Recipe: French Toast Souffle

Hey mamas! Have you figured out what you're serving your man for Father's Day breakfast yet? My hubby appreciates a good breakfast -- especially when it involves french toast! Here's modern, make-ahead twist on your typical french toast breakfast that's certain to wow your man or any brunch guest!

French Toast Souffle

*Note: This souffle must sit overnight in the fridge

Ingredients:

10 cups of french bread cubes (about 1- 1&1/2 large loaves...not the long skinny ones!)

1 8oz package of low fat cream cheese, softened

8 large eggs, ideally room temperature (but not essential)

2 1/4 cups of 2% milk*

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

cinnamon/nutmeg, if you like

*some milk may be substituted for cream if you want an even richer texture

Directions:

1. Add bread cubes to a greased 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. Beat cream cheese at medium speed until smooth. Add room temperature eggs one at time, mixing well between each addition (if your eggs are room temperature, the cream cheese shouldn't become chunky -- although it really doesn't matter to the flavour of the dish). Add milk, maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon/nutmeg and mix until smooth.

3. Pour the milk mixture over the bread cubes; cover and place in the fridge overnight.

4. In the morning, take the souffle out of the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for around 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

5. Bake covered for 30 minutes in the preheated oven; uncover for additional 5-10 minutes until set and browned nicely on the top.

6. To serve, sprinkle with icing sugar. I also like to serve it with fresh fruit or fruit syrup.

How I make my fruit syrup:

In small saucepan, warm 1-2 cups of your favourite frozen fruit (I like a wildberry mix) on low heat. I sometimes add a few tablespoons of water to the sauce to smooth it out a bit. As the berries thaw and become soft, add granulated sugar, a tablespoon or two at a time, depending on how sweet and thick you want it! Keep stirring until the sauce thickens. Serve warm.

You can't go wrong with this yummy breakfast for your man!

Because the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,

♥ Dion

the reality of the pregnant woman's body...

OK warning: This is going to be a bit of a rant…

Did you hear about Kristi Gordon, the television meteorologist in Vancouver, who received hate mail about her pregnant body? It’s been trending all over social media the last few days. Disgusted moms everywhere have been clicking “share” when they encounter the story on Facebook. Basically, to sum it up, the hate mail consisted of how “fat” she was looking and how she should treat her unborn child with more respect by wearing looser fitting clothing -- I kid you not. Now, if you take a second to google her, you’ll see that she’s anything but fat, and is actually a pretty classy-looking lady. And she rocks her bump well!

Unfortunately, she gave these letters a bit of air time, which probably gave these haters some of the satisfaction they were looking for. And there’s no doubt that these comments come from a few rogue individuals who are HIGHLY ignorant. But, it got me thinking about the bigger problem behind her story -- The fact that a woman’s pregnant body is up for discussion in the first place.

We’ve all heard it. And we’ve all made the comments too (at least I have, prior to having my own children).

• Wow, she’s getting really big.
• She’s hardly even showing!
• That belly has really popped.
• She’s in maternity clothes already.
• She’s gained quite a bit of weight.

And so on, and so forth.

And the comments don’t always have a negative connotation--I’m sure sometimes the comments are meant well, or as a way to make conversation. And if the comments were things like, “you look so gorgeous!” well, I certainly wouldn’t complain about that!

But it seems like just because a woman is growing a baby inside her, all of a sudden her body is up for universal discussion. I. just. don’t. get. it.

Yes, it’s cool. It’s actually pretty freakin’ miraculous what the female body can do. We like to talk about cool, miraculous things.

But why all of a sudden is it socially acceptable to comment on a woman’s body?

I don’t talk about people’s beer bellies, or hair colour, or skin tone, or how poorly they might dress. I try my darndest to keep my mouth shut when I don’t have something nice to say.

And for this pregnant lady who has found her clothes not fitting quite right (I’m starting to show about six weeks earlier than I did in my last pregnancy), I don’t need nobody’s comments about how I’m getting bigger -- I figured that out when I couldn’t do up my dress pants one morning last week!

The reality is: pregnant women gain weight. A lot of it.

I am 5’2 and I gained thirty pounds last time. THIRTY POUNDS. It is honestly a scary thought that I will do it all over again. Yes, some moms gain less, but some gain more. It’s biology baby. Our bodies all respond differently to GROWING A HUMAN INSIDE. Not to mention a placenta. And the bajillion more litres of blood pulsing through our veins. Oh and the boobs preparing to MAKE the MILK to FEED the BABY. Not to mention the fact that you are hungry ALL THE TIME because your body is doing this, while keeping you alive AND going to work, cleaning the house, taking care of children, and so on… Wow. The female body is a beautiful, astounding thing. Even more so with this extra thirty pounds on it.

To all the Kristi Gordon’s out there, whose body has been up for discussion, rock that bump, and the extra weight, knowing you are doing a service to humanity. And to everyone else, don’t mess with a pregnant lady! Or at least not this one!

To beautiful bellies,

♥ Dion

EXCITING NEWS!

I don't know about you, but 2015 has been a BUSY year for our family! I've been working almost full time and our weekends always seem packed with family-fun activities. As a result, this blog has had some major neglect! (insert embarrassed face here!)

But, I've got some exciting news that will really impact my blog...

Yes, the rumours are true...

I'm preggo! Due early October!

A huge thanks to Amanda Cosby Photography for these cute announcement photos! We took these YESTERDAY and she had them ready to go for me last night! Be sure to check out her website and see her stunning maternity and newborn photos.

Ahh I am so excited to share each step of this pregnancy journey with my readers...all the fun and weird things pregnancy entails, not to mention the exhaustion and exhilaration that comes when a newborn enters the world! Oh and the transition from one kid to two -- oh my!

Don't miss a single post! Subscribe to my blog or like my facebook page.

Baby, baby, baby-O!

♥ Dion

The Valentine's Tree

OK -- so I’m pretty sure people think I’m certifiably crazy for putting up a Valentine’s tree! When I told some friends and family about my plan, there was a joke or two thrown around...like, what’s next Dion? A St. Patrick’s day tree? An Easter tree? Hahah. My response: don’t. tempt. me.

I guess I just feel that life is too short not to celebrate each holiday to its fullest AND I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s haters. You know, those who complain about how Valentine’s day was invented by card companies and that if you really love someone you should demonstrate it every day...blah. blah. blah. I just really don’t see the fault in setting aside a special day to press pause on life’s crazy treadmill and do something extra loving for your loved ones!

So, when I heard that my friend Devon put up a Valentine’s tree each year, I knew I was going to do the same one year--and this year was my year people.

It looks pretty cute, don’t ya think!?

So how’d I do it?  I kept an eye out during the Christmas season for heart ornaments, and found packages of five at Target (RIP Canadian Target!) for super cheap--I stocked up on these. Pier 1 is also a great place to look for Valentine’s decorations, but they are a little pricey, so I bought the cheapest ornaments I could find there and will start looking for deals closer to Feb. 14. And fortunately, the beautiful grey mercury glass heart ornaments I already had on my Christmas tree! I don’t think I spent more than $30 putting this tree together! Not bad if I must say so myself.

Here’s a summary of where I bought everything in this photo:

Heart ornaments & small bulbs - Target

Grey Mercury Glass Heart ornaments - Urban Barn

Light Pink and Dark Red ornaments - Pier 1

Heart Garland (on tree and mantle)- Target

Heart Wreath - Target

Gold “M” - Chapters/Indigo

Another great idea that Devon had was to create an ornament each year for each child with a tracing of their hand. I purchased (from Dollarama) glittery foam hearts, traced Gemma’s hand on the back of one, and let her go to town sticking more glittery hearts to the front. It fits perfectly with the jewel tones on the tree and makes a great sentimental piece!

I’d love to see pics of your Valentine’s decor! Tell me Devon and I are not alone in our Valentine’s day love!

To unashamedly having my tree up from November to February,
♥ Dion

Creating an Enriching Environment: Ba Ba Black Sheep

Gemma’s favourite diaper changing song is ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’; hardly a day goes by when she doesn’t want me to sing it to her or that I don’t hear her serenading it to her dollies. So when some friends offered to take us to their parents’ sheep farm to meet the new baby lambs, we jumped on the opportunity.

One of the best things about having a two-year old is seeing her face light up at every new experience. And as her parent, I want to make each day meaningful, encouraging her enthusiasm to learn and fully live life! Today was one of those really special days.

At the farm Gemma got to pet the little lambs and see lambs that were not even an hour old! She told us later that she liked how the sheep were “fluffy”! I didn’t even know she had that word in her vocabulary! With toddlers its easy to underestimate what they pick up by osmosis -- all the more reason to enrich their environments whenever possible!

If you’re looking for a similar activity to do with your kids, check out Fort Saskatchewan’s internationally acclaimed sheep grazing program. Our town has a flock of sheep who graze in the city’s parks each summer, keeping the grass trim. It’s always a highlight, bringing in families from all around to watch and interact with these fluffy guys! Click here for more information.

To little lambs and a little lady,

♥ Dion

How to: Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Excitement cut through the frigid Alberta air last weekend as we celebrated our sweet Gemma’s second birthday! In many ways celebrating her second year of life was more emotional than her first -- it felt like the first of, what will be many, leaps in our little girl’s life journey. We now have a toddler, and with the exception of her being in diapers, it seems as if there is little “baby” left.

Like many toddlers, Gemma is OBSESSED with all things Sesame Street, especially Elmo and Cookie Monster. So, a Sesame Street themed birthday party seemed fitting. I decided to tone things down from Gemma’s first birthday party (a Hawaiian Luau theme which basically took over our Christmas holidays that year!) and keep it simple.

The central component to her birthday were the cupcakes (of course! I LOVE to bake so naturally that’s where my focus was).

I went with these cookie monster cupcakes:

Cute hey!? The best part is, they were very simple.

What you need in addition to the obvious cake mix and liners:

• 
  

  blue gel paste food colouring

• white Merckens wafers
• black decorator’s icing tube
• piping bag with a medium sized star tip
• chocolate chip cookie dough or a box of cookies

Here’s the step by step to making these:

Step 1: Use your favourite recipe/boxed cake mix for the cupcakes (I must admit, I often use boxed mixes...they are pretty good!). Line your tins with greaseproof liners (I always order mine from etsy) so that the colour of the liner stays vibrant.

Step 2: Make your buttercream icing and colour it blue using gel paste food colouring. This is key! The type of food colouring from the grocery store will not give you the vibrant colour you need. I used the Duff brand (found at Michael’s) in electric blue, and toned the colour down a smidge using a TEENY TINY amount of black.

Step 3: When your cupcakes are thoroughly cooled (do not try to ice warm cupcakes or the icing will melt), use a star tip to pipe on Cookie’s fur. You basically plop one star on and another right beside it, going around the whole cupcake. Along the top half of the cupcake I added some more stars to give his face a more three-dimensional look. Be sure your icing is very cool (and not warming up inside the bag from the heat from your hands) so that the icing is firm. We want Cookie’s fur to look furry!

Step 4: Lay out enough white chocolate wafers (you can buy these at Bulk Barn) to make the number of eyes you need. Pipe on small circles using black icing (just buy a small tube from Bulk Barn). Pay attention to where you pipe the pupil so that Cookie will have the ‘googly’ eye effect. When the black icing is dry enough to transfer, place the eyes on the top of the cupcake.

Step 5: For the mouth, bake small cookies using Pillsbury dough. I made sure the cookies were small enough to fit Cookie’s mouth and I made sure they were very chocolate-chipy, sometimes adding extra chips to the dough. I cut ⅓ of the cookie off and placed the remaining ⅔ rds of it in Cookie’s mouth. This was a little tricky, so I ended up piping some icing on the hidden portion of the cookie to keep it in place. You could also buy packaged cookies to save time!

Step 6: Refrigerate or freeze immediately so that cookie stays in place! If you freeze your cupcakes, be sure to take them out of the freezer two hours before serving.

Some other ideas for her birthday were:

• Use the leftover cookie dough to make a giant cookie! I piped ‘Happy Birthday Gemma' since I couldn’t really do that on her cupcakes and it doubled as another centrepiece.

• Use Sesame Street wrapping paper to wrap presents. If the presents are large enough, they actually serve as decor for the party!

• Use your local party store supplies. It’s tempting to go all pinteresty for your kid’s birthday, but let’s be honest, most people don’t have the time to re-create everything they see on pinterest, and the focus should be on your kid anyways. I got balloons, napkins, plates and table confetti for around $30 at the party store, and Gemma just loved seeing all her favourite characters’ faces on everything.

To cupcakes and cookies, and making a little two year old’s day,
♥ Dion

Cultivating Gratitude in your Toddler

My daughter received a beautiful compliment the other day – a family friend was amazed by just how polite my little 21 month old is. Insert proud mama moment here.

In fact, she's received praise for all her "please's" and "thank you's" a few times now. The hubs and I are by no means perfect parents, but I'm thinking we must be doing something right.

At this stage, Gemma can't grasp gratefulness and politeness -- these qualities are obviously too conceptual for my Elmo and raisin fixated toddler; but what she does understand is that the world isn't at her fingertips, simply a metaphorical snap away. No, she's coming to terms with the fact that as she grows older, her attitude matters.

One of my conscious goals as a parent has been to raise a grateful child. I'm now in my seventh year as a high school teacher and my experiences in the classroom really impact how I parent. Very rarely do I see a grateful teenager walk through my classroom door. The ones who thank you for the fun class planned that day, the ones who thank you for allowing them to re-write a paper they bombed, the ones who thank you for bringing in cupcakes "just because" -- these grateful teens are on the extinct species list. Oh, please don't think I am hating on teenagers: I wouldn't do my job if I didn't love them and think they had great potential. But reality is reality. We have an entitlement generation, and most adults working with kids will tell you that.

Entitlement is a scary thing. It screams "I deserve this because I exist!" And let loose too long, it becomes a cancer, multiplying and seeping into the most critical areas of our children's lives -- like their humility, their relationships and their work ethic.

No, I do not want this for my girl.

So for Thanksgiving--a day where we pause and reflect on all we have to be thankful for: the things we have earned and the things we have been given freely--I want to share my take on how to cultivate gratitude in our toddlers. So that they become the big kids who recognize the gifts and service of others, are grateful for all they've received, and realize the importance of hard work.

A few ways to cultivate gratitude in your toddler:

Expect it of them – I am a firm believer that children meet the expectations set of them. I see it each day in the classroom. Its what explains how one group of students can be complete terrors in one class with one teacher and then in the next period with another teacher become sweet angels. Same students – different expectations.

In the home, it meant that as soon as Gemma could sign or say “please” and “thank you”, we expected nothing less. I don’t give Gemma her drink, her toy, her crayons...unless she asks appropriately, saying please and without whining. It also means that sometimes it takes a few tries on her part to get it right and I have to resist the urge to just give her what she wants to keep her quiet. And when she forgets to say thank you, we remind her, every time. With kids, consistency is key.

"More is caught than taught" – This is one of my favourite Dave Ramsey-isms. Yes, I can teach Gemma to be thankful by expecting nothing less from her, but those lessons certainly won’t stick if we don’t model it in the home. The munchkins are watching, and they love nothing more than to copy exactly what Mommy does -- especially the not-so-good things. Consider whether you express gratefulness for what you've received from others. Consider your dinner table conversations -- are you positive and appreciative of the situations and people you came across that day? Are you thanking your spouse for helping with the laundry or doing the dishes? As long as those little eyes can see and those little ears can hear -- they will copy you!

Serve as a family – Nothing instills gratitude quite like serving. When you give of your time, your talents and your treasure, and feel what blessing others feels like, you feel more appreciative of all you've received. My husband and I were both raised by pastors--who were always serving their congregation--and it's no surprise that we chose careers that had us serving others. It just feels right. It just feels like what we should do.

Jump on whatever opportunity you have to serve in your community. Creating a culture of service in your home will always create a by-product of gratitude. How's that for chemistry?

To turkey and stuffing, and all the other things we are thankful for,

♥ Dion