Christmas Cards and Photo

I have been making my own Christmas cards for more than 10 years now, but as the girls get older I want to include them.  Inspired by these, this year we used up a bunch of watercolor paintings the girls had done over the year, cutting them up using our Christmas cookie cutters to get the shapes.  Most are already in the mail, but I did have a couple left to get pictures of.

We included a picture with the cards, I wasn't even going to try getting a picture of all of us together, but Dame came up with this after some brainstorming.

We had some challenges getting Miren to look to the right, but in some ways I like the effect better, her little personality shines through, as does Davin's, who couldn't resist sticking out her tongue!  The dogs don't look too impressed, you can tell they were not willing participants.  After we had the pictures I found some free scrapbook paper here and then put it all together using Picasa, which I have had a lot more luck with than Photoshop, which I didn't find very intuitive to use.

Merry Christmas!

3 Years Old!

Miren is 3!  It's amazing how much she has grown up in the last few months.  She went from our baby just a few short months ago to our little girl, which makes me both sad to see you grow up so quickly, but excited to see the little girl you are becoming.


Just born!



7 months



1 Year old



2 Years old

3 Years old

10 things I want to remember about Miren right now:

• You love doing puzzles, and will do the same ones over and over again every day.
• You're a great little helper in the kitchen, always up on a chair to help with cooking, baking, and washing dishes.
• You're developing quite the sense of humor and are a little ham, always joking and making us laugh.
• You love snuggles on the couch, saying "Can you snuggle me?" numerous times every day.
• You are quite the little night owl, but always stay in your room playing, reading to yourself, and changing jammies at least once or twice.
• You have 3 buddies, Elephant, Soft Bunny and Rough Bunny who you snuggle all day long and in bed every night.
• You love to suck your thumb (and we've caught you sticking it in William's mouth to let him"try" it).
• You always ask if you can "pet" William.
• You love your big sister, and play together all day, with you copying and trying to be just like Davin.
• Your favorite song is "Sugar" by the Archies ("Can you play Suga Suga mommy?")
• You have 3 imaginary friends - Daisy, Jaston, and Paulet that you talk about all the time.

Happy Birthday Mirie!!

She's 5!

I cannot believe 5 years have passed since Davin entered our lives.  She is the most enthusiastic, happy, full of life, ready for anything girl I know, always with a positive attitude and a smile, and we love her dearly.


1 Year old





2 Years old



3 Years old



4 Years old



4 1/2 Years old



5 Years old!

 10 things I want to remember about Davin right now:

• You wanted to learn to whistle (similar to when you wanted to learn to click your tongue), so you practiced, practiced every day until you figured it out.  Now you whistle all day long through whatever you are doing!
• You love cutting with scisssors, and we find bits of wool, paper, whatever all over the house.  You also tried cutting through a necklace to see what would happen, and were very sad with the results.
• You LOVE printing letters, and write us letters everyday either to tell us you love us, tell us you are sorry, etc. You prefer to write in capital letters only, except for the letter "i", because you like to put the dot over it (sometimes making it a heart).
• You love winter, snow especially, mostly because you love to eat it.
• You were a witch with Miren for Halloween this year, and had so much fun trick-or-treating.  You would say trick-or-treat very loud and excitedly at each house, a could commented that you won most enthusiatic trick-or-treater of the evening, and after you got your treat would yell "thanks for making this the best Halloween night!!".  You said you want to be a mermaid next year, we'll see...
• You love your little brother so much, and are so motherly with him.  You are the only one who can settle him to stop crying when he is in his crib.  You've even put him to sleep a few times in his vibrating chair.  You love to cuddle him, hold him, and kiss him, and it is so sweet to watch.
• You want to be an acrobat when you grow up, and have a little dog and a little cat.
• Although you're pretty rough and tumble and always jumping, running, skipping, climbing, you love wearing dresses wherever you go.
• Your best friend is Veronica, but you say she is your twin, and correct us if we call her a friend.  You 2 are kindred spirits, and play together for hours, with rarely a fight or disagreement.
• A few months ago your favorite songs were Captain Kid and Charlie Horse (both sung by Great Big Sea), but these days you love listeing to ABBA, especially Dancing Queen and Fernando.
• You requested eggs for breakfast, pancakes for lunch, and burgers for your birthday meals.

"Puppy" - who you sleep with every night.

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Birthdays & Loot Bags!

We celebrated Davin's birthday over 2 days - her party with her friends last Sunday, and then a family celebration on her actual birthday.  For Davin's birthday party we just invited 4 of her friends plus their younger siblings for a total of 7 children plus Davin & Miren and went to 4Cats Arts Studio for a Paint Splatter Party.  It was a lot of fun for all.

I wanted to keep the loot bags simple and include a few things they would actually use.  I decided to make some fabric bags, and used Betz White's great shoe bag tutorial, but then scaled it down, cutting the fabric to 9" X 10" and reducing the top hem to 1".  To reduce the fabric I put unbleached muslin on the reverse side, and some fabric I had on hand for the fronts.

I then filled them with these pinecone skiers which I made into tree ornaments, inspired by these.

I also included a pack of fruit chews, a couple of tattoos, and a glow stick bracelet.

The hit of the party was the rainbow cake Dame made, inspired by this one - admittedly we did use 2 boxes of Duncan Hines white cake, but we used the recipe on the back, substituting milk for the water and adding 3/4 cup of sour cream to make it lighter.

This was the table that greeted her on her birthday:

 

I kept the birthday shirts simple this year, appliquing a small "5" on the top right side of the shirt with some wool felt I had on hand. Other than that we just gave her a purple sleeper with feet which was a big hit - she LOVES sleepers with feet!  She got plenty of other gifts between family and friends, although I was happy that most were thoughtfully chosen puzzles, board games, and clothes which will all get a lot of use.

Davin ended the day by saying dramatically "thanks so much guys for the wonderful day!".

Letters... we've got letters...

Completely on her own, all of a sudden our almost 5 year old has become obsessed with the alphabet, spelling, sounding out words, and writing notes, which we find all over the house.  I see this time as being somewhat fleeting (as are most things at this toddler/child age), so I thought I should capture a few to remember them.



"Popcorn please Daddy. Davin"

"I love you. To Miren, From Davin."

Camp-out list - "pillows, animals, sleeping bags".

Posted on her door - "Nobody home, signed Davin."

"Sorry Miren, but I..." - she can't remember the rest.

Found this on my door one night going to bed - a picture of me and Davin in a race.

She saw me taking a picture of the last note and wanted to pose...

This was in a box tied with a bow to greet me after my first day back to work after William was born.

Yes, everything gets documented in a note, with bits of paper found all over the house.  So much fun, excluding the non-washable marker found on tablecloths, her duvet cover, lamp, headboard.  That girl just can't help herself!!

Fall Nature Table

I don't think I ever got around to posting pictures of our Summer Nature Table, so I wanted to make sure I recorded the Fall Table before it was winter already.  We have a little alcove near our front door that I didn't know quite what to do with when we moved in, but then as I looked for a place to put our nature table I realized it would be the perfect spot - we pass it all day long going from upstairs to down and inside to out.

The rock with words is one that my dad and Davin found on our trip to Lunenburg back in May.  Dad took it home and put a special message on it, and then sent it up with my mom when she came to visit.  A special reminder of a special trip.

The acorns were knit last year, I can't seem to find the pattern, but these are pretty close if they aren't the same ones.  Super quick to knit up a few.

The felt leaves were inspired by these, I started making them last year, and then finally finished a bunch this fall.  They are now scattered on our dining room table and our nature table.  Easy to make and look so pretty, and can be used again and again.

The rocks and pinecones are ones we have collected on our walks with the dogs.

Overall I'm pleased with the effect, and the girls enjoy bringing things back to add to it.  Success!

When you've got lemons...

Breastfeeding has resulted once again in an insatiable appetite, and between not being able to eat dairy or chocolate (*sob*), I turn to other yummy favorites when I need a snack... namely, Lemon Meringue Pie, a favorite since forever.  I grew up on the Shirriff lemon pie filling, but in looking at the ingredients, and always preferring to make things from scratch, I decided to try this one.  It turned out pretty yummy, but is definitely heavy on the sugar, so I think I will keep looking to see if I can improve on it.

My only problem was I was a little impatient and didn't wait for it to cool before cutting, so the filling wasn't set... it didn't detract from the flavour though!

Two months!

Our sweet little William is 2 months old already!  On the one hand I don't know where the time has gone, on the other I can't imagine life without him.

He is a sweet smiley boy who already loves his sisters dearly, giving them lots of coos and smiles everyday.

He's a big boy, need to weigh him again, he was already 15lbs at his 6 week check-up!  He loves being held, and is not much for being on his own, always wanting to be a part of the action, which is probably a good thing when you have 2 older sisters.

We can't wait to get to know you little man!!

Sugar Sprite

After the girls ate some of their candy on Halloween night we had them go through it and keep half, putting the rest in a bowl for the Sugar Sprite.  She takes the treats and leaves a little something in return.  I think I originally saw this idea here, and thought it would be a great way to cut down on the amount of treats the girls get Halloween night.

This year the Sugar Sprite left the girls some stickers, a little ghost, and a book each.  I think the stickers were the biggest hit, but no real surprise there.  The ghosts were super quick and easy, but a cute little decoration that will last for future years.

Halloweening

This year was so much fun with the girls for Halloween, at almost 3 and 5, they are at such great ages.  It started out that Miren was going to be a bat and Davin a flesh eating monster (yikes - don't know where that came from...), but a trip to Value Village resulted in them finding some witch costumes that they loved.

We carved our pumpkins the day before, we each did our own, with Davin helping Miren draw the face on hers, and we helped them both a little cutting them out - they looked great.  We had:

My scary pumpkin scarecrow

Dame's reaper complete with owl in the tree

Davin's - I love the mouth and teeth!

Miren's - love it!

William's storm trooper, compliments of Dame.

After getting dressed up and greeting some trick-or-treaters at the door we put the rest of our treats outside and were off!  Davin was super excited, Miren didn't quite know what we were about to do.

After the first couple of houses Miren looked at me saying, "Wow, this is amazing!  People giving us candy!  And I love candy you know!"  This was repeated numerous times throughout the evening.  Davin won for most enthusiastic trick-or-treater of the evening, thanking each person with a "thanks for making this the BEST Halloween night!".  It was great.

The three witches!

William came too - thoroughly unimpressed with the whole evening.

After we got home the girls had fun sampling a few things and getting ready for their camp-in - we had set up a small tent in the living room where they slept for the night.  It was a late night, Miren finally gave in at 11:30pm, but well worth it.

A Simple Bag

My sister made D a trick-or-treat bag a couple of years ago, so I thought Miren should have one as well this year.  Notwithstanding that I put it together on Halloween day, lucky for me it was a very quick project to come together, exactly what I need these days, thanks to Larissa who has the best tutorials.

It turned out great and will be used for many years to come.  I have enough fabric left to make a second one which I plan to try and do in the next couple of weeks to be put away with all the Halloween decorations.

Handmade Birthdays

Fall is a busy time for birthdays for us, starting with 1 nephew in September, a father, sister and niece in November, and 2 daughters in December.  Makes for a busy lead up to Christmas!  In my continuing effort to simplfy and focus on handmade gifts, I tried to come up with some simple projects that would come together quickly.

For my sister, who is in the process of relocating to a new job and city (one that will involve more travel), I decided to go with a simple cowl with some yarn I had been saving, and a shoe bag using Betz White's great tutorial - how I love tutorials, especially the well written ones.

My little models

For the shoe bag I used some of Kate Spain's Central Park fabric, which I love.

Next up was a little niece turning 4, one who love to colour and happens to enjoy princesses.  I put together a little package including some stickers, these gel pastels (which I love), and a handmade colouring book.

For the colouring book I used this tutorial, and then downloaded some colouring pages off the internet.  I didn't have any book tape on hand, so I just used some electrical tape I had.

I hope the gifts are well received and enjoyed as much as I enjoyed making them!

A Good Day

Today was a good day, full of the things I'd like to be doing more of with the girls, as opposed to the few preceding days which were pretty rough, and largely sleep deprived.  I think a lot of it had to do with moving William to his crib 2 nights ago, which resulted in him sleeping for 4-5 hour stretches, giving me a bit more sleep as well.  But back to today, there was:

• Some yummy date squares baked with the girls' assistance;
• A silk scarf dyed a beautiful green compliments of this little tutorial;
• Some simple paper garlands made to decorate the girls rooms;
• Paper pumpkins made
• And Davin's continued new found love of spelling and writing notes, so much fun to see developing all on its own.

I even managed to sneak in a load of laundry and reorganize Miren's drawers and pull out all the clothes she has outgrown.

Between that and listening to the coos and seeing the smiles of our almost 8 week (!!) old, it was just about a perfect day.