a hippie with a minivan

Meeting the greats…

Last week, Wilhelmina met her great-grandmothers. Last Wednesday, I picked up my father and went over to the nursing home his mom lives in to have lunch and spend a bit of time.

At 91 years old, she is a good shape physically, but with Alzheimer’s, her memory is slowly fading, but it isn’t gone yet. Being in the nursing home has helped her immensely these last few years.

My father didn’t tell her we were coming, so she was very happily surprised when we showed up in the dining hall… We ate lunch and then went up to her room and talked I was happy to see her and bring a smile to her face.

my dad was also very happy to meet his new granddaughter…

A few days later, on Sunday, my mom came to visit with her mom…

The last time my grandmother had come here was just before her surgery for stomach Cancer last November.The surgery went well, they took out 3/4 of her stomach and she has been recuperating since… she has lost weight and had pneumonia last month but is feeling better and is trying to gain her weight back…

She was very excited to meet her great-granddaughter…

My grandmother and my mom…

One thing that we wanted to do was to get a picture with the four generations of Women. We had a similar picture taken when I was a baby in my great-grandmother’s arms with my mom on one side and my grandmother on the other…

Then I asked the boys to come in the picture with us and surprisingly they all came without hesitation…

A picture I will always cherish…

I had a very special relationship with my great-grandmother when I was a child and a young teen. She was an amazing woman and I loved being with her and went to see her as often as I could, which was almost everyday in the year before she died. I am so grateful that my grandmothers are both still around, and I hope that as my children grow they will know their “greats” and have a relationship with them that they can remember also…

Making Genmaicha…

I first had Genmaicha at a Japanese restaurant and from the first sip I was hooked.

The flavour of the toasted brown rice and green tea was just so appealing to my palate and I just wanted to keep on sipping an endless supply… I just had to know what it was and where I could get it. I did find some at a little tea house and have had it a few times since, but I ran out and couldn’t find any near me and after having a cup at my friend Gen’s house the other day, I was determined to get my hands on some.

Turns out, all you need is brown rice and green tea. Very easy to get both of those; and like many things, when you do it yourself, you can have a lot more for a lot less.

So here is what you need…

This is organic green tea (Sencha) and Organic short grain brown rice

I heated my cast-iron pan on medium high heat and put a layer of rice on the bottom which worked out to about an equal amount of green tea that I had.

Stir the rice and toast it until is smells nutty, kernels are popping and the rice is a nice golden brown colour. Just make sure that it doesn’t burn.

Let cool and then mix with the green tea.

Use about 1 tsp per cup of hot water and Enjoy…

Faux "gdiapers"…

A store near me was liquidating their stock of gdiapers in a two for one sale. Though I have always been a “Bummis” prefold and cover fan, I decided at that price it was worth it to give them a try, especially since I had read many places that the gdiaper system can be used with prefolds.

When Wilhelmina was born we tried our much loved Bummis covers on her for the night and it just didn’t fit right and they still don’t for right but the gdiapers fit amazingly well.

At home she is always in a prefold with no cover, but just a prefold belt holding it up, it is perfect because it makes EC easy and we feel right away if she is even slightly wet.

But when we go out, I want a well fitting diaper that is easy to get on and off and the gdiaper turned out to be exactly what we needed. However, the small Bummis prefolds that I have and use just didn’t fit right in the the small gdiaper cover, so I was using the flushable inserts when we went out. The problem with that was that we would often come home and she would still be dry (I potty her when we are out) but there would sometime be a tiny stain of bm so though it wasn’t “used” I couldn’t reuse it either. So the solution was to make my own inserts. These work perfectly in the gdiaper and keep the fit of the diaper trim. I used 2 layer of “Zorb” sandwiched between 2 layers of flannel and made them the exact same size as the flushable inserts.

Because I will be travelling in 3 weeks and out of the house for 3weeks, I needed to decide what I would do diaper wise. I will be using the prefolds and diaper belt while I am at Annie’s, but for the travelling and the time in Vancouver, I will be using the gdiapers exclusively. At this moment I have a few gdiapers but only two of the small size. The medium just don’t fit Wilhelmina yet and I doubt that they will be fitting that much better in 3 weeks. Though I will bring them if she happens to outgrow the small while we are in BC, I felt the need to get some more of the small size so I won’t get stuck. But instead of buying, I decided to try to make them…

I thought that the hardest part would be to find the snaps, but it turns out that the Elastic was what I couldn’t find… (and I only found velcro and not aplix)

Though I might tweak a few things still (and try to find some better elastic) I am quite happy with the results…

Here are the inside and the outside of the cover (made with knit fabric I already had)

I made a liner out of PUL, but I can use the “gdiaper” liners in there also

I didn’t have knit ribbing, so I used a scrap of normal knit for the leg cuff and pulled it tight while sewing

Here is one for the snaps for the liner. It is “snap tape” so all I did was cut and sew it in.

(Ignore the bad stiching… it was almost 1am when I did the velcro)

All together with the liner snapped in and the cloth insert

All done! and Action shots…

As I said, I really want to find better elastic that is wider. I covered the elastic on these with Orange Knit fabric which made it a bit stiffer than I would have liked but it is still very usable and looks comfortable. Besides the waist, the trim and fit is exactly the same and the liner that I made is interchangeable with the original gdiapers.

I plan on making more of these 🙂

A few pics from this morning…

I can’t believe how fast she is growing…

Coconut Vanilla Tapioca pudding

What more can be said.

Fresh and creamy… This is such a classic recipe with a small twist, the coconut milk adds such a great dimension to the custard. The flavour of this pudding is my ultimate comfort food and it is so simple to make.

Here is what you need…

3 cups coconut milk (or another milk if you want the more classic version)
1/3 cup small pearl tapioca
2 extra-large egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup cane sugar
1 vanilla bean, split along the length (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

Pour 3/4 cup of the milk into a thick-bottomed pot and add the tapioca and let sit for an hour.

Whisk in the egg yolks, salt, sugar, and the remaining milk and then scrape the vanilla bean along its length with a knife and add those little “seeds” to the mixture along with the bean itself (if you are using vanilla extract only stir it in at the very end, after the pudding is completely cooked).
Over medium heat slowly bring the mixture just barely to a boil, stirring all along and then reduce the heat and let the mixture fall to a simmer and keep stirring until the tapioca is cooked (they become translucent) and the custard is thickened.

Let cool and serve (it is delicious both warm or cold)