Our visit to the Earthwise Society

About a week ago, Emma's grade 2 class went on a field trip to the Earthwise Society in South Delta (Tsawwassen). The Earthwise Society is a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable farming that is organic and less of a carbon footprint by means of composting. They are an education center and that being said, even I learned a thing or two on this trip!

Here are some photos of their lovely garden:

    

above: here the kids are playing "bug bingo" in which they need to find an assortment of bugs that would typically be found in composted dirt!

    

above: did you know? peonies only bloom if they've been "kissed" by a pollinating bee!? they apparently otherwise do not open!

    



    

above: A plum tree. Our tour guide mentioned that the week before we visited, this little orchard was infested with caterpillars. I HAD to ask: if they're an organic farm, how did they get rid of all the caterpillars? By plucking them out one by one BY HAND! If you can't appreciate why organic food costs what it does, just think of this and I think it's justified!


   

The children went on to learn about the different kinds of plants that are native to BC, along with bees. Did you know there are 500 different species of bees native to BC? Some of them look like flies (mason bees) but still do the important job of pollinating our plants. They even learned about composting and all the good things that can go into one.

All in all a great field trip! Their website has a summer calendar of events that can be fun for the whole family and best of all, its around the corner from Centennial beach so you can stop over for a beach bbq afterwards!

It was a great way to end off the school year and we certainly had a lot of fun!

2013 recap: a girl turns 7!

If you've ever met our kids, you'll know that they are certainly one of a kind. Sometimes they think alike and other times they can have individual interests that engulf them completely.

Last year, Emma had asked that we throw a Princess Leia/Star Wars themed birthday party for her and of course with a BIG Star Wars fan in the house (dad) how could we possibly say no?!

Here are some shots of our big girl (71/2!) at her party last October :)

Princess Leia herself! She was also dressed up like this for Halloween.

One of my newest favorite thing to do for my girls' birthday parties is a dessert/

treat table. Its a great focal point for the party and who doesn't enjoy treats at a party?!

I took the colors from the characters to make up the tissue paper accordions

as a backdrop. So much fun!

star wars themed dessert/treat table

At the time Emma was really into playing the Lego Star Wars game on

XBox so naturally she requested her Princess Leia cake look like the one from the game.

Princess Leia Lego cake made by The Cake Mama (me!)

You're gonna laugh about how I came up with the idea of using the cookies below
for my Wookie Cookies: I was at Superstore in the frozen section looking for punch
for the party. At the end of the aisle I saw these:





and INSTANTLY a light bulb flashed above my head. I grabbed a
bunch of boxes of these and cut the beak off the penguin and voila:

Wookie Cookies!

I added some white and milk chocolate to make the "belt" he wears across his
chest.

Star Wars Wookie Cookies

a Star Wars party just isn't a party without pretzel light sabers!

are you a Jedi or Sith?

Star Wars pretzel light sabers

Emma's friends were invited to dress up as whichever character they chose.

I think it's safe to say she had a great time at her party. We also made a R2D2

pinata that was virtually indestructible! (would you believe it was

made out of a paper bag recycled from Target lol!)

I had so much fun putting this together for Emma. She is a sweet

and sensitive soul with incredible talent. She is so loving and I know

we can all expect great things from her! Thanks to everyone who

came out to celebrate our 7 (going on 8) year old!

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!

summer bucket list

i can't even believe how quickly summer is approaching in our neck of the woods. it's surreal to think that in just a few weeks my littlest will be turning 4 and my oldest will be finishing grade 2. nevertheless the biggest buzz word around here is SUMMER! and we definitely cannot wait to embark on some adventures this year.

here are a few of the items on our bucket list!:

1. camping:

every year we go away somewhere on the last day of school. this year we have booked a campsite at okanagan lake! while camping is usually all about being one with nature, we definitely know we won't be able to deny ourselves the opportunity to visit a bunch of wineries nearby. we are in one of the wine-making capitals of BC after all!

2. water parks:

provided that we have a nice and hot july, we love to frequent the neighborhood water parks. we are very fortunate to be living very close to multiple parks and look forward to cooling down this way!

3. date nights:

need i say more???

4. the drive in:

summer doesn't end until we pay a visit to the drive in for a family friendly movie night! if we're lucky we even take advantage of the fact that the girls will sleep in the van and watch a grown up double feature!

5. the fair

we don't always go every year since typically we are in disneyland (wah! not this year though!) so since we'll be local this summer we'll be sure to check out playland to enjoy the rides and what i also like to call: the day of pure gluttony! wiggle chips, whales tails, fischer's scones, caramel apples, c-lovers fish n chips and vina's spring rolls - get in my belly!

be sure to follow me on instagram: @thisisjzzy as we cross off more things on our summer bucket list! what are some fun things you like to do in beautiful bc?

somewhere beyond the sea....

A special little girl who turned three last year requested a Little Mermaid birthday party

 to commemorate this special day!

We were fortunate to have Ariel herself join our party, here are some photos

of Olivia's magical day :)

The dessert table!

Clockwise from top left: seashell sugar cookies filled with

chocolate ganache and topped with a little pearl, a 3 tiered vanilla cake

with vanilla butter cream in an underwater theme, treat cups filled with colored white  

chocolate mermaids and goldfish crackers, a little princess adoring Ariel!

Emma contributed to the decorating and made a sign for

the lemonade.

The calm before the storm.

Clockwise from top left:  Who's the birthday girl? Me!!, I think I was more excited about

present opening than the birthday girl at one point, sharing a song with Ariel!

And finally Olivia hamming it up with Ariel!

Olivia is my little word girl. She comes up with the darnedest

things to say and leaves everyone amazed at how

well she speaks especially considering that in these

photos she's only 3!

Happiest of happy birthdays my sweet little girl, 

here's now a glance of how much she's grown!

Love you baby girl!

cake cutting 101

L: 2x2x4 C: 1.5x2x4 R: 1x2x4
courtesy of MikeRowesHunny on Cakecentral.com

This is a topic that I'm sure all cake makers can discuss until they are blue in the face. Everyone has a different idea of what a serving of cake should be. Wedding cake serving sizes are usually smaller to accommodate guests as well as maximize the entire cake to reduce leftovers. (When you're paying over $500 for a cake, it better all be eaten!) Party cakes can be a pie wedge of a slice and when the recipient refuses because they only wanted a sliver, that's another piece of cake wasted.

The industry standard for party cakes and wedding cake servings is the Wilton Cake Cutting guide. This is what most cake makers (myself included) use to determine how much cake to make for an order. This is my public service announcement for the day: Please take the time to understand how much cake you're getting for your order so that you know what size to order to accommodate your cutting preference for your event!

I'm not sure I can count how many times I've had clients come back disappointed with the size of their cake because they were expecting more. Standards have to be made so that there is a base to calculate pricing from. Please remember that you're ordering from a custom cake maker, that bakes everything from scratch and to your specifications.

Thank you! :)

oh hello new year!

hi everybody!

like the new digs?

i thought the blog needed a bit of a face lift since so much else in my life has changed! although i'll never shy away from a good mama post, i realize that i have so many other facets that i'd love to share on my blog too.

i've added my cake details on a page, so have a look on there if you're interested in placing an order and inquiring about pricing.

as my love for living a healthy life grows, i'll also continue to share recipes and fitness tips and if you're ready, i'll invite you to get healthy with me! check out the 'gettin bzzy with jzzy' page.

for the time being, i've got a loooooot of catching up to do...(i recall a disney road trip that occurred last year, and a couple of kiddies birthdays that i spent so much time organizing that hasn't made it on here!)
so i hope you'll continue to enjoy my posts and comment! (did you know i love comments? i comment often..mostly on things i shouldn't comment on lol)

thanks for following friends!

xo,

jzzy

Banana Protein Pancakes

These pancakes are absolutely delicious complete with that fluffy, airy texture!

Ingredients

1 1/4c brown rice flour

1 c vanilla whey protein powder

1 c vanilla rice milk

4 eggs

4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp coconut sugar 

2-3 bananas, chopped

2 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and let sit for a few minutes to activate the baking powder. Once your batter has thickened slightly, spoon 1/3 c onto pan lightly sprayed with coconut oil (or Pan)

Makes 12 pancakes.

Enjoy!