Getting ready

In a flury of double sided tape, paper cutting and markers, the goodie bags are ready for this weekend's festivities.

A milestone

Today, I got busted by my toddler for the first time for substituting words in a beloved story. "No Mumma, that not potty that bafroom ".

Day 2

A long walk for lunch and some peeking in windows in the market definitely improved my outlook on 2013.

Lunch.  Grilled Cheese in Kensington

Dinner. Girl among the Christmas explosion.

Julia - Photos I should have posted foever ago but didn't.

Happy New Year! 2013

Happy New Year, Everyone!

It's been months since I've posted and I'm not one for resolutions, so I'm not promising that I'll do much more posting.  I'm feeling sort of generally worried about 2013.  Instead of thinking of it that way though, I'm trying to feel a bit more optimistic.  Perhaps preparing for 2013 to be a year of lessons for me (that's as optimistic as I can get right now).  Let's see how it goes! 

Rough New Year's Eve?

Talk to you soon!

B.

The transit of Venus

Rob took his girls to watch the transit of  Venus at Varsity stadium last night. Julia had no idea what was going in. Clare asked a lot of questions. Not sure how much she actually understood.

A New First!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry, posting has been so sporadic. I've been crazy busy. But we have some really great things happening around here. Check it out!! (FYI - it's best viewed in full screen)




(14 months and 3 weeks)

Talk to you soon,

B.

Happy Birthday Julia!

Happy Halloween!!

Overheard

Clare: Mum, can you read me this book?
Me: No, Clare. I'm going to have my rest time now too, just like you. Can you read it yourself?
Clare: But I don't remember the words!
Me: You can look at the pictures and imagine the story.
Clare: That's not how you read!!

Talk to you soon,

B.

Nostalgia

It turns out that this month will be my 6th Blogiversary. Is that not completely weird?? It seems pretty weird to me.

I only noticed it because I went back into the archives to look at old photos and footage of Clare. People keep asking me whether Clare was like Julia is at this age and I have absolutely no recollection. Thank goodness for this blog, otherwise, every single memory I have of Clare as a child would be inaccurate!! I can barely remember her as she was then. I look at the pictures and its as if she and I were both two other people. So crazy. If you'd also like to see what Clare was like when she was Julia's age, you can visit the September and October 2008 archives.

So, I was reading my first post wherein I comment that I have neither cellphone or car. Today I own both a cellphone (on my 2nd model, I think) and car (still the first car I've every owned). It's interesting because I've spent a bit of time this week feeling down about how I never seem to make any real progress -- that we keep getting kind of stuck without making any improvement. For example, that I'm still living without baseboards in the living and dining rooms and I'm still living with a hole in our 2nd floor ceiling. But then I got reminded. Firstly, I visited my 'list of things to do around the house' and realized that while there are some things that haven't gotten checked off the list yet, that I have in the past year or so checked off about 5 or 6 other things that I'd forgotten about. Now, visiting the archives, I'm reminded of how much has changed in just these 6 years. I have a car and a cell phone. And kids and a house - a house that we own just about half of, I think, which is actually pretty amazing for only 5 years into our mortgage. And a new job. There are some other kind of more subtle things too. I think Rob and I have an even better relationship than we did back then - which is pretty cool, since we were already pretty good back then. And of course, the girls. I mean, that's just a whole other dimension.

I dunno. I guess I could still be upset that things aren't happening faster. That the light switch in the kitchen isn't fixed. That there's no light in the dining room. That everything needs to be painted. But I think I can see that we're getting there. It might just take us another 25 years.

Talk to you soon,

B.

Menu for July 23rd - July 28th

Just a mini-menu this week. There hasn't been as much cooking around here as usual, what with the crazy heat and all the summer parties.

Sunday - Grilled Steaks, caprese salad, buttered peas
Monday - Chicken cutlets with red pepper ragu, green beans, rice with parsley
Tuesday - Club sandwiches with avacado and corn on the cob
Wednesday - Spaghetti a limone with spinach
Thursday - Take-out

Talk to you soon,

B.

Teeth!

Julia sprouted not 1 but 2 teeth today. Yay! She won't show them, which is one reason why there is no photo (they are the two front teeth on the bottom).

I think there's a third tooth following very close behind.

Talk to you soon,

B

Some photos from the vault

I meant to post these photos over a month ago. Well, better late than never. Clare loves to play around with my sunglasses. And so, the girls were hamming it up one Saturday when their Nana and Poppa were visiting.

Rockstars!

Ahh.. kisses.

Overheard

Me: Clare, after we're done at the park we need to go home and have lunch and get ready for nap time. Julia needs a good nap this afternoon.
Clare: But Muuuummm! I haven't had a good nap yet! Julia already had a nap! When's my turn for a good nap?!?!

Sweet!

Talk to you soon,

B.

Julia Gets her Groove On

On Friday, Julia learned to clap her hands together. She's been practicing, and practicing, and practicing. Now, she'll even do it on command or by subtle suggestion -- or when Usher's playing on Clare's radio. Check it (recommended viewing with volume turned up):





Talk to you soon,

B.

Friday Night Cocktails

I didn't write about last weeks cocktails. Last week was Canada Day so we were drinking rye and gingers. More accurately Canadian Club and Canada Dry Gingerale. Gotta have a theme, right? Plus, Rob was tired of all the fruity girly 'crap' I'd been feeding him.

Tonight we're drinking Vodka Orange Slush, as described here.

Talk to you soon,

B.

Homemade Soft Drinks

I made the yummiest concoction this week! It was pretty much inspired by this ginger-beer recipe and this ginger lemonade recipe but I did it kind of my own way and went a little 'off book'.

First, I made a ginger 'tea'. I made a big pot of it, like I do in the winter when I'm making a ginger tea -- boiling about 2-3 inches of ginger root (peeled and chopped but not crazy chopped) in about 4 cups of water. Then I poured the tea into a glass container and put it in the fridge.

I didn't sweeten it because I wanted to be able to sweeten individually (I try to avoid sugar some days but other days not so much). So I separately made a sugar syrup (2 cups sugar, 4 cups water until sugar is dissolved) and put that into a glass container and into the fridge.

Then, I made a pitcher of lemonade the way the guys do at Jet Fuel. I posted about that recipe before over here. Except that instead of adding only water, I added about a cup of the ginger tea and then topped up with the water to fill the pitcher. Wham! Ginger-lemonade! Been drinking cups and cups of it!!

Ok.. but it gets better. So - Rob comes home and he takes the Ginger-lemonade and makes a 50:50 mix of the ginger-lemonade and soda water (or maybe 75:25). Wham again! Even better than the 'flat' ginger-lemonade.

Ok.. so then I made yet another drink. I took the ginger syrup and mixed it with varying levels of sweetness (sometimes no sugar at all) with the club soda. HOMEMADE GINGER ALE!! Good golly! It was so amazing.

I've often heard about the deliciousness of homemade soft drinks. I enjoy the 'italian sodas' you can get at Second Cup, but they were still a little too sweet. This way worked out so well. And also Rob and I can have separate control over sugar levels.

I think I'm going to try to make some other flavoured 'syrups' or 'teas' for us. Let the Googling begin.

Talk to you soon,

B.

Overheard

There are a collection of pictures in the hallway at Clare's daycare that the kids have drawn. There's a sign that says that the pictures are what the kids drew to show what they did on the weekend. Clare's picture is dated June 20, 2011 but hers is the only one that doesn't have a teacher-written description on it. So, I ask her:

Me: Clare, is this your picture?
C: Yeah.
Me: What's happening in this picture?
C: Nothing.
Me: But, it's supposed to be a picture from your weekend. Did you draw a picture of what you did on the weekend?
C: No.
Clare's teacher: I ask her all the time, how her weekend was and what she did. All she'll ever tell me is 'I slept. Then, I woke-up and watched tv. Then I ate breakfast. Then I got dressed. I stayed in my jammies until after breakfast' If I ask her what else she did, she just says 'nothing' or 'I don't know'"
Me: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's her favorite part of the weekend.

Sigh. I think she takes after her Dad.

Talk to you soon,

B.

Blueberries

This is the 'after' shot. Julia's enjoying her solids and likes blueberries, as you can see. Here, her face matches her dress!

It's amazing - this photo was taken only a couple of weeks ago and already she's a much tidier eater.