family dinner

Taylor and I still haven’t gotten fully back into the swing of meal planning, but after A LOT of takeout & delivery + one meltdown (from me) about not having the time I needed to cook a poorly-planned meal that resulted in carrots being thrown down the hallway (also by me) we were like… we need to do this!! I also need to REALLY embrace the slow cooker more as sunnier days mean I’d rather spend the afternoons outside with the kids playing and gardening rather than slaving over the oven while they was too much Paw Patrol. Our current cooker is great but only holds 2 quarts so I think it’s time to get a bigger one. I’m leaning towards this model (good reviews and v v cheap, the larger model of our current one is OVER TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS wth) but if you have any recs I’d love to hear them!

Friday: okay this was last last Friday but I made chicken & pepper tacos for the family & my sister and they were GREAT. The only problem was not having enough so next time I’m going to ramp up the quantity! I used this recipe for the chicken and this recipe for the peppers, and topped them just with some fresh cilantro and cheese.

Sunday: rosemary garlic roast beef with Hasselback potatoes and grilled asparagus with lemon & parmesan. I bought a Hasselback potato frame? mold? thing to put the potatoes in while you cut them so these may happen more.

Monday: chicken with bacon & white wine sauce, served with fresh bread and spicy honey glazed carrots. This chicken takes FIVEEVER to make but it’s so good it’s worth it! The kids all liked the bread best though, which is like… quite the compliment because they DO NOT like any “weird breads.”

Wednesday: sweet & sour pork with rice. I left the carrots out of this dish because Nicky has… digestional issues if he eats to many, and was already suffering after Monday’s carrots. Overall it was good, the pork was DELICIOUS but the sauce was a little too sour and not quite enough sweet. I think if I made this again I’d decrease the amount of vinegar in the sauce and increase the sugar.

Friday: Pizza is back! I made two pizzas (pepperoni and goat cheese & basil) and they both turned out well in spite of a few snafus: I divided the dough too evenly (one of my cast iron pans makes a large and the other makes a medium but I cut the dough right in half without thinking), and I forgot to put sauce on one until AFTER I put on the cheese and the toppings! This is particularly embarrassing because I have clear rules about making pizza and the order in which to top them: sauce-cheese-toppings-cheese. However in spite of this they both turned out delicious.

a to zed

This afternoon I went to go put some art up in the playroom (the walls have been pretty bare after repainting) but I can’t find my alphabet poster. I still have the frame but the posted is who knows where. Luckily I still have all my old designs from my 2013 diy (I can’t believe it’s been FIVE years since I made this) so I quickly adjusted the colours to this pretty blue and ordered a new one from Staples. You can download this new version here, or check out the original post for other colours/styles.

five faves

Hey everyone, longtime (sort of?) no write. Something something blogger cliche about being busy, too busy to blog. I mean I guess I actually have; we are in the first week back at school after a very long spring break and it’s been hard to get back into our regular routine and I’ve undertaken a bunch of projects around the house that are really taking up a lot of my time. But I’ll get into that in another post; for now here’s a few faves for your Friday morning.

A friend posted this article on her instagram stories this morning; it’s an oldie but very fascinating to me because I love buying weird food at HomeSense (Canadian branch of TJ Maxx).

I haven’t bought a new bathing suit in a long time but I just got this two piece (top, bottom) and I’ve never had a high waisted bikini before but I kind of love it?


image via Zara

I don’t generally go for shirts with graphics of messages but this one really spoke to me.

I really want to get some of these INTENSELY CREEPY mother-of-pearl hands to use in a crystal tiara but they are a little pricey. I did buy some tiny golden skulls last weekend so we’ll see what I come up with.

Taylor and I have been watching Wild Wild Country on Netflix this week and if you haven’t yet, you should because it is BONKERS.