The Eiffel Tower

Davin's best friend (or her twin as she likes to refer to her) turned 5 last week and had a french themed birthday.  She loves Paris and the Eiffel Tower.  In coming up with a gift idea we decided to go with it and made her a shirt with an Eiffel Tower applique. 

I just bought a plain shirt at H&M, and then got an image of the Eiffel Tower online, using scraps to attach.  If I had more time I would have hand stitched it on, but time was at a premium, so I used the machine.

It turned out pretty cute, and the birthday girl seemed impressed that she had an Eiffel Tower shirt.

38 Years Old...

What?  How did that happen?  How am I 38 years old already?  I feel about 31!  My birthday was yesterday, and I had a great day getting spoiled by Dame and my little ones.

Davin was very adamant that I needed a pretty dress in blue for my birthday, so that is what they got me, along with a bit of running gear (yay!), better than Dame's 20 year old thermal underwear that I have been wearing out on colder days!

You can see a bit of the top of the dress in this one...

There was also a cupcake cake in the shape of a flower, and risotto, one of my favorite dishes Dame makes.

Yummo!



Of course I had lots of help to blow out the candles!

It was a lovely day capped off with a bit of knitting in the evening, these days I'm working on a Milo Vest for William.  So far it is a great easy knit and I plan to do one for Davin and Miren when I'm finished.

And I'll finish with this one just because... :)

Advent Calendar

This year I decided to finally make an Advent Calendar like the one I had when I was growing up.  It is a little different than most you find online, the idea is that you just hang an ornament each day as a count down to Christmas.  There are no gifts included like many others, I just feel that they get enough this time of year.  I found a few pictures online for inspiration, and they made up my own measurements and templates.  I need to add a back to it to give it more structure, but otherwise I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Here is a closer view of the ornaments:

Davin enjoyed it quite a bit, and I hope it is another tradition that will continue for many years.

Christmas Cases

For Christmas this year we decided to get the girls each a vintage train case and then fill it with some goodies.  We found the cases on Etsy from Babcock's Store, a great shop for vintage items.  The owner was great to deal with and worked with me to find the best shipping options.  Once they arrived we were busy making them special for each of the girls.

For Davin we decided to fill with her own craft supplies, including a pair of "sharp" scissors which were a huge hit.

We thought Miren was still a little young for that, so in thinking about the things she likes to do most, we filled it will little people, and surrounded it with a farm set for her to play with. 

They were a huge hit, and have had a lot of play over the past couple of weeks.  I hope the train cases will be well loved and something that will grow with them and be filled with different treasures as they get older.

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!".

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.

Easter Fun!

Originally posted April 29, 2011.

Our Easter weekend turned out perfectly, with some sunny Spring weather as an added bonus.  On Friday we started the day with a tea party complete with a castle cake.  Davin instilled a dresscode, which included dresses for the girls and a shirt and tie for the boys, and we all had a lovely time.

That afternoon we were busy dying some Easter eggs which the girls had a lot of fun with.  On Saturday morning we were up bright and early and off to our old neighbourhood for an Easter egg hunt.  Fortuneately the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful day to be outside.  The girls had lots of fun finding the eggs and then enjoying the goods that were inside.

After the big hunt we were all enjoying the beautiful weather so much that no one wanted to to go in so we stayed outside for the rest of the day with children playing while the adults basked in the subshine and enjoyed refreshments.  It was a wonderful kick-off to Spring.

The Easter eggs for our family hunt on Sunday morning deserve a post of their own, they were a huge hit with the girls - who wouldn't enjoy smashing real eggs on the floor / table / etc. to find a surprise inside?  Then it was just a matter of sweeping up the eggshell before the dogs tried to eat it.

After the egg hunt it was off to Aunt Barb's for turkey dinner (yum!) and a visit.  The girls wore their Easter dresses from Nana, and Aunt Barb had gotten them new sun hats which matched the dresses perfectly!

A Happy Easter indeed!