Artisan Breakfast Tea Bread with Raisins

I was inspired to try something different today in Gael Glen Farm's Bakeshop.  Starting with my basic bread recipe, I added loose leaf cranberry black tea and raisins to the dough.  The result was divine.

Breakfast does not get better than a toasted and buttered slice of this bread with a steaming hot cup of coffee.

Sweet Starts

With Seamus at a classmate's birthday party, I gave Liam the choice of doing anything he wanted this afternoon.  Do you know what he chose?  Rock climbing?  Trampoline jumping? Swimming at the wave pool?  Nope.  Planting seeds.  No kidding.

Liam is super excited to get our 2020 garden underway.  He planted three types of onion seeds (Walla Walla, Norstar, and Sweet Utah) and several types of sweet and hot peppers.  The onion seeds went directly into soil and under the grow lights. 

Meanwhile, the pepper seeds are slower and more difficult to germinate so they went inside Ziploc bags in damp paper towel and then on a heat mat.

Liam did the whole thing himself with me directing and Alistair supervising. 

There is nothing better in my books than a kid who is keen to develop a green thumb!

Junk in the Trunk

Whether it is the chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, the donkey rides or the fresh baked cookies straight from the oven - who doesn't love a snow day?!

The boys were ecstatic to hear that the school buses were cancelled today due to the ridiculous amount of snow that we received.  We normally drive them to school on snow days but this morning we made a deal that if there was absolutely no fighting, they could stay at home.

Thank goodness we had fuelled up on pancakes because once Grandma arrived to watch Ali, the big boys, Ian and I spent close to two hours plowing and shovelling ourselves out.

Liam is dead tired from all his hard work!

Once we were finally able make our way to Charlie's barn and then shovel both the gate and her barn door open, she was so happy to see us that she bestowed donkey rides on Liam and Seamus.

Abbott was also happy to be free but instead of offering rides, he just shook the junk in his trunk at us as he paraded around in the blizzard.

After a lunch of hot homemade chilli and mint chocolate chip cookies, all three boys bedded down concurrently (a small miracle) and I had a whole hour free to curl up with a novel in my favourite comfy chair.

To my amazement, the boys were able to stick to our deal and we ended up having a great day together.   I mean, really, minimal bickering and naps all around - I am not sure it gets better than that when you are snowed in with three small but oh so energetic boys.

Schnauzer Snuggles & Seed Sifting

These long, lazy winter days are perfect for schnauzer snuggles,

Oh, Charlotte.  So cute.

cozy car rides,

Seamus and Tigger on the way to the hospital for their pre-op appointment.
They are getting their adenoids removed in a few weeks.

Alistair still does not like car rides.  Note the gigantic tear. 
Just be thankful you cannot hear the screaming.

and sifting through my new seeds dreaming of spring.

They came in the mail today!  So excited.

Seedy Monday

With a gorgeous mild day like today, it has impossible not to feel like spring is on its way!  And nothing says "spring" like seeds!  Our orders are in and it is time to get onion and hot pepper seeds started indoors.

I cannot wait to get my hands back into some sweet, sweet dirt.

A Papa Bear and his Cubs

This was definitely the "Weekend of Daddy" with Ian being the man of the hour.  Today Ian basically relived yesterday with a few key differences:

#1 Kid Swap
It was Seamus' turn to go ice fishing with Daddy.  Alistair and I visited for lunch and so I could catch one fish but then we quickly vacated the premises so as to not encroach on Seamus' solo time with his Papa.

#2 Ian admitted that he is actually feeling "fished out".  Wonders never cease.  He is headed back to the grind tomorrow and will have much less time for ice fishing so I am glad to hear that he got his fill of it during the past month.

#3 Superbowl Bonding
Liam and Seamus were thrilled to be "old enough" to stay up and watch the first half of the game.  They asked Ian a million questions about football and were hanging on his every word.

What can I say?  There is just something so special about the bond between boys and their daddies.  My three little cubs are so lucky to have Ian as their big Papa bear.

Liam & Daddy's Fishing Day

Blog and Photos by Liam (and Daddy with help from Mama)

Today Daddy and I went fishing on Muskrat Lake.  It was a very good time.

We started by putting the ice shack up and drilling six holes.  Daddy drilled and I supervised.  I shovelled the snow out of the ice shack.  My kid shovel broke.

We used real worms as bait.  Daddy tried using pretend bait but switched to real worms. Also, his hook was too light.

I caught two fish all by myself and Daddy caught the rest.  I had a third whopper on the line but lost him at the hole.  Daddy lost one too.  He shoved his hand down the hole in the freezing cold water but the fish was too fast.

We ate lots of junk food.  It was great!

When we were packing up, we met a nice fisherman who had caught lots of fish today.  He told us that one day he was out on the lake for four hours and he was able to catch 200 fish!  Today he caught 60 and he gave them to us!

On the drive home I was a little bit tired.

When we got home, we cleaned all the fish.  Seamus loved cleaning them!  They made our house smell like a lake.

Fish guts!

Today was a very fun day with my Daddy.