My Life as a Mom

So I had a dear friend point out to me that I apple season is upon us.  I told her that I didn't feel like doing anything with the apples on my tree this year because they are small and by the time you peel and core them, there is basically nothing left.Her eyes began to sparkle and she told me she had a better way... So I got to work and picked all the apples that I could reach off our tree, with a little bit of help...  I was quite pleased with the haul that I got.  I washed the apples, cut them in half and boiled them, seeds and all. Then put them in this nifty strainer thing that my dear friend borrowed from her mother in law (inlaws can be so handy sometimes) and mashed them through to create apple sauce!! I'm thrilled! It was really quick and  really easy. I added cinamon (and a little sugar cause my apples aren't super sweet) to the mashed apples, boiled them, put them in jars and processed them. Fast, easy, great smelling and yummy!! Now I'm listening

I just love the way that my boys love each other. They really are best friends. David wants Zac to be happy and feels bad if he gets left out of anything. Zac thinks that David is the greatest person alive (after his mommy of course!) I'm so glad that I thought to grab my camera when I saw the two of them snuggled up on the couch together. Just quietly playing with a couple toys, but mostly enjoying the sunlight and each other. I decided that it was time to me to set a better schedule for myself. I've been finding that my mornings and my evenings are really good, but my afternoons are difficult. I feel unsure of what to do with myself and my boys seem to get cranky and then I feel unproductive and sad. It's a bitter cycle, and I decided it was time that I ended it. So I wrote down a plan for a new routine and I've been trying it for the last couple of days. I absolutely LOVE it. It works for me. I have designated time for each child, for cleaning, for crafting

When everything else is stripped away, when all our obsessions are gone and our lives come in to focus, what is it that matters? What is it that makes me get out of bed in the morning? Why do I get on my knees and pray? At the end of the day, it's for this: And this: Because I want a whole lot more of this:   At the end of the day, I want my children's happiness. I want them to have the best possible life that they can have. I want them to be happy and feel free to do what they want to do. I want to see them smile, because when they are smiling, my life feels complete. My efforts seem valid. Everything makes sense and all the trouble is worth it.   I love being a mom. It's the one thing that I always dreamed of. It makes everything else, less important.

My how life changes. This summer has been an interesting one. Full of twists and turns and changes. I don't know that I'm brave enough to really talk about all of them yet, but I will say that it has led me to a lot of self discovery. I have found myself questioning every decision and wondering about everything. Because of what I have been through this summer though, I have learned some improtant things. I have learned what is really important to me, what I REALLY want out of life. I have learned who my real friends are, and that I truly can count on them. I have gained more respect for my mom than I ever thought was possible. I have learned that life is HARD. So very hard, and there are no easy passes, no get out of jail free cards. Life is just hard and how we handle those challenges, makes us who we are. I have learned that beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am where I am for a reason. God put me in this family, with these people, for a purpose. My upbringing was not

Feeding kids can be challenging. Between the "I don't like that!"s and the "What is it?"s it can be hard to consistantly feed kids healthy meals. So I've started to make compromises. I will make something that the kids really like, ie Macaroni and Cheese:  And then I pair it with something that might not be quite as appealing, but super nutritious: I find that if I'm doing a veggie plate, the presentation really matters. If I just cut up a cucumber and leave it on the cutting board, the kids might each take a piece or two. But if I make it look pretty on the plate (this litterally took less than a minute) then they are intriguted by the presentation and will eat a lot more. I also find that this doesn't add anything to prep time, I cut the veggies while the macaroni was boiling, and the amount that it adds to the buget isn't much either when done this way. My total meal today cost about $3.50, and that fed my family of six, with

Natasha's cake was so fun to make and it turned out so nice!! It took a lot of time, but was worth it in the end! The finished project dividing the colours I got the idea off of pinterest (of course!) and decided it was perfect for our value party! It was pretty easy to do. I made up my cake mixes and split them into three, (which means I needed three mixes to make the 8 layers that I needed). My wilson food colouring - my favourite! Dad is definitely my asset in all cooking projects! ready to go in the oven  Then I coloured each layer individually and baked them. I had to watch them quite closely because they obviously don't need the same amount of cooking time as a full cake mix. And if you're anything like me, your layers wont be exactly the same, so they will have different cooking times from one layer to the next as well--toothpicks are my friend! The monkey needed to help Dad... After each layer was cooked, we took them out of the pa

okay, so I`ve been a major slacker on my blog. I know. But I`ve been super busy living my life instead of documenting it. And whether or not the blogging world says that`s okay, I say it`s okay. But now I`m living my summer life (so laid back and fun!) and I have time to do things like blog. I`m not really planning on ``catching up`` neccessarily, but I am going to blog about a few things I missed as I decide that I want to. :) Auntie Julie, who wrote a letter about Choice and Accountability, Uncle Craig and cousin CJ So, here is Natasha`s birthday party. It was such a fun party to plan and carry out. Because she turned 12 this year, I thought it would be fun to really centre her party on going into young womens. So I did everything in rainbow colours and used the values where ever I could. I also asked special people in her life to write her letters about the values. Each person was assigned a value and the letters that she received were fantastic! Definitely putting them in he

I seriously had the most amazing birthday weekend this year! My birthday fell on a Sunday, so we celebrated all weekend long! Michael bought me a laptop!! He was too excited to give it to me, so I actually got it on Friday. I pretty much haven't stopped using it since. Michael and I were supposed to go play games at a friend's house on Friday night. Luckily, I decided I had extra time and wanted to dress a little nicely, because it was actually a SURPRISE PARTY!! I was shocked! I had no idea until we pulled up to their house and it was all dark, then I kinda wondered!  I had a lot of fun at the party, there was fantastic food, great friends and some awesome games with just the right level of competitiveness! On my actual birthday, I had a calm laidback day. I got to hang out and play games on my new laptop, and then at 10:30pm, my mom brought over an icecream cake for me. I was born at 10:30pm and she thought it would make me happy, which it did. Such a good day. Thanks mo

Ok, so you may have noticed that in the post about my mom's birthday, there were some neat (or weird, depending on your perspective!) blocks sitting on the table. That was her actual gift. I enlisted the help of my brother-in-law and my sister-in-laws, and got pictures of all the grandchildren holding the letters to spell out Schindler. Then I cropped the pictures, used mod podge to attach them to the blocks. I decorated the blocks with ribbon, and ended up with a nice craft for my mom to put on her mantle. She loves them and I'm pretty excited with the result!

When it was time for William's birthday, I had been looking at a lot of blogs and finally started checking out pinterest, and I decided that I wanted to do a theme party. I found a cake that I wanted to make first, and from there I drew my inspiration. Almost everything that I did is an idea from one blog or another, but I don't really remember where I got the ideas, so I'm sorry, but I can't give them credit!! The theme that I went with is "CANDY!" It was such a blast. Here is a picture of the cake: Yep! That's a cake! I know it looks like a candy bowl, but there is cake in there! William kept eating the M&Ms out of it, 'cause I couldn't convince him it was a cake! I must say though, this is definitely the MOST SUGARY CAKE EVER!!! Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. But you have to realize, when you cut a piece of this cake, you get a full kitkat bar, plus a pile of M&Ms (peanut butter, 'cause they are the best!) AND a bunch of