means less eating out or last minute frozen pizza nights!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Recipe

Monday: Lasagne Monday!
Tuesday: Dinner Out for Me!! Grandma’s bringing the kids dinner!
Wednesday: Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry with Rice and Veggies
Thursday: Dinner on the go
Friday: BBQ Chicken breasts with potatoes and corn
Saturday: Brinner! Breakfast for dinner
Sunday: Chicken Pot Pie

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Kitchen Contained!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 05:43:00 +0000

Hello my friends! Sorry I have been MIA this week. The kids and I were sick, then we had a couple of spring break all-day-long-play dates and now it’s ~~Thursday~~ Friday and I’m finally posting for the first time! I’m working my way cupboard by cupboard, and stretch of countertop at a time. So far I have handled my glassware, pots, pans, platters, bowls, Tupperware and my command centre. Being a part of OrgJunkie’s 31 Day Organizational Challenge has definitely spurred me on!

Finally!!! My kitchen chaos has been contained!!

This week I am working on the most challenging part of my kitchen – my baking supplies. I bake. A LOT. Last year I spent time on the Quest for the Perfect Cupcake. Needless to say, I have an extremely large amount of baking accoutrement. I store most of my shaped and larger cake pans in the garage, and my seldom used cupcake display pieces in an upstairs part of my linen closet. My supplies however, they live in the kitchen.

SO. MUCH. Crystal Light. Yes, this entire container is filled with Crystal Light singles and pitcher packets. I know, I have a problem...

For those of you just coming by here for the first time, let me tell you flat out – I am a hoarder. Well, I’m a recovering hoarder now. I have been following a minimalish path for a few years now and have slowly worked the minimalish rules on most areas of our home. I do however, still hoard food and ingredients. I have baking supplies and ingredients in no less than four different cupboards in the kitchen.

Before I even started this project, I called in reinforcements! My rock star neighbour Krista came over to help me start the PROCESS. I extended my kitchen table to its fullest capacity and then hunted through all of the cupboards for all of the baking stuff in the kitchen. Oh mercy, there was even more in there than I thought possible.

Since I didn’t have a ton of stuff to purge, I started sorting like with like: all the chocolate chips together, all of the sprinkles together, all of the paper cupcake liners together (note to self: DO NOT buy any more cupcake liners!!). I went even further and put all of the puddings and jellos together, since I usually use those for baking instead of just for their intended purpose.

My total organizational container investment for this huge project was $8!! I bought 6-$1 lidded Sterilite containers from Walmart and two $1 packages of hot pink stickers to use on the labels. I had cardstock on hand that I used to line the front of the bins to hide the supplies within. After moving our breakfast foods into the cupboard that previously stored half of my baking supplies, I was able to consolidate all of my pretty new containers into the pantry we have in the kitchen! WooHoo! Extra bonus – all of my ingredients are now right next to my beloved kitchenaid mixer! I think this calls for a celebration – cupcakes all around!!

While organizing all of the baking supplies, Krista and her organizing OCD also got me fired up to organize the kids homework and craft supplies into one of the newly emptied cupboards - YIPPEE!!

The last thing I needed to do in my 31 Day Organizational Challenge was a thorough deep cleaning of the kitchen. I got out my mop, bucket and cleaning cloths and got all of the kitchen surfaces sparkly clean! Ah, I love a clean, organized kitchen! Thanks again to OrgJunkie for hosting this challenge and to my friend Krista for helping me finish it! Here are some quick before-and-afters of the Kitchen Chaos project:

Week One: The Glassware Cupboard

Week Two - Pots and Pans, Dishcloths, Platters and Tupperware:

and after

Week Three - The Command Centre

Week Four - Baking Supplies:

Baking supplies AFTER!

Laura asked all of the Organizing Challenge participants to answer a couple of questions about the work we have done this past month.

1. What space did you decide to organize and why?
I decided to organize my kitchen. The kitchen is the heart of the home, and we live in our kitchen! There is always something happening - homework, cooking, baking, chatting, party planning. Our kitchen takes a beating and needed some definite organizing love.

2. What steps did you take to ensure you completed the space within the 31 day timeline?
In order to finish in the month long timeline (which was HARD!!) I made a list of all of the cupboards and their uses and then broke them out into the weeks I had to finish the work. It was tough, because we were away two of the weekends and the kids were on spring break for 2 weeks, but I managed to get it done!

3. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and how did you overcome it?
TIME. Because I spend so much time actually using my kitchen, finding the time to empty cupboards and purge and organize was tough!! But I soldiered on and stayed up after the kids went to bed.

4. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
I was able to bring some of the extra glassware down to my cabin to be repurposed, and donated a bunch of other dishes and kitchenware.

5. Tell me one of your proudest moments during this challenge?
That I was able to finally contain my baking supplies. I bake a lot and having my supplies spread out over four different spaces in my kitchen meant that I was constantly making an even bigger mess digging out supplies and ingredients than I should have. Hopefully this new, pretty-labelled system will work for me!

6. Explain any organizing “tools” you used to help you create additional space and to establish some limits and boundaries?
The best organizing tool for me is the dollar store! I can find everything I need there to better organize the spaces in my home very inexpensively. I love the simple baskets and bins and the craft section for labels and making the space a little prettier!

7. What is ONE piece of organizing advice you’ve learned on this journey that you could encourage someone else with?
Just take it one small step at a time. Even though this month I tackled a big (for me) project, breaking it up into smaller steps that I could do one at a time made it way easier to handle. I also like knowing that I only need to commit a small amount of time when doing a small part of the project, instead of taking an entire day to go start to finish on a massive job.

I want to thank Laura from Org Junkie for hosting this challenge and for inspiring me to finally get this space in order!!

All Ready for Spring - Our Easter Mantle

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Just a quickie little post to show off a project that the girls and I put together this week. When I got home from work, my little munchkins bombarded me with requests to get out our Easter stuff. I’m pretty sure the request came because they were sick of looking at the Valentine’s mantle my lazy self had yet to take down.

I took out the Easter decorations from their perch inside the bean’s closet and got to work dismantling Valentine’s Day in the middle of March. I let the girls loose on my scrapbook paper collection to pick some spring coloured paper and made a quick, easy bunting by cutting the paper and folding the top edge over and securing it with tape. This allowed me to run twine through the back to hang the happy little sign from the mantle.

I freehand cut out the letters and used my awesome Martha Stewart Circle Cutter to cut out the plain white circles. I made the mistake of using liquid glue instead of the double sided craft tape to affix the pieces to each other, so it dried a little crinkly, but overall I think it turned out really cute!

I pulled together my favourite Easter baskets (the yellow one on the far left my mom made for me when I was a kid) and filled some glass containers with brightly coloured plastic eggs. Miss A added some homemade artwork, Miss E put her two favourite stuffed bunnies to add to the collection and I put in some blue and green vases for color.

Thanks for hopping by my little corner of the internet today. I hope you enjoyed out Easter mantle! Now to plan ahead for the next one – SUMMER!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Kitchen Chaos - Week Three Progress!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 02:50:00 +0000

Week THREE! Progress!! Well, not a lot of progress, but a little progress is better than none, right?? I have been trying to tackle the chaos that is my kitchen bit by bit this month as part of OrgJunkie’s 31 Day Organizing Challenge. The first week I attacked my insane collection of glassware. The second week I went crazy and organized my platters and bowls, dishcloths, pots and pans and Tupperware! It was a little bit insane, but felt really great when it was done.

This week I’ve been working full time because the hubs is home having spring break adventures with the girls. What this means for me is that the three hours of project time I usually have between the littles going to bed and the hubs getting home didn’t happen this week.

I did manage to carve out a few minutes while cooking dinner to get my command centre back in order. You can see my original post on how I created this space here. I put this system in place almost a year ago and it’s been doing pretty well for us. This week I took every piece of paper from the massively accumulating pile and took them into the living room to sort while watching TV. I also took stock of what ends up in this space and made a few small changes.

My girls bring an enormous amount of art home from school and since I have a hard time parting with it, and have a good system for retaining it (which I will share as soon as I finish sorting the art I removed from this space!!) I needed a better way to contain the incoming art.

My local dollar store sometimes carries really really cute organizing items. I found these magazine storage things in my favourite color of the minute – grey! I labelled the container “Incoming Art” and hopefully once the glue and paint have dried and they are finished their rotation on the fridge they can be nicely placed in the Incoming Art space.

Fifteen minutes later, ta-da!! All done!

I took another five minutes to sort out our lunch box storage area. I installed some cheapie plastic hooks to the end of my cupboard in the front corner of the kitchen. I have two small hooks that hold Miss A and Miss E’s lunch bags each evening. I also installed a little larger hook to hold my lunch bag, which is a bit heavier.

Being spring break, it is a great time to do a deep cleaning of the girls’ lunch boxes. Some hot water, vinegar and dish soap and a good scrubbing later, the lunch boxes were spick and span and ready for school in another week.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to find the time to tackle the biggest issue in my kitchen – the insane amount of baking supplies and ingredients. OrgJunkie gave me some serious inspiration in this post so I have a starting off point.

Thanks for checking in with my progress. If you like this post you should definitely check out the other people linked up with Org Junkie, there have been some awesome transformations!

I’ll be linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Menu Plan Monday - March 18, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:54:00 +0000

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all are having a better Monday than I am having! After a superfun time with friends and family celebrating St Patrick’s Day yesterday, today I am definitely feeling a little less than my usual self.

Since the hubs is off work for this week for Spring Break with the kiddos and I am working five days straight (GASP!!) this week’s menu is going to include something I don’t usually do during the week – Grilling!! Since I am normally home with the kids in the evening while the hubs is working, dealing with the BBQ is usually the last thing I want to do. This week he’s home, so we are going to cook outside for a couple of meals!!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a fantastic week!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Spaghetti and meat sauce with garlic bread
Tuesday: Burgers, potatoes and veggies
Wednesday: Mom’s night out! Tortellini alfredo for the family
Thursday: Beef Enchilada Bake
Friday: BBQ Salmon, veggies and rice
Saturday: Turkey Chili
Sunday: Chicken Pot Pie

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

Kitchen Chaos - Week 2 Progress!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 05:25:00 +0000

Hello my organizing lovelies, and my friends who have stopped by for a read today! Thanks for coming by to check out my progress with this month’s 31 Day Organizing Challenge! I started out last week with organizing my glassware cupboard.

In this week’s post I’m going to try to tackle the chaos in the kitchen cupboards where I store my mixing bowls, platters, and my pots and pans. I don’t think I have a lot of items to purge in these cupboards, but the area is in definite need of some organization.

I have a fantastically handy little brother, who comes to my rescue often. A few years ago when I complained that one of my cabinets had terrible shelving, he created some shelves and placed them close together to allow for additional storage. This allows me to put many more platters and serving dishes in the cupboard without the worry of them chipping and breaking from being stacked one on top of the other.

Tonight, after making my girls Shamrock shaped pancakes for dinner, I got straight to work on what was supposed to be two cupboards. You know how it is though... start a small project and somehow your organizing ADD takes over and all of a sudden you manage to sort through the chaos in four places? That's not just me, is it??

I started with the cupboard that holds my stainless steel bowl collection (I know, I have a ridiculous number, but I use them all a lot!!), platters and serving dishes and my crockpot. Step one: Empty the space completely, wipe down all the surfaces assess the storage situation. I managed to part with only one serving dish, but I use and love all the ones that are left, so I think I did ok!

After organizing the dishes and bowls by size and frequency of use, I was able to put them all back in the cupboard with room to spare.

The next planned space was the pots and pans and bakeware cupboard. I have one set of pots and four pans/skillets. I do however have seven cupcake pans, four round and three square pans, four loaf pans and a bundt pan. This doesn't include the specialty pans I store in the garage.

These are just my everyday baking pans, so they need to be nearby, easily accessible and most importantly, organized.

Voila! I laid down the last of my pretty contact paper on the two shelves and started reassembling the space. I added a couple of hooks to the inside of the cupboard to hold the awkwardly shaped attachments for the mixer. I also made use of my turkey pan to hold the lids for my pot set.

Next up? Tupperware. It seems like I sort this cupboard out at least once a month. If I could just get the hubs to put the lids back on the containers when he empties the dishwasher instead of chucking them in here I would be a happy mama. Until then, I guess it's going to be a space I tackle often.

The last organizing spot of the evening is one that I have wanted to tackle for ages. I made the mistake of buying horrible (really really horrible) microfiber cloths. Those had to go! I also managed to shove FIVE aprons into the same drawer that is supposed to hold my beloved handmade dishcloths. After purging about 1/3 of the items from the drawer, moving two of the aprons to another space in the house (I kept one each for me and the girls in the kitchen)and neatly folding the remaining cloths, I was finally happy with my dishcloth drawer. It's the little things that make a girl happy!

Wow! What was originally supposed to be a two cupboard mini-project turned into a bigger project. All in though, it was done in under an hour. A pretty successful Friday night if you ask me! I'm going to link my progress up to OrgJunkie's 31 Day Organizing party. There are some amazing transformations taking place over there, you should totally check it out!

Thanks for stopping my my little corner of the internet today! Have a great weekend!

Linking to Joyful Homemaking, Not Just a Housewife and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Wee Pots of Gold!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:45:00 +0000

Good afternoon everyone! Hope you are having a super fantastic day! I had so much fun last night crafting up a storm, and today I’m going to share some of the fun with you!

March is a fun month for us! We have a two-week spring break from school, made even longer by Easter long weekend at the end of the month. We also have the most fun holiday of the year – St Patrick’s Day!! Miss A is an Irish dancer, and although she’s not quite at that stage yet, the day will come when she’ll spend the entire week leading up to St Patrick’s Day dancing at local pubs and community events. It’s how I spent my Paddy’s days when I was a younger, and I know she’ll love it!

Miss A came home from school yesterday saying she had to be careful not to get caught in a leprechaun trap! I thought it would be fun to make some little treats for my little leprechauns to open on Sunday morning. Nothing fancy or expensive, just something fun! All in, I put together 8 wee pots of gold for a total cost of sixteen bucks!

8 Mini terra cotta pots 2/$1 = $4

1 each of gold paint and gold glitter paint $2

1 package of Easter basket filling $1

6 packages of gold coins = $6

2 packages chocolate candies $2

Shamrock stickers $1

Total = $16!! Or only $2 per pot of gold!!

I started out painting the outside of the terra cotta pots with the gold paint. I put on two coats (it dried super quick!!) and then applied a layer of the glitter paint. I really could have skipped this step, as I didn’t notice enough of a glitteriness (I know it’s not a word… but it’s what I was going for…) to make a difference. I added stickers to a couple of the pots and left the rest plain gold. The stickers didn’t stick perfectly but they did like cute!

The next step was to fill the pots with gold! I put a piece of paper towel in the bottom, but I guess I could have just used more of the basket filler stuff. I was worried about the gold coins falling to the bottom of the pot and not being seen at the top. I filled the pots with chocolate gold coins and gold foil-wrapped candies.

I’m sure the girls will love their little leprechaun treats! I hope you like them too!

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet today! I really appreciate it! I’ll be linking my project up to Joyful Homemaking, and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Finding a Way to Organize Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Hello friends! Thanks for stopping by today! Today I thought it would be fun to share a little corner of chaos in our house and how Miss E and I tackled the chaos to bring some order to a very busy space.

The main level in our home is where we do most of our living. It’s our kitchen, living room, dining room, kids’ toy room and one teeny tiny bathroom. The vanity in this little half bath stores our crazy-morning-get-the-kids-hair-done-in-a-hurry supplies, first aid supplies, cleaning products, toilet paper, gym towels, the enormous supply of nail polishes for mani-pedi days, and a bunch of various other junk.

It was organized once upon a time, but now it was complete insanity. All of the nicely organized bins from the past now had no lids and every bin was stacked inside another. The hair-doing supplies were all over the place and there was no cohesion to the space at all.

My accomplice and I took all of the mess into the kitchen and laid it out on the table. We used old adage of “purge til it fits” and sorted all like items together. We threw out anything that was old, broken or expired and tried to contain the rest of the stuff to the space we had.

Clearly the lidded bin system was not working for us, so we needed to find another way. I also needed a way to contain a pile of gym towels and the toilet paper, neither of which stack nicely (when you have kiddos rummaging around).

When I cleared out my master bedroom closet a couple of weeks ago, I unearthed a huge drawer organizing thing that was not being used to its full potential. I took it apart and used the top four drawers to contain our first aid supplies, nail supplies, hair do-hickeys and “etc” which encompasses feminine supplies and q-tips and the like.

In the bottom of the drawer holding my ridiculous supply of nail polish, I cut a piece of anti-skid liner and put it right into the drawer.

This will keep the polishes standing upright when the drawers open and closet and keep it pretty a little longer hopefully!

After adding some scrapbooking letters for labels, and ensuring that each small child could easily remove the drawers on their own when needed, I slid the drawer unit right into the vanity! I took one of the deeper drawers out of the unit and slid it into the vanity on its own to hold gym towels and extra rolls of TP. Cleaning supplies and extra hand soap fit right in the middle in a plastic bin.

All together this little project took the bean and I about half an hour to finish. Even though it totally distracted me from cleaning the bathroom (which was my intended project!!), I think it was totally worth it, don’t you?

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet today! I really appreciate it! I’ll be linking my project up to IHeartOrganizing, Joyful Homemaking, and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Simple Living Lesson #10 – Routine

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Hey all! Thanks for coming by to take a read through my attempt at living life a little more simply. To take a look at the lessons I have worked through previously check out lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. This week’s lesson is focussing on routine, which makes me really happy!

Although I’ll be the first one to pass up on an afternoon of housework to have tea with the neighbours, I do try to keep a pretty tight ship at our house and routine totally plays into the plan. I work out every day during the week, and since I don’t get home from the gym until the kids are supposed to be ready for school, part of our morning routine is to be prepared for the day.

I try to lay out the kids’ school clothes the night before. The girls like to lay them out so they look like a kid in an outfit, socks, undies and hoodies all splayed out on the floor. Whatever works, as long as they are getting ready!!

When I get home from the gym, I make the lunches while the hubs is busy wrangling the girls into the outfits they splayed out onto their floors the night before.

While I put together the lunches, my rock star teammate gets breakfast, toothbrushes, vitamins and backpacks sorted. Our morning routine, though chaotic works for us and usually gets everyone to school and work on time.

Housework is becoming more of a routine for us too. We used to have a cleaning service come in every two weeks to do the nitty-gritty cleaning (bathrooms, vacuuming, all the hard-core housework) but now it’s all on the hubs and I to get it done. Since I only work part time, I do the majority of the cleaning on my day off and the hubs in charge of the two things I hate the most: vacuuming and all of the laundry.

I find that I feel happiest in my home when the kitchen is clean. Clean counters, an empty sink and the smell of cookies baking gives me a euphoric feeling! I always try to spend 15 minutes once the kids go to bed walking from room to room, straightening pillows and towels and picking up the little bits and pieces of toys that the kids don’t see when they put their toys away.

My evening routine of quick pick up and running the dishwasher makes our morning routines run just that much more smoothly. I guess I can say that this week’s simple living lesson is to streamline your life to make things easier. It certainly helps that we don’t have as many pieces of clothing or furniture or toys (though we still have a TON of toys) as we did before we began to purge, and purge and purge again!

Do you have any routines that help you keep the ship afloat in your house?

I am linking to some of these fun linking parties:

I'm An Organizing Junkie, A Bowl Full of Lemons , Delightful Order , and Joyful Homemaking

Menu Plan Monday - March 11, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:52:00 +0000

What an amazing, sunny, productive weekend! I headed down to the cabin to put myself to work! I’m not a house builder, but I busied myself hauling lumber and supplies and cleaning the work site and helping to cook for the menfolk. It was super productive down there – look what we accomplished!!

We had a definite recipe success last week! Our Fish Tacos turned out super delicious! I used the recipe for the batter/cooking from allrecipes.com and just cooked up some peppers and onions and salsa, served with avocado and sour cream and it was fantastic! A definite recipe to try again.

After the time change over the weekend and the hard work at the cabin this weekend, I am super thankful that I took some time last week to create a menu plan for the entire month of March. Even though we may not stick to the menu every day, at least some semblance of a plan makes my life that much easier

On the menu this week:

Monday: Lasagne Monday!
Tuesday: Cashew Chicken with rice and veggies
Wednesday: Turkey Ham with mashed potatoes, peas and corn
Thursday: Curry Chicken and rice
Friday: Leftover Buffet!
Saturday: Brinner – Green Pancakes for dinner!
Sunday: Happy St Patrick’s Day! Dinner out at the pub!

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

31 Day Organizing Challenge – My Crazy Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 06:12:00 +0000

One year ago I started this little blog because I wanted to enter OrgJunkie’s contest for her Organizational Challenge.

Last year I tackled our scrapbook room. The project was a huge undertaking, but it’s done! And for the most part, the room has stayed neat and organized.

The room that I chose to tackle this year is my kitchen. Since today is the first link up party, I thought I could show my before pics (AAHHH!!!) and my first bit of progress.

We have a couple of trigger spots in our kitchen – the command centre, the homework area and oh yeah, ridiculously over filled cabinets. It’s a bit insane. I have posted in the past about my organized command centre, and when it’s organized it’s a thing of beauty. However, with the amount of paper that comes into my house, it doesn’t take long for it to become chaos once again.

My plan is to go through my cupboards one at a time and see what I have too many of, or what I have not used in the past year. All of these items will promptly be placed in my donation station and transported to our local thrift store so someone else can make use of them.

First stop on the kitchen project – our ridiculous collection of glassware. I have THREE full cupboards of glasses. There are four of us. That’s a bit insane. I started by taking everything out of the cupboard and wiping down the shelves. I always wonder how it’s possible that crumbs end up in a cupboard where CLEAN dishes reside.

After paring down my ridiculous number of glasses, and filling a box with some plastic wine glasses and beer glasses to bring down to the cabin I got to work organizing. I had some pretty shelf paper from another project, so I cut myself a couple of pieces to line the bottom shelf of the cupboard. I could have gone crazy and lined them all, but since I’m only 5”5” on a good day, I just lined the one shelf I could actually see.

Since this cupboard is also the home to our kiddie dishes and cups I pared these down also. I got rid of the little little kid sippy cups and just kept these straw cups with lids. They cost about $3 for a four pack and they are the BEST cups!!

Ta-Da!! Well? What do you think? Here is my nicely organized glassware cupboard! A box and a BIG bag of excess dishes later and this is where we are at today! I have a full shelf and a half of EMPTY space and all of my glasses are neatly organized.

You may wonder about my mug collection - how they are all random and un-matching? It’s on purpose. A long time ago when I started on my decluttering journey I got rid of the matched set of mugs I had because they just weren’t big enough. I need a CUPPA tea, not a teeny tiny mug worth. I have my favourite HUGE mugs (from Disneyland) and a couple of other big mugs. I do maintain two small ones for my neighbour Kelly who is anti-huge-cuppa-tea.

Progress! Thanks so much for coming over to see my little bit of progress in the kitchen. Hopefully by the next linky party I will be able to tackle some of the rest of my kitchen projects – the baking cupboardS (yes, plural), the platters and bowls, and the food – oh my, the food.

I’m linking my progress post up to Org Junkie’s Challenge page. I wonder what the other posters are organizing!!

Menu Plan Monday - March 4, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:19:00 +0000

Can you feel it? Spring is in the air!! After a horrendous downpour on Saturday, the sun shone all day yesterday! We played outside, the hubs took the kiddos on a bike ride to the park, I played outside before dinner. We took full advantage of those sun-shiny hours!!

This weekend we stuck to our menu plan! That never happens on the weekend – we are usually exhausted/lazy and just go out or order in for one of the nights. This weekend we were all home together and we feasted on home cooked meals. We even tried out a new Pinterest recipe and it was a success! It was a perfect weekend.

This weekend and for the next three weekends we are going to be an all-girl household! The amazing team of my husband, dad, brother and brother-in-law will be heading down to our cabin in the states to do some serious work! Since both my sister and my sister-in-law are expecting babies in the next few months, the men are heading out to get a summer’s worth of work done in four weekends! I’ve got some yummy, homemade meals planned for the next few Sundays for when the men arrive home!

Recipe!!

On the menu this week:

Monday: Lasagne Monday!
Tuesday: Homemade pizzas
Wednesday: Fish tacos
Thursday: Perogies and sausage
Friday: Brinner! Breakfast for dinner
Saturday: Shake and bake chicken strips and French fries
Sunday: Tortellini with prawns in Boursin cream sauce

I’ll be linking my menu plan up to OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday – check it out!!

LalaLoopsy Birthday Party!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Can you believe it? My little baby bean turned four this week! When asked what theme she would like for her party, she picked her favourite toy of the minute – Lalaloopsy dolls! Over the past year my girls have amassed a fairly large collection of these adorable dollies.

For those of you outside the little girl loop, these super cute dolls is created with a fictional theme, reflecting the day she is born, the fabric she is sewn from, and her pet.

Google was my friend when designing Miss E's birthday party invitations. I found a Lalaloopsy image and put the party details into a text box. I printed out the invite, used double sided tape to attach the invite to cardstock and then glued on some buttons to liven them up a little.

After scouring Pinterest for some ideas, I got straight to work! I used dessert plates, black cardstock and a circle punch and created buttons. I tied them together into a row and used them as the backdrop for the party.

I created Happy Birthday Eila labels for the water bottles and juice containers, to add a little cute factor to the food and drink table. We went simple with the food, just fruits, veggies and the kids favorites - cheetos and popcorn twists!

The first day we started planning the party, Miss E picked out her cake. It was super easy to put together. We made this chocolate cake and made marshmallow fondant. I ordered a button candy mold to make the decorative buttons on the sides, and popped a few Mini Lalaloopsies on top of the cake.

I used a button lollipop mold to make these yummy bites for the kids to take home after the party.

A quick and easy Happy Birthday bunting came together with Valentine hearts and printed letters, and printed out pictures of the Lalaloopsy dolls taped to some craft twine became our party decorations.

Check out this cutie playing a fun game of pin the crown on Jewel Sparkles.

Since the Lalaloopsy dolls slogan is “Sew Magical” I created a gift tag to put on the outside of the goody bags thanking Miss E’s friends “SEW” much for coming to her party. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the goody bags. They were pretty easy to put together. Candy, candy and more candy filled the bags!!

The kids played games, and did crafts, and had a LOT of sugar and a great time! It looks like this sweet little girl had a really great party!!

Thanks so much for stopping by to read today.

I am linking to some of these fun linking parties:

I'm An Organizing Junkie, A Bowl Full of Lemons , Delightful Order , and Joyful Homemaking

Eila Grace is Turning Four!!

noreply@blogger.com (GingerBabyMama) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Oh my, how time flies! Teeny tiny baby Eila is turning four years old today! I remember four years ago, staring out my hospital window as snow lightly fell outside wondering what this little bean was going to be like.

What an amazing little girl she has turned into. She started life with a set of pipes on her like no other baby I had ever known. This girl could SCREAM! We joked that she could break glass with those lungs. One night, when she was two months old, a neighbor came over to see if I needed help with one or both kids. He could hear Eila crying through the closed window from across the street! Little did he know that Aidyn was already asleep and the crying he could hear was just Eila… being Eila.

With her big sister Aidyn helping her along the way and showing her the ropes, our little bean quickly tried to learn everything her big sister could teach her! Although a tiny little girl, who never could seem to get out of the 5th percentile for her weight, what she lacked in pounds, she made up for in words. Oh the words that little girl could come up with!

If we were impressed by her speaking, we were shocked by her singing! Before she turned two, she was singing along with Justin Beiber on the radio. These days she can memorize entire songs and sing them all on her own. I love listening to her sing songs while she colors…. It`s so stinkin` cute.

Look who turned one!!

Eila turns two!!

Eila turns three!

My girls play so well together. You can hear them singing, dancing and playing mommy and baby together all day long. Eila love to play little mama whenever she gets the chance. She likes to take care of her cousin Belles and show her how to play games and read books.

Eila is definitely Daddy’s little girl. This photo is from when she was just a couple of weeks old. Things haven’t changed much. You are just as likely to see Eila chilling on the couch watching tv with daddy as you are tucking her dolls into imaginary beds with imaginary teddy bears.

These days, my little bean spends her days being my sidekick. She comes shopping with me, she bakes with me, she cleans the house with me and she gives the best cuddles and hugs in town.

I am so blessed to be able to spend extra time with my little girls as they grow. They make me so proud. They make me laugh and they melt my heart every single day.

p.s. lots of the awesome photos used in this post were taken by the fantastic Alana Joy Photography. Check her out, she's amazing!!