What We’re Eating: Monkey Bread

I forgot how I found a MONKEY BREAD recipe originally. I think I happened upon a blog where a mom had made monkey bread with the kids that morning. It sounded really yummy and easy to make.

I had forgotten to tell Norm exactly how much of the biscuits to buy, so it was less than the recipe’s requirement. I adjusted the amount and it turned out pretty good. I would suggest making a bit more of the sauce to cover the biscuits.

For our first attempt I gave Melody the day off from baking because she was in the middle of watching Tarzan with her Uncle Bakkie (although she wanted to help). This is an easy one for the kiddos to do. They will love shaking the dough balls in the sugar/cinnamon mix.

Oh that reminds me of another tip…use just a little less sugar and cinnamon for the mix. There was too much left over. And one last suggestion – buy the 3 cans of 12 oz instead of 2 cans of 16 oz (and reducing) like we did. The smaller the dough balls, the more tastier it will be because more surface area will be covered by the mix and sauce. We didn’t add walnuts and raisins like the recipe called for because we didn’t have any, but it was delish anyway!

- Joyce

She’s 3!!!

Today is our sweet girl Melody’s 3rd birthday!! This past year went by in a whirlwind. She has grown sooooo much. I don’t even know where to begin. Melody is the best daughter that any parent could ask for. We love her to pieces. So smart, beautiful, funny, fantastic big sister, great helper….I can go on and on. We truly have been blessed by her in our lives. We are so proud of her.

Here are some photos from Melody’s 3rd birthday dinner with our families. (As soon as we finish going through the 150+ photos from her dinner, we’ll post it in Our Week in Photos.)

Melody with her birthday cake.

She was a goofball as usual. With her uncles: Kow-fu (Eric, my brother) and Uncle Bakkie (Len, Norm’s brother)

Family pic minus my older sister and family

Months 25-36

Happy Birthday Melody!!!

28 Day Organizing Challenge: Day 8 – Gimme A Break

Day 1 – The Before Pictures
Day 2 – Plan of Attack
Day 3 – Desk Mess Attack

Well, we’re pretty much at a standstill right now. The weekend was a full one. On Saturday we had 2 birthday celebrations, and then church and Superbowl party on Sunday. The kids are still a little snotty (literally), but better than last week.

So to recap, we have the desk mess under control. I started on the random corner, which I realized can’t really be dealt with because there was a lot of stuff that needs to be in Melody’s “work” area. I ended up moving a few things around and it’s looking a lot better.

The plan for the week is to REMOVE some stuff. This will be tough because it’s Melody’s birthday and we’ve acquired a few more toys as a result. Not that Melody’s complaining because that is a blessing when there are children who have no toys at all. Donation time is coming up again so we’ll do the “out with the old, in with the new” thing. So, specifically, I want to scan in a bunch of old Christmas cards and stuff like that to be made into a photobook in the future (I’ll do a e-reorg later).

Anyone doing any organizing lately? How’s it coming along?

Family Favorites: Sophie the Giraffe

We had read more than a few blogs where the babies had some of these giraffes. Sooo, we decided to look into getting one. Yes, you already know we’re nerds, and we have to research everything before we buy. Anyhow, we got it for Emily for Christmas. She loved it once she heard the little squeak of Sophie the Giraffe. And she’s even more thrilled when she makes it squeak by herself. It helps during teething if you’re wondering.

Here’s Emily opening her first present for Christmas. She’s not really sure what to do with the gift.

She seems to like it though, and was even more happy when she heard Sophie’s squeaks.

Is there a teether that your baby likes? Or something s/he likes to chew on? Did you have a favorite chewing toy when you were little?

(My favorite thing to chew on when I was a baby was this little bald guy who’s eyes, nose, and ears pop out when you squeeze him….I just looked it up, it’s called Popping Martian.)

Our Week in Photos (Week 6 of 52)

Melody had a runny nose all week, so we pretty much stayed home…again. It looks like it’s finally going away, so we can celebrate her 3rd birthday tomorrow at the Ice Creamery with our family!!!! Yahoooo! Her actual birthday is next Tuesday though. I can’t believe my little girl is 3.

The other highlight of the week is that I’m taking the plunge and doing the 28 Day Organizing Challenge. We are going to attempt to organize a few things in our “Front Room”. Take a look at the BEFORE photos.

One more thing…we’re not sure what to do with MELODY’S HAIR. Suggestions?

I didn’t say anything about the baby. Emily is teething!!! And we heard her say “mama” twice! She already knows “dada”, “byebye”, and “jehjeh” (big sister in Cantonese).

Photos by Joyce, Jan 30, 2010

more about “Week 6 of 52 (2010)“, posted with vodpod

Review: Stain Remover (Babyganics)

Head over to our review blog to read more about the stain remover Babyganics Stain, Stain, Go Away.

I Won: A Little Bit of Faith book

I’m doing a “series” of posts to send some linky love to sites where I have won things from giveaways. I’ll feature one site and item every other week, as I’ve only won so many things, and the winning streak probably won’t last that long.

I won A Little Bit of Faith, which is Book 1 in the Precious Girls Club series, from Coffee with the Mrs back when she was Thoughts from the Mrs. Amy, aka The Mrs, recent had her 2nd baby, so head over and give her some love…and while you’re there enter a giveaway because you know she’s probably got one going on.

I also won a little coin purse, but I think it got shipped to the wrong place.

And….I won a little onesie for Emily. I’ll have to post a photo of her wearing it, but I’m too lazy to find it right now. The onesie is from Kee-Ka. The material feels oh-so-soft. If they had stuff my size, I’d wear it.

So there you have it. If I can be a winner over at Coffee with the Mrs so can you. She has some fun giveaways, and I think a big one is coming up for spring.

Have you won any giveaways? What are some cool giveaways or websites that you like?

Click on the link to view more stuff I WON.

28 Day Organizing Challenge: Day 3 – Desk Mess Attack

Day 1 – The Before Pictures
Day 2 – Plan of Attack

Take 2. My other post just disappeared. =( I wanted to give an update on what I’ve done. Last night and today I tackled the “office” area of the “Front Room”.

I happened to have a bag next to the desk that I was not needing anymore, so I started tossing anything that was not “office” into it. I moved a few things around, and voila! I found the desk! It’s pretty much done except for a bit of dusting, and maybe fixing up the wires. Tonight I started on the random corner of the room. I moved all of Melody’s “work” and arts/crafts stuff into the plastic drawers. I will put things more in order tomorrow, but at least I have like with like. Slowly but surely, I might be able to do this. If not, at least I tried. Good night.

P.S. I’m typing this on my phone, but maybe I’ll post some photos tomorrow…too late! It’s 12:01am. I’ll post later then.

Hair We Go

Ever since I donated my hair for the 3rd time (in April before Emily was born), Melody has been saying, “Haircut,” or “My hair is so long.”

Now, if you know me, you know I had a little trouble growing hair when I was a baby. Let’s just say Emily has more hair as a 8-month-old than I did as a 2-year-old. I also had cradle cap. We won’t go into that. Anyhow, I digress.

I’m having trouble even thinking about getting Melody’s hair cut. I love her hair. It’s so shiny and soft. But it’s also very long which means it gets in her face a lot and it gets tangled. I have never cut the hair in the back so it is still her baby hair. This is the hair she was born with. I have cut her bangs before. After the first mishap time I did my research and found a video online of how to do bangs.

This is Melody at 5 months old. The very first time I cut her bangs…you see it’s choppy? It’s not supposed to be choppy.

So my friends, I think I’m going to do it. Melody is soon going to get her first real haircut.

Now the question is, how should we go about doing this? I’ve thought of studying up on the subject and doing it myself. This would save us money. It is just a trim after all. We can both go in for a haircut together and make it a special moment to share. Or we can go to one of those kid salons for a cut (although I haven’t heard of any good ones around here and they might be on the expensive side).

So that leads us to the next question. How should we get it cut? We can do a straight-across trim. Or layers. I’m thinking this will look most like what she has now, but it will be shorter.

All right people, you know I have trouble making decisions, so help me out here. What do you think I should do?

You can see the difference in length from Jan ‘09 and Nov ‘09 in these photos. Her hair seems to grow pretty fast.

Do you have any hairy stories to tell?

28 Day Organizing Challenge: Day 2 – Plan of Attack

Day 1 – The Before Pictures

So the first part of Laura’s PROCESS in organizing is Plan of attack (which area(s) do you want to address, make a list, evaluate present system, what is working, what isn’t working, devise new system, determine budget, develop timeline).

These are the questions from an article on About.com by Sarah Aquirre that Laura wants us to answer.

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be? The “Front Room” is a pretty good sized room, so we can still use it for many purposes, but I just need to make a more clear definition of which areas are for what. It is mainly an office for us and a playroom for the kids. We use the closet for storage, but my guess is there are a lot of things in there that we can either move out of there and store in a more appropriate place, or get rid of.

2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose? For the office part of it, we need the desk, file cabinet, laptop, and printer. For the playroom part of it, we need play stuff, aka toys.

3. What can I remove from the room? The closet will still be a storage place for now, but there are things to get rid of, so the random piles can be evicted from the house or moved to the closet out of sight, hopefully, in an organized manner (for now, until we have that garage sale…I promise, we will have it!!). If I have forgotten that I had ever had it in my possession, it should probably go. I can’t think of specifics right now, until I start digging…

4. What problems do I see with the room? The piles are meaningless. Things are just scattered here or there. I have projects ready for Melody, but I can’t seem to have her do them because things are in opposite corners of the room. It would work better to have it in one area. There are things that I’m saving for later…but later doesn’t seem to be here anytime soon. Those things need to go. There’s no distinct separation along the one side of the room. Things are just lined up without purpose.

5. What organizational tools might solve those problems? The buckets seem to be a good way to keep things in order, but we can only eat so much ice cream. (We got most of those ice cream buckets from an ice cream social for the youth at our old church.) Labels seem to help everyone to put things back in its place.

6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems? Attending to the paperwork in an orderly fashion, instead of letting it pile up. Out with the old, in with the new. If we buy new stuff, the old stuff needs to go.

7. What kind of a budget do I have to create the organized room of my dreams? I haven’t thought too much about this. With 2 little ones who keep me busy, I probably won’t create the organized room of my dreams, so I won’t create a budget for that. I think I have most of what I need already, but need to shuffle things around to make it work better. I will say $20 because I know of a few things already that I can get at Dollar Tree…or maybe Daiso…or perhaps the 99 cent only store.

8. What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize the room? (28 days!) I need to work on a little bit everyday!! Everyday!! (I need to repeat for emphasis.)

9. What is my plan of action? I will work in each area, so I don’t run from here to there, and there to here, starting one thing but not finishing it. Once one area is complete, I will move on to the next area.

10. Who can I ask to help me with this? Hubby Norm! I think he will agree that this room needs to be tidied up. And anyone else who wants to come along for the ride. It would be greatly appreciated…mostly we need babysitters for the kids so they will be occupied elsewhere instead of in the piles that we are trying to organize.