Our Boy

 

Benjamin Martin 

Joined us at 1:06 a.m. on June 21, 2013

7 lb. 15 oz.

20.5 inches long

He shares his birthday with his daddy - 29 years apart.

When Helena arrived with Nani, she only had eyes for her brother.  After holding him for about 15 seconds, she was ready to move on to other things - like hospital bed buttons!



Despite the allure of all the new things to experience, Helena did keep coming back to her brother.  She was more than ready and eager to show him how to suck his thumb and to hold his hand.



 Thank you for the lovely flowers Helena & Nani!

Isn't he purely wonderful?  I love him so much. 

The Four of Us

The wait has truly begun!

My mom arrived Monday night, so the fun and the waiting for Baby has begun!

Now let me explain why this picture is SO GREAT.  Helena is absolutely in a never truly smile/ignore the camera in all ways part of life right now.  But a few weeks ago when she had the opportunity to try on a "baby belly" in a store, not even the camera could displace her smiles!

Daddy's Day

This year we had to rename Father's Day to Daddy's Day, as we couldn't get Helena to understand that Daddy was her father, not Papa.  

 

We had a great time celebrating.  John asked to go to a Scottish or Irish restaurant with live music, so we did!  (I love that he knows what he wants to do for his holidays.)

Most people don't go out to eat to a pub at 5, so we had the place almost to ourselves.  This was great, since Helena eventually felt brave enough to dance along with the music. 

Our traditional breakfast in bed concluded with the opening of Helena's card to her dad - a candy bar card!

John, you are a great father, even if Helena doesn't realize it :)  She loves her daddy so much, and so do I.  Thank you for all you do for us!

P.S. How can I write a father's day blog post without acknowledging my great dad too?  Dad, thank you for being the best dad I could ever have.  I love you so much.

Muffin Tin Doughnuts

I didn't realize yesterday was National Donut Day until around 5 o'clock.  Probably a good thing because if I had known, I would have made these Muffin Tin Doughnuts, and let me tell you, they don't stick around for long!

Above is not the greatest pic, but as I was working on my set-up, Helena came and helped herself to the mini one and then John came and took a big one.  Perhaps they didn't notice what I was doing?  I think it was that the doughnuts were just too good for them to care.  These are seriously that good - my doughnut-loving husband, who hasn't been truly impressed by any doughnuts north of the border, said these are as good as the ones you get south of the border!

Muffin Tin Doughnuts

recipe from Cooks' Country, June/July 2013

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup buttermilk

8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk

------

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Directions

1. For the Doughnuts: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 400 degrees.  Grease 12-cup muffin tin.  Whisk first 6 ingredients together in bowl.  Whisk buttermilk, melted butter & eggs in separate bowl.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined.  Scoop batter into prepared tin.  Bake until doughnuts are lightly browned and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 19-22 minutes.  Let doughnuts cool in tin for 5 minutes.

2. For Coating: Whisk sugar and cinnamon together in bowl.  Remove doughnuts from tin.  Working 1 doughnut at a time, brush all over with melted butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar, pressing lightly to adhere.  Transfer to wire rack and let cool at least 15 minutes.

National Donut Day

When we brought in our coupons for free donuts (with a purchase, of course) the employees of Tim Horton's looked at us a bit skeptically but did give us donuts.  It made us wonder if the coupon from Facebook was a hoax - but it wasn't! 

Telling Helena to "look at mom" didn't quite work.

So did any of you celebrate this most important holiday?

Target in Canada!

We went to one last week, and it was a little strange to walk inside.  It immediately felt like I was in the real deal Target, which transported me for a second as Target can only be found in the U.S. - until now.

It had everything a Target typically has - except the two things I was really looking forward to:

1) the great clearance end caps, but they've only been open a month so that's understandable.

2) a good maternity clothes section, as theirs included 5 big racks of jeans, pants and shorts, but only one foot-long rack of shirts.

The other thing that was missing was my mom.  We've spent lots of time together in Target and her presence was definitely missed.  BUT she's arriving in two weeks - I can't wait!

Being Outside

The weather has been all over the map this past month, but we've been enjoying all of it.  Yay for summer and outside activities!

Lots and lots of park dates with friends

Snacks outside on the balcony

Walks outside with umbrellas and rain boots

Joy rides & running errands with Daddy on their new bike

Rainy days do take us to the science museum, but they have fun outside toys too!

Grass, sticks, stones, trees, branches can occupy us for hours

Dipping our feet (and Helena's babies' feet) in fountains

Duplos

In Helena's words, 

"This tower is not shorter than my belly button!"