Brotherly Love (?)

This picture sums up Sloan and Toby's relationship pretty perfectly...
HUGE smile on Sloan...Toby...not so much. I think I can see the hate in his eyes! Sloan loves to look at Toby, watch him move, pet him, squeeze him, pinch him, eat his hair, feed him carrots....but yet he still likes to pretend she doesn't exist and thinks if he doesn't look at her she might not be there.

Here she is babbling away to him, petting his ear and all he wants is to get away as fast as possible!

xo JBM

lil' chomper!

...just testing a new video program with blogger...

which is better for you - watching it through blogger:

or through vimeo:

lil' chomper from Joelene Murphy on Vimeo.

Make-It Monday: CAKE!

The men were going to do all of the cooking for Mother's Day, but I have been wanting to bake a cake for a while now and can't just bake one for the fun of it since Matt doesn't eat cake and I can't eat a whole cake myself (well...I can...but I shouldn't). So...I decided to bake a cake for yesterday, while Matt did the appetizers.



While perusing blogs a while ago I found this blog and LOVED what she did with cake! Lots of colour and who can resist a rainbow cake! So, Mother's Day would be my perfect excuse to bake a rainbow cake!



Except...I only have one round 8" cake pan (or so I thought, I have since found another while putting the one I used away!), and of course Noodle to tend to! So Saturday night at 9:30 I started on the cake. I thought 6 layers might be a bit much for me to tackle - it would probably topple over! So I decided on 3 layers so I would only have to do 3 oven watches before I could get to bed!



First, I mixed up the french vanilla batter and divided it into 3 bowls and added the dye (warning: I can't take a decent picture in our dim-lit kitchen at night!). I did one layer of blue, one of purple, and one of pink! Fun!


I wanted to be sure it was nice and cooled so I waited until yesterday to ice it. Just a fluffy white icing! Yum! I also added raspberry jam (seeds removed) between the layers and a few raspberries on the outside for decoration.

Looks like a pretty regular white cake, right?!

So imagine everyones surprise when my Mum cut into it and found this:

Tasty!

I think I might do this again, but tackle all 6 layers for Sloan's 1st Birthday! It was so fun and cheery!

xo JBM

Mummy's Day!

I really wanted to post a video, but the program is acting up so I'm just going to post some pictures and some text (just a few bits) from something (Daughter by Nicole Blackman) I found a loooong time ago before I was even pregnant and knew we were expecting a girl!

"One day I'll give birth to a tiny baby girl

and when she's born she'll scream

and I'll tell her to never stop

I will kiss her before I lay her down at night
and will tell her a story so she knows
how it is and how it must be for her to survive

I'll tell her that people must earn the right
to use her nickname
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing

I'll explain to her it's better to regret the things
she has done than the things she hasn't.
I'll teach her to write her manifestos on cocktail napkins.

I'll say she should make men lick her enterprise.
I'll teach her to talk hard.
I'll tell her that her skin is the
most beautiful dress she will ever wear."

Thank you for making me the Mummy I have wanted to be for so long little NoddleE.
In just 5 short months you have brought so much joy to our lives

Before you were born I didn't know what it was like to have my heart
living outside of my body...now I do.

There is so much that I cannot wait to share with you!

Mama loves you Sloan!

xo JBM

Wordless Wednesday: Littlest Kitchen Helper

Make-It Monday

This past Christmas Brad sent us a great craft gift! Paint-it-yourself paper lanterns! How neat! However, I have a strange fear of doing crafts like this - I'm afraid I'll crack open the box, plan what I want to do, start painting and then hate what I have done and then be disappointed that I have ruined the craft I was so excited about doing and since there is only one chance with this sort of thing I am then left with nothing! So the box sat unopened in Sloan's room since I knew I wanted to paint it for her room.

However...Make-it Monday gave me the idea to finally just do it! Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found two lanterns - a back-up in case I mess up! Yay! This gave me a sense of relief and let me just get to it!

I have wanted to paint pottery for a while now since seeing this cute idea of "dottery" but since we don't have a pottery painting place anywhere near here I thought I would try the dottery on my lantern and look how cute it turned out (which you could see better if I could take a decent picture)!

I also made Make-It Monday muffins! Yum!

I can't throw out bananas...just can't. My freezer is overflowing with black bananas...or I should say WAS overflowing! Boneless skinless chicken breasts were on sale this weekend so I bought 15 (for the price I normally pay for about 4 or 5!) so I had to make room in the freezer! I threw out a few of the bananas that were on the bottom of the pile, but my Mum also called with a recipe for simple banana muffins at just the right time!

Easy Banana Muffins

1 egg

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup softened butter (not melted, but almost)

3 large ripened bananas mashed

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

chocolate chips

Combine in the above order and bake at 350 for 14 min or until a tooth pic comes out clean.

*my changes*

I also added a dash of vanilla...just because. I didn't put a measurement for chocolate chips because you can use however many or little you want. I only had a little more than 1/2 cup (because yes, I am still eating chocolate chips out of the container for a chocolate fix Elsie!) so that's what I used this time, but I will be using more next time for sure - at least a cup...maybe a cup and a 1/4. Also, I cooked my muffins for 18 minutes, but I only made 12 large muffins, you could probably make 15 or 16 regular sized muffins but I didn't feel like having to watch the oven twice!

xo JBM

edit: I can't seem to fix the spacing!!!!

Dear Sloan: Five Months

Wow Sloan, time is flying WAY too fast! It is so hard to believe that 5 months have gone by already. It seems like you just got here, but at the same time it feels like you have been here forever because it's hard to remember life without you!

This month you found your toes and you LOVE to suck on them! For some reason you have stinky feet a lot so I try to remind you of this when you are about to stick them in your mouth, but you don't seem to mind! It is so cute to see you reach out and then have this look of amazement when you make the connection with your foot and then pull it to your mouth!

You have become a lot more talkative this month and love to be mimicked. I swear you have even said Mama a couple of times and you of course ramble on with a sound that suspiciously sounds like Dadadadadaaaaaaaada! I'm going to work on "training" you so that you actually say Mama first and mean it!

You celebrated your very first Easter at the beginning of the month, and I made my very first turkey! I hope that one day I'll be able to help you make a turkey, but I still need a lot of help myself, so we'll see! The Easter Bunny was good to you - bringing you a basket with books, a puppet, some hairclips and a stuffie from Nanny Murphy! You looked absolutely adorable in your Easter dress!

This month you helped out at the MS Walk - we volunteered on the committe like last year when you were just a little bean! We also walked this year and you won the prize (a giant stuffed monkey!) for the youngest walker...even though you didn't acutally walk! You also made the online local newspaper with the below picture.

Mama tried to go out for a girls night this month, but it didn't go so well! You have stayed home with Daddy during the day and do just fine, but nighttime was a whole other story! Apparently you woke up just about as soon as I stepped off the deck to get into the car and as much as Daddy tried, he couldn't get you back to sleep. Of course by the time I got home he had you calmed down and happy as a clam!

You're still not a huge fan of the bottle, but you will take it now and then and of course try to hold it like a big girl!

There are some nights that I sit upstairs browsing facebook or reading blogs and I can hear you squirm and stir on the baby monitor. I usually hope that you settle yourself so you can drift back into dreamland, but there are also many times that my heart aches and I want to run to you right away just so I can hold you. I love to hold you, especially when you are in that sleepy state and you snuggle right into me and I'm sure you can feel how much I truly love you. So, with the slightest little squeek I do run to you. Yes, there have been a few nights that I have let you stir a little longer, but it breaks my heart to hear you in there and not run to you. I want you to know I am there for you (forever).

You had some crazy sleeping patterns this month that tested this running to you, but I think it was just a little phase you were going through. For almost two weeks you would go down to bed so well and then wake up almost exactly (like to the minute!) one hour later and then the fussing would start. Even through you had just nursed an hour ago, you wanted more (so you got it), and then you wanted to be rocked and then you wanted to be held, then finally, almost an hour later you were back in bed...only to wake a couple hours later, and then all night you were up and down and woke almost every time I tried to sneak out of your room. But now you seem to back in the swing of things and you are sleeping better and usually for 3-4 hour stretches again.

I think you are starting to form a bit of attachement to your duckie-lovie (that your Auntie Randi mailed to you), which has helped in the sleeping I think. When you are nursing you love to wave your arm around and grasp at anything you can get your hands on. When you are just nursing to eat I let you do this, but at nap time and bed time I give you duckie-lovie and your little hand lands on his head and you massage it like a little stress-ball, so cute! Now when you wake in the night and I run in to you I can sometimes just put duckie-lovie's head back into your hands and you will massage him until you are back to sleep. I wonder if this will become your "thing" and if it will continue for many years to come.

The "flailing arm":

Well, for your five-month birthday you celebrated with a two hour nap! You also had an additional one hour nap (with me!) and last night you even slept a full 6 hours straight! Maybe you have matured into a little sleeper!

Mama and Daddy love you more than anything little Noodle!

xo Mama