TWICE!

And now Hunter has used the potty twice this week! Exact same thing- woke up from his nap wet, put him on the potty and he peed. Now five minutes later he took a huge crap in his diaper... Can't wait until I don't have to change those anymore. How can such a little creature create such a killer smell?

Today was busy! It was a big deadline day for me with my job. I got all of my stuff in, then my supervisor sends me an email. Another person on this assignment wasn't able to complete any of their section so I get to finish it by Friday! ARRGGGG!!!! And of course it is the rest of the electricity unit. I really dislike electricity and of course that is what I had been working on for this project and the last project I had this summer. Well I am getting really good at grade 9 electricity!!

Finding time to do my job has been getting harder. Part of the problem is that I am now addicted to my afternoon nap. I sleep when the boy sleeps. It is wonderful. I even unplug the phone! But I am very unproductive after the boy goes to bed a night. So tonight I had to actually focus and get some work done after 7. Blah. Hopefully I get it all done by Friday. I am heading to Pelly Crossing on Thursday to visit Matt for the weekend and I want to spend a lot of time sewing booties. I have a number of orders put in and I need to get caught up.

So if you ever need to know in the ways to charge an electroscope, or learn how to draw a circuit, I am your woman. For now. I hope the next assignment is as far from electricity as you can get!!

Fun stuff from the the last week

Matt left for work in Pelly Crossing last Thursday, but the boy and I have managed to keep ourselves busy. Most of the time has been spent dealing with the heaps of fruit I brought back from our trip south. I still have some apples that I need to make into pies, and a few peaches left but they are getting a bit mushy. I made my first peach pie last night and it wasn't too bad.

A friend lent me this steamer. You put the fruit in the top and out the hose comes the juice. What an awesome gadget. These are apples in here and I made 20 1/4pints of apple jelly. Very tasty!


I love dried pears, so I borrowed this huge dehydrator from a friend and the last of my 20 lbs of pears is in it right now.


All of the cranberries that I had in the freezer were easily turned into juice. I had to freeze the juice though, not enough jars to make jelly. Have to wait until after the next trip to town.


Mr. Mashed Potato Head:


Going out to play on the deck. I blocked off the stairs with a sheet of plywood and the bbq. I leave to door open to the house and he just goes back and forth playing out there and the living room.


Come'ere kitty kitty kitty.... lets see if you fit through the railing...


Look down.... waaay down... We had to take go on a toy recovery mission yesterday afternoon. Jeepers he had chucked quite a few toys through!!

I love the snow!

Yesterday evening the first snow came to Faro! I really do love winter and I think the snow looks wonderful out there. I am sure it will be gone by the end of today, but it shouldn't be that long before winter is here to stay.


Our backyard just before 8am.


The boy ooowing at the new snow.


Cat tv. The little birds are eating like pigs today!


Going out to play in the snow.


Oh mama! Thats cold stuff, I think I just come in and look through the window!

First Potty Use!!

Okay- all of you folks sick of hearing about baby stuff go no further!!

Hunter peed in his potty for the first time today!!! Hurray!! I had been setting him on it quite a bit with his diaper on just to get him used to it. We would also put him on it naked in the evening when we run his bath.

Today, when he woke up from his nap I went to change his diaper but he was dry. So we headed to the bathroom and both went pee on our respective potties!! I hope we can get him doing this a few times a week from here on out.

And if you have some great potty training advice send it our way! We would love to here what worked for you.

I am such a wuss.

I am still afraid of the zombies.

So much so, that I won't go downstairs after it is dark out. There is a light on down there that I should really go down and turn out, but I just can't do it.

I leave the foyer and kitchen light on at night.

My cats like to creep me out by staring down the stairs intently, and then run away as fast as they can.

I used to like the dark.

I hate it when my husband is gone.

Nearly 11 weeks and feeling good!

This weekend I will hit 11 weeks pregnant! Nearing the end of the first trimester already.

The diclectin is a real miracle drug. I am taking 4 of the pretty pills a day (2 throughout the day and 2 before bed). Now, it has not taken all yaking away; today I yakked while attempting to brush my teeth and then again right after I ate supper. But that is a huge improvement!! My energy levels seem to be coming back again, but with Matt gone again for three weeks and me home by myself with the boy, we will see how long my energy lasts!!

I got myself a treat today! Fawn- you will really hate me for this- I got a housekeeper!! My house here is always very neat, but lately the floors, bathroom and dusting have been very much neglected. She is going to come in once a week for a few hours. I am in love- she was here for three hours today and my house is so spiffy clean! I had no clue my shower could look that sparkly. So I will definitely keep her while I am pregnant. After that, we will see! I do feel like a lazy ass having a housekeeper when I stay home... but I can live with that! :)

The Brew Masters Wedding!

So the trip was just awesome. Here are the pictures from the last week (sorry folks, no pictures of the Chocolate Orchard in Creston, but I will tell you that it is amazing and totally worth the stop).

Matt and Hunter sleeping on the flight from Vancouver to Calgary. Everyone who went by had to stop and comment on how cute they were.


First escalator ride!!!


Visiting with my friend Karen in Cranbrook. We went to University together, but haven't seen each other since my wedding 5 years ago! It was so awesome to get that visit in.


Of course we had to take the tour of the Kokanee plant that my friends husband works at:


Us posing next to some huge gizmos where they start making beer:


Beer!! They put out something like 2 million cans/bottles of beer every day!


Hunter in his safety glasses:


The boys enjoying the free beer at the end of the tour:


Hunter and I visiting with Sasq:


We saved Hunters favorite food, veggie puffs, for the wedding ceremony. I think he almost ate the whole can, but it kept him quiet!!


I love this picture! Leanne is looking right at me. They all looked so amazing and the weather was perfect that day.


The boy enjoying a shot of summer:


Us on the lake:


The boy not enjoying a shot of water:


We are soooo cute:


Leanne and I:


The boy getting a kiss from the bride!

Home!

We arrived back in Faro this evening after a very busy weekend! The wedding was awesome and I made it home with 3 bags of apples, 2 bags of pears, and a small box of peaches. I think Matt's favorite stop was to the Chocolate Orchard! Tulugak traveled very well and has hit 24 flights in his 15 months. I had a semi-yak-free weekend and felt really well with my wonder drugs.

Pictures will follow soon!

Busy week ahead

Matt is coming home tomorrow! Hurray- cause I am exhausted. I sleep from 10 to 7, and then nap when the boy goes down in the afternoon and I am still pooped. Kudos to you single moms out there, or women with lame-ass-don't-lift-a-finger-play-video-games-collect-pogey-loser-ass-husbands out there.

So Matt gets home tomorrow afternoon and then we are going to clean the house and pack. Wednesday we are heading into Whitehorse where I have a bit of running around to do and then out to supper with a friend. Thursday morning up bright and early to fly to Vancouver to Calgary to Cranbrook. That night we are staying with a friend I haven't seen since my wedding! Friday we drive to Creston for a wedding on Saturday. My friend Leanne is marrying a guy named Scott who is a brew-master at Kokanee. I seriously love that job title. I can't mention it enough. So we are going to have a tour of the beer making place, buy some fruit to bring home and enjoy an awesome wedding. Sunday we drive back to Cranbrook and spend the night with the mother of my friend Deiss. Then Monday evening we fly Cranbrook to Vancouver to Whitehorse arriving around midnight. blah. Then shopping like a man-woman the next day and back to Faro.

Matt has to be back in Pelly Crossing on the 25th and I have a big work assignment due on the 30th. So I will stay in Faro to get that done, and then probably head to Pelly to relax. Relax? Can someone remind me what that is again?

Yak Free!

Yesterday was my first yak-free day in over a month. It was wonderful. I had energy galore and slept straight through last night. Yesterday I even went over to teach a friend how to pickle carrots and we ended up doing 18 quarts that afternoon. In the evening I still had enough energy to cut out four pairs of booties and sweep my floors!

I knew it was too good to last.

I woke up this morning feeling terrible again. I was dizzy, feeling dehydrated, and of course yakking. But now it is just after noon, and I am not feel too bad. I have kept down some lunch, so I will take my first diclectin of the day. Little man just went down for an early nap, so I think I am going to hit the hay as well!

We are leaving this week for a wedding and I would like to be yak-free for that event!!

Five years ago....

Five years ago today Matthew and I were married! Today is even a Saturday; same as the day we were married. The five years has passed so quickly and we always laugh at how we haven't managed to kill one another yet.

Our wedding was a hoot. A good redneck event complete with guns and hillbilly teeth! The pictures aren't that great since I cannot figure out how to work my scanner and I had to take pictures of pictures.

Of course the guns had to make it into the professional pictures. Seriously- I had to do this to convince him to marry me:


A no-gun picture:


The bridesmaid on the left, Deiss, brought these hillbilly teeth for us. We wore them before the wedding, during the pictures and even walked into the reception hall wearing them.

I LOVE MAIL!

Today was great. I only yakked for a couple of hours this morning and managed to have a yak-free day after that. When I checked my mail and there were 3 wee-parcels from Kennie and my diclectin! What a wonderful mail day.

Kennie from Arctic Bay shipping me oodles of cds with something like 6000 songs on them. I am still trying to add them all to my computer. She also made a bunch of new cds for Hunter. I am so sick of the music we have for him, this should be a great break. Kennie rocks!

And then there was my diclectin! It takes a few days to build up in your system, but after that life is much better. With Hunter it got me down to yakking probably between 2 and 5 times a day. So I have my fingers crossed that it will work just as good this time around.

I was invited to a friends place for a belated birthday supper. What a nice treat! All I had to do was show up and eat. And oh was the food good! We had prime rib, baked potatoes and cesear salad. Yum!

Little man was a bit off today. He didn't eat anything solid until supper and napped at 11am instead of 1pm. But he sure did crash at 7 tonight! The roofers are here and he fell asleep just fine with them banging on the roof. I am so blessed with an awesome kid.

My mail bonanza:

For Kennie

Kennie said she is going to try her hand at making homemade buns this weekend. I thought I would offer up a really easy recipe!

Kara's Easy Peasy Two Hour Buns:

In bowl mix:
3 cups really warm, but not scalding water
1/2 c sugar
2 tbsp yeast
Give a light stir.

Let sit for 5-10 minutes. The pour into bigger bowl. Add the following:
1/3 c oil
1.5 tsp salt
2 eggs
Whisk this together.
You will need to add 7-8 cups of flour. Do it one cup at a time. Use the whisk to mix it until whisk looks like it is going to break. Then take over with hands. Mix it in the bowl, then knead it on a lightly floured surface until it is soft like a babies bum.

Clean your big bowl and lightly oil it. Put baby-bum dough into bowl and cover with plastic- northern bag works well. Let rise 15 minutes. Punch down (5 punches should do- don't take out all aggression on dough). Let rise another 15 minutes and punch down. Let rise another 15 minutes (yes, do this 3 times!) and punch down.
Now take pieces out that are about the size of your fist, maybe a bit smaller. You will want to grease your counter- a quick spray of pam does the trick. Roll these into nice bun shapped objects. Cup hand, put dough under cupped hand, move hand in clockwise motion with pinky side of hand touching counter the whole time and the rest of the hand applying pressure. Put onto greased cookie sheet. Cover with plastic and let rise for 45 minutes. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Makes 20'ish buns. Always save some dough and fry it in the frying pan. mmmmmmmmm

A Rough Time

This pregnancy is doing me in again! Yesterday I could not get a handle on the vomiting/retching/yakking/ralphing etc. I am so glad I have such a good kid- he napped for almost 3 hours in the afternoon, so I did as well. He went right to sleep at 7pm just like every other night too. I tried to get to bed early, but my stomach was so irritated from throwing up all day I just felt miserable. Then by 11pm I was back to throwing up constantly. It gets so bad that I cannot breath and it just makes it worse. I called Matt who is working over in Pelly Crossing right now around 1am and he told me to call the nurse and get a shot of gravol. The nurses here are wonderful of course, and she came over to the house to give me a shot since I couldn't leave Hunter! That helped and I was to sleep by 2am. Hunter slept until 7:30, but after a shot of gravol I felt like I had the worst hangover in the world! So I called my neighbours, their daughter is the one who always babysits Hunter, and they took Hunter for the morning. What wonderful people! So I went back to bed until after 11. When I went to pick up Hunter I was fed tea, borscht, and biscuits. I am so lucky to have met such wonderful people here in Faro. My diclectin should arrive tomorrow from Whitehorse. Hurray for the drugs!

John Deere Boy

Grandma and Grandpa sent Hunter a present in the mail! It is the same John Deere dumb truck that his cousin has. Hunter was so excited to get it!

Driving the new dump truck around town:


So cute with his tongue out!


He does this all the time!


And a big smile!

Okay, maybe 29 won't be so bad.

I had such a great day today! Well sort of... I spent the first 2 hours of it throwing up so bad I couldn't catch my breath. Poor Hunter tried to help by seeing what was in the toilet that had mommy's attention. My drugs will be arriving by Friday from Whitehorse. Hurray for diclectin.

Then Hunter and I drove out to visit a friend who lives in a log cabin that her and her husband built. They have a little boy who is 7 months old and loves to play with Hunter. My friend made me a wonderful custard and pizza for lunch! What a treat. So I stayed there until 1pm and then drove back into town. Hunter slept for about 15 minutes and decided that was all the nap he needed for the day!

Hunter and I played all afternoon. I got a short break when a kid I have hired to clean the shitty-kitty-poo-box came by and played with Hunter. We then played some more, had supper and had a bath. In between all of that were the phone calls from family and then a wonderful call after the bath from a friend I took my BEd with. I haven't talked to her in about a year, so we had a lot of catching up to do. I also got a gazillion birthday wishes on facebook and on the blog. Yep, a gazillion. I know that many people.

I got to do some real work this evening as well. Some ladies came up for me to do their resumes and cover letters. Made $30 in an hour for some easy-peasy work.

Now I am pooped, eating some leftover custard, and heading to bed in a few minutes. A good day, even at 29.

29. And Holding. Forever.

Today I am 29. I am not impressed. This is the last year of my twenties and I see 30 creeping up on me.

My twenties were so good, I just wonder how my thirties will even begin to compare. Since I left teenager land I have:
- travelled to Australia
- met and married Matt
- finished 2 degrees
- bought two homes, second one with cash!
- had first kid and the next one is on the way
- lived in NWT, Nunavut and now Yukon
- paid off astounding amounts of student loan debt
- kept 2 cats alive for longer than any other pet of mine
- learned that a sewing machine is not evil
- shot my first moose
- shot my first caribou
- kept first kid alive longer than most pets
- travelled to Cape Breton three times and learned that not all of Matt's relatives are odd, just 90% of them
- lengthened my attention span by OH LOOK A KITTY

See! My twenties were great, and that is just a short list of the highlights. So I guess I have to make this last year the best of them all so I can leave this decade with a bang. I will be taking suggestions for making this last year the best!

Home again home again jiggidy jig jig

I am so sick of kids music!!!!!!

Stuck in my head right now:
To market
to market
to buy a fat pig
home again
home again
jiggidy jig jib


ARRRGGGG!!! Shoot me now!

Okay, so we are home safe and sound. We had a wonderful weekend visiting Matt in Pelly Crossing. He is staying at a huge duplex. Heaps of room for the boy to play, and oodles of cupboards to pull crap out of. We even got a cake from the store for an early birthday night! More on the evilness of getting older in tomorrows post.

Baby-name update:
Another Faro blogger suggested that we look at a Yukon map for ideas for baby names. heheheh did you know that there is a Scurvy Creek? hehehe
So far, nothing sticks out from the Yukon map... Although Bearfeed and Danger might be interesting names...

Fetus-name update:
Fawn asked me what we are calling the fetus. With Hunter we called it Wee-Spawn. I need something just as original for this one, but nothing good has come to mind. Please send ideas.

And now, I am pooped and am going to bed!

Blowing this popsicle stand!

Thats right! We are leaving Faro for the bright lights of Pelly Crossing! Just for the weekend though. Don't worry, we aren't ditching Faro; we love it here too much.

Matt has a nice, big townhouse to stay in there, so we are going to disrupt his peace and quiet.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Bye Dad!!

Matt left today to work in Pelly Crossing. Since he is in the float position here in Faro they can ship him to other communities if they need staff. Pelly doesn't have any permanent staff- only casuals that fly in from other parts of Canada. Come on nurses! Good jobs to be had here in the Yukon!

This time around Matt will be there until the 16th of September. We are going to visit him there this weekend. He will be back there again from the 5th to 25th of October. The paperwork is going through so Hunter and I can travel with Matt in the work vehicle that has been issued to him. Very nice! And we are allowed to stay with him wherever he goes.

Hunter really misses his Dad when he is away. Matt always does the bedtime routine of the bath, bottle and bed. In the tub tonight he kept saying Da! Da! Da! Ah well, guess mom will have to do!

Hunter watching dad get ready to go:

Recipe for Tigger

No, not how to cook Tigger- a recipe for the nifty woman in Hay River, Tigger!

Rosehip Rhubarb Jam

Pick oodles of rosehips. I had 7 cups that got me just under 2 cups of puree- so I would suggest picking at least 8 cups.

Sneak into a neighbours yard and steal lots of rhubarb. At least an armful.

Take all of the tips off of the rosehips and put into a pot. Fill with water until water is just below the line of the rosehips. Bring to boil, then simmer for 1/2 an hour or until soft.

Put rosehip mush through the blender. I have a magic blender from the tv that is awesome for this. Do small batches so you really blend it up good. Then the hard part- removing the mush from the seeds. I pushed it through a fine mesh strainer, but if you have a better way do it go for it. It takes time, is messy, but worth it in the end. Put rosehip puree into pan. You will need 2 cups of puree.

While your rosehips are simmering, cut up rhubarb into 2 inch pieces. Add a little bit of water, perhaps an inch or less to the pan. Bring to boil and then let simmer with the lid on. Stir once in a while until rhubarb is nice and soft. You will need 2 cups of this as well.

Add the rhubarb to rosehip puree and add on package of liquid pectin. Sorry, wish I knew how to do it without. Stir well and bring to a boil. Let it boil hard for one minute and then take it off the burner. *remember to turn burner off- not like me who burned mashed potatoes in a pot the other day.

Then put into jars, wipe top edge of jar clean, add hot lid, screw on screwy part and voila! Just wait to hear those happy little pops as the jars seal!


UPDATE: OH NO!!! I FORGOT THE SUGAR!!! PLEASE ADD 3 CUPS OF SUGAR TO THE PUREES WHEN YOU COMBINE THEM!!!

Fall is Here

Fall is my favorite time of year. This is the only time of year I miss being home with my family; I miss hunting season with them! And since this is our first year in the Yukon, we cannot hunt. I am a little bummed, but looking forward to next fall already.

It has been freezing pretty hard at night here. This is the neighbours junk yard; look at all of the windows frosted over:


Quite a bit of snow already in the mountains!

I had 4 tomato plants given to me this summer and they were super producers! I ended up with 12 cups of finely diced green tomatoes and they were turned into chow. Oh so yummy!

My tomatoes were a variety of sizes- the biggest there was about the size of my fist:


My big bowl full of tomatoes!


All cut up with onions, sugar, salt, and pickling spices stewing away. Those white pouches are finger gauze Matt got for me and the pickling spices are tied up in there.


Rose hips on to boil. Turning these to puree is a bit of work. You have to simmer them for about 1/2 an hour, then run them through a blender and finally push them through a sieve to get ride of the tonnes of seeds. Then the puree was combined with cooked rhubarb, sugar and pectin to make a wonderful jam full of vitamin C!


The final product! Only a couple jars of chow didn't seal so they are in my fridge ready for me to devour.