sunsets

As you might have guessed by the lack of action on my wee blog these days, I've been super busy. 

Truthfully, with less time on my hands, I've chosen to spend it sewing rather than blogging. So I do have some projects to share, and I hope to very soon!

But for now I want to share a picture from our family vacation late last year.

We traveled to Barbados to celebrate Christmas. 

Each night we would walk down to the beach to watch the sun set. 
And every night it was so magical.

Barbados is breathtaking.

 

what I've been up to

Just thought I'd pop in to show you what I've been up to lately...

Although it doesn't look like much here...

I'm learning how to paint with watercolour! And I've got lots to learn so I don't have any pieces that I love enough to show you just yet. I'm hoping that will come soon.
Stay tuned...

a new era

It's been quiet on this blog lately.

We've been really busy and of course, we're all adjusting to the new school routines. 

Especially now that Evan has finally started school.

He just loves riding the school bus with his big brother. 

And I think his big brother likes having him come along for the ride as well.

I'm back

It's been a while!

Sorry. It hasn't been intentional. Just trying to get caught up on some things here and there. My biggest struggle in life always seems to be lack of time.

I've been reorganizing my sewing/craft room. And that always seems to lead to a trip to the fabric store somehow. I picked these beauties up - on sale!

Not sure what I'll make with them yet but I love the colour combinations and patterns. 
Wish I could have bought more of each, but I had to behave. And really have no more room for fabric!

I managed to make it out to the Thrift store recently too. And I'm thankful I did! I picked up all of these clothes, most for $2 a piece! A few of them are future projects. Quick sewing projects for a better fit or repair.
One will be a refashion that I hope to tackle someday soon. If it turns out I will post it here.

Oh and did I mention that not one of these is for my boys?
That's a rare treat for me!

baby quilt and school supply list

Just popping in to share what I've been up to lately.

I hope to finish this project soon...

But more on that later.
I have some exciting news to share!

I'm devoting all next week to 'back to school'.

Too early?!

Not really, it's only a month away. So that leaves us just enough time to get started on that supply list. And make our own supplies! 

I'll show you what I've been working on for September. 
I have ideas for clothes, bags and other special goodies in store for you. 
So swing by next week to check it out!

our summer vacation

As you may have noticed, I've been away for a few days. My hubby and I packed up the kids and headed to beautiful Montreal. I don't know what it is about that city but it is so easy to fall in love with, every time we go.

We spent a bit of time in Montreal and then we drove down to Parc Safari, just south of the city. For those of you not familiar, the main feature there is a 4 to 5 km park that you drive your car through and feed 'wild' animals. It's super cool and something that I'd always wanted to do myself. I may have used my kids as an excuse to do it. Just maybe.

So we drove through the park, stopping along the way to feed the animals, having wonderful 'family bonding' moments. 

And then it happened: Evan announces that he has to pee. 
And when a 4 year old says he has to pee, it means it's already just about coming out and you need to get to that bathroom 5 minutes ago.

Did I mention that at Parc Safari, you're not allowed to get out of your car?! We had only driven about a kilometer of the 5 kilometer trail so at this point, I had think fast. 

I contemplated speeding through the rest of the trail at the risk of plowing down some poor innocent hungry animal. 

My husband suggested opening the door a crack and letting him pee out the door.  
Umm. Have you seen the aim of a 4-year old boy?! 

At this point we were desperate. 
But there were other carloads of people nearby so THAT was not an option.

Then I had an idea. 

We had no other choice.

"Do we have some kind of cup that he can pee into?"

We scanned the back seat and there it was. The gloriously empty MacDonald's cup from the the day before.

I was in disbelief that this was actually happening. I sat there holding the cup while Evan stood in front of me peeing into it. 

I prayed he wouldn't pee on me.

And man that kid had to pee. He filled half the cup!

Once he was done, I put the plastic lid back on so it wouldn't spill. I looked down at it, still with the straw sticking out and then realized I should have taken it out before putting the lid back on. Now one of the kids was going to forget and drink the pee.

I put the pee cup in the cupholder in front of me so I could keep an eye on it. 

It felt so wrong to put it there but I was NOT going to hold a cup of pee for the next hour.

We continued on, feeding the animals, acting like nothing had happened.

The kids were hanging out in the front of the van so they could reach the animals and the whole time I just KNEW the cup was going to get spilled and there would be pee in my van.
 

The pee cup with a straw was stressing me out!

ONE OF MY CHILDREN WERE GOING TO EITHER DRINK OR SPILL PEE IN MY VAN!

My hubby pulled ahead a bit faster, grabbed the cup and dumped it out the window when there was no one around to see. My hero!

We still had a yucky cup to deal with but at least it wasn't going to get spilled. In my van.

We drove about another kilometer up the trail and discovered a bathroom with snack bar. 

Would have been good to know before!!

All I can say is, thank God for little boys. 

Oh, and next time I'm packing pull ups :)

two wheels

Today marked another proud mommy moment...

And a proud Evan moment. 

Today he learned how to ride on two wheels! 

He is so proud of himself. 

And I'm sure it won't be long before he wants to put an engine on that thing....

I may have married the best Dad in the world - he ran along with Evan tirelessly until he got the hang of it (on a pretty hot day).

Oh, and happy Canada Day friends!

rainy days

It looks like we're in for another few days of rain.

But that won't stop Evan from riding his bike. 

He LOVES his bike. And his basket.

Yup it's the only one I could find that wasn't pink.

airplane-themed party 2

This little man turned 4 recently.

As you may have seen here, we were going for an airplane theme for Evan's party. 


I got lazy and wanted a simple party with very little work so I rented out the child drop-in centre that we frequent. It is closed on the weekends and is very affordable for half a day. It was SO worth it because I didn't have to clean up my house before and again after the party!

The room is a giant play space so all the play activities were taken care of. There were tons of toys, a big play structure with slides and climbing things and outside there were ride on toys, a sandbox and picnic tables. So I really didn't have to do all that much.  Yesssssss.

I did set up a couple of tables as work stations - in keeping with the theme. The first was the 'Customs' area where the children got to stamp their own passports. I couldn't find actual country or flag stamps but the kids didn't mind. They stamped away, and the ones who were old enough to write, printed their names or the names of countries. It was a hit.

The next station I made was for making paper airplanes. I supplied paper, scissors and instructions for creating different types of planes (readily available on the internet).

Again, I was going for the easy route the whole way so I made cupcakes instead of a big cake. I made vanilla cake with white frosting (which may or may not have been from a box) and put marshmallows on top to look like clouds. Then topped them with mini paper airplanes made by big brother Malcolm -thank you very much!

 

The last station I set up was the 'luggage pick up area' where the kids could assemble their own loot bags with an assortment of plastic planes, Styrofoam gliders, candy, parachute men, and pin-on pilot's wings. I didn't get a picture of the wings but I basically printed off pictures of them (also from the internet), laminated them and taped a pin to the back.

The table also doubled as place to put the gifts.
The party wasn't too structured but when I wanted to mix things up a bit I broke out the parachute for a bit of fun.

And there were squeals.
All in all a pretty fun day for my lil man :)

passing of time

I've been kinda MIA lately. I have SO much on the go and so little time to do it all.

That's not to say we haven't been out having fun though (which might be part of my problem?!).

Like when we took Evan and his friends to the farm this week.

I love this little guy.

I can hardly believe he's turning 4 years old soon. And he seems to have grown up all of a sudden. It has been 4 wonderful years of fun, silliness, laughter and gentle embraces.
And I'm thankful for every moment.

our very fashion-forward son

wishing you...

...a happy Easter!

riley cat

Introducing: Riley Cat.  
That's his full name according to my youngest son, Evan.

He's our family pet, and I think of him like cat 'eye candy'. He's so soft and pretty.

But most importantly, he puts up with a lot from Evan - who is not the most gentle child at times. But secretly I think Riley really loves him anyway because he always comes back for cuddles.

Oh and the backround colour?! 
Well, with that beautiful weather we're experiencing today, I was able to send the boys out to play in the backyard... which gave me a chance to paint the dining room. Lovin' that new smokey blue.

glimpses of motherhood

Tiffany at simplymodernmom has set out to capture little glimpses of motherhood, all while perfecting her photography skills. And she's invited us all to join along! I love everything about this idea. And I've been thinking that I need to get back into photography... seems like a perfect opportunity, right?!

But first, back up a bit. 

Before we were married, my husband and I were really into taking photos. We took pictures almost daily and I'm so thankful for the wealth of reminders we have today from that special time. We each had an assortment of cool lenses and manual SLR cameras. SLR film cameras that is. We took photography and darkroom courses together and managed to get a few prints published in the local paper I worked for at the time. We didn't have a lot of money then but what little we had was spent on camera equipment. Good times.

Then it happened.
Our huge investments became obsolete. Digital photography replaced film and our favourite photolab closed down. It was the end of an era. And pretty much the end of 'manual' photography for me.

Just over a year ago we saved up and bought a digital SLR camera. We chose a Nikon so that we could still use some of our old school lenses (and they wouldn't be a total waste). My husband is a much faster learner than I am so he's been able to use the new camera much more to its potential than I have. I've just felt like I don't have the time, or the energy to relearn this again - especially when this new camera takes such wonderful pictures on the Auto setting. I've basically been using the camera as an expensive point-and-shoot. But I miss the photography. I miss taking really great photos.

So when I came across simplymodernmom's project 52, I decided to join in on the fun.

A weekly photo seems doable and by simply making it a goal, I'll likely be digging out that new SLR more often, and learning how to use it over several months.

So here it is, this week's submission:

boogaloo 2010

Observant readers will notice it's not a new photo - it was taken this past fall of my two boys. I'm submitting it to Project 52 because it's where I learned how to do fill flash with the new fancy shmancy camera. I love the effect that fill flash brings to so many pictures but don't remember to use it often enough.

Hey, my boys clean up pretty nice, eh!

growing up fast

This picture was taken 4 years ago. It is me with my oldest son, Malcolm. 

This little guy is going to be eight years old soon and each day he continues to amaze me. 

He's so very bright. I know, I know, every parent thinks that their child is smart. But what I mean is that he knows so much more about the way the world works compared to me at that age. He has this insatiable curiosity that is unmatched (except maybe by his father) and it serves him very well. He's so different from me in that sense.

We do share a sense of humour though. Right now he's all about the potty humour but in general he's pretty funny and laughs often too. This morning he took it upon himself to wrap the sprayer at the kitchen sink with elastics so that the button would stay in the 'on' position. My unsuspecting husband turned the tap on to pour himself a glass of water before heading to work and got sprayed!! Hilarious (because it wasn't me).

Lately I've been teasing Malcolm about the girls in his class. It amazes me how young girls start being interested in boys. My son is aware of girls, but really just wants to play sports. It's not that he's awkward and doesn't socialize with girls, it's just that they're not on his radar in that way ...yet. 

There are only about 4 or 5 boys in Malcolm's class so the odds are pretty good for him when he does become interested. And already a few little girls have crushes on him. He's learning the intricacies of relationships and the language that goes with them. One day he told me that a girl in his class broke up with him. My ears perked up and I asked him to elaborate. He said that she didn't love him anymore and that meant she broke up with him. I explained that you both have to love each other to be dating and break it off.

"Oh" he said.

I love the innocence of it all. And of course I love to tease him about it too. When I do, he just nervously smiles and says: "Ew, gross." And I take comfort in his response because before long, this won't be the case and I'm very aware of how temporary this all is.

When I kiss this little guy goodbye in the morning and send him on his way to school, I worry that it will be the day that he becomes embarrassed by his mom kissing him in front of his friends. But for now, he leans in and turns his cheek to me, looking for that embrace.
And I am very thankful for that moment each day - for as long as I'm allowed to have it.

proud mommy moment

I just had to share what my 3 and a half year old son made with his Lego today... (no help!)

I think he's going to grow up to be a lot like his Dad :)

paradise

This is one of my most cherished pictures. It was taken 4 years ago in Barbados.

It is just as meaningful to me for what you see, as for what you don't see.

This is a fun, loving picture of my husband with my oldest son during one of his first experiences in the ocean. 

Their faces couldn't possibly smile any bigger. And I can still hear the sound of the ocean that day and the cackling laughter of my boys.

I took this picture - in paradise. At sunset. Pregnant (and possibly glowing) with my next son.

So to me, this picture represents my family at one of our happiest of moments.

Just looking at this picture warms me up.

I wish we were all back there together now...

boogaloo's very first giveaway

Today we're trying something new and will be giving away one item from my online store!

Here's a look at some of the items you could choose from:

Reversible Crown

Lil Medic's Bag

Lil Toolbelt

Lil Apron

On Monday, January 31st, I'll be randomly selecting one lucky winner to choose any one item from my online store. So go check it out and see what you could win!

Here's how to enter:

1. 'Follow' this blog publicly

2. Leave a comment at the end of this post telling me you entered the contest - and be sure to leave your email address so that I can contact you!

Easy peasy.
Good luck!