Maple Leaf Mommy

When I was in grade school, we used to make sugar cookies and hang them on our Christmas tree.  I thought it would be a fun tradition to revive with my kids. Since I hadn't made these in like twenty-five years I decided a practice run was in order.

 I had a fun evening with G-Girl making cookies.  We used some very vintage cookie cutters that belonged to my husband when he was little.  The Easter rabbits and Noah's Ark themed critters were cute, and added an extra element of fun to the cookie cutting, but I think when I make these for the tree I will just use a water glass and make round ornament style cookies.

Cool vintage cookie cutters.

My very ancient, very tattered, recipe.

This recipe is VERY easy. Quite idiot proof.  Which is great, because a baker I am not.  (For example, we had already mixed the dough when I came to the realization that I don't actually own a rolling pin!) 

Aside from discovering that I need to buy a rolling pin, I figured out a couple of important things on this trial run:
1) It makes about three trays of cookies.
2)They pretty much stay the same size once cooked. They don't plump out much on the edges, so you don't need to leave much space between cookies.  You can really pack them onto the sheet.
3)I'm usually big on fresh warm from the oven bake goods, but I actually think these taste better once they've cooled off.
4)I made about half the cookies with my girl last night, refrigerated the dough overnight and then finished baking them this morning.  Bad idea.  The ones I baked when the dough was "fresh" tasted noticeably better.

The first batch, raw and cooked (minus a few we immediately gobbled up).

Here's the recipe...
I'm going to copy it word for word from the very old very faded original.

Tree Treats

These holiday cookies are extra special because they are easy to make, fun to decorate, delicious to eat and - they make terrific tree ornaments.

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
a pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients together.

Roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter or a drinking glass to cut out shapes.

Carefully poke a hole the size of a pencil near the top of each cookie.  Thread a coloured string through each hole.

Use raisins, chocolate chips, nuts or cherries for decoration.

Bake in a 350°F oven for 7-10 minutes.

Let cool.  Add the names or initials of your family and friends in coloured icing.  Tie the strings and you're ready to hang up your cookies.

I'm so excited to announce that Little Cool Toys is going to be one of my sponsors for the upcoming Holiday Hop!

Little Cool Toys is a small Canadian retailer from Quebec. Their website features an awesome line up of natural toys.  We're talking classical, eco friendly, handmade toys.  The sort that are powered by your child's imagination, rather then batteries.

I love their slogan, "Toys Worth Keeping".  The items they carry truly look like the type that will stand up to many hours of play.  The sort of toys you hand down from one child to the next, and then set aside for your grandkids.

Browsing through Little Cool Toys website makes me so sad that I've already finished my Christmas shopping for my girls. They have so many unique and beautiful items that you simply are not going to find at large chains.  And their stuff is SO reasonably priced!  Particularly when you realize that many of the toys they carry are imported from Europe.

Take a look at their site and you'll find an amazing assortment of great educational toys, beautiful wooden toys, eco-friendly toys made of organic and recycled materials, natural crayons, creative craft ideas, organic soft dolls and unique handmade plush toys. 






If you're looking for a few more cool items to tuck under the tree, be sure to check out Little Cool Toys.  They've even extended their return policy for holiday shopping, there's still plenty of time to ship for Christmas, and they offer free shipping on orders over $100.

If you want to be the first to know about sales, new products, and other updates,  head over and join their new facebook page.

And be sure to check back here on December 1st for your chance to win a Little Cool Toys gift certificate.

I’m so excited to announce that I'm in the spotlight over at Mommy Moment today! Thank you so much guys for choosing to feature my blog this weekend and welcome to anyone who is stopping by for a visit.

Be sure to check out the awesome sponsors I have lined up for the Holiday Gift Giveaway Hop, and check back in on Wednesday to enter for your chance to win some cool gift cards and a wee bit of Paypal cash.

A while back someone wrote asking me to write about my experiences with weaning.  It took me two months to finally finish writing this post, but here it is...
 
It was always my intention to nurse G-Girl for “a minimum of two years”.   The American Pediatrics Association suggests one year minimum, while the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests two.  Dairy allergies run in my family and I had been told by the local La Leche League leader that if I was to hold off on introducing dairy until she was two it would increase her odds of not being allergic

All of these were great excuses to offer to inquiring friends and family, but the real reason was it just felt right. And having read up on breast feeding, I knew how important it was, in so many ways. Then we reached her second birthday, and I realized that everyone expected me to stop nursing her.  Despite the added pressure I was feeling, I was still in no hurry.

When she turned two I started cutting out her first thing in the morning nurse. Distraction was my main technique, that and an earlier breakfast. After that we just sort of gradually fell into a pattern where she was only nursing twice a day, just before naptime and just before bedtime.

I nursed throughout my pregnancy and I was prepared to tandem nurse.  I had read up about it. I had gone to La Leche Legue meetings to ask questions (For instance did you know your breast can tell the difference in the sucking of a newborn and a toddler and dispenses different milk to each?)

As I got further along in the pregnancy it wasn’t always comfortable to sit with a twenty-some pound toddler on my lap for 20-40 minutes at a time.  We often ended up lying down in my bed to nurse.  Once she was done I would scoop her up and carry her to her crib, or if she was awake I would ask her if she wanted to walk or be carried. Then near the very end of my pregnancy it became, "Ok kiddo you have to walk to your crib and I’ll lift you in."

She became more interested in getting the perfect set-up to nurse lying down.  She would squirm around trying to find just the right angle to both hold my hair and nurse.  She would spend five maddening minutes wiggling around getting set up.  Then she would nurse for thirty seconds or maybe a minute tops, and then say, "All done.  Now it’s snuggle time!" 

She was obviously growing more interested in the snuggles that went along with nursing, then the act of nursing itself.  I have heard that as you get further along in your pregnancy the taste can change and be off-putting to some babes.  Maybe that’s why she was nursing less and less.  Or maybe it was just her time to wean.

One week before the new babe was born we moved G-Girl from her crib to a "big girl bed".   She had already slept several times in a big bed when staying overnight at her grandparents.  She had a new bedtime routine in mind.  She didn't want to nurse before bed.  She just wanted to read a book and be tucked in.  I was a little surprised, but I was also incredibly tired and focused on the soon to be new babe, so I didn't fight it.

I assumed that once the baby was born and she saw me nursing her little sister she'd want in on the action.   She surprised me again. Though she did ask to nurse a handful of times after Baby-G was born, each time she'd latch on and then ten seconds later beam up at me and say "All done!".  I think it was more about wanting to know if I would still let her nurse, then actually wanting to drink milk.

Weaning? Like so many things in this household, it just sort of happened.  When G-Girl weaned herself she was about 2 years 7 months old. Though the final decision to completely stop felt abrupt, overall it was relatively gradual and she came to it in her own way and in her own time.

When I started did I think I would nurse for 31 months? No. I just had a stubborn goal of two years in my mind.  No matter how long you nurse your wee ones I think the main thing is to wean slowly and let your child help lead the way. It just seems ridiculous  to me to abruptly go from nursing all the time to not at all, merely because you reached a specific date. Whether that be six months, or one year, or two.

So what's the story at your place?  How long did you nurse for?  Did you initiate weaning or did your child? Were you sorry it was over, or relieved to be done?

I'm excited to announce that Giving Gifts is going to be one of my sponsors for the upcoming Holiday Hop!

Giving Gifts is a small Canadian retailer based out of British Columbia. They carry an awesome assortment of unique eco-friendly, fair trade products. They are the perfect spot to go hunting for that perfect holiday gift. They of course will ship your gift directly to the recipient, and they also offer gift notes printed on an Ecojot 100% recycled paper gift card --for free!

You might remember that I won a Blabla doll from Giving Gifts a while back.  I wanted to follow up and say that Lee Lee Plum is still a big hit at my house. My daughter remains quite enamored with her doll, who is holding up quite nicely to the love and attention she's been receiving.  I would definitely recommend picking up a Blabla doll.  The wool is soooo soft. And even with baby sister stealing her for a chew or two, Ms. Plum still looks like new.

Giving Gifts' online shop ships worldwide.  They have very reasonable shipping rates; flat rate of $5 within Canada and $10 to the USA.  It states on their website that your order will be shipped "often on the same day you place your order and always within 48 hour" and they mean it.  I was floored by how quickly I received my order!

As a mom with little ones I can't help but fixate on their toy selection, full of goodies from companies like  Sprig, ImagiPLAY and Plan Toys, but they also carry sketch books, lunch boxes, all natural arts and crafts supplies, back packs, and much more.

They have so many awesome things on their website!






You really need to go and take a look around and see all of the cool Eco-friendly stuff they have assembled into one place.

You can feel great knowing that every gift you purchase at Giving Gifts:
- is eco-friendly
- is fair trade
- helps to support a Canadian small retailer
- helps support charity
(With every purchase Giving Gifts makes a donation to Carli's Kids help build the new Abetavu Children's Village.)

Sign up for their newsletter to get subscriber only coupons, and be the first to know about sales and new products!

And be sure to check back here on December 1st for your chance to win a Giving Gifts gift certificate.

My daughter has been dreaming about swimming in the ocean blue with her wolfie friend. (Trust me, a pretend wolf who likes the ocean and can turn into other animals isn't even that odd compared to some of her other imaginary friends. Like for example the mean dust bunny in a top hat she used to hang out with.)

Yesterday I was working in the kitchen and she was sitting at the dining room table scribbling and providing her usual running commentary.  "Wolfie and I are pretending to be jelly fishes.  I'm drawing us swimming... with bubbles! moving in the water, waves, hair (?), fishes, lots of fishes, and jelly jelly jelly fishes!"

Lately G-Girl has regressed in her drawing skills and taken up with the Humpty Dumpty school of art. "When I draw a scribble it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.", to paraphrase Lewis Carrol.

For example, according to my budding artist this is fishes moving and swimming in the ocean blue.


So when she presented her picture to me, proudly pointing out how the fishes only had one eye, I was a little surprised to find something rather resembling jelly fish.

 

Shh... the artist is sleeping....

You know I love Canadian small retailers, right?  Jilly Bo Billy Boutique is a home-based company from British Columbia that specializes in high end designer baby and kid clothes, all at discount prices.  They carry boutique brands like Misha Lulu, Oilily, Room Seven, Decaf Plush, Punkin, Kumquat, Right Bank Babies, Lillybee and more.

One of my favourite parts of the store is the $0.99 Deal Of The Day, where they offer a new item each day.  You need to check back each day to see what the new super deal is. Over the past two months I have seen so many awesome things offered for only 99cents!

I’m VERY excited about the Black Friday sale they have on right now. Everything is 50-80% off! That's in addition to their already discount prices.  They are also offering FREE shipping until Christmas for both Canada and US.  You can snag some really great deals right now.





Let's see... Canadian, so I don't have to worry about customs, free shipping, big sale, seems like a no-brainer to me! I just placed an order for some lovely Christmas gifts for my girls and the check-out process was seamless.  I love stores that let you pay with PayPal!

I'm always blown away by small companies that can do it right.  Jilly Bo Billy Boutique has a big store feel to it, and the sort of great deals you expect from a large retailer, with the customer service that you can only get from a small store.  Plus I get that happy I just supported a Canadian small business feeling.

Head over to Jilly Bo Billy Boutique and pick up your own Christmas goodies. The Black Friday sale ends Sat. Nov 27 at midnight PST.

Quick Poll...
What would you rather win, cash via PayPal or an Amazon giftcard?

I'm trying to decide which to giveaway during the upcoming Holiday Hop.

Let me know which you'd prefer...

Congratulations Jessie, lucky comment number 80 of 111, you have won the crayon roll. I will be e-mailing you shortly.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered and thanks to Chantel at My Sunshine Designs for letting me host this cool giveaway.

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of Canada Post's Santa letter writing service... You know, your kid writes a letter to Santa, you drop it in a post box and Santa (aka a Canada Post volunteer) writes back FOR FREE. 

Well just a heads up that it's started.

If you visit Santa's Corner at the Canada Post website you can create your own holiday stationary to write your letter on.

And yes, it's 100% free. You don't even need to put a stamp on the envelope!

G-Girl's  regular hand-me-down Sesame Street  bedspread is currently in the wash.  I gave her my couch throw as a substitute blanket.  It's a sort of blue fuzzy woolie thing with a wolf on it.  It really sparked off her imagination.  Apparently the giant wolf on the blanket, accompanies her on her dream time adventures. 

The conversation we had this morning went something like this:
Me: Your hair is a real mess this morning! Here let me fix your part.
G-Girl: That's 'cause wolfie and I were going crazy in the ocean last night!
I was moving all around and swimming and going crazy!  That's why my hair's a mess.
We had webbed feet and fish tails!
And wolfie was swimming and changing into all different kinds of animals.
She (wolfie) changes into a bear, a wolf, and a fish... and she goes CRAZY with me in the ocean.

This was followed by an arm thrashing dance to display just how they go crazy.

I think I must have had some sort of dumbfounded look on my face because she stopped, got dead serious and asked, "Is that ok?"

I gave her a giant hug and told her it was definitely ok. That it was more then just ok, it was great!

I  love my girl's imagination.

Just wanted to give anyone shopping for little ones a heads up.   Right now Winner's is having a giant toy blow out. It's a great chance to do some Christmas shopping. This past weekend we had Grandma watch the kids and we went to all three Winners' locations in Windsor. Based on discussions my husband has had with some of his gaming friends online, I believe you'll find the same stuff across Canada.

Now normally Winners has a small but interesting toy section, full of various discounted toys and children's books. With Christmas coming up they have expanded the Toy section considerably.  There were tables set out to accommodate all the extra loot.  Each store had about 6-8 extra tables set out.

Here's what they had:

• Massive amounts of Playmobil, up to 50% off of the original prices.  Dinosaurs, fairies, zoo creatures, circus sets, Victorian furniture, advent calendars and more.  Everything from small two or three character sets, to the giant ones which normally retail for $100 and up (now for $50!).

• They also had the Playmobil 123, which is suggested for ages 1 1/2 and up.  They had several different 3D puzzles and a playhouse set.

• Disney princess merchandise, Snow White Barbie Dolls, that sort of thing.  As well as Disney Tinkerbell stuff.

• A large board game selection, Cariboo, Eregon board game, a few different Twilight board games, World of Warcraft Adventure Game, Trivial Pursuit, variants on Kerplunk, The Game of Life, and lots more.

• Thomas and his Friends!   Wooden trains, talking railway speech recognition trains, and the "Take-Along" stuff.

• An assortment of Star Wars merchandise, including the toddler friendly Galactic Heroes stuff.

• A large selection of children's DVD all priced around 4.99-6.99. Blue's Room, Big Comfy Couch, Doodlebops, Bob the Builder, Sesame Street, and lots more. (These were located by the checkout at all three stores, so look in that area)

• Rose Petal Place Sink, Stove, Table and Chairs set, nursery accessories, birthday set.

• Some Melissa and Doug stuff.  Wooden puzzles, alphabet blocks, etc.

• Some GI Joe and other action figures.

And tons more. Sorry I can't remember it all. I guess I should have been taking notes.  I've only mentioned the items they had multiples of.   Personally, I was pretty excited about the Playmobil!

We picked  up:
Playmobil pirate themed advent calendar for $9.99.  
Eric Carle Colorforms basic shapes set $5.99
Playmobil 123  House Playset $9.99
Star Wars Galactic Heroes Hoth Snowspeeder Assault $14.99
Playmobil Fairy Tale playset - Hansel & Gretel $9.99
Cherry Blossom Market Produce Stand $5
Doodlebops Happy Holidays $4.99
3 different volumes of Big Comfy Couch, $4.99 each.
Blue's Clues: Blue's First Holiday $6.99


There's some awesome deals to be had, so I wanted to spread the word.
Let me know if you snag anything good!

As a stay at home mom, one of the things I find myself constantly pondering is where does the time go?  I often feel the need to justify to others what exactly I did all day.  I had a bit of an epiphany this week when I came to the realization that I spend six to eight hours a day feeding my children.  This is not an exaggeration.  I'm not even counting the time spent preparing meals.  This is simply the amount of time I spend each and every day feeding them.

First the baby nurses about 8 times a day. And she's in no hurry.  Sometimes she takes ten minutes, but more often she takes forty minutes or more.  I think half  an hour per feeding would be a reasonable low end estimate.  So there's four hours out of my day. Now, I'm not complaining.   I enjoy nursing.  It's a quiet cuddly time when no demands are made on me. But it does account for upwards of four hours out of my day/night.

Then the preschooler eats like a snail, and will only eat if I am watching her.  If I get up and try and leave her alone at the dining table she will either whine and say "But I get lonesome!", or claim that she's full and she's done, no matter how little she's eaten.  Therefore I'm often trapped at the dining room table watching her eat.  She normally takes 45 minutes to an hour to eat each meal. Hell sometimes it's more like an hour and a half. I know I'm lucky in that she's not really a picky eater, but holy cow is she ever s-l-o-w.

Then there's the fact that the baby now eats solids.   I am still somewhat in disbelief that it can take 45 minutes to get one ice cube's worth of food into her tummy. If I'm lucky it works out that she's in the highchair and eating at the same time as her sister, but for various reasons it doesn't always work that way.

So there's six to eight hours out of my day accounted for, and I think that's a low-ball estimate. If I add in the time I spend cooking, not to mention getting snacks and filling sippy cups, it's probably more like eight to ten hours out of each day.  If before I had them someone had told me I would spend that kind of time just feeding my kids I would have thought they were crazy.

So how's that measure up to what goes on at your place?  Have you found any surprises in what you spend your mommy time on?

What is the Holiday Gift Giveaway Hop?

It's a five day long blog hop giveaway extravaganza.  The theme is giftcards and cash (think PayPal) to help out with your Holiday spending.  Every blog that takes part will be hosting a cash or giftcard giveaway, and there are over 200 blogs participating.  That's a heck of a lot of chances to win.  The giveaways will open on December 1st and close on the 5th. You might want to start planning now.  Book some free time to be on the computer.  Send the kids to grandmas... there's over 200 giveaways to enter!



I'm going to be taking part and I have some exciting giveaways lined up.  Keep an eye out for my upcoming sponsor announcement!

My husband has a credit card with TD Canada Trust.   They have been calling here almost every day for the last four weeks or so.  I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that they have called here 20 or 30 times!  They called TWICE today.  When they call, my husband is not home and they won't leave a message with me.  They tell me, It's nothing to worry about, simply a courtesy call.  No, I can't be placed on the do not call list, because my husband is their customer and they have the right to call him.  They call at ten in the morning and at two in the afternoon.  They wake my bleeping children when they are napping.  It is making me extremely irate!

They will not leave a message with me, they can not provide me with a number for him to call, and they won't bloody stop calling.  I have told them that he is not home during the day and that they need to call after 4pm, only to have them call at 10 in the morning the very next day.  Yesterday they finally did call after 4pm... when he wasn't home.

Last week I lost it on some poor woman that was calling from a different company with a legitimate message.   She woke me from a nap. I could hear the baby, that had just woken up to the phone ringing, crying out.   She had a heavy accent and I thought she said she was with TD Canada Trust.  I yelled into the phone that they couldn't keep calling here like this, I really let her have it, and when I stopped to get my breath she loudly said, "Mamm, I am NOT with TD." Oh. Er. Sorry.

I got one of the many TD people I have spoken with to admit that they "just want to offer him a new service".  So basically they are calling here incessantly to try and sell him life insurance or something.

They did this same routine only two or three months back.  Calling here 20 or more times until they finally spoke to my husband, so he could say, "No thanks, not interested."

Now here's the kicker...   He never uses this card!  It's not even bleeping activated. He stopped using this card several years back when they raised the interest rates, and when they sent him the renewal card he didn't even bother to activate it.  

Any suggestions?  Cause I'm really fed up. Seriously. I could reach through the phone and kill someone.

FOLLOW UP:
Darryl from TD did something magical and made the phone calls stop. Hooray!

Congratulations to Kelly, lucky number 64 out of 151 entries and winner of the Domistyle Oven Mitts.
I'll be emailing you shortly.

Thanks so much to all who entered!

Every Tuesday night a group of friends come over to our place and we play D&D (Yes, I'm one of those geeks).  We start after dinner, once Baby-G is in bed.  We play down in the basement, by the TV area.  G-Girl gets to come downstairs and sit and watch TV while we play.  She thinks this is a treat.  She gets very excited about it each week.  Each day she asks me what day of the week it is, and when I respond Tuesday she says "Tuesday is roleplaying day!  The friends are coming over!" and then obsesses over it all day.

She doesn't get to watch TV that often, so she's usually pretty happy to sit there and watch Zoboomafoo or Blues Clues while we get things going.  Sometimes she's a bit silly, wanting to get attention from the other adults present, but overall it's usually not bad.  After about an hour, around 8pm, I head upstairs to put her to bed and the game continues without me for a bit.  When we started doing this I had reservations, but it seemed to work pretty well and freed us up to roleplay without a babysitter.

However, the last few weeks she has had major meltdowns each and every time when I tell her it's time to stop watching TV and head to bed.  She cries, she screams, she refuses to head up the stairs.  Last week I actually had to play the "I'm bigger then you" card, and bodily pick her up and carry her upstairs.   Now despite my occasional rants, she's usually a pretty good kid.  She's normally pretty affable and she doesn't tend to have tantrums.  Now put her in front of a group of people who seldom otherwise see her and she acts like a complete brat.  Not only is this annoying, it's also mortifying. I could just crawl under a rock and die.

She hasn't been acting out at any other time, just roleplaying nights.  I know part of it is because she has an audience.  I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do with her.   Telling her exactly what to expect, eg. you will watch one episode of x and then we are going upstairs, seems to help a bit. 

Anyroad, why am I writing about this?  I guess I just wanted to share my embarrassment.  What do your kids do that makes you want to hide?  How do you handle it?

A little while back I purchased a couple of items from an awesome Canadian home business; My Sunshine Designs.  I picked up a mini snuggle lovey, a mini crayon roll and a reusable sandwich bag and I was impressed with all three items.

My purse's new best friend the Mini Crayon Roll

The mini crayon roll fits four crayons. It is perfect for taking along a few crayons in my purse.  I was slightly concerned that the larger beginners crayons which G-Girl still prefers wouldn't fit in the roll, but they fit just fine.  I've been using it for about two weeks now and it's working out great.  Having them rolled up together keeps them from breaking into little pieces and the fabric from the roll stops the crayons from inadvertently scribbling on anything in my bag.

This was WAY cheap ($2.50!), and I'd recommend it to anyone.  The beauty of it is now that I'm always carrying crayons in my bag any blank piece of paper (like say the back of a paper menu) becomes an easy and instant distraction.  The mini-crayon roll is also available in bulk lots.  The more you buy the cheaper they get (As if the price wasn't already reasonable enough!?).  The discount is intended for children's party favours, but I'm thinking awesome cheap Christmas gift for every kid I know.

Baby-G enjoying her Snuggle Lovey

I also purchased a snuggle lovey mini. It's a little square (6" by 6") with soft minky fabric on one side.  Around the edges are spaced tiny ribbon tags.    Both of my daughters were instantly enchanted with it.  The plastic ring included is perfect for hooking it onto the handle on the baby's car seat.  The ribbons are stitched four times, so no need to worry about them coming loose. The ribbon ends are heat sealed (chemical free) to prevent fraying. It is adorable. High quality, really well made, and so very soft.  I had some reservations about how this was going to hold up as Baby-G is a serious chewer.  She has played with it fairly constantly over the past few weeks and it still looks like the day it arrived. I didn't anticipate the 3year old being interested in it. My only complaint with it has been that the big one keeps stealing it from the little one!

Reuseable Sandwich Bag

The third item I bought was a sandwich sized reusable bag for my husband to use for his work lunches.  I was really impressed with the material used to line these bags (a sort of water resistant nylon), and I love that they are able to go in the washing machine.  I've been trying to move away from using so many plastic disposable bags.  My husband normally takes either one large bun type sandwich or two smaller bread sandwiches. He tried this bag out and his only complaint was that it wouldn't hold two sandwiches.  I emailed Chantel at My Sunshine Designs and she's making me a custom sized bag to match the medium sized Ziploc bags he normally uses. How cool is that?


A bit about My Sunshine Designs
My Sunshine Designs is a Canadian small business specializing in handmade baby and children's items. It's run by Chantel Hisko, a creative seamstress and work at home mom who lives near Ottawa.

What a Mini Snuggle Lovey looks like when not being drooled on.

My Sunshine Designs is a quality act from start to finish.  Chantel has been great to work with in email.  The items I received were all very well made, high quality stuff. The package when it arrived was beautifully wrapped, with a pretty custom seal holding it all together and a nice card with washing instructions on it.  Her prices are extremely reasonable. You could easily order something from her and have it shipped directly as a gift, knowing that they were going to receive something lovely that was lovingly packed.

All three of these items I ordered were inexpensive and would make perfect stocking stuffers.  I love that My Sunshine Designs is Canadian and that it's run by a work at home mom.   My Sunshine Designs also sells full sized crayon rolls, a full sized version of the snuggle lovey, snuggle squares (basically a stuffed version of the snuggle lovey), pacifier clips, hair clips, nursing pads, "sprinkle stoppers" (for changing little boy bums), pillow case dresses and aprons. Everything can be made to order in the fabric of your choice and the  fabric choices are fantastic.


Want to buy it?
Head over to My Sunshine Designs to pick up some holiday goodies.  She even has a sale on right now; take 15% off your order of $25 or more with the code: NovSale.  Just be sure to place  your Christmas orders by December 1st to allow time for shipping.

---

I contacted Chantel and asked her if she'd be interested in offering a giveaway for my readers and she said yes.  So I'm very excited to be able to offer you a chance to win one of her awesome full-sized crayon rolls.

WIN IT: One lucky reader will win a full sized crayon roll in fabric of their choice.

MANDATORY ENTRY:
First, to win you have to be a follower. Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect.
Then head over to My Sunshine Designs and take a look at her fantastic stuff. Find your favourite item and come back here and tell me about it in a comment on this post.
Please do this first or your other entries won't count. 

BONUS ENTRIES:
You can do as many of the following bonus entries as you choose. 

- Like My Sunshine Designs on facebook, and leave a comment here on this blog post..

- Like Maple Leaf Mommy on facebook, and leave a comment here on this blog post..

- Subscribe to my blog via email, and leave a comment here on this blog post.

- Grab my blog button on the left and comment telling me where you placed it.

- Follow me on Twitter and tweet " Win a crayon roll from My Sunshine Designs in your choice of custom fabric! http://bit.ly/bRON9P @mapleleafmommy #win #giveaway "  then leave a comment here with a link to your tweet.

Remember, one comment per entry.  The comment IS your entry.  I will be drawing a random number (via random.org), and the corresponding comment number will be the winner.

GIVEAWAY RULES
This Giveaway ends on Monday November 22nd at 9pm EST. Winner will be chosen using Random.org and will have 48 hours to respond to my e-mail before a new name is drawn. US and Canadian residents only.

Please be sure to include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you then you can't win!  

Here's a few more of the mom things I never expected to find myself saying:

Why do you have shoes on? We're not going anywhere. Please take them off. Yes, they do make lots of loud thunky noises. No, that is not a good reason for leaving them on.

Don't just stand there and tell me you're going pee, do something about it!

Your fork doesn't go in your belly button.

Yes, it IS okay to howl like a wolf, just not while you're eating.

If it's been on your shoe you can't eat it!

No I'm not putting that lollipop in the fridge to save it for later.

No monster noises at the dining room table!

Just let me know when the pretend penguins/cheetahs/Dorothys get here and I'll set out their tea.

Even if there is a pretend giraffe in the hallway, it's ok, because giraffes are NOT  vicious creatures. No it's not going to attack and eat you and all your little mouse friends.

In this case your pretend mousies would happen to be wrong.  Mommy knows more then a pretend mouse.

When I was 4 years old we went to visit relatives in Florida and my Great Aunt Eve gifted me with an antique child's manikin named Heidi.  Heidi came dressed in a little red fur trimmed cape with matching skirt.  I have no clue exactly how old she is, but I was told she was "an antique" when I was given her over thirty years ago.

That year for Halloween I borrowed Heidi's outfit and went out as Little Red Ridinghood and a few years later my little sister did the same.


Now this year it was my daughter's turn .  Here she is posing with Heidi. Yes, I still have the doll. She has traveled with me over the years, and suffered some abuses along the way, but is still in pretty good shape.

My first experiences with loss...
When I was in grade three we gave away Tina, the cat which I had won in a potato sack race when I was three.  I had developed allergies, and was allergic to cat dander. Tina hadn't adjusted well to life in the city.  She never seemed happy after we moved and had taken to shredding her claws on windowsills and furniture.   My parents spent some time trying to find a home for her.  She ended up going to one of the guys that worked with my dad, Carry.  We used to refer to him as the zookeeper, because had a cockatiel, a cat and several large lizards. Visiting his house was a treat.  Tina didn't end up staying at Carry's house though.  She didn't fit in with his other animals.  She ended up being given away to some other stranger, and living on a farm out in the county. I never saw her again.  My eight year old heart was broken.  In my letter to Santa that year I asked for just one gift, my cat back.

That same year my great grandmother, my Pip's mom,  passed away.  She had lived within walking distance of our house, but on the other side of the railroad tracks.  We lived on a deadend with the railway at the end of the road.  I remember my mother deciding if we would go visit my Grand Mimi Rose based on whether or not their were trains parked blocking us from crossing the tracks (because sensibly she forbade us from ever climbing on the stationary trains  --a stupid trick I was to perform many times when I was older).  I have fond memories of visiting her, and I still have some of the little china knickknacks she gifted me with.   She had waist length bone white hair, in a braid, hidden under her wig.  I thought her hair was beautiful and never understood why she wore a wig. When she passed away I remember feeling so guilty. I thought I should feel more upset then I did.  And I remember thinking about losing my cat to summon up tears on demand, the tears I felt I owed Grand Mimi Rose.  When they were parceling out her estate, we were sent a box of old Christmas ornaments, some of which I still have. They are cheesy, old and plastic and I have to defend their existence to my husband each year,  For some odd reason, included in the box was one of her wigs. I guess someone thought we would use it to play dress-up? It terrified me.  My little brother used to torment me by sneaking up and tossing the wig at me, to hear me shriek.

My brother and I lounging in Florida, January 1984.

Christmas at our house...
Christmas eve we would spend at my grandma and papa's house. My Aunt and Uncle would be there with their two boys. We would have a big traditional turkey dinner.  An eight foot folding table would be set up in the middle of the front room to accommodate the adults, and the kids would sit at a separate card table.  After dinner one of the adults would take all of us kids into one of the back bedrooms and tell us stories and try and keep us occupied, while Santa would come to the back door.  I don't remember ever falling for this one.  "Santa" would bring presents for each kid (which were really bought by my grandparents) and stockings full of walnuts and oranges.  I love my grandmother dearly, but she bought us the WORST toys.  Always cheap knockoffs.  Which was basically why I refused to believe Santa himself had anything to do with this racket.

Christmas morning we would wake up before our parents and run out and check out the presents.  There would be a new colouring book waiting for each of us, usually Christmas themed, and a new box of giant crayons to share.  We were allowed to look at the wrapped presents and guess their contents, and sit and colour until my parents woke up.  We each received three "toy" presents from Santa.  Normally one big thing, and then two small ones.  From our parents we got socks, underwear, clothes.  At some point, I think it was around grade two or three my dad complained that Santa got all the good PR and insisted on adding a toy from mom and dad to the mix.  We had stockings that Santa filled with tiny cheap things (mostly somewhat practical; like combs, perfume, etc) and more tangerines and walnuts.

In grade three my parents went all out and made me a dollhouse from scratch. It was about four feet tall and sort of  looked like  a pantry cupboard.  When you opened the doors there were three Barbie sized floors inside.  90% of the furnishings were hand made.  It was amazing.  There was a tiny wooden jewelry box on Barbie's bedroom dresser and inside it was a tiny paper envelope which actually had a wee letter letter from Ken inside it.  Truly only elves could have made this!

My little sister on Christmas Day 1983, with my awesome dollhouse in the background.

I still have this dollhouse.  When I moved into my first apartment I stored all the minis in a box and used the "cupboard" to store towels and such.  Later when we moved into our house and had more space I was really pleased to be able to set it up as a dollhouse again. It's currently tucked away in a corner of our dining room.   I never open it and my daughter has no clue what's inside.  I intend to keep it that way until she is at least five.

My love of reading...
My mom brought us to the library frequently. She often read chapter books out loud to me.  In particular I remember her reading the Oz books (which I'm now reading to my little girl).  By grade three I was taking chapter books out from the library on a regular basis to read by myself.  I remember loving the Little House series, The Borrowers books, and anything by Andre Norton.

I had a run in the grade school Librarian, Mr. O.  He caught me checking out a chapter book and had a fit.  He and my teacher both insisted that I take out only the books which were on the bottom shelf running 'round the library, the picture books.  In particular I remember them trying to sell me on the Lorax.  It ended with my mother in conference with the principal insisting that I be allowed to take home whatever books I wanted.

I remember the particular book that I was trying to take out that day, and that I later won the right to read: The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien (Better known for writing the book which was to become the basis for The Secret of NIMH movie).  It was a story about a girl who wakes up on her birthday to find a silver crown on her bedstand.  She goes out for a walk, and comes home to find her house has been destroyed. Bad guys are searching for her, they want the crown which was "magical/sci-fi" properties.  She ends up hooking up with a woodsy lad and living off the land.  They eventual save a bunch of other kids that are being used as slaves by the bad guys. That image of the two kids hiding in the woods was to stay with me and play a prominent role in my daydreams.  I would constantly fantasize about running away, camping under the stars and living off of berries.

Noisy Toys and Space Age Vampires...
My Dad and his sister would compete each year to see who could buy their children the most noisy and annoying toy.  She gave my brother a Buck Rogers space ship which lit up and made lots of "phew-phew" laser shooting noises.  I remember creeping into my parents bedroom and placing the spaceship directly above my dad's face and then turning it on to wake him up on Sunday morning.  Shortly thereafter that ship mysteriously disappeared.

I was obsessed with one particular episode from Buck Rodgers, concerning Space Age Vampires.  When filling out my "All About Me" book in school I answered pretty much every question with Space Age Vampire. What would you like to be when you grow up? "A space age vampire".  If you were president, what would you do? "See to it that there were more space age vampires". etc.  If I remember correctly my teacher was a little concerned and contacted my mother over it.  This year my husband bought me the complete series of Buck Rogers as an anniversary gift.  I have now rewatched this episode and it is absolutely horrible.  I have no clue what made me fixate on it as a kid.


This was in 1983-1984. Besides noisy space ships and dollhouse minis, some of my favourite toys to play with: were my Moppets Secret Dollhouse, Tree Tots Tree House and the Weebles Haunted Mansion.

A little while back I posted a giveaway for a very pink pair of oven mitts, in which I mentioned my aversion to all things pink.   I had a few people ask "Why don't you like pink?", and thought it warranted a response. You might want to close your eyes because I'm about to rant.

Hiking up my wedding gown to show off my matching blue laces.

I remember being in Grade Three and having the teacher tell us that pink is for girls, while blue is for boys. She then went around the class asking us what our favourite colour was.  While the boys all picked different shades as their favourite, the girls all dutifully chimed in "Pink", until she got to me.  I told her that my favourite colour was blue.  She tried to correct me.  I insisted it was blue.  She allowed that sometimes a pastel baby blue could be a nice colour, was that what I meant?  Embarrassed and confused I agreed that baby blue was my favourite colour, but in my heart I vowed that it was Navy.

Really, now as an adult, I don't have a favourite colour though I do tend to favour earth tones.   I did however get married in a navy blue wedding dress.  What can I say, I'm a bit of a rebel.

Colour Coding Our Children
As a mom one of the things that drives me nuts is the fact that people seem to think I'm obliged to dress my girls in pink.  I'm never offended when someone refers to my wee babe as a "What cute little boy.", but total strangers have gotten rather upset with me when they discover she is a girl. (Usually G-Girl chimes in with her sister's name and blows our cover.)   I even had a woman get upset with me over the fact that her blanket and bunting were brown (and this on a day when the baby actually WAS dressed in pink).  Why should I need to colour code my children for easy identification by strangers?

I was amused to read recently that pink used to be the colour for boys (and no I'm not talking those pink polo shirts that were popular in the 80's).  As late as the 1940s pink, a watered down pastel version of the masculine colour red, was deemed suitable for boys.  While blue, the colour associated with the Virgin Mary, was the appropriate colour for girls.

Victorian Valentine

You can read more about the history of colour coding North American children here.

Whatever Happened to Gender Neutral Toys?
My mom taught me that girls can play in the dirt and boys can play with dolls. (Thanks Mom!)  I was lucky to have a little brother, which meant there were plenty of trucks and construction toys around, but even before he was born my mom made sure that I had dinky cars and other "boy" toys to play with.  This was in the late 70s and the early 80s.  I thought by the time I had my own kids that gender stereotyping and segregation of toys would be a thing of the past.

One of the things that makes fire shoot out of my ears is this new trend in releasing "girl versions" of classic toys.  My baby's exosaucer is now available in a pink tea party themed version. Fisher Price has reissued classics such as their toy phone and  bubble lawn mower in bubblegum pink.   And there is even pink Lego (aka Belville.)  Come on!  Lego is the ultimate gender neutral toy.  Everyone loves Lego.  Why the heck do we need "girl" Lego?  Playmobil advent calendars now come in "boy" and "girl" varieties.   I have nothing against princesses, castles and unicorns.  I loved them as a kid.  But these pink fairy princess sets make me irate.  And don't even get me started on the "pink aisle" at Toys R Us. It makes me nauseous.

Sure, some of these are unique items that open up different choices to our kids.  Cool enough.  But why pink and girls only?I think I can let me daughter have the cool "boy" knight themed advent calendar without calling her femininity into question. I think she'll be okay if her toys don't come colour coded "pink for girls".

But I've seen pictures of your daughter and she's dressed in pink!
Despite my best efforts my daughter loves pink. I remember the Christmas that she was about a year and a half old. We were shopping for clothes at Winners while I was trying to interest her in a pair of blue and brown PJs covered in dragons she was reaching out and asking for every pink flowery item on of the rack.  My husband swears it's a female genetic disposition. (Which of course makes me growl).  She's three now and, barring a little nudging on special occasions, I let her dress herself. I think my family delights in tormenting me by buying my daughters the most violently pink clothes available.


But what about supporting breast cancer research?
My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor. My mom just took part in the Walk For a Cure, and I sponsored her. I think there are much better way to support breast cancer research then by buying pink.  The whole buy pink to support breast cancer thing is a money grab. Typically 10% or less of what you spend ends up supporting breast cancer research.

You can read up on it here:
Pinkwashing, Think Before You Pink
and here:
Profiting on Pink, Toddler Planet.

Does this look pink on me?
I was slightly dismayed to have someone point out that my blog is rather pink.  What do you think, does it look pink? I thought the background was more of an orange and red autumn colours sort of thing. I'm thinking the settings on my monitor may be off, as I didn't think those oven mitts were pink until they arrived at my home.

Overall, pink - meh,  it's just a colour.  I have a sister in law who loves pink, and she totally rocks it.  I really don't mind if you love pink.  I just hate being told that as a female I should be required to love pink, or anything else for that matter.

How about you? How do you feel about pink? or about gender specific toys?

G-Girl has been really excited about having pumpkin seeds.  The last thing she said to me when heading to bed last night was, "Mom you're going to cook those seeds while I'm sleeping, right?"

Yes, I know Halloween is over... but that just means that there are lots of  leftover pumpkins lurking around for dirt cheap.  Also, I'm fond of the smaller, sweeter, pie pumpkins which are to be found this time of year.  Time to hit the market!

1. Cut open and gut your gourd.

2. Separate seeds from the pumpkin goop.

3. In a bowl mix about a tablespoon of salt to two cups hot top water. Add the seeds and soak them for an hour or two. The seeds will float on top, no worries, they are soaking up the salty goodness.

4. Lay the seeds out in a single layer on wax paper and let them dry overnight.
(I know, it's hard to wait overnight but they really do taste ever so much better if you allow them to dry out.)


5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F
(I just flipped it over and reused the same sheet of wax paper)

6. In a small dish mix olive oil or melted butter with whatever seasoning you prefer
(Some suggestions: sugar, pumpkin spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, garlic salt, or a dash a cayenne --no not all together).

7. Toss the seeds in the dish and stir to coat.

8. Place seeds in single layer on lined baking tray.


9. Bake in 300 degree oven, stirring occasionally. Just wait until they start to smell fantastic and are just barely golden brown. (about 45 mins) then turn the oven off and let them stay in the oven another 45 mins or so.
 (I just turned the oven off and headed to bed and woke up today to toasted seed goodness!)

They should look nice and brown, like this.

You will need to adjust the amount of oil, depending on how many seeds your pumpkin yields.  1 tablespoon of oil to every cup worth of seeds should be about right.

Disappointingly our Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin didn't yield many seeds.  We ended up with less then half a cup worth.  Still well worth your time when you're going to be gutting the pumpkin anyway.

I love pumpkin seeds but find the store bought ones very chewy.  These were SO good. Not chewy at all. They just sort of crunch and dissolve in your mouth. I seriously can't wait to make more.  Now I just need to come up with something to do with the rest of the pumpkin.

The finished product.

---

Hey, did you know you can also toast the seeds found in other squash?  Like acorn and butternut, for example.

With the smaller seeds from squash cook them at a slightly lower temp (275 degrees) and bake for about 15 minutes, or until seeds start to pop.