Grandma's 91st Birthday

Grandma's 91st Birthday

Cookie Exchange

I hosted my first cookie exchange. The cookies were AMAZING! I made Melt-In-Your-Mouth Shortbread Cookies, Pauline made the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie, Anna made Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, Nancy made Stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Janice made Holiday Rice Crispy Squares, and Anita made Oatmeal Coconut Cookies. Don't worry, I didn't eat all the cookies - I shared them with my friends.

2010 Highlights

All in all, 2010 was another year of great blessings.  Everyone is healthy and we welcomed a new addition to our family.  Here are some month-by-month highlights:

Jan - Got pregnant
Feb - Found out I was pregnant
Mar - Got super sick with a cold/flu that lasted 4 weeks
Apr - Landed a job back in the PR department
May - Worked 2 jobs as I transitioned out of my old job and into my new job and juggled major crisis/issues management at work
Jun - Continued to deal with major issues at work
Jul - Jeremy turned 36
Aug - Went to the JW Rosseau for vacation to decompress after 2 months of VBS
Sep - Keith turned 3, celebrated our 7th year wedding anniversary
Oct - Ainsley was born and started mat leave
Nov - Celebrated Ainsley's 1 month birthday
Dec - Will be celebrating Jeremy's grandma's 91st birthday

Mom is leaving soon

Despite all the complaints that I've had about my mom being here for 2 months during my "confinement" period, she actually has been more helpful than I expected.  She has held the baby in the afternoons to allow me to have afternoon naps most days.  She folds all our laundry.  She makes soup for me and tries her best to cook the few dishes that she knows how to make.  Spending so much time with her in the past 2 months have made me realize that my mom really is getting old.  Her hair is actually all grey/white but she colours it black.  She often has aches and pains - I even took her to a few sessions of acupuncture while she was here.  She sometimes forgets things which makes me wonder if it's the early onset of Alzheimer's.  While I still look forward to having my life back, I am thankful that she has come to help me these past 2 months.

Christmas time is here!

Every Christmas, my husband and I give each other an ornament.  The ornament is supposed to remind us of something that happened during the year.  Since we've been married for 7 years, we now have a decent collection of ornaments but we have never bought a tree to put the ornaments on.  We simply don't have space in our living room for a full size tree and we also don't have space to store a fake tree in a box during the other 11 months of the year.  This year, I figured out a solution!  I bought a real tree but it's table top size so that it can sit on top of our side table in our living room.  Merry Christmas!!

Potty success!

We've been potty training our 3 year old on and off for about 6 months now.  Part of the reason why it's taken so long is because I've been procrastinating.  I don't want to deal with accidents and I also dread having to take him to the bathroom when we are out.  But now that we have a newborn, I'm pretty tired of having to change his diapers.

Last Saturday, we tried to put him in underwear and within 2 hours, he wet/dirtied 4 underwears.  We didn't even get any pee/poo in the potty.  I was absolutely disgusted with having to clean him up after the poo accident.  Today, I decided to try again with Pretzel snacks (to make him thirsty and to act as a treat), apple cider (to quench his thirst, to fill his bladder, and to act as a treat), and the iTouch (to keep him entertained on the potty).  It worked!  He peed and pood in the potty while playing on the iTouch.  After he went, he got a pretzel and apple cider treat.  In the same way, he proceeded to pee in the potty after lunch, after his nap, and after dinner.  Yay!

Steamed egg custard dessert recipe (dun dan)

I love this dessert.  I'm trying to improve on this recipe each time I make it.

Ingredients:
- rock sugar (size of a golf ball)
- ginger, crushed with a cleaver (size of a golf ball)
- 400mL of water
- 1 tsp custard powder (optional)
- 3 eggs


Directions:
- boil the ginger and rock sugar in 400mL of water.  Let cool for 10 minutes and strain out the ginger.
- Stir custard powder into the sugar water to make it look more yellow.
- beat the 3 eggs and mix into the cooled rock sugar mixture
- strain the mixture into 2 bowls
- put plastic wrap on the bowls ensuring that the plastic wrap doesn't touch the mixture.  poke a few holes into the plastic wrap to let the steam out
- put the bowls into a steamer and turn the steamer on
- steam for 20 minutes
- eat while it's hot!

Makes 2 servings