Having 3 generations together,

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a trip to one of my favourite places on the island for an afternoon tea.. just me and my mom,

barns right on main street,

strawberry tarts,

moments like these.

Sosi is very attached to her  hair, it is long and on most days very tangled. I love it long, but hate the daily battles for combing, hair clips and washing. I’ve been trying to gently persuade her to get a little trim for ages, with no luck.

Then I had a lightbulb go off, why not make it an offer she can’t refuse? Double haircuts with her favourite little buddy by one of her favourites of all my friends (who is conveniently obsessed with hair… she used to come and wash and blow dry my hair when I broke my arm). Bingo … one very sucessful hair cut, and 2 very happy girls.

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Last week a very special pacakge arrived in the mail. My dear friend Mia’s mom kindly sent us some of Mia’s childhood hats. There were 2 tams that will fit Ila perfectly next winter and this beautiful Marimekko sunhat. I don’t know who is more in love with it, me or Sosi. I can’t thank June enough for sharing these with us.

As if the hats weren’t enough, she also snuck in this adorable picture of Mia wearing the hat. I can’t stop looking at it! The hat, the expression, the costumes… This might be the best picture ever.

To try and make this time of day more fun I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to take photos of dinnertime for a week. I was surprised by how something so small changed things.  It made everyone feel like dinnertime was that much more special. It forced me to slow down and not be so frazzled. It made it more fun.

I managed to photograph Sunday through Friday, then Paul made dinner on Saturday and I got so excited that I forgot about the whole thing (it was that good). All flowers were picked and arranged by Sosi.

Sunday: Homemade pizza

Monday: Roast chicken, spinach, mashed potatoes with chives, tiny pastas with butter.

Tuesday: Annie’s Mac and Cheese, salad, BBQed sausages.

Wednesday: BBQed hamburgers, corn on the cob, salad

Thursday: Spaghetti with tomato sauce, kale.

Friday: Canton Café… chinese food. (Paul was away… us girls decided to go out)

It is freezing here. It is sunny and green… but cold. I’m using that as my excuse for my lack of sewing anything for the kids’ summer sewing challenge. (I can’t imagine wearing anything summer-like, I spend most of the day wrapped in a blanket.) I’ve also been busy with a couple of exciting jobs which are eating up any free time I have. I hope to get the sewing kick-started soon though.

I sewed the patch on those pants, does that count? I didn’t think so…

Happy Mothers’ Day  to my mom, my mother-in-law, and all my mama friends… I have learned so much from all of you and am so thankful to have you all in my life.

She’s feeling better. Her smile has returned, her cheeks are getting chubbier by the day and we have started heading out into the world again. Life is good.

It has been a hard week in these parts. Our little Ila has not been well. There have been many sleepless nights (for all, this child is LOUD), trips to the hospital, scary fevers, no eating, crying… so much crying,  and much heart break on my part. She seems to be a little better today after getting worse this past weekend.

I’m sitting here trying to make myself feel happy, and thought a free download might help. I made last week’s bonbon small fancy into a downloadable PDF colouring page. I hope it brings some smiles to some little faces.

(Above photo from happier days… I’m afraid if you saw a picture of us today you might never return to this site!)

The Small Fancy’s theme this week is “favourite song lyric”.  I’m sure there is a lyric out there that is more of a favourite than this one, but this is what jumped in my head and wouldn’t get out.