Fowler Family Christmas!

We Wish you a Merry Christmas!

From our Growing Family to Yours!

Christmas Party Mix

Looking for a gift for those people on your list that you know you should get something for, but you don't want to spend too much on? Like your postman, neighbor, or maybe just a friend that you don't see very often?

Well look no further than my Christmas Party Mix!

Its a thoughtful homemade gift that you can eat! And who doesn't like stuff to eat around the holidays? It's a pretty simple little recipe that doesn't take too long to prepare. And you can switch it up and add your favorite snacks and try different combinations too.

For mine, I had:

• No-name Cheerios (Oatie-O's)
• Shreddies
• Goldfish
• Pretzels
• Hickory Sticks
• Peanuts

I wasn't sure about the last 2 ingredients as some people are allergic to nuts and I just thought the hickory sticks might have been too much, so I left them out of the first batch but after some reconsideration, I added them to my second batch. 

For the sauce, it was:

• 2/3 to 1 cup Butter (melted)
• 4 tbs Soy Sauce
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 tbs Garlic Salt
• 1 tbs Salt

I'm not very good at measuring so I just winged it for the sauce. So the measurements above are just approximate. You can make it sweeter by adding more sugar, or more savory by adding more salt. But I would caution that most of the snacks are already pretty salty, so be careful not to add too much salt.

      

Step 1: Mix the dry ingredients together.

Pretty easy. Open the bags and dump them into a bowl. I didn't have a big enough bowl, so I did 2 trays.

Mix well.

         

Step 2: Mix Sauce

Melt the butter and add all the other ingredients to it. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

At this point you should probably turn on your oven to about 200* F to preheat it.

Step 3: Pour Sauce over Mix

Pour the Sauce over the dry mix and stir well. There should be an even coating of the butter sauce over everything.
If your mix isn't already in a roaster, transfer it into one now.

Step 4: Bake
Put the roaster in the oven without the cover on.
Bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until toasty.
Check on the mix every 15 minutes and give it a good stir each time to make sure the mix is evenly baked.

It will still be a bit sticky even after they are done baking, but will harden up to a nice crunchy snack in a few minutes after being out of the oven

Step 5: Place in Containers

As I mentioned above, the mix will still be a bit sticky after you pull it out of the oven. It won't take long before they start to set and get hard and crunchy. I found it easier to scoop it into the tins while they were still in their warm sticky stage, so I would pop it back into the oven between filling each tin. If not, the mix becomes brittle and hard to scoop without breaking the snacks.

I found these Christmas tins down to the dollar store for $1.50 each so I got 9 of them. 

I also lined the tins with some wax paper.

Tada!! A little munchy crunchy tasty gift!

I was able to get 6 full tins out of my 2 batches...plus a little left over for our table. 

Thanks for reading!

Pekrul Family Pintrest Pinwheels

You know what I love? Collaborating with friends!

Our good friends Kim and Trevor contacted me last night to ask if I would share their Pintrest Pinwheel experience on my blog. My response...of course! It can be hard to come up with fresh new content all the time so I welcome the input and the interest in my blog.

So without further ado, here is the Pekrul Family Pintrest Pinwheels:
(as written by Kim Pekrul)

So, Trevor and I had an awesome day of baking these pinwheel cookies today.  We have never made these before, so it was a learning experience for both of us. We both love baking and cooking in the kitchen together. So we work well together.  The cookies are for our families second annual Christmas cookie exchange. I needed to make 13 dozen cookies.

I found the cute recipe for the cookies on Pinterest.  

It turned out we had ALL of the ingredients in our house to make them.  We just needed to buy blocks of margarine.

I did the creaming of the butter and sugar. Trevor measured the dry ingredients. If you read the process it takes to make these pinwheels it was pretty tedious…but there was just a slight learning curve, and after making 2 batches of cookies we felt like we were experts.

Instead of adding chocolate we added food coloring to half the batch. (and peppermint/vanilla  to the butter/sugar/egg mixture) They turned out to be very pretty. We rolled the two colors together, then rolled the logs in different colors of sprinkles. Pink/yellow/purple/blue.

Taylor had 2 of his friends over today. So they helped a bit. (Sapphire and Arianna) So fun baking with my son and his two (girl) friends!

The recipe says to roll the two layers together, put them in cling wrap and put them in the fridge for 3 hours or over night. We cut that in half by placing our logs outside for an hour (hey we live in the north LOL)

Then we sliced the logs into perfect little cookie shapes and baked them for 8-10 min. So fun.

The end.

Thanks Kim,Trevor, and family! Wish I could have a taste of your treats, they look awesome!

And if anyone is interested in being a guest blogger, just let me know, I would love to collaborate with you too!  b

                                                                                                                    

On the first day of Christmas...

...My mommy made with me, a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

Well it's finally December and time to bring on the family Christmas Traditions!

As you may recall, I have already made a Sock Advent Calender for Hunter to start the count-down to Christmas, but I thought it would also be nice to try and do an activity related to Christmas as well.

Now, I'm no super Mom and while I am aiming for 24 activities and some can be done together, there is no guarantee that all will get done. I figured it best to make a list of all the thing that I want to accomplish and try and knock them off my list as the days go by and we get closer to Christmas.

Here's my list so far:

Christmas Activities:

1. Bake some cookies and treats
2. Go to local craft fairs
3. Bake perogies
4. Attend Santa Clause Parade and Tree Lighting
5. Watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
6. Send Christmas Cards
7. Watch or read "A Christmas Carol"
8. Make a gift
9. Make paper snow flakes
10. Take a family Christmas Photo
11. Go Christmas Shopping
12. Wrap Gifts
13. Invite friends over for a Christmas Cheer
14. Make Party Mix as a gift
15. Get a tree
16. Decorate the tree
17. Sing Carols
18. Donate toys
19. Have a family game night
20. Decorate a Ginger Bread House
21. Make a Christmas Craft (for the tree or for the house)
22. Visit friends and family
23. Read "The Night Before Christmas"
24. Go to Church on Christmas Eve

So this weekend I started with the first thing on my list...Baking cookies!

This was pretty easy as my Mother-in-law had slipped a tub of pre-made cookie dough into Hunter's bag one day last week. The dough can be frozen, but once it is thawed out, it will only last for about 5 days in the fridge. Since by the time I took it out of his bag it was already thawed, and was already in my fridge for 4 days, they needed to be baked this weekend!

So after all my hard work of prepping the dough (i.e. taking it out of the fridge), we were ready to start cutting the shapes and baking the cookies!

I had my little "helper" Hunter help me roll out the dough and cut out the cookies. He was pretty into it too! Correction, he was into playing with the dough and throwing it all over the kitchen. Oh well, we had some fun doing it. 

Next it was into the oven for about 10 minutes a batch then on the rack to cool. In about an hour, we had a mountain of cookies to eat...and eat them we did! I thought "wow, how are we ever going to eat that many cookies?" But this morning when I woke up, there were only about 8 left (must have some mice in the house lol) 

Thanks for reading and stay tuned as we work our way through our list.

Do you have any Christmas Traditions that our family does every year? Share them with me!

My Local Christmas

I'm literally discussed with this Black Friday phenomenon. I have been watching YouTube videos and reading stories about people turning evil over a hyped up sale. The price probably inflated before they drop the price to 70% off so its no more of a sale than you would find on any other weekend.

Disgusting.

So I have vowed this Christmas to shop local. You should too!

Well as much as I can any ways. Something may be a little harder to find, but overall I'm confident that I can pull it off.

In my family, we do a Christmas Draw. Everyone gets one person to buy make for and that's it. Last year  we decided that instead of just buying a gift, we would have to make it. It's always so much fun and cuz you know that most of our family is slightly craft challenged, the gift usually come out a little wonky and "special", which makes them all the more better.

This year we are doing the draw again and still having the "home made" clause, but we also threw in an extra twist...a letter. For example, I got my brother-in-law Keith and the letter "C" so now I have to make something that starts with the letter C. It was a little tough at the start to think of something, but now, I got too many ideas and I need to just pick one and do it (and get it in the mail). It will most likely be posted here on my blog as a "nailed it/failed it" feature.

To me, Christmas is not about the gift any ways, it's about friends and family and special family traditions. It's about getting together with the ones you love and making memories.

Can't get much more local than that. :)

Sock Advent Calendar

One month until Christmas!!

While I'm not a big fan of getting all Christmasfied in November, I think that the one month count down is justified. (I hate that "Christmas" starts right after Halloween...One holiday at a time people!)

So in the spirit of the count down to Ol'St. Nick, I thought I would make my own Advent Calendar for Hunter.

I got my inspiration from here with Martha's Sock Advent Calendar. I thought it was a cute, quick, re-usable and inexpensive way to count down the days to Christmas. So today I went down to the dollar store and picked up a few supplies and completed my first Christmas craft. All in all, it only cost me about $20 and that's pretty good in my books.

Here is how I did it:

Step One: 

Before I went down to the dollar store, I went through Hunter's socks for any that were too small or missing it's partner and fit with the holiday theme. I found that I didn't really have too many green socks so I stuck with a red, white and grey colour scheme. I had about 14 socks that fit within the theme.

After I counted the socks that I had already, I went to the dollar store and get all the supplies that I needed for the rest of the craft.

I got some extra socks, little ornaments, and a few chocolates and candy canes. I did get some ribbon, but I didn't end up using it in the end.

I totally scored and found some little red mitten that had the numbers and little clothes pins on them so that helped a lot.

Step Two: 

Assemble socks on the line and place treats inside.

Step Three:

Hang and Enjoy.

Thanks for reading :)

Festive Spirits Mixology

Well it's getting to be that time of year again...the annual staff Christmas Party time!

This is one of my favourite traditions around the holiday season. Especially with the company that I work for. They really do know how to throw a good shing-dig.

Every year since I started with Tract, our bosses holds a staff Christmas party at their house. They have a beautiful home and it's a great venue to host a party for about 40-50 people. They get a caterer with a buffet of gourmet finger foods and appys. They provide rides for all staff to the party and back so everyone just lets loose and has a good time. They really out do themselves every year, and this year will be no exception.

They also have an open bar with a bartender, although in years past the bar mostly consisted of beer, wine and the regular high-ball drinks like rum and whiskey. That's where I come in.

This year I have asked if I can create a speciality drink all our own. So I have been doing some research about different drinks and I think I have come up with a few contenders for this years party. I wanted to make on for our company, Tract, and one for our sister company, Virdis. The Tract drink I wanted to a cocktail and the Virdis drink as a shooter.

Still a work in progress and thus far these are all still concepts, I have yet to try them. (Might be a good weekend project. haha) I think I am getting a bit tipsy just thinking about it.



The "Drink until they are atTRACTive" Drink
2 oz Absolute Pear Vodka
2 oz Ginger Ale
1 oz Lime Juice
Cranberry Garnish





The "Virdis Vertigo" Shot
1/2 oz Sour Puss Apple
1/2 oz Caramel (or Butterscotch) Schnapps









What do you think?

Braided something or other...Nailed it!

Again, have you ever seen something on the internet and thought "I can do that."

Here we go with another of my failed Pintrest attempts.

This is what I was going for...

Source

This is what I made....

Yup...Nailed it.

Castle people

Just getting back from a busy trip for work down to Conne River.  It was a very productive trip down, work-wise, but the best part of the trip was that I got to stay with the Castle People...aka Kerra and Phil Winsor. (Get it?... Winsor...Castle)

I met Kerra a few years ago when I was going to school. It was my very first day of going to school at MUN and we were on a field-school trip. I didn't know anyone, I had just transferred from UBC and the field-school was my first introduction to my new classmates and professors. I remember I was sitting on the big yellow wagon (bus) and I was chatting with the girl next to me (who turn out to be one of my best friends throughout the rest of my MUN days...and beyond). Jody-Beth was asking me all the usual first date questions like where I was from such. I told her that I had just moved to Newfoundland from Northern Alberta from a little tiny town called High Level. That's when I saw a little blond head whip around and say "from where?!"

Now I know there is a strong Newfoundland- Alberta connection, so it's not that unusual for people from here to know about towns in Alberta, but not many know about High Level.

"High Level" I confirmed.

I thought she was about to jump over the seat!

Not only did she know where High Level was, but she had lived there! And about the same time that we lived there too. So like anyone who knows someone from the same place, we started to play the "do you know?..." game. We went through a list of people and for the most part it was hit and miss. Then she asked if I knew a Dianne with the Town. I said, "kinda, she's my mom!" Kerra then told me that while in High Level she had worked for the Town and that my mom was her boss. Talk about small world!

This initial spark lead into a fun-filled friendship that fill my last 2 years of university.

Then came graduation, and like most people, you get out of school, you find a job, you move on with life. I still stayed in contact with a few people, but some people drifted away on their own paths. This is pretty much what had happened with me and Kerra, but I always wondered about where and what she was doing.

Flash forward to Summer of 2012. I had some work to do down in Conne River, on Newfoundland's south coast. Conne River is not very big and didn't have a hotel for me to stay in, so I had to stay in the next town over in Milltown...a town equally as small and not very much to do there.

After I had completed my work in Conne River, I was on my way back home. I had just pulled out of Milltown and was heading down the bumpy Bay d'Espoir highway when I get a text from an unknown number. "Is this Bailey?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"Kerra!"

Totally unexpected and out of the blue. So after a few messages back and forth and an address given for her wedding invitation, I asked her "where are you these days?" Her response: "Milltown!"

I was flabbergasted. I was just leaving Milltown! I told her that the next time I was in the area for work that we would get together. And we did just that.

On my second trip to Conne River, I went over to Kerra and Phil's house for a visit. It was an excellent visit complete with a couple bottles of wine and many laughs.

She said the next time I was back that I should stay with her. So as we were planning our third trip down to the area, I made a plan to stay with Kerra and Phil. This visit was equally as fun and wine-filled. Kerra made some excellent chicken pesto panini's one night and chinese food the next.

The best part was reconnecting with an old friend (and her new husband). The real test of a true friendship is when you can go weeks, months, even years without seeing each other, but when you do, the friendship picks up right where it left off without skipping a beat. There was no uncomfortable formalities, no awkward lulls in our conversations, just good ol' friends chatting and catching up.

Thanks Kerra and Phil for all your warm hospitality.  I enjoyed my visit very much! Thanks again :)

The Sleep Tug-a-War

We are the parents and he is the child.

We are the parents and he is the child.

This is the mantra I keep repeating to myself at 3:00 in the morning as our darling 2 year old son wakes...again.

I know this is all part of it, the sleeplessness, the boundary testing, the constant pushing of mommy and daddy's sleep buttons, but when will it all end?!! We are getting to the end of our ropes and I'm  not sure what to do!

Ever since he was 2 months old, we have had the same bedtime routine: bath, bottle, book, and bed. Nothing new, nothing strange, although the time he actually goes to bed varies anywhere from 8:00 to 9:30 depending on the days events. Getting him to go to sleep in his own bed on his own is not the problem...getting him to STAY asleep in his own bed is the problem.

Like clockwork, almost every night, at around 3:00 am, he stirs. In an effort to just get some sleep, we would take him into our bed and he would normally fall back asleep. Sometimes we would put him back in his own bed, sometimes he would sleep the remainder of the night in our bed. That worked for a while.

I feel like, he's two, he's capable of sleeping in his own bed throughout the whole night. This is the goal we are trying to achieve.

Now, not only is he now waking at 3:00 am, he won't fall back asleep until 5:30 or 6:00!

When he wakes up now, I go to his bedroom and try and calm him down by either rubbing his back, or playing with his hair, or singing a little lullaby. This normally last for about 5 minutes then I leave again. I don't really want him getting to used to me 'petting' him to calm him down. After I leave, the fun begins. He roots, he cries, he sniffles, he laughs...everything but sleep!

Our bedroom is right next to his so we hear everything! As a result, neither Jamie nor I can get any sleep (Jamie is more-so bothered by the noise than me), but none the less, no one in the house is sleeping.

What are we doing wrong? What else can we do? Is there any end to this sleep torture?!

I'm sorry if I sound like I am at my wits end about this, but I am. And I'm also very tired...all the time!.

Any advice?

Melting crayons. Nailed it!

So yeah.

Have you ever seen something, on Pintrest say, and you think "what a simple great idea!" Me too. Except things don't always work out the way that they do on the Internet.

For example, remelting crayons. I mean, how hard can it be? You just remelt the crayons, right?

Wrong!

Let me walk you through my awesome craft job.

Step one: Get broken crayons

Simple enough. Can't really screw up this step. I took all of Hunter's broken crayons and sorted them by like  colours into a muffin tray. I put the muffin liners in so that I could remove them from the tray easier..or so I thought.

To be fair, most of the examples I looked up on the internet used those silicone trays, but I don't have one of those so I used what I had. Looking back now, I can see my plan was doomed from the start.

Step Two: Melt Crayons

Turn of the oven to 350 and let it warm up a little bit.I placed the tray in the middle of the oven and waited for the crayons to start to melt.

Of course, I was also doing other things around the house and I may have left them in for a bit longer than they needed. I wanted to still be able to see the different colours, but instead they all kinda melted together to make an ugly blob-o-colour. All in all, they were in the oven for about 10 minutes 

Yup, this is going perfect so far.

Step Three: Cool and Remove.

So after I took them out of the oven, I thought it best to put the tray in the freezer for a few minutes to get them to set up. Good idea in theory, but it didn't really work out too well. Or maybe it would have worked, if I left them in a bit longer? 

After about 8 minutes in the freezer, I pulled them out so I could get them out while they were still a bit malleable. I took a butter knife and ran it along the edge of the cups. This made the crayon cups crack up. I tried pulling one out and it did come out better than the ones I used the knife on. 

After removing the paper from the crayons, they actually didn't look too bad. Not like I had wanted them to look, but not bad. The only thing that I'm not really crazy about is the edging from the cupcake paper. I can see those making a mess the first few times they are used. Might rub them down before I give them to Hunter to use.

I would give this craft a 6 out of 10. Wasn't too hard, but I would do things a bit differently if I was to do it again.

Thanks for reading :)

And it's done!

I know I know...the election has been driving us all mad taking up valuable air space on TV and print media. I'm pretty sick of it and I'm not even American! Can't imagine what you poor souls had to endure during this campaign.

But alas, it's all over and done with for another 4 years. I guess it's true, once you go Barack, you never go back! So now it's over and we can all go back to our lives. Thank god.

I will say this though, I am very happy that our friendly neighbours to the south did decide to go with Obama again. I like him. He's very Canadian-like. I find it incredibly strange that some people don't want the so called Obamacare. Like what's wrong with public health coverage?

"No no, I'm ok, I would rather die than have a government funded healthcare system, *cough cough*".

Sad just sad.

And also, why can't Canadians get all riled up and passionate about our politics and voting? I guess Harper is not good looking enough to get excited about, nor is the boring manner in which our elections are played out. But on that note, I do like watching the debates. At least we get to see most (but not all) of the candidates/parties participate. I never even knew that there was more than 2 parties in the American election. There were more options than Democrats and Republican, but you would never know it based on the media coverage.

Other victories were handed out too last night...gays and marijuana!

Gay marriage is no different than traditional marriage. And all this BS about gays ruining marriage and what it means to be married is just nonsense. If people really really cared about marriage and wanted to uphold the values and sanctity of the vows,  how about no divorce then! But more and more traditional marriages end in divorce and less and less people want to get married in the first place. It's a mess! Gays...welcome to the messy party!

As for marijuana legalization...FINALLY! Thank god the government gave people a opportunity to vote on this. I think the government always knew what the outcome would be, but they were just too afraid to let the public have a say. I just hope that this step will be followed by more steps in the right direction. I also hope that Canada will have a similar referendum on the topic. Not decriminalize, not medical marijuana...legal recreational use for adults! Tax the shit out it too, I don't care. Just don't make me a criminal for enjoying it.

Wow, who knew I was so political?!



 

Choo Choo Hunter is 2!

Wow! Just wow! I cannot believe that our son is 2 already. Where did the time go?

We celebrated Hunto's big second birthday this weekend and it was a hit! We planned a small(ish) open house party for him at our house and it worked out great. At first I was a little worried about having all those people over in our small(ish) house, but it worked out fine. All that worry for nothing. We had friends and family come over and celebrate with us and because it was open house style, people were coming and going all day. Perfect.

I'm really glad that we had the party at our house too. We had rented the local daycare for his first birthday, which was fine, but I much preferred hosting the party at our own house this year. Much more personal and much more relaxed.

We had a Thomas the Train theme and one of my favourite things that we did for his birthday was the Train Cupcake Cake. I got the idea from here.

Silly me, I should have taken some more pictures of the assembly of the cake, but I was rushing to get it all done before the guest arrived.

Here are the steps to make the cake:

1. Ask mother-in-law to make cupcakes for the train cake. 
2. Forget about asking her and buy more cupcakes the day before the party. 
3. Have a bunch of extra cupcakes for the party
4. Buy Thomas the Train engine for the cake. 
5. Take engine out of the box the night before and let Hunto play with it. 
6. Search for Thomas the Train Engine in the toy box the next morning.
7. Buy 2 boxes of vanilla cookies, 2 boxes of chocolate cookies, and 1 box of lemon crackers (or something similar), and some frosting.
8. Put 2 stacks of 2 vanilla cookies together (for a total of 4 cookies) to make the base of the "cart"
9. Lay lemon cracker on top
10. Frost 4 chocolate "wheels" and stick to the side of the cart
11. Place cupcake on cart
12. Realize that you have too many cupcakes and not enough carts. 
13. Lay cupcakes in between carts
14. Decorate the cupcakes with left over Halloween candy
15. TaaDaa!!! A Train Cupcake Train

It worked out great and everyone loved it! Although when it came time to blow out the candles, Hunto and I had to walk around the cake a few times to get all the candles. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Hunter, Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you and we love you lots! Can't wait for all your coming birthdays and watching you grow into a little man!

Muah! xoxox

Baked pumpkin seeds

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds

It's that time of year again! Time to get out and get ready for Halloween. I really enjoy this time of the year when all the tree leaves are changing colours and we get to participate in fun family traditions. 

One of my all time faves is carving the pumpkin. I like to leave it for the weekend before Halloween as I don't want to do it too early and have them rot out on the step. After we are done carving the pumpkin, I always enjoyed roasting the seeds and making a little snack out of them. 

Here is the way that I do it. Please share your way or secret family recipes with me.

Step One: Carve your Pumpkin

This is the fun part...carving the pumpkin! I had my little helper, Hunto (as he would say), helping me out. Help is a term used loosely here as he didn't really do too much but add the cuteness factor to the whole activity. 

He did try and help scoop out some of the pumpkin "brains" but after he tried to put the brains back into the pumpkin, he was a little counter-productive. He also didn't like getting his hands all squishy. His help was short lived once the knives came out any ways. I did the traditional pumpkin faces...nothing too fancy.

Step Two: Separate Seeds

After the pumpkins were carved, it was time to separate the seeds from the brains. 

This didn't take too long, but was tedious work. After the seeds were separated, I washed them in a strainer and let them drip dry for a few minutes after. Note: Don't try to dry them with paper towel...they just stick to the towel

Step Three: Season

There are lots of ways in which you can season your pumpkin seeds. I like mine a little salty. (Be sure to comment on your favourite pumpkin seed flavours you have tried) 

I added about 1/4 cup of oil, just enough to cover all the seeds. Then I added some Mott's Clamto Caesar salt and some rock salt. I would have normally used just regular seasoning salt, but I was out and the Caesar salt worked in a pinch. Plus I really like the rimmer salt any ways.

Step Four: Spread and Bake

At this point, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Using a sheet of silicone parchment paper, I spread the seasoned seeds over a pan evenly.

I placed the seeds in the oven for about 15-17 minutes until they were slightly golden. After about 10 minutes in the oven, I could hear them start to sizzle. After the sizzling started, I checked them every minute or so just to make sure they weren't burning.

Step Five: Cool and Enjoy

When I was satisfied with the look of the seeds, I pulled them out of the oven. 

They didn't take long to cool and in 5 minutes after being pulled from the oven, we were enjoying our freshly baked pumpkin seeds!

b