Free Play

Our first day of spring was spent with two little friends. After weeks of illness I was delighted in the excited chatter of adventure making as the four little ones engaged in story after story.

We spent the rest of the morning outside where the backyard became a treasure field where the adventurers discovered jewels and artifacts from summers gone by.

Now I just have to find a way to return my garden ornaments to their homes outside without upsetting the princess.

Signs of spring

We made birds this weekend from fabric paper and food colouring. Both kids were fully engaged in this activity and we now have our own flock of wildlife out our front window.

First I cut out about a dozen birds.

My eldest used her science kit tray to mix the colours which she loved.

After days of sickness it was nice to see the kids getting involved in an activity. The end of spring break was all about recovery.

We recently set up a bird feeder at our back window which truly inspired this project. I have photos to paste of our visitors. Yesterday we even had a woodpecker at our feeder which was very exciting.

The kids are enthralled by birds and who wouldn't be. As we walk to school this coming week the buds are out on the trees and the birds are fruitful in them.

I have been in kid zone lately with little time for business which is always hard. It is wonderful being there for my kids, especially when they are under the weather, but this is also the time I need to continue to build and work on my still new business venture. I love, I struggle, and I continue on.

Spring Break Summary

I don't know how it started but my kids have an addiction to the coffee shop. My littlest one especially. I do not remember my eldest mentioning going to the coffee shop at every opportunity even though we hung out a lot in coffee shops when she was younger.
They love their soy hot chocolates.
I just want to say that this soy latte pictured above was seriously the best soy latte I have ever tasted. This is from JJ's on the Drive and I have had them there before, but never at this level. It was so amazingly perfect and it really did set our day off fantastically.

We headed to Burnaby Museum for a scavenger hunt with some friends. It was really quite freezing that day with snow falling earlier. What I didn't realize was that the museum was open for this special occassion but not with all the facilities in operation which was a little disappointing. We shall have to make a return trip in the late spring.

I didn't know I could actually become nauseous on a carousel. This one clocks in at 7mph which is actually quite fast. It didn't help that I had a camera to my eye almost the whole time. I sat out the next round and the kids just kept getting back on.

This is the kind of horse that could haunt my dreams.

I love a young child's view of hopscotch. The skill to properly execute a hopscotch game must come in late kindie or grade 1. Who knew it could be so amusing to watch little ones try to negotiate between a single hop to a straddle.

The best part of course is just being present with so much silliness. I just love the colour array to this bunch too.

Chillin' with my little one.

My kids love our great big king-sized bed. They drive me crazy every morning with their bed jumping and mother-avoidance antics. They hide under the covers with their little dirty feet.

I am not always cranky mom when it comes to the bed. It is a great place for laughter and silliness. It is also a great place to just sit back and really pay attention to my kids, especially my little one as she moves in her body and becomes more and more capable in life.

Finding our traditions

Our first proper winter scene table with objects collected on our way to and from school this past week.

Can you see our advent calendar??

I do not remember having any really special traditions that marked the winter, from my childhood. Well, that is not true...I was raised in a religious home and now as an adult and a parent I follow my own path and find myself searching for something to bring light into the darkness of coming winter.

My dear friend who always inspires me discussed with me her family ideas of making this time of year more about celebrating the changing of the season and deflecting the attention off of Christmas itself. I want my kids and us to celebrate this together and marvell at how amazing mother nature is.

I second her notion of finding meaning in the natural world around my family and me. So, as December 1st approached I hurried to establish what shall forever onward be our winter tradition.

It is not solely from my dear friend that I found all my inspiration. The idea began weeks ago with a great posting from yoyomama and a template shown from a very great children's artist, Liz Clay of Cici Art Factory. It was a advent calendar full of silly acts that you can print out and hang as you please. I printed out the lovely 24 days and added a few activities to get us doing more as a family.

So far we have 1.written a letter to Santa, 2. collected items for our winter scene and set it up, 3. baked cookies, 4. make sparkly decorations (a little slow on this one) and 5. go for a walk.

The only problem I had was that I didn't copy out what I wrote so each day is a mystery for me...exciting and terrifying at the same time (hence not being as prepared as I should have for day 4).

A day of hooky

I pulled my kid from kindie and we snuck out to the aquarium. She kept missing out on our little adventures.

Clownfish cove is a great spot to chill for ages. Eldest daughter teamed up with about 4 other kids in her age bracket and had a great adventure for over an hour. Littlest one is here waiting to be rescued by the rescue team. She is a little hermit crab in trouble. She patiently waited here for the older girls to remember they sent her here to wait for them.

Happy Halloween!

My kids have been pretty sick this past 10 days. Who knows if it was H1N1 or not. They are on the mend, but we had to keep Halloween pretty low key. As we made three trips to the pumpking patch this year we had a lot of pumpkins to catch up on before the trick or treating began.

As the day was absolutely gorgeous we all took turns on our assembly line decorating our jack o'lanterns in the sunlight streaming into the kitchen.

Daughter wanted to be a vampire princess so she is here practising her fangs.

Family Fall pics.

I headed out to Langley last weekend to meet the winner of the contest I held with yoyobelly.ca in the spring. It was the first time I had been out to Glen Valley Park and it is such a beautiful space.

We had Christmas cards and gifts in mind. The day could not have been more perfect which was lucky as it was the only day we could do the shoot.

The two little ones absolutely adored one another. Big brother was so gentle with his little sister and she could hardly take her eyes off of him. I think those two already have a very good start.

My whole family came with me this day as we do not head out to the Valley very often. While I took photos my husband and the girls walked the ravine path. I have some great pics of the girls that I will post shortly. I am still trying to get caught up on all the work as of late as well as my own personal photos.