Sunset

The view from my front window. Already I'm noticing that the days are longer, only a week past the solstice.

Merry Christmas to all

and to all a good night...

Glowing

Our shabby little 14 year old fake tree looks downright opulent with the lights all aglow...

Sniffing

Man the cats love the Christmas tree (and sniffing anything I put under it... and untying the tree skirt despite their lack of thumbs...)

We are not amused...

Trick or Treat!

Hope you had a wonderful Hallowe'en! We sure did, mild weather and HUGE bags of candy :)

Glow Bowl

It's a weekend before Hallowe'en tradition at the alley where the bits do league bowling on Saturdays... but oh it gives me a headache!

Not-so-little Vampiress

Katie went to a Hallowe'en dance at school this evening. Got her dressed in her costume, put on her wig and painted her face, then posed her for a few pictures before running out to the school. Looking at them now I'm blown away, that chubby cheeked toddler is all but gone, who is this gorgeous young woman in her place?

Thankfully she doesn't care much for makeup yet and washed most of this off while still at the dance. Don't grow up too quickly princess....

Cub Hallowe'en Party

Jonah loves these annual parties that bring together all sections of his scouting troop. I hate them, too loud, too crowded, too many kids hopped up on sugar and adrenaline. But he loves them, and that's what matters, right?

Sunset

The picture doesn't really capture the lovely pinky-orange glow that bathed our street tonight.

Sunday Brunch

After Mass this morning C made us brunch, eggs Benedict is my all time favourite, and home fries that the Hollandaise just happened to fall on? Heaven!

I'm so lucky.

Spooooooky!

We were invited again this year to an adults-only Hallowe'en party, costumes mandatory. I'm not a big partier, but these are friends of ours and they always put on a good spread, so we called up the sitter, threw together some costumes and off we went.

C was this guy from the Saw movies. I made his little red bowtie, we found the mask at a costume shop and the shirt and jacket just came from his closet. I'm wearing a cheapy vampiress dress and the cape from Jonah's costume (hey, he doesn't need it until next week anyway!)

We had a good time though I must admit I was falling asleep by the time we left at a quarter past 11 :)

Fall

Fall has really arrived in our little town. Most of the trees have suffered significant leaf drop due to tons of rain and high winds, but this young maple out front is just peaking now. Beautiful!

Blog - the book

Before this blog I used to blog elsewhere. Whereas this blog is a sort of upbeat glimpse into my day to day life, heavy on pictures but light on content, that old blog was a true journal. I shut it down in 2006 when I realized that too many people I knew in real life were reading. But I didn't delete it.

Fast forward to 2011. That old blog is precious to me now. It's a real, raw look at my thoughts and emotions as I struggled with a pre-teen, a 2 year old and an infant, with balancing work and family, with a terrible job that I hated, and with all of the day to day drudgery that life threw at me. I realize not only are those words precious to me, but some day my kids might benefit from a glimpse into my head, when they're struggling with work/life balance, with babies who won't sleep and bosses who make life hellish, maybe they'll find comfort in knowing they're not alone.

So I turned my old blog into a printed book, using Blurb. It wasn't exactly easy, the system 'slurps' your blog into a template, but I found I had a ton of formatting work to do afterwards. Still, it wasn't difficult, and the end result exceeds my expectations.

This isn't a book that will sit out on my coffee table for the whole world to peruse, but it turned out so gorgeous and precious I'll be proud sharing it with a few of my nearest and dearest.

New Desk

I'd been using a 6 foot folding table as a desk in my office/crap room since moving here in 2008. C snapped up this new desk for me at an auction, it's solid, only 5 feet wide but a full 30 inches deep, AND it has 3 drawers to hide crap in!

Of course, I had to clear off the old table to make room for the new, and that took most of a day. Me and my chronic disorganization!

Fabric Flea Market

I headed in to the city bright and early to go to a one-day fabric flea market to benefit a local school. It opened at 10 so I wandered up to the community centre at 9:57 (my first hint should have been the complete lack of parking ANYWHERE in the Glebe) to find myself approximately #500 in line. Holy smurf!!! They actually did a great job getting people into the venue quickly and in orderly fashion but we were literally shoulder to shoulder once we were inside...

... but it completely didn't matter. The room was full of vendors and there were TONS of great deals! Despite being wigged out by the crowd I spent a grand total of $28 got all of this!

That bag weighed at least 10 pounds!

So many fun things, lots of stash builders, and all of it CHEAP!

Can't wait until next year!

Crazy fall colour

My backyard, in the strange golden light of an approaching storm...

Making jelly

A new type of jelly making for me - jalapeno pepper jelly. This tastes amazing, but it didn't set very well, it's quite runny. Could be because I can't measure worth crap and put in 375 mL of red peppers instead of 250 mL. Oh well, we'll eat it anyway...

(Used this recipe)

Mer Bleue

An absolutely perfect weekend to take the bits for a walk through Mer Bleue. Sadly 40,000 other people had the same idea so it was crowded (that might be a slight exaggeration, there might have only been 39,999).

Poor cat...

At least he looks dapper in his shirt...

Hello Fall!

Leaves in the village

Glorious Morning...

Sunrise over my yard...

Roll out the barrel...

We trekked out to VanKleek Hill for Oktoberfest on a cold and rainy Sunday. It was still a good time, despite the wet, the cold, and the whining by the short people in our contingent (I'm looking at you Katie and Jonah!) Katie assisted on stage with DooDoo the clown, C sampled microbrewed beers, we all had pretzels and sausages and schnitzel, it was fun. Hopefully next year the weather will be better...

Baby quilty

Simple baby quilt made for Michelle and Ryan's baby-to-be, I'll be giving it to Michelle at her shower today. I started this eons ago but only finished Friday. I got really stalled by not liking the blocks at.all. The finished quilt isn't too bad though, and it matches the nursery. Sort of.

(I bought a bunch of baby clothes too, I always feel 'cheap' giving just a handmade baby quilt as a gift)

Pretty kitty

Binou, age 3. She's a sweetie.

Siblings

These guys fight, a lot. Certainly more than I fought with my own brother when we were their ages. It grates on my nerves, and it can get terribly disheartening. But underneath it all they truly love each other. They are best friends. favourite playmates, a team. I'm glad I have this picture to remember that when the bickering threatens to drive me over the edge :)

Shrimp Tempura!

Took the bits for sushi (along with James and Chris - James' idea of course, he loooooves sushi!), wasn't sure how they'd react but I was pleasantly surprised at how many things they tried. Wookie was a tempura eating machine, Katie chowed down on dumplings, calamari and miso soup, among other things. I don't think I'll take them for sushi very often but I do like to expand their horizons when I can, even if only a little.

Fundraising Already

Can't believe we're fundraising for the school already!!!

(Took this picture to armtwist the grandparents into buying ;) )

McMaze

We had a Groupon, so we decided to check out the corn maze and other attractions at McMaze. In addition to a LARGE corn maze there was animals, a playground, lots of fun exhibits, a barn full of cats to cuddle, home made ice cream and tons more. We'll definitely go back!

Back to the lanes

Another season of YBC bowling begins....

(We started a day late, but fortunately not a dollar short)

Princess in the back country

Princess and Papa took an overnight canoe camping trip together, to Joeperry Lake at Bon Echo Provincial Park. By all accounts they had a wonderful time together, paddling, tenting, cooking over a fire and playing yahtzee. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a tradition :)

My Charming Dinner Companion

While Papa and Katie are away camping Wookie and I are spending some quality time together. After a movie (Spy Kids in 4D, which means there was a scratch and sniff card to go along with the movie, ay yi yi) we had a lovely dinner together at East Side Mario's. Jonah ordered a Shirley Temple which came with a little poof of cotton candy. You can guess what happened when it inevitably fell into the glass! :) It was a lovely evening though, the kids are so different one on one. I really enjoy hanging out with them.

Back to school 2011

First day of 3rd grade and 5th grade for the bits. I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by! And look at how they've grown! 2010, 2009, 2008 (and here as well), and 2007

Small chef

We signed little J up for a half day children's cooking school, which was yesterday. My cell phone was dead and I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures of him looking adorable in his apron and paper hat. He really enjoyed it though, the whole process, and the autonomy of learning these new skills without me hovering over him and without his sister bossing him around. The instructors let him chop vegetables with a knife, roll out pasta, mix, measure, stir, etc. They sent him home with a sampling of things he made (cookies and no-bake 'truffles', but not the home made pasta and sauce, the kids ate all of that while the cookies were baking) as well as a sheet of recipes.

So today he decided to make something from that recipe sheet - oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. He did it almost entirely by himself, the only thing I did was put the cookie sheets into the oven and take them out again.



I could get used to having another cook in the house...

Mmmm

Summer in a bowl - vanilla yogurt, granola and sweet berries!

A little roadside humour

There's a film crew setting up downtown (Ottawa, on Queen St between Metcalfe and Elgin if you're local). I think someone in the production crew has an, uhm, interesting sense of humour...

PS - the crew turned out to be filming an episode of Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which according to Wiki hasn't debuted yet. Which explains why I'd never heard of it...)

Treasure

Awww - the rainbow ends at my Princess :)

One of my fave restaurants...

Lone Star fajitas! Enjoying a lovely lunch with Aunt Bonnie and Chris before they head back to Oshawa...

Toothless Wonder

That's baby tooth #7 gone. Slow down Wookie!

Hog's Back Falls

Enjoying a stroll around Hog's Back and Dow's Lake with Aunt Bonnie and Chris as they visit with us for a few days. This is one of my favourite places to take people, it's not touristy at all, probably doesn't show up on anyone's list of things to see and do in Ottawa but it's beautiful!

Flying free

We bought a trampoline :)

(On sale at Canadian Tire this week!)

Ahhhh Summer

He gets braver and braver every day, in fact almost by the hour. He seems to really benefit from having other kids here swimming and jumping off the board (we've had cousins and friends nearly every day this week), he emulates them and becomes more and more confident. It makes all of those long hours of lessons in Satan's pool worthwhile.

Funny Wookie

We're really enjoying having the pool in working order again, it's been HOT and we're on vacation :)