It's finally white outside!

 It's funny to think that my first non-white Minnesota Christmas was Helena's first Minnesota Christmas.  But it snowed today and all the fun Helena had this morning made up for it. Papa & Nani had bought a little sled just for Helena, and it worked great for her. 

She seemed to not really know what to think until the sled started moving.  Then it was smiles from there on out.  

It was fun as she even started body bobbing - you know, the action we all do when we're trying to get a sled to go just a little bit farther and faster! 

Perhaps it's too early to say definitively, but if today is any indication, she's going to be a real snow enthusiast.

Merry Christmas!

The lights have definitely been Helena's favorite part of Christmas.  It seems like every new place we go she's immediately pointing to the lights in the windows, on the tree, in the garlands, and more.

She's quite the reader.

 But I guess she was having a hard time picking which book to read this morning.

Helena's Latest

A few days ago I got to hold a newborn while the baby's dad held Helena.  Helena looked HUGE, but it was only 10 1/2 months since she was the newborn.  They really do change a lot in the first year.

Here's what Helena has been up to:

Eating pizza.  She loves the stuff.  It doesn't matter I make the pizza on pizza dough, on naan, or on an English muffin.  If it's got pizza sauce and cheese on it, she's leaning out of her chair trying to get more off my plate!

Playing with her nativity scene.  Actually, it's a bit more accurate to say throwing the nativity pieces on the floor and then putting them back up on her Rubbermaid table.

Helena likes to be in on the cooking action.  Thus, she's either in my arms or at my feet in the kitchen!

She's learned to point at things she wants to touch, her favorite being the lanterns in her bedroom as they move.








Helena gave her dad Squealers the Pig Puppet for Christmas.  He loves to tickle her and she doesn't seem to mind.

Fantastic Finger Foods

Helena loves to eat.  She's over and done with purees and wants flavor all the time!  Helena also likes to feed herself most everything now.  (Pushing our hands away or picking food off of the spoon in order to put it in her mouth independently happens regularly.)  So Helena wants flavor, she wants finger food, and the doctor wants fatty foods in order to bulk her up a bit.  And her mom wouldn't mind foods that don't make too huge of a mess :)

She usually eats what we eat but I do make special simple things for just her too.  So after scouring the internet for flavorful, simple, fatty, non-messy finger food for Helena.  Here are the three best foods I've found:
1) Hardboiled egg yolk mashed up with avocado and spread on bread, pita, tortilla, naan, etc.   Yum.

2) Meatballs.  It's so easy to mix up a batch of meatballs, freeze them, and then cook one for Helena or a bunch for all three of us!

3) Banana Custard - A banana, two eggs, and blueberries, steamed for 30 minutes.  Easy, flavorful, full of protein, only makes 3 dirty dishes, and Helena loves this.  John & I think it tastes pretty good too!

 

Do you have any other ideas for me?  

La Cucaracha

My uncle & aunt gave us this picture as a wedding gift, and we love it.  

But three nights ago the picture became a little bit less wonderful.

John walked into the kitchen and saw a cockroach peeking out from behind it.  After killing the bug, he took the picture off and found another one. 

Yuck.  I know that cockroaches and old apartment buildings in Toronto go together like black and white, but still.  Yuck.

Cloth Diapers

We use cloth diapers around this place, and believe it or not, we love them.  A few friends have asked me for details about our experience so here they are.

After much searching and researching, we chose to use prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers. While some might say prefolds are old-school, they are the best to use when washing in a laundromat as they are easier to clean and faster to dry.  Diaper pins are no longer necessary, as there are now Snappis.  We also purchased a few workhorse cloth diapers, and I love those.  If I could go back in time, I'd buy a few less prefolds and a few more workhorse,because I've found Helena isn't as patient when we're out and about, and the workhorse diapers require a little bit less time.  

For covers, we've tried Bummis, Bummis Original, Kissaluvs, and Thirsties, and have found Thirsties to be our favorite.  Thirsties doesn't have a cover that fits from newborn to potty-training, but that's okay with us.  (A friend bought all-in-one diapers for her first child and then found out all the leg grommets were too stretched out to use with her second child!)

We dunk and rinse used diapers in the toilet.  I think this is the part that perhaps turns people away from using cloth diapers but it's really not that bad.  Even John would say so.  He does it every day without complaining!  Rather than using a pail (pails are considered dangerous once a child is walking), we have a large wet-dry bag from Planetwise.  There's never been a smell coming from it, and we wash diapers every 4-5 days. Our travel wet-dry bag is a KangaSac.

While cloth diapering does require a little more time than disposables, we're glad we use cloth.  For one thing, we don't have to go buy disposables, which not only saves money but also saves the hassle of watching for sales, getting to the store before the on-sale diapers are gone (everything goes fast around here!), and having to transport them without a car.  Another reason is it feels like we're being more environmentally friendly.  It's been said that disposables and cloth diapers are pretty even when it comes to the environment, but with cloth I'm not taking a bag full of diapers down to the garbage each day, and that feels good.  Last but not least, Helena has only had one diaper rash (and that was my fault because I used too much detergent).

All that to say, cloth diapering is not as scary as it seems.

The Park in November

On Monday we went out to the park to enjoy one last warm day before winter came.

 

But on Friday the weather was gorgeous!  

The tunnel doesn't really thrill Helena but the first stair does, 

as it makes it so easy to get up on her feet!

What could be better than a ride on the swing?

Poor John

You know the homework is tough when John almost completes 2 Akkadian exercises in the time that I put together these three tables.

By the way, he has 10 more to do tonight.

Two things that make life easier in the U.S.

It's been awhile since I wrote anything about life in Canada.  That's probably because it has just become so normal for us.  We still do have moments in which we have no idea what others are talking about but now more of our focus is on how to live in the downtown of a very large city.  This led me to realize two things I really miss about the U.S.

1) Target - It seems to always have things in stock.  One thing I've learned about living and shopping downtown is merchandise goes quickly.  Not only are all the people who live downtown shopping in the downtown stores but so are all the people who work downtown.

For example, I went to the mall to find Helena a Christmas dress.  The Children's Place had 1/4 of the store full of 0-24 month Christmas outfits for girls.  Being the indecisive shopper that I am, I decided to talk to John about the ones I liked and then go back and buy one.  A week later I went back and there was a shelf about 2 1/2 feet long holding those same outfits.  Everything else had been sold!

2) Amazon.com - It's amazing how much shopping one does when she has a baby/has a new apartment to put together/has Christmas presents to buy/and more.  It would be so wonderful to just open up the internet, find the items I need (at lower prices too), and then have them arrive at my doorstep!  Amazon.ca has a LONG way to go...

But while those two things that make life simpler are missed, we are enjoying the community of university housing, all the free activities that we can now take part in, and being so much closer to friends.  So, despite the lack of easy shopping, we're liking city life!

She's all grown up.

Okay, so maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but I do feel like Helena has reached a major milestone in life that simply says "I'm Big!"  For some it's no longer needing the car seat attachment on the stroller, for others it's eating real food, but when Helena did those things it felt pretty normal.

For me it's having her be able to go from lying down to sitting up ALL BY HERSELF.

Now I look at her and she's lying down.  Three seconds later I look again and she's sitting.  Two minutes later she's lying down again.  Or I go in her room after a nap and she's sitting up!  All I want to say is "How has all of this happened without me knowing about it?" 

I know, I need to face reality.  She's only going to be doing more and more all by herself.  Like today she began to search out ways to pull herself up into a standing position! 

While the time is going quickly and it seems like only yesterday we brought her home wrapped as a burrito, I have to say my mom is right.  I wouldn't want it any other way.

Fall Leaves Fall

Helena LOVES reading.  She happily sits in our laps while we read book after book after book to her.  Of course, she does that when the books are ones that interest her, as some definitely do not.  One book that never fails to capture her attention is Fall Leaves Fall.

Today we decided to enjoy the gorgeous weather by going out to Queen's Park and letting Helena do just what the boys do in the book - play in those leaves!

 There were so many dry crispy ones.

Helena did lots of inspecting in order to determine which kind of leaf each was.

As you can see, it was so much fun!

Our time in the park also provided ample opportunity to get on those hands and knees.  No crawling yet but she's trying hard to figure it out.  She's concentrating so hard her tongue is sticking out!

Laughing with Mommy

She's got the best laugh.

Beware of an Up and Coming Addiction

A special treat that John's grandma makes is called Cracker Candy.  It's delish.  Saltines, butter, brown sugar, and chocolate chips - not hard to see why it's good, right?  But it's not just good, it's incredibly addicting.  So much so that I try to not make it very often because I know I'll eat way more than I should.

Yet John loves it and wishes I made it more often.  Being the ingenious and daring man that he is, he took on the challenge to come up with a 

personal-size microwave-friendly recipe.

Arrange six saltines on parchment paper in a glass container that will contain the future goo. (Parchment paper is crucial, as otherwise the cracker candy will be difficult to get out and aluminum paper doesn't mix with the microwave.)

Nuke 2.5 Tbsp butter and 2.5 Tbsp brown sugar until butter is melted.  

Stir.  Nuke it for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each nuke, until the caramel is thick and combined.

Pour over saltines.  Nuke crackers & caramel until the goo is bubbling all over, somewhere between 1.5-2.5 minutes.

Sprinkle 3-4 Tbsp. of chocolate chips on top.  

Nuke for another 30 seconds and then spread the chocolate to cover the crackers.

Freeze until solid, around 45 minutes.

Twiddling thumbs is a good activity to help fill the time while you wait.

Break into pieces and try to eat only one piece.  

The below photo has microwave cracker candy on the left and oven cracker candy on the right.  There's really no difference!

All photo credits for this blog post belong to John.

Happy Halloween!

Yes, Helena did dress up for October 31st.  She had been given a tutu from her Grandma and some ballet socks from her Nani, so choosing her costume was easy.

What made the night even more fun was trick-or-treating with Helena's friend Holly, who was a cat.  Holly came to Helena's home, Helena went to Holly's home, and the parents made a few stops at friends' homes along the way!  

 

I know Halloween can have a dark side to it, but if you focus on the good, it can really be quite fun.  Plus, it can really help one work up an appetite.

Spaghetti anyone?

This girl recently had spaghetti sauce and noodles for the first time.

She loved it.  She loved it so much that when food fell into her bib, she stopped and dug the food out.  Usually once it's out of hand but not in mouth, it's out of mind.

Her mom learned a good lesson that day.  Spaghetti is a dinner meal, not a lunch meal, as bath time is after dinner.

CrockPot Success!

Have you ever mixed up a batch of granola, put it in the oven and then come back to it to find it burnt?  Ugh, it's a horrible thing that I've experienced at least three times.  So when I read that you can make granola in a slow cooker, I decided to try again.

It was so easy!



I've read that any recipe will work.  So here's what you do - choose your recipe, mix it up, then put it in the CrockPot for 2-3 hours.  The slow cooker does need a vent, so take a chopstick and stick it on the side to keep the lid slightly open.  You have to remember to stir it every 20 minutes, but it's easy to do that, as when you can smell it cooking, that means it's time to stir! 

Helena's Latest Activities

I only had to show her this drawer once.  Now she's army crawling into the kitchen and pulling it open all by herself.

Helena was happily playing on the floor one day, so John sat down and started drumming.  She dropped her toys, took the sticks from her dad, and has been loving them ever since.

You can't eat an apple without Helena getting upset.  SHE wants to chew on the apple too!

The underside of the stroller is infinitely interesting. If the stroller is out in the hallway, there's no question where Helena will be.

Helena's Grandma brought this fun Little Mermaid toy with her when she visited a few weeks ago.  The toys in the front are currently getting a lot of attention.

She's always been a good reader, but lately the books on the bed are much more interesting than the book that is being read. 

Bathtime with Daddy and Duckie are the best.  If the tub faucet is running, Helena's on her way to the bathroom!