Poser

Adara has developed quite a penchant for posing for pictures lately. Here's some of my favourites. I have a feeling that the "poser" may become a regular feature here!

Well, we are there far too quickly: Adara's first day of school. On a lovely, far too sunny september 9th morning we made the trek half a block over to school and still managed to arrive just in time!

Last night Adara suddenly decided to wear the mermaid dress that we'd had made for her instead of her ratty old dinosaur tshirt. I'm convinced that she did it to please me even though I said nothing about the dino tshirt being ratty.

This morning she wanted to know if she wore her shoes in the school or not and if that was "rude". Obviously she's been thinking about it. With a new backpack and lunch bag and an applesauce for snack, she was off. I can't help but feel that this is the beginning of it all. Dramatic, I know, but the beginning of all choices and chances and opportunities in life. However, she's just happy that they have trucks and a play kitchen to play with. Kristen, this one was a big one, it'd better be in my blurb book at Christmas, that's all I'm saying!

Here's a couple of shots from our camping adventure the last week in august.
We all took the week off and headed to Highland Pines near Fergus, ON. We rented a wee cabin with no plumbing or anything to protect us from any rain, provide us with real beds and shelves to keep things tidy and easy to get at. It was pretty awesome, and thank heavens we were in a cabin as we had one evening and night of torrential rain, high winds, and three tornados circling us. No harm came to anyone but it was a wild night. We made two new little friends, Rachel and Brodie and their mom Jen out camping. So, the night of the tornados we had them, plus my sister and Liam, plus our friends Pablo, Carrie and their two little girls in two little huts. Quite a night, but I'm glad that we were all together.
Otherwise we spent the week looking out over an idyllic lake, swimming in the pool and playing in the playground. The only thing missing was a wee place to get coffee and tea. Making that over a campstove is time consuming!

Gluten free victory

The other day Adara and I visited a friends house where they were making muffins. I was feeling bad that between her nut allergy and Len's wheat sensitivity, I couldn't easily do the same for her.
So, with the help of the internet, several substitutions for what was on hand and a bit of ingenuity, I bring you

MY VERY FIRST WHEAT FREE, NUT FREE BANANA MUFFINS! TA DA
Beat two eggs until frothy, add 1/3 cup olive oil, 2 previously frozen bananas (sweeter this way!)\, 3/4 cup brown sugar and tsp vanilla

Mix together

Then Add 1/2 cup rice flour, 1 and 1/2 cups corn flour, 11/4 tbsp baking powder, 1 tbsp pumpkin spice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste) and 1tsp salt

We baked them in a cupcake pan for 22 minutes at 350 degrees F

I am inordinately proud of myself as I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed about baking for wheat free and nut free. But now, I am off and running 'cause those muffins were darn good! Even my dad would have eaten them!

The New Dress

Here's Adara's new dress made by an old highschool friend who I recently got back in contact with. Adara went online with me and chose the two fabrics for a dress. She's suddenly gotten dress crazy and we only had three, so the situation had to be rectified immediately!