Things that are legit on a farm...

When you are on the farm and away from the city, there are a few things I really love about being here....a lot of it is stuff that you would never get away with back home.
On the farm, you can 'up-cycle' that car hood you didn't need and were just keeping around. It's not junk - just throw an old couch cushion on it  and attach it to a snowmobile. I hope these videos work!

Just make sure the kiddos were a balaclava. Here's what they look like before the ride...

 And here's what they look like after Grandpa toured them around on the carhood

Farm dogs are also different to city dogs. Misha has been learning not only boring commands like 'sit' and 'fetch' like us city folks, she also has a obstacle course where she has learned to jump through hoops, weave through pipes and best of all, she can pull the kiddos on a sleigh. Mush, Misha, Mush!

You can build a fire anytime you want. The kids love helping gathering all the fallen branches. Also, apparently on the farm, if the fire isn't burning hot enough, you can pour old diesel on it to really spark things up. If you ask my kiddos how to make a fire, they will say you need "branches and Grandpa's black paint"

Having 80+ acres has its advantages. Even a four year old can learn to ride a snowmobile when he can go in any direction and not crash into anything. No waivers to sign. Just climb on the snowmobile, Dad tells Little Brother that the right hand means go and left hand means stop. That concludes his lesson and he is off and he is stoked.

When you have so much space, you need to go on a scavenger hunt! Grandma had a great idea and sent the kids all over the farm looking for old tires, tractors and piles of firewood...

And when you have a snowmobile and a 6-year-old that is keen to ski, you can just run into the barn and find some binder twine and invent a new sport called ski surfing. This girl is good!

Even the 4-year-old can get the hang of this sport

So yes, while I do love the city...the farm means lots of big smiles like these

So let's hope Grandma and Grandpa never leave their 80+ acres of endless possibilities...but we just like the fun parts not the endless chores that come with it please!

10 things you should know about planning a ski vacation.

1. Go to Big White. I know Whistler is technically closer but there's nothing like Okanagan champagne powder plus Whistler seems to be catering to a much richer crowd these days ($148 to ski at Whistler for the day?!)  Go to Whistler if you are young, kid-free and don't have mortgage but if you are no longer a spring chicken, have Littles and on a budget like us, go to Big White instead ($68/day with the Biggie card). I think we have been spending post-Christmas to New Years here for at least a decade now and I hope this tradition never stops...

2. Let Costco do the cooking. There is a reason there is a Costco right at the bottom of the road before you turn to drive up the mountain to Big White. In the ten or more years we have been at Big White, I don't think we have ever gone out for a single meal...why would we when you can snack of a Costco-sized bag of popcorn or Ghiradelli chocolates while the Costco lasagna is baking in the oven?

3. Invest in ski training tools. We tried putting Big Sister in lessons when she was 3 but the 6"3 Aussie with his shiny reflective googles spooked the begeebies outta her and we parted sadly with our $70 for the ski lesson where she never even left the lodge with Mr. Aussie Ski Instructor.  Little Brother insisted "only mommy teach" so I ditched my snowboard and bought junkie skis, a ski harness and an 'edgie wedgie' (its in the picture -it's the little clip that goes on the front of skis to keep the tips together). This small little thing has helped SO much. Instead of me yelling, "PIZZA! Just do the PIZZA!!! PIZZA!" and having Little Brother drooling for lunch, he actually knows what I mean now.

4. Be prepared for cold weather. We are from B.C., we are total wimps when it comes to cold weather....layer up and always wear your balaclava. The kids are totally into being ninjas right now so they were totally wearing their balaclavas 24/7 and being 'the black ninja' and 'the pink ninja'.

5. Be prepared to ditch a ski day because of the cold weather. Let's just be honest, if you can't feel your face or your fingers, skiing just isn't that much fun anymore. On one particular freezing and blustery cold -18 day, we decided after a few brain-numbing runs that hot-tubbing at 10:30 in the morning was going to be more enjoyable than any run on the mountain. Good call.

6. Take your Little Ones to the carnival. Big White hosts a free carnival night at least once a week. The kids jump in the bouncy castle, stuff their faces with free cotton candy and popcorn, get their faces painted and play lame carnival games to earn points. If they earn enough points, they will exclaim it is 'the best day ever' because they will have enough points for the limited-edition, coveted, Big White fidget spinner or silly putty. Simple joys people.

 7. Ski with the Littles in the morning. Let them watch Netflix in the afternoon. I guess little legs do have their limitations because by lunch time, they were so tired, I practically had to spoon-feed them their lunch. But this worked out nicely so we could have venture out to more adventurous trails in the afternoon. We carved some insane powder and ventured to some trails that we would never take our Littles...which bring me to the next point...

8. Try to avoid 4 feet deep tree wells. I was following my dear husband but didn't make a turn fast enough and sank shockingly fast in this tree well. I was so thankful that he heard my wails of, "STUCK!!! I'm stuck. Like really, really, really stuck!!!! Like I can't get out of this on my own kind of stuck!!!' He found where I was and helped dig out my board and un-clipped me pulled me out of the hole and managed to find my board after that. I really wouldn't of been able to pull myself outta that hole on my own so always ride with at least one other person and hopefully that other person has tree-well rescues in their repertoire.

9. Pack your skates. Of all the years we have been at Big White, this was the first year we brought our skates and it was free and fun! Neither of our Littles can skate and it's good they have those support bar things. Big Sister was happy to shuffle slowly and try to chase Daddy. Little Brother was just memorized by the Zamboni and was happy to shuffle to follow the Zamboni. Skating on a real outdoor rink makes you feel really Canadian. Maybe in a few years when our kids can actually skate, we can even join the other people playing hockey, eh? For now, we just enjoyed skating as the sun set in ridiculously spectacular shades of pink and purple and then had hot chocolate by the fire. It just doesn't get more picture perfect than that!

10. Ring in the new year with family and fireworks. New Years day recap: ski, eat, hot tub, play multiple rounds of Exploding Kittens  and watch the fireworks. I love that Big White knows that most parents don't want to stay up til midnight so every year fireworks at Big White go off at 8:15 pm and everyone can be asleep before 8:45 pm. Now that's a good start to the new year!

Pumpkin Patching Professionals.

It's that time of year again - pumpkin patch season!!! I just watched a viral video of this parent complaining quite hilariously about how she hates pumpkin patches - crowded, over-priced and over-rated but come on, really?! seriously, what's not to love??? It's our annual tradition with Grandma and Grandpa and we got there just before 11:00 am there must have been 1,000 cars in the parking lot already. Hmm...maybe some other people also checked the forecast and saw that today was mostly cloudy with showers. When you live in Vancouver cloudy with showers is awesome.

And whoever came up with the idea to sell pumpkins to people on their own farm is brilliant. They skip the part of shipping their products to the grocery stores and make a ton more money by having everyone come to them. Genuis. At the entrance of the farm, there was a longer line-up to get in if you wanted to pay with credit card...ha! amateur pumpkin patchers! but for vetrans of the pumpkin patch, we remembered to have cash and go in the empty cash-only entrance. Being pumpkin patching professionals, we hand over our $30 to get our family plus Grandma and Grandpa and it's great entertainment for the next hour and a half. The kids are so excited  milking wooden cows, racing through the corn maze, gold-panning, petting bunnies and squealing over all the characters they recognize in the enchanted forest.

The "hayride" is a tractor pulling a bench of parents and tots and goes in a pathetic circle, its such a small loop that even going at  5km/hour, the "hayride" lasts like 3 minutes. Seriously, the traffic circle I do everyday for school pick up is longer than this hayride...but the kids are holding hands during the whole ride and deemed it "so.much.fun!" (OK kiddos, forget going to Disneyland in the future...we'll just come here again).

I am SO excited that it wasn't raining so we can get our cliche pictures in the wide open pumpkin fields and secondly, the kids still fit their pumpkin-themed attire from last year. They are looking like pumpkin patching professionals out there. 

The kids are in great moods, they are photogenic for at least an hour no one is melting down. This was so much for not just the kids but the kids were having such a blast, it was fun for me too. Four years ago, I remember bouncing Newborn in the baby carrier while dragging a 2 year toddler on  who was soooooooooooo tired from walking  and of course Tired Toddler had me holding her enormous pumpkin as well. I remember trying to counter-balance the weight of Tired Toddler and enormous pumpkin and sweating profusely. And three years ago, Little Brother couldn't walk yet but desperately wanted to and Grandpa and Grandma held his hand so he could toddle everywhere and no one can catch up with him now. He was so confused why he had to hold Grandma and Grandpa's hand for this shot and I tried to explain what 'recreating a memory' was but I don't think he got it. (side note: looks like Grandpa still favors the same John Deere hat 3 years later)

Look at this... fresh air, fall colors and bright beautiful pumpkins as far as you can see. I totally could have gone to Superstore and thrown a pumpkin in the grocery cart but this is SO much better, am I right?

5 mom hacks for a fabulous birthday party.

1. Combine your kids birthday parties. I love planning birthday parties but what I soon realized was that as soon as I was done Big Sis' birthday, I had zero motivation to plan to do anything for Little Brother. So instead of having an elaborate party in July and then only give Little Bro a high five in September; for the last two years I decided we would pick the median of their birthdays and have one epic party in August. 

2. Pick a fair weather month and do it outside. It works out fantastic that August is the median birthday month and we have been able to have the party at a park the past 2 years. This year we picked the park closest to our house that had a wading pool.

3.Pick the park with free activities.  I had picked this park because it is 3 minutes from my house but it also has a pool, a playground and lots of space to run. But the icing on the cake (no pun intended) it just so happened that the park also had summer activities going on with a park leader doing crafts and face painting. And then someone from the rec centre came with 'Imagination Blocks" -these huge foamy stack able blocks that the kids loved building with. What a win!

4. Cupcake hack. So I made from scratch 24 cupcakes but after counting the number of kids and parents I realized I probably needed more but didn't have enough time to bake a bunch from scratch since the party was 24 hours after coming back from the no-dads-allowed-camping trip. I was just going to buy some cupcakes but the Type A control freak side of me was not OK with that because then the icing wouldn't match the ones I already made and iced (I know, I know, first world problems). Anyways, I figured out you can put one of those store bought 2-bite brownies in a mini cupcake holder and ice it in the same colors and decorations as my other cupcakes so it looks like a petite version of the regular cupcakes. Ta-da! Cupcakes for all!

5. Order the loot-bag present waaaay in advance. I told the kids 6 months before their party they had to decide on a theme. They just saw Finding Dory so they agreed on Nemo & Dory and then I went online and found stuffed Dory, Nemo and that turtle from Finding Nemo. Anyways, they were shipping from China and it took seriously like 4 months for them to arrive and they all came separately. It was so nerve-racking to see if they would arrive on time. We could only invite friends to the party as each parcel trickled in. Note to self: next time order through Amazon Prime... But once they arrived it was so easy to put a ribbon on each package and a label on it. And I know all kids have an infinite amount of stuffed animals so I do apologize for adding to the stash but honestly, the kids really did love them and I think it's much better than a $5 bag of dollar store junk.

OK so that's the 5 short-cuts but every year I have to pick something in the party planning process that is the opposite of a hack...I have to pick a birthday project that makes me question my sanity....last year it was making sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones and icing them in all the Paw Patrol colors...I still have the meringue powder that that stupid YouTube video promised would make the icing so 'simple'....that sucked....I am never making sugar cookies again.

So this year, the kids wanted Dory and Nemo pinatas, I actually saw a Nemo pinata at Walmart for $25 but I figured I could make 2 pinatas for cheaper than that. I watched a YouTube video promising me how easy the process was and Big Sis was interested in helping for about 3 minutes until she realized how tedious the process was. Then the next few days I spent doing paper mache at 10:30 pm, waiting for a layer to dry and then doing it again and then painting it, waiting for it to dry and then painting it again. I am not quite sure if my 10+ hours of work was worth the less than 10 minutes it entertained the kids for.....especially for Little Brother who thought that he would hit the pinata and then it would split open and all the candy would come flowing out like a river of sugar euphoria. He enthusiastically took the first hit and when nothing happened, he instantly burst into tears. By the time he recovered from the devastation of this, both pinatas had been busted open and he missed out on getting any candy. Cue the second round of tears and utmost devastation. Note to self: explain to child realistic expectations of how a pinata works for next time.

After recovering from the trauma caused by the pinata incident, all was well and I think everyone had fun and now I have 365 days until I do it again...Happy birthday to my love bugs!!!