Category: Kids

just the 2 of us

Posted on Posted in food, Kids, Life, P.E.I

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Sosi and Paul have been crazy about biking the Confederation Trail (or the Trail, as we call it) this summer. He usually takes her after supper to give me some time to myself.

She is unstoppable, and usually returns bragging of fox sightings, of how beautiful golden time (golden hour) is and of biking all the way to the airport!

The other night we headed out just the two of us for the first time.  I couldn’t believe how peaceful and beautiful it was… and how close it is to where we live! I haven’t biked much since we moved here, and I’m realizing how much I miss it. I used to boot all over Vancouver with Sosi on the back of my bike. It’s quite something now to look over beside me and see her little smiling face.

We didn’t see any foxes, but we did spot some bushes full of gigantic rosehips and stopped to pick them. Our mother daughter adventured continued on the next day when we decided to make jam from them. We used the recipe for Rose hip Jam from “Apples for Jam“. I didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out pretty good.

I love when Sosi and I have alone time like this together. Such wonderful and unexpected things always come out of it.

where did summer go?

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life1 Comment

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I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that my little girl is starting school in little more than a week. She’s growing up so fast… it’s breaking my heart. She’s even started not wanting to hug me as much anymore,

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thank goodness I have this little one who I can hug as much as my heart desires.

I’ve been painting…

Posted on Posted in crafting, Kids, Life3 Comments

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I’ve been painting old yogurt containers.

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As you can see, Ila is in love… with yogurt and her new friends.

enjoying…

Posted on Posted in Barnfaces, food, Kids, Life, P.E.I1 Comment

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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,

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barns right on main street,

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strawberry tarts,

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moments like these.

sunbeams and haircuts

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life1 Comment

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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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we got Pop!

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life, P.E.I1 Comment

One of the best things to come out of moving here to P.E.I, is that we get to see much more of my parents. My dad has made it a yearly tradition to drive down at the end of June with their neighbour who has summered on P.E.I for the last 40 years. This means we get to spend a good week with Pop all to ourselves (don’t have to share him with my mom!). This week is greatly looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed by all.

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marimekko hand-me-down

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life

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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.

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a week of dinners

Posted on Posted in food, Kids, Life3 Comments

I love dinnertime. Sitting down to eat is my favourite time of day, but getting to that point can be stressful. I’m tired and hungry, the girls are tired and hungry. It seems to be the time of day they seem to need my attention the most. I feel torn between being there for them and trying to make them something heathy and tasty for dinner. That usually makes me grumpy.

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

Sunday: Homemade pizza

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

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

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Wednesday: BBQed hamburgers, corn on the cob, salad

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Thursday: Spaghetti with tomato sauce, kale.

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

summer, where are you?

Posted on Posted in crafting, Kids, Life

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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.

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

happy mother’s day

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life3 Comments

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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.

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feeling better

Posted on Posted in Kids, Life2 Comments

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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.

making happy

Posted on Posted in give away, Kids, Life4 Comments

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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!)

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“it’s a love you don’t give words to…”

Posted on Posted in Comics, Illustration, Kids, Life1 Comment

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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.

iron-on fun

Posted on Posted in Art, Illustration, Kids, Life7 Comments

This year for Sosi’s birthday party loot bag we decided to do something a little different. We set up a craft table for the kids to each do a drawing. We scanned each drawing, printed it  onto iron-on transfer paper and then ironed them onto a t-shirt for them to each take home (luckily we had my folks here to lend a hand to the assembly line).

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It turned out to be so much fun. In all the mayhem I totally forgot to take pictures… which is really too bad because each kid’s t-shirt turned out so great!  All so different and unique. I think they were all really happy and proud of the results.

I’ve been a little obsessed with iron on transfers lately. I’ve had a package of them for probably 10 years that I’ve always wanted to use, but never got around to it. This year I took the plunge! We made t-shirts for all the kids on our Xmas list. I forgot to take pictures of those too, but they were similar to this one here.

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Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop! Here is one I did today. I was trying to cover a stain on one of my favourite shirts. I really like how it turned out, but I can still see the stain…

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surrendering

Posted on Posted in Art, Kids, Life4 Comments

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I finally finished Ila’s Christmas gift. In the days leading up to the big day it became more and more clear to me that it wasn’t going to be finished in time. There was just too much to get done. I decided to just let it go.

I’m finding this is the key to happiness these days. Plans change, things I want to get done don’t get done, time to myself never seems to happen. Instead of fighting all this, I’ve decided to surrender to it.

Sosi added a little scribble to this piece on a particularly naughty day. My first instinct was to get upset with her, but then I thought about it more and I thought what a sweet contribution to her sister’s gift. It certainly speaks of our lives these days. There are no boundaries between my life, art and these children, it is all one big messy imperfect  pile.

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last minute gifts

Posted on Posted in Art, Kids, Life1 Comment

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4 years ago I made these pieces for Sosi for her first Christmas.

Wanting to keep the tradition alive, I decided to make one for Ila this year (although it is technically her second Christmas). Over the few past weeks I have been planning, working, reworking and staring at this piece for her.

I can’t think of any other way I would like to spend an afternoon than sitting in a pile of fabric scraps, cutting and stitching. Maybe that’s why it has been taking me so long to finish, I ‘m drawing this out as long as I can. This feels like a gift for me as well.

Hope you are all enjoying these last magical moments before Christmas.