I have had the most amazing treat of joining a sweet, tight, cheerful group of ladies here in South Bay. Our kids range in age from newborn to adults! The Wee Ones and I have been hanging out with them since last September and we’ve not only explored all over South Bay, but forged some wonderful friendships as well – both with the kids and with the moms! Yesterday, we came together to host a potluck in our neighborhood park and it was as close to perfect as life gets. Everyone brought something delicious to eat or something fun to do and we all pitched in to hire an Easter bunny! Everyone brought one dozen eggs per child and a few of us ran around laying them in the grass for the kids to find later.

I brought the decoupaged Easter eggs I blogged about this morning, three dozen really brightly dyed eggs, traditional Easter egg bread, Cheesy Onion Chicken and Sweet Bunny Buns. I’ll post these tutorials and recipes this week, I promise! So much Easter fun ahead of us still!

Little Miss Wee One #3 is officially 4, officially not so much a little person anymore. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know that 4 year olds are still tiny and sweet and mispronounce words in the most delicious ways, but 4 is a pretty big deal. We’re homeschooling right now, but it’s technically ‘school age’ and she’ll be enrolled in the same independent study program as our other two this fall. It’s really neat to see the little person she is becoming – so exciting!!

We had a wonderful weekend plan in place for her birthday until a totally unforeseeable kink was thrown in and our plans had to be moved around so much they hardly looked like our plans in the end! Not to be deterred, Mr So Very Domestic and I cooked up a new plan and I think it ended up even better than the original one.

Festivities kicked off on the morning of her actual birthday. Just like with everyone’s birthday, my husband and I blew up 20 balloons, tied curling ribbon to them and hung them from the ceiling in the living room. So cute to wake up to! Wee One #3 is our only earlier riser (but not as early as us so by the time she got up, Daddy was already at work) so we had a tiny little early morning celebration just the two of us. I confess this so much it hardly feels like a confession at this point but the only thing I ever miss from before homeschooling is not having the alone time with the littlest that I had with our older two. Stealing all the little pieces we get makes up for it. 😉

I whipped her up some birthday pancakes, which are really just normal pancakes with a hit of cake mix and sprinkles. I have seen this recipe all over the place (and of course by that I mean Pinterest) and it’s a thinned out icing that’s sprinkled on top. I’m not above sprinkles in pancakes but I draw the line before the thinned out icing sugar, man. I went with pure maple syrup.

Cake Batter Pancakes via Betty Crocker

1 cup Bisquick mix (or any pancake mix)
1 cup yellow cake mix
3 tablespoons candy sprinkles
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

The recipe included the thinned out icing sugar recipe I mentioned. I didn’t use it, but I’ll include it in case you want to!

2 1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
more candy sprinkles <-- I do recommend adding more sprinkles on top though!

I’m not going to tell you how to make pancakes. Even if you just dumped it all in a bowl at once and attacked it with your whisk it would work, so have at it. Just make sure you stick a candle on top of the stack and cut into triangles!

It was a busy day around here aside from it being a birthday! We had JiuJitsu, we had ballet and we hit the library between the two. On our library visit this morning, they were celebrating Dr Seuss’ birthday as well! So we hung out for a bit, took out a few Dr Seuss books to add to our bedtime haul for the week and headed back home.

We spent the rest of the afternoon singing songs and playing games and coloring in all her coloring books because coloring is her second favorite thing. Dare I admit publicly what her favorite thing of the moment is? Sigh, my littlest little really, really, really loves to play Minecraft. My husband and our two older littles play together on a private server. They build these epic villages together and laugh and joke and I watch and knit. On her birthday, Wee One #2 had a long dance rehearsal and when I left to drop her off my husband and our oldest started playing Minecraft with Wee One #3. They played all afternoon and long past bedtime. They built a huge mansion, complete with a library and a massive kitchen. Wee One #2 built a barn to house all of Wee One #3’s farm animals after she got back from the studio. There was even a pirate ship! We interrupted the festivities to sing happy birthday and blow out some candles and open a few gifts. Then it was back to Minecraft! Hahah one track mind!

My friend Katie, (or maybe I should say Wee One #3’s friend’s mother), dropped off a really sweet package filled with so many of her favorite kinds of things. After she opened that gift she played with it’s contents for an incredibly long time for a newly 4 year old. Then the following day she wore a hilarious assortment of accessories from it when we ventured out for more celebrating.

The second part of her birthday was spent at the Santa Monica Pier! We divided our time between Pacific Park (always a great time) and the Santa Monica Aquarium!

The Santa Monica Pier has become one of our favorite places because it combines my love of the ocean and palm trees with the kids’ love of rides and fast food. It’s also a nice drive so my husband likes it, that and all the great photies we get of the kids there! The girls have passes so they were hopping all over kiddie land while I snapped these pics and my husband and our oldest wandered around the pier.

The Santa Monica Aquarium was celebrating it’s birthday this weekend too! They had face painting and balloons and cute little candles in the tanks. Adorable! We even managed to stay on time and make it to the shark feeding! Wee One #2 was one of the kids who got to toss a piece of squid to the little sharks and Wee One #3 got splashed by an excited shark and decided she’d rather go to the touch tanks and poke starfish instead (apparently she only wanted to touch the rocks in the tanks hahaha).

*There are so many fun projects to post about and so many fun projects coming up! The kids have been so busy and then by proxy (and shuttling) so have I. All for good causes, of course just extremely time consuming!

Just a little Sunday post while I finish pulling together a whole lot of Valentiney fun!

Meeting a brand new baby is always a lot of fun, so we are thankful we got to count that among our recent adventures!

We spent some time at Silly Goose this week and we were lucky to be there on face painting day! Then we spent an afternoon at the park doing science experiments and sensory activities with our friends. Fun!

I tried anew baked donut recipe with nutmeg and a berry glaze, and I kicked off Valentiney month with some pink heart pancakes and heart shaped bacon. Both were a serious hit.

A little more South Bay exploring this week too!

Whenever people tell me they don’t know how I do it – the it being the juggling of homeschooling, having a social life, plugging away at my blog, my general June Cleaver-ness etc etc, I always tell them it’s not like I woke up one morning with three kids, an overachieving husband, and all of this…life. Please picture me gesturing wildly. I also usually tell them I’m not all that big on sleep, which is also totally true.

However, when it comes to homeschooling, I really did just wake up and start doing it one day. I’m going to attempt to outline how we homeschool, what our schedule is and the challenges we face while we do it – with the hopes that it will help others who are starting out on this journey with kids in multiple grade levels and one not yet school aged child. I should add here to people who don’t read my blog on the regular that we are homeschooling for a set period of time. Our school aged children were in public school before we moved to Los Angeles and they’ll go back into the same public school system when we move back to Canada in a couple of years. For us, this is a three year situation. I’m sure for people who have done this for a decade plus, or people who are planning to do this for their children’s entire academic career what works for us might not work for you. This post is essentially a (hopefully helpful) response to all the questions we get. 🙂

So, let’s do some honesty first, shall we? Most days I wake early, wake the kids with a cute breakfast, sweat glitter and kick ass all day (more or less). Then there are days when my toddler isn’t into anything I present to her. At all. Instead of all the fun amazing things I painstakingly set up for her, the thing she wants to do most is pester my 2nd grader. Or days when my 2nd grader isn’t understanding something right away and gets incredibly frustrated. Then there are days when my 7th grader is learning something tricky and needs a good chunk of the day. None of these things are anyone’s fault, they just happen. My kids aren’t horrible creatures who wake up ready to mess up my plans, and neither are yours. Honest, they’re not.

Take a deep breath and know that everyone who has ever homeschooled has had a bad day. I haven’t looked that up but I have no doubt that it’s true. Then look for ways to make it better! There are zillions! I didn’t look that up either, just fyi.

It seems so duh, but I find these situations don’t really affect me the same way when I keep in mind why certain situations play out the way they do. My toddler is really close to her sister, so naturally she wants to hang out with her all day. My 2nd grader gets pretty much everything on the first try so when she doesn’t, she gets frustrated pretty quickly. My 7th grader is doing challenging work, so of course some days are going to be even more challenging than others. There of course are so many other little annoyances – to the kids! If they don’t know when the next break time is coming they may start to feel antsy and distracted. If they’re hungry or tired they will probably get grumpy. This is my house, you have your own sets of challenges at yours, but I bet we have at least one in common!

• Have loads of activities on hand for your toddler. Looooads. Make sure a lot of them are things they can do when sitting alongside siblings.
  • Make fresh play doh with Jello so it’s vibrant, soft and non toxic.
  • Beads with long, thin elastic for making bracelets.
  • Colorful buttons and small containers for sorting.
  • Construction paper and scissors – cutting doesn’t need a reason!
  • For most toddlers, markers are serious contraband. Let them use washable markers (at the table only of course)!
• Post a schedule for the day in a prominent spot and stick to it as closely as possible.
  • If you don’t get everything done you planned to in the alloted time, think about changing the schedule to reflect that in the future.
  • If it’s time to move on to another subject and you’re not finished, move on and assign the leftover as ‘homework’ or….
  • Choose a ‘catch up’ time to finish up anything that wasn’t done within the time you alloted for it.
  • Make sure to include a decent lunch break and a hearty (but not food coma-inducing) lunch.
• Have light, nearly mess-free snacks on hand all day for school aged kids.
  • Whatever healthy snacks they like, lay them out shortly after you start.
  • Replenish the snacks as they are eaten, it helps keep the kids from constantly breaking for a snack but helps them stay energized.
  • This should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway, choose light, healthy snacks, not sugary treats.
  • We usually put out orange and apple slices, banana chunks with toothpicks in them, grapes, banana chips, nuts, seeds, carrot and celery sticks and crackers.
  • Keep them hydrated too!
• Make a ‘nibble tray’ for your toddler.
  • Even if your toddler likes the same snacks as your older kids, toddlers love having something just for them.
  • Fill an ice cube tray with different small snacks like Cheerios, halved grapes, banana chips, nuts, seeds, tiny pieces of favorite fruits and cheese.
• Let their lunch break be a fun break!
  • If at all possible, let them play outside and run around. We spend our lunch break in the pool when it’s nice out but even hitting a nearby park for a quick picnic or just the backyard is great for them.
  • Resist the urge to quiz or drill them during their lunch break – it’s a break!
• Have a backup folder of additional work for your school aged kids on hand.
  • If you’re in the middle of something with one child and another needs your assistance, turn to your backup folder for help!
  • You can include worksheets with additional practice of what they are working on so one is busy with that while you’re helping the other one.
  • If you’re not a fan of worksheets, you can include things like word searches, sudoku or crossword puzzles to give one of the kids a little break while you help the other.
• Keep something messy and fun on hand for your toddler.
  • For those days when your toddler isn’t happy with beads or buttons or markers have something messy ready for them – you know they’ll love it.
  • Keep a cheapy dollar store tablecloth on hand with your messy ideas so you can lay that down under them and make clean up easier on yourself!
• You hear this all the time, but be sure to mingle your children with all kinds of other children!
  • Having friends and being active in the community helps your children feel connected in a similar way to how kids in school connect with their classmates.
  • Karate, dance class, swimming lessons, boy / girl scouts, volunteering, mommy group, whatever, get out there!
  • Meet other homeschoolers, this is just as much for your own sanity as theirs.

This list is saving my sanity, especially the schedule! I see them looking at it and checking the time throughout the day and it absolutely stabilizes the mood. Kids of all ages like to know what their day looks like, don’t you?

So onto how we homeschool. 🙂

We homeschool through an independent study program within the Unified Los Angeles School District. We use the materials they provided and hand in assignments and check in with them once a week. I also have a closet full of both Canadian and American curriculum that I supplement with. I posted back in September a big list of books we planned on using but we ended up getting even more and we use these most. There are a lot of second grade books because of the flip carts and vocabulary cards and that kind of thing. The 7th grade books are huge and cover a lot of material in one book.

California Treasures 2nd Grade LA, Book 1	California Treasures 2nd Grade LA, Book 2	California Treasures 2nd Grade Grammer & Writing
California Treasures 2nd Grade Flip Chart	California Treasures 2nd Grade Phonics	California Treasures 2nd Grade Cursive
California Treasures 2nd Grade Oral Vocabulary Cards	Wonders California 2nd Grade Content Reader	California Treasures 2nd Grade Decodable Reader (5 books total)
California Mathematics 2nd Grade Math Teacher’s Guide	California Mathematics 2nd Grade Math	California Mathematics 2nd Grade Math Workbook
Houghton Mifflin 2nd Grade Social Studies Workbook	Houghton Mifflin 2nd Grade Social Studies	Houghton Mifflin 2nd Grade Social Studies Assessment Options
Harcourt Science 2nd Grade Science	Harcourt Science 2nd Grade Science Workbook	Harcourt Science 2nd Grade Science Assessment Options
California Mathematics 7th Grade	Prentice Hall Literature Bronze Level (7th Grade)	Prentice Hall Literature Bronze Level (7th Grade) Workbook
McDougall Littell World History 7th Grade Medieval and Early Modern Times	McDougall Littell World History 7th Grade Medieval & Early Modern Times Workbook	Holt California 7th Grade Science
Holt California 7th Grade Science Workbook	Math Makes Sense 7

This is the general schedule we follow for what I usually call ‘double days’ where we get twice as much done as the lesson plan calls for. Our standard school days are Monday – Wednesday and Friday & Saturday. Thursday is the day we check in at school and it’s also our ‘catch up day’. So whatever hasn’t been done from the previous Friday-Wedneday, we finish up. It’s never usually more than just an hour or so of work, but it’s so much better to get it done on Thursday afternoon when we get back from checking in than it is forcing it into whatever school day it spilled over from. If there is only a page left to do, or a few pages to read or something very quick at the end of the day, I give them the option to do it before dinner, but after they’ve had a break for a while and they almost always choose to do it that way, so it’s done. We work on many Saturdays to make up for the lost Thursday.

I have found that with all the one on one time the kids get from me to learn new concepts, we never need this much time. Some weeks we double up a day here and there so we’ll manage to get two days worth of language arts done in the morning, depending on what is assigned in the lesson plan. On days when we know for example that our friends from my local mommy group (hi ladies) are going to be at the indoor playspace down the street (or the beach or a park or whatever), we’ll plan ahead and do a double day the day before. Or if there is something happening at the aquarium in Long Beach or my husband wants to take us to Disneyland on a Wednesday or explore the tide pools (man those are cool), we make sure we are ahead a day so we can do that. Some other weeks we don’t do any double days and we’re done with the lesson plans by lunch, on those days if we are not meeting up with friends we’ll get crafty or I’ll help the kids bake or cook something from their cookbook. My oldest loves messy science experiments and board games that require a little mental math are pretty big around here too.

To clarify this table a bit better, we alternate between art and music, and between a special interest they have and French. So we go between doing each of them twice a week and three times a week (if we did art on Friday, we’ll do music on Monday). The special interest time slot was added to make sure we made time a few days a week to focus on something the kids want to learn about. Naturally, they continue working on their special interest activities in their downtime as well, but I wanted to make sure they had a time when they knew I’d be available to help them out no matter what. Right now, my 7th grader is working on video editing and my 2nd grader is big on rug hooking.

I just bought this Scholastic File Organizer Pocket Chart to organize all the folders their work is kept in and it’s visually right there for them to see how many more folders are left at any given time in the school day.

Because you asked, here are the workbooks we supplement with!

Spectrum Language Arts 2	Spectrum Math 2	Brain Quest 2
Bright & Brainy 2	Complete Canadian Curriculum 2	Complete Canadian Curriculum 7
Complete Math Smart 7	Spectrum Science 7	Harcourt Test Prep 7

I will dedicate specific blog posts to more detailed ideas, but all of this hyper-organization to save my sanity (and frankly my zest for homeschooling) brings up a newish issue for me. I mentioned in this post that I was a serious planner for years and years and years and California has chilled me out so much that I even stopped making lists!! I really loved the freedom that came from not making specific plans and doing whatever when the mood happened to strike. However, I noticed some not so fun behavior changes in my littles. Miss Wee One #2 was becoming sassier and a little ok, a lot harder to handle and that as responsible and amazing as Wee One #1 is and has always been, he has been a little lazier and less into following through with chores. The littlest of course learns from the other two and if they were slipping into a place I don’t even want to think about (cue bratty 7 year old stomping around the house) she’s the next in line.

So, the planner had to come back out. I will try not to be as crazy OCD about everything as I was before the move, but being so chill about everything has created issues I never thought I’d have to deal with.

I will post activities I find or come up with for my littlest to share!

*When I started this post, it turned out to be a crazy long novel that included all of this and a whole lot of info about the program we homeschool through. It’s only relevant to people living in Los Angeles County and people who are curious but a lot of people seem interested so I made it into a separate post I will polish up and share next week.

This is everyone’s favorite thing about being able to open up pretty much any afternoon while we are down here.

This week we went to a fun preschool storytime at Fred Hesse and then later we played in the playground. The storytime event was called Little Critter Afternoon Tale, it was put on by the Palos Verdes library, so sweet! It might be my new favorite picnic spot! These activities are held once a month so next month I think I will bring our picnic basket with us! There were stories (duh) and songs, a puppet and some crafts that actually held the kid’s attention. The most hilarious thing about it to me was the theme was winter – any time someone in Southern California says ‘winter’ a Canadian rolls their eyes – and since there is no sign of actual winter down here, the kids made paper snowflakes. Hilarious. This time last year, our oldest was rolling a snowball bigger than himself around the backyard to make an epic snowman – and now he’s wearing a tshirt at the park.

I love New Years Eve! We never really do anything epic, but it’s the traditions that make it epic for us. As a kid and teenager, I always spent it with my parents, my sister and my grandparents. My granny would make her tuna, salmon, egg and sometimes chicken bouchees. My mother always made a bunt cake and stuck a coin in it. Then she’d cut pieces and name them for people in a very specific order, whoever gets the coin is supposed to have great luck that year! Instead of a bunt cake, the traditional Greek New Year’s cake to slip a coin into is called the Vasiliopita. Interesting that the tradition itself comes from the name day (Greeks celebrate name days almost as seriously as we celebrate birthdays) that lands on Jan 1 (Saint Vasili the Great). This saint would distribute cakes with coins hidden inside them to the poor people in his parish. Ha! Snuck in a random history lesson! We always cut a piece for all the poor people in the world, and this year that’s who got the coin!

Here’s the recipe I used this year! Wee One #2 helped, it was pretty simple and despite having six eggs in it, we tried it and it was really good!!

1 cup butter 2 cups sugar 3 cups flour 6 eggs 2 teaspoons baking powder	1 cup warm milk 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 cup chopped almonds 1/4 cup white sugar

I had a three year old ‘helper’ making this with me and it still came together quickly!

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 10″ cake pan. Cream the butter and the sugar, then stir in the flour until the mixture looks like almond meal. Add the eggs. One. At. A. Time. Mix the baking powder and milk and then add that to the egg mixture. Now mix the lemon juice and baking soda and add that to the mixture as well. Pour into your cake pan and bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle the top of the (half baked) cake with the chopped almonds and sugar and bake for another 45 minutes. Mine baked up so tall and grand the almond and sugar on top looked so pretty!

Anyhoo, the first couple of years after my husband and I got together we celebrated just as I had done as a kid, with my folks and after the little ones started coming, we started rotating where we’d spend Christmas and New Years. It was either laid back with my folks or his. There was one year when a few of my girlfriends came over and we knitted through the countdown. Since then I try to do that where ever I happen to be celebrating. This year we are thankful to be able to say we have made a lot of great friends here already, but when it comes to New Years they are generally divided into two groups. Those with kids that celebrate with family, and those without kids that celebrate with shots.

Both are equally fun, but we have decided to start a new tradition – settling in with fun treats for the littles, and savory treats for us. A kid’s countdown at 9pm PST was perfect because that’s midnight in Ontario, and gave me time to get the littles to bed before the actual countdown at midnight!

*I think the teeny nerds-encrusted martini glasses with dark chocolate almond milk helped make this NYE a little different, and special, for the little ones.

We had a lovely New Years Eve and plan to spend our entire New Years Day playing board games and watching Dinosaur Train. I love me some resolutions and I’ve been getting better at sticking to them so here’s my official list for 2013.

1) read 52 books

2) sew a dress for myself

3) send everyone a card for their birthday

4) make candles

5) hand write and mail (at least) 52 letters

6) knit this quilt (202/400 puffs)

7) knit 12 pairs of socks

8 ) bake one new cookie recipe every week – and blog about it

9) make a small quilt

10) start a ‘What I did today’ daily journal project (I really like the index card one)

11) participate in Craftster’s Monthly Challenge

12) go on at least one epic road trip and as many smaller ones as possible

Let’s recap how I did with my to-do of 2012, shaaaall we?
1) read 52 books (24/52) – So I fell 28 books shy of my goal. Instead of lowering it, I’m going to aim for 52 again in 2013.

2) sew a dress for myself – No excuse. I even bought a new sewing machine after leaving mine in Canada! Back on the list for 2013.

3) send everyone a card for their birthday – I came reeeeally close but I can’t cross it off because I did overlook a few and some were crazy late. Hoping to manage it in 2013 better!

4) learn to play chess – I’m not exactly losing hope on this one, but I would really rather knit than learn chess. Not adding it to the 2013 list, but if it comes up, I’m all over it.

5) make candles – This will totally happen in 2013

6) hand write & mail letters (76/52) – I nailed this one! Plan to do it again in 2013

7) learn some fashion history – I did hours of online research, poured over old Vogues from the library and read The Beautiful Fall on the recommendation of my girl Mutant Supermodel. So good!

8) watch these movies (14/100) – I totally abandoned this list in April when we moved down to LA, I have watched at least 50+ movies this year but not from that list! In 2013 I will just keep a list of what I have watched!

9) make (& use) a worm bin – We moved from our house before the ground thawed and into a garden apartment so no worm bin this year! I also don’t know if I care enough about it for it to make the 2013 list haha.

10) make soap – I did this with my friend Vanessa, her boyfriend Steve and my husband. It’s like magic! So fun too!!

11) knit this quit – I got halfway there!! It’s defo going on the 2013 list.
puff count = 202/400

12) knit 12 pairs of socks (14/12) – I rocked this challenge too! Doing it again in 2013!

Happy New Years Eve!! Tonight we’ll celebrate with the littles early and call our parents and then we’ll celebrate at midnight and call a bunch of friends on the East coast at 3am. Hehe. That means YOU, Talea! I am looking forward to tonight, but I’ll wait and show you all the silly fun tomorrow!!

In 2011 I set out to cook and bake my way through Deceptively Delicious. I made a decent dent in it, more than half of the recipes, and I kept making recipes from it this year. There are just a few I haven’t gotten to yet. It’s a fun book full of sneaky ways to add vegetable purees into everyday recipes, focused on getting your kids to eat them but it works just as well with husband and yourself! I’m not big on a lot of the healthiest veggies so I love to add them in to recipes! I know they’re there and I’m getting the benefits of them without sitting down to a plate of spinach, you know?

Here are four of the recipes I made a while ago, but just posted. All of them were simple and tasted great!

	There have been a lot of serious winners from his book in our house and a few not so well received dishes. This one though has become our oldest little one’s favorite snack. He asks fot it several times a week. Just before we moved to LA, I made this for him and a three of his friends and they inhaled it. For the record, none of those kids would ever eat squash or navy beans or even sour cream! (read)
	read)
	I am the only person in the house that isn’t a big fan of spaghetti and pasta sauce. I actually kinda hate it. If I make it for the fam and I don’t feel like coking something else, I’ll eat it. Another exception is if we are visiting someone and they make it. Otherwise, noooo thank you. This sauce though? Not bad at all. I honestly didn’t mind it at all and I think it was the addition of the sweet potato puree that made it better. (read)
	I was a little nervous to present these to the kids because they’re not big on raisins OR nuts in their cookies so these didn’t go ove too well with them, but a few of my girlfriends were over when I made these and they loved them! No one had any idea there was zucchini in them until I told them. You could add wheat bran or ground flax to these to really up the fiber without changing the taste! Or swap the raisins for dried cranberries! (read)

Here are a few pieces of our Christmas this year. Much excitement. Much fun. My husband and I LOOOOOVE playing Santa, absolutely one of the best parts of Christmas with kids! <3 Back soon with more recaps and fun recipes!

So as I mentioned about eleventy billion times last month, we took a road trip out to Las Vegas to celebrate our first American Thanksgiving with our dear friend Nichole and her four children! She is originally from the south and I am..well, I’m me, so we went all out. Our Vegas adventure was short and sweet. We drove out after dinner on Wenesday, checked into Circus Circus, did some late night wandering around the hotel and went to bed alarmingly late. Fun! We had an incredibly lazy Thanksgiving morning, much to Nichole’s dismay, but we did have a fantastic evening together once we finally got there!

The whole menu is pretty crazy, but it was a lot of fun and there were 11 of us total. We had to leave all the leftovers with her (sorry!!), but there are 5 of them so that made sense anyway! She made a lovely turkey with stuffing and gravy, she and her wee ones also made the cranberry sauce, ham, pinto beans, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. I brought my very first sweet potato pie, apple crumble, cocoa brownies for the kids and my trio of tarts; lemon meringue, pumpkin and Sailor Jerry pecan (and of course my cherry apron and matching headband – essential items).

I’m linking to three recipes I just put up on the site from that day. They are all equally bananas-amazing.

	Lemon meringue has been one of my husband’s favorite pies since we met so I have a lot of practice with this, and I’ve tried a few different recipes over the years but this has been the absolute best one. (read)
	These are another piece of the trifecta of awesome that was my tart collection at our first American Thanksgiving. Half a dozen are made without any run and the other half are spiked with Sailor Jerry. (read)
	It sounds typical to say I’m from Canada and I’ve never had sweet potato pie, but I think it’s just all in who you know and my exposure to Southern Belles up to this point has been pretty limited. However, I spent Thanksgiving this year with a real life Southern Gal, and she put me in charge of the sweet potato pie – she even gave me her Granny’s recipe. (read)

On Friday, we picked three of the zillion things there are to do in Vegas with kids and each of them was a hit.

First we just went downstairs to The Adventuredome in Circus Circus. As the name implies, it’s an indoor amusement park, and it’s way bigger than this Canuk remembered from my own childhood! Like, woah. We wanted to get to make sure we got to do all three things before we headed home so we let the kids each pick a couple of rides and away we went! Please note there are very few actual horses on the carousel. Wee One #2 picked the dragon and Wee One #3 picked the flying bunny. There were also flying bears and pigs. I honestly thought that was pretty rad.

We are all a little in love with Vegas and we’re all eager to go back again. This was our first road trip since we moved to LA and I have to be honest, it feels pretty amazing to come home to California. Like, taking a vacation from vacation!

Our next stop was The Silverton to check out the aquarium and the mermaid that was rumored to hang out there. While we waited for her to make her entrance, we saw a leopard print sting ray. What?? We spent some time this summer with Wee One #3’s Godmother, exploring the aquarium in Long Beach and we got to see a lot of sting rays but I had no idea that leopard print sting rays existed! So cool!
The chocolate factory was a must do because every year for years and years and years, going back before I can remember and ending when my granny started getting ‘the old’, my aunt went to Vegas every year with either her girlfriends or her sister in laws or nieces or all of the above. Every single time she came back, she’d bring us Ethel M chocolates. It only felt fitting for us to hit the chocolate factory and pick her up a box of Ethel M chocolate. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see where M&Ms come from, though I’m sure this is not the only place they are made!
	This picture is hilarious to me and really sums up where they are right now. Wee Ones #2 & 3 are crazy and hyper and delightfully insane. Wee One #1? Well, he’s 12 now so he’s not about to get into shenanigans with them ON CAMERA, but trust me, he is just as delightfully insane as they are. 😉

So so so much is going on this week and so much fun happened last week! I made a lot of Halloweeny treats in the last couple of weeks and they were all hits with the kids! Wee One #1 is dressing as a warrior skeleton type guy (he’s been picking pretty much the same costume every year in a bigger size for 3 or 4 years now), Wee One #2 is going as Hello Kitty and out littlest is going as ‘The Tooth Fairy’, she is very specific about what kind of fairy she is exactly. Much running around Los Angeles in costumes!

Sparkly gold shoes, ridiculous wedges with an equally ridiculous bow, a really cute necklace and dress combo and some Halloweeny cocktails rounded out my week. We made normal screwdrivers but we used black vodka and then we made Bloodtinis, which were just as delish without any booze in them at all. I really just wanted an excuse to use the shaker. 😉

Oh, and my piggie spatula, which is probably my most prized kitchen possession at the moment. You love it right? Of course you do!

Back in the morning with Menu Monday!!