Tri Update!

Last week was a big week for me. I managed to break my 'record' for the week. I exercised 36kms last week. I broke into the 30km's the week before and this week went higher! I'm so proud of myself and how it's going.

This week is a challenge. I'm having a hard time making myself get out of bed in the morning. I am getting better. Now it only takes me an extra 10 minutes to get out of bed compared to not doing it at all. And this week has been WINDY! Who would have guessed! I'm so tired when I get home as well. It's hard to keep moving when you feel like the wind will blow you over.

Yesterday was our biking day. It's a family event. We go to school in the morning as a family. K rides on Arnold's bike on the trail-a-bike, and Q rides on my bike in the back. We really do enjoy it. This week we got there and Arnold had to head home quickly and get the trail-a-bike off and head out to work. Q and I hung out and waited around for K to go into school. It was so windy! So bad that when the doors were closing with the other JK/SK class the door was blown shut on a little girl! Q and I went out on our bike ride and I wasn't any more than 2kms into it and he started to cry that he was cold and wanted to go home. I finished one loop and came home. I didn't want my sick boy getting any sicker because mommy wanted to go out for a ride.

So in exchange for that I'm going to try and get a ride in today. Today will be the first day I have attempted to do everything in one day. I did my walk this morning, I have stroke training this afternoon and then a cycle at the end of the day! Hopefully I can survive.

I'm getting excited to see how this month will look with all my training. I love training with Q on the back of the bike and I love knowing that Q likes being outside. We also did a walk this week with him in the bike stroller because it was too much to get up and out one morning after a crappy sleep because Q was sick. It's nice to have family support.

This past weekend I told some of my family members with mixed responses. My one aunt is super excited for me and I thought she might want to come out, until I told her went it started, hehe. Another family member didn't seem as excited with a responce of "do you really think you can do it?" YES I DO! And I will do it! Even if it takes me all day!

Wordless Wednesdays - "GREAT" Grandma and Grandpa

These are my grandparents. This past weekend we celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday and their 30th Anniversary. As well, this year, Grandpa turned 88!




ETA - sorry this is late, I'm not good at the 'pre programmed days' with blogger. Opps!

Home Made Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup (New Food #21)

I made home made Chicken Noodle Soup the other day. It was GREAT!

CROCK POT CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

4 large chicken breast, frozen
4 medium potatoes, cubed
1 cup of corn
1 cup of peas
1 cup finely cut chives
12 oz. egg noodles
1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons salt (season to taste)
900ml of chicken broth
900ml of water

I added the chicken then added (excluding the egg noodles) put all ingredients into the crock pot, including the juices in the frozen vegetables. Do not worry about cutting the frozen chicken breast at this time. Cook on high for 4. 5 hours. Using a wooden spoon, chop the chicken breast into bite size pieces.

Add egg noodles and continue cooking for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour. Suggest serving with salad and garlic toast. Makes approx. 6 servings





Once it was made I realized I needed more salt. Or seasoning..... Maybe parsley?

Dessert! (New Food #20)

I know I can't believe it that we are almost half way through my goal of doing different meals this year. I believe my goal is 50 new meals a year. Lets see how we do.

This is my latest. It's a dessert:

Confetti Caramel Bar

Prep time: 30 minutes
Start to finish: 3 hours and 30 minutes

1 cup of packed brown sugar
1 cup of butter or margarine, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
1 cup of butterscotch - flavored chips
1 1/2 to 2 cups of assorted candies and nuts (such as candy corn, candy-coated chocolate candies and salted peanuts)


Heat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, 1 cup butter, vanilla and egg with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour. Press evenly in bottom of ungreased 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake 20 to 22 minutes or until light brown. Cool 20 minutes.

In 1 - quart saucepan, heat corn syrup, 2 tablespoons butter and butterscotch chips over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until chips are melted; remove from heat. Cool 10 minutes.

Spread butterscotch mixture over crust. Sprinkle with candies and nuts; gently press into butterscotch mixture. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours until butterscotch mixture is firm. For bars, cut into 8 rows by 4 rows, or cut into triangle shapes.

makes 32 bars.

Q's ST Date - Week #2

This week we started a bit earlier than 9:30 (good thing too... see later in post). We got in and Q gave me his hat and he sat on the mat and waited to find out what was going to happen. His ST forgot the board with the list on it but that's ok. We managed just fine without it.

They started with bubbles. Q had to say "Pop" "Blow" "soft" and "more". The first 3 words were ones we had done last week with no issues but the last word, "more" was more of a problem. She ended up helping him say it with the "Mmm" sound with the lips closed and the "ore" sound with pinching his cheeks together to get the round lips. It worked out for a bit. Finally I think he got frustrated and said "I do it!" and he put his hands on his lips to get the "MMMM" sounds with the lips closed. It was too cute.

After bubbles they read a book. It was about the zoo sending this person (the reader of the book) some animals. He never kept any of them and kept sending them back to the zoo. The main point of this book was to say "open" since there were flaps in the book to open and see what kind of animal. As well as to say "Go back" when the reader had a reason of why the animals couldn't stay.

Once the book was over the ST used her bag she had and had all the animals from the story in there and had Q put them in a box that was a cage/zoo so they could say the animals names again.

They moved to the table with a box that has 4 animals on it. The ST helped Q pick an animal and all the 'food' that animal ate. So they started with Monkey. They worked on saying Banana (since this has to be one of the hardest things for Q to say). Then they moved on to elephant. They were getting out the peanuts and the power went out! They had to cancel the rest of the classes as they can't teach with the door open. Q had a bit of a freak out in the dark but he did ok.

We had to leave shortly after and it turns out the power was out for a good section of East Scarborough!

Q's homework this week was a few pages. The first page has the book we read and the things we need to focus on (Go Back). The next 2 pages are different animals that we talked about and the last page are a bunch of cages. These cages are for the animals to go in. I'm aiming to do this on Thursday or Friday with Q.

I was also told that we have to stop using baby words. She said for his maturity level we need to nix the "froggie, puppy, kitty cat ect" words. They now have to become "frog, dog, cat, ect". I'm kinda frustrated with this. Some of his words are so sweet! Like nore instead of more (something we love) as well as froggie. It's hard to give up on that.

Oh and I guess I'm laughing, or giggling. I have to stop that. When he uses the cutie words I have to stop having a reaction. I don't even know I'm doing it so I guess that's for me to work on next week.

On the bonus side Q is the 'pleaser' kind of kid so we might be able to get out of ST by the end of this 8 week session

Earth Week

Today at K's school their class did the garbage pick up. It was so cute. They had a blast and went running around outside with 1 glove on to pick up the garbage. I managed to catch a few photos of them picking them up. And my favourite thing EVER which is their bags.


























I found some nice plants to take some more photos of.













On the way home we used our Scooters. The kids LOVE their scooters. Q and I bring the helmets and scooters and the kids love going home with them.

Happy Earth Day!

What did you do for Earth day? Today K's classes did something called the "Messy Bus". They had SOOO much fun! K can't wait to show us what he did.

Here's some of the photos from our Earth Day morning:













Q and I managed to snap a few photos of the bus. It looks like alot of fun!

More Spring Time photos

Here's my weekly photos of things changing around our neighbourhood (and at school):






























These are from a few hours later at school: