Mothers Day

Adara and I had Mothers Day on our own this year with Len at work and it couldn't have been better! First off, I've figured out a trick that helps my brain be in the moment. In the morning I got all of the "need to's" done so that I wasn't thinking about them all day. So, fiddle lesson, run, clean the bathroom, laundry. Len and Adara also gave me some chocolate and a book. Len has this habit when he buys me books and magazines of placing them under other things so I'll find them at unexpected moments. I love it! Then Adara and I were off to the beach and the day went like this: 1) a stop at David's Teas. "Mamma let's sit in the window so that you can people watch". Ok, let's! 2) the big castle park for a play for Adara 3) heading for the beach we were struck by how nice a field look, laid our blanket out and read Harry Potter 3 out loud for an hour 4) onto the beach, looking for beach glass, build a sandcastle, talk to some ducks, more Harry Potter 5) Back to the field, it still was sunny and beautiful 6) watched part of a baseball game at the local diamond 7) Dinner at Il Fornello. Adara did all of the ordering and sat still and talked with me the whole meal. We talked about the changing nature of the Harry Potter books and how Harry's challenges get more complex with more pieces over time. We tried to solve some Harry Potter puzzles that have been bugging Adara. 8) Back to the castle park where Adara made a new friend and ran off, so I read my magazine. And then homeward bound. All in all, seven hours out in the world enjoying the sunshine. Perfect!

Fall to Winter and Turning Six

Adara's sixth birthday was two weeks ago and we did it up big time. Daddy was in charge this year and he found a place near to us that does circus arts. It's a massive old theatre with full fly systems where the kids learned silks and trapeze and rope skills and also spun on the huge hoops. They had a fantastic time. Here's a picture of Adara's first day of school as well. If for nothing more then comparison of how tall she's getting!

A long time coming

Ok, so this post has been a long time coming. Why? No reason, we were just busy living. We were travelling and playing, learning and tickling and sleeping and generally just being together. On the travelling front since we last wrote we've been back and forth from Goderich 4 times, Owen Sound once, Dunedin once, Ireland once, Manchester once, London England and surrounds once, Pincher Creek and area twice, and on and on. We've done some exciting things and some sad things. We arranged the self publication of Len's fathers book for young adults, which is selling nicely and you can find out about here We said goodbye to Len's dad in July when he died after a long and good life. We visited with people, we planted a garden, we did a lot, mostly. I'll try to post once in awhile, but mostly, we're just happy and busy. Hope that you are too.

Sass

Memories of Summer, Len and Adara

The tent

Here's the infamous tent that Greg made for Liam and Adara when we were up there in August. Kristen and I had went back to the folkfestival for night time bands and Greg came up with this awesomeness which they all slept in. This is the morning after the sleepover.

Goodbye Summer

First Day of School

Here's Adara's first day of senior Kindergarten. We've moved her to a new class in order to try out a teacher with a little more structure, a little more seriousness. And man, is she serious! We knew that, so it's all good, but holy cow! Today she insisted on writing on Adara's backpack and outside of her shoes her name in sharpie. This was after they were already clearly marked with pretty little labels. Ayah! This lady is intense, but gets results with her kids which is why we put Adara there.

Hello, we're here

No really, we are. We just had some major technical transitions to make that have made it hard to post. I still can't do pics, really. We got rid of one computer, added one, removed a lot of software, and so on. This resulted in my blackberry not syncing for a long time. And, i've recently discovered, I only really seem to take pics on the bb, I never have the camera with me. So, Adara and I have been very busy. Poor Len has been busy working and now is out west helping to take care of his family a bit. Meanwhile Adara and I went to Owen Sound for the folkfest with the family. Adara proved to be a total trooper. She managed in one weekend to fall asleep by a campfire, in a running speedboat and under a picnic table in a very noisy beer tent. That girl parties til she drops. We also went out this week camping near Lake simcoe with some neighbours and their kids. Chaotic, but good. The camping came two days after our huge neighbourhood bbq, one day after my bday and the day that Len unexpectedly headed out west. Needless to say we've been busy. So, now I have a cold and she's asleep. More another day, someday with pics!

Canada Day and the week that followed

So, we started off our nine days of vacation with a drop off at Jenn's house for a bbq, marshmallows and fireworks, plus a good bit of flag waving!

Then it was off the next day for a week of camping at Miller Lake near Tobermory. Awesome! WE'll post pics later, but suffice it to say that it was perfect. A short list of fun goes like this swimming (lots of it) Paddleboarding ( a bit for mamma) basketball (2 games to 1 on 21, I'll get you next time Stannard!) ping pong fishing (Adara with Pappa) Ticket to ride board game ( a new thing in our lives, thanks Pablo) Adara going to the store with the big boys (three times, pretty exciting) naps (many for Adara, none for me. Adara would just fall over where she stood and sleep at all times and places) Live music at a great pub feeding the ducks in Tobermory sparklers spinning on the end of drill(super fun, thanks Dave!) and lots of glow sticks! Plus much much more. It was entirely perfect.

Visiting with Uncle Maurice

On a beautiful day in mid April Adara and I headed off to visit our 80 some year old Uncle Maurice. This says pretty much everything about the day that Uncle Maurice and Adara had.

Dufferin Grove Park

About the end of March or so we were out in the west end for a birthday party. Adara had been very patient and agreeable at the party so we wanted to give her a special treat by going to a new park. I had remembered hearing about Dufferin Grove Park with it's legendary pizza oven, play structures and the like. The description doesn't do it justice, it's a kids paradise. There's evening a whole section that's just a massive sand pit with full size shovels and huge logs for bigger kids to move around and build out of.

After an hour and a half of unexpected play, I ran across to the local grocery store and grabbed a hunk of cheese, a hunk of sausage, some bread, carrots and mini tomatoes and we stayed until the sun went down.

Cats Away

The cats (both of them) are away out west visiting Len's family this week so I am playing. I just came in from a huge run, and have the extremely exciting plans of writing an assignment for my hr class and cleaning the house up a bit. It actually makes me really happy to have a quiet moment to catch up on a few things. I also have all kinds of plans with friends this week too. Adara has been the travelling gal this month; she'll make it to school a grand total of 12 days in May. This is probably for the best as she's bored by it, unmotivated and ready for a break or a new challenge. The week before last she had a vacation with grammy and poppa in Goderich. It seemed to involve a lot of painting and drawing and dressing up, so a pretty good vacation by her standards. I was away at the professional association of Canadian Theatres conference and Len was busy replacing the main floor of the house with some new hard wood. It was a great week, Len finished his major project and I got to see some long held hopes comes to fruition at my conference. Its complex and industry involved, but suffice to say that we've been working for some new approaches in theatre making for nine years and we finally seem to be getting somewhere. So, I'm looking forward to the family rest this week, but also to them returning. In the meanwhile I run, write, read, socialize and sleep.

Dinner

Kinda smug about tonights dinner. It was a straight up meat and potatoes kind of thing; chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus and carrots. But I got smart and seared the chicken in some butter on my cast iron casserole dish, added a dash of stock and popped it in the oven.
It made the BEST GRAVY EVER! That's all. Just a wicked good simple dinner and I am feeling smug.

Lovin' It.

A skating skirt, bat ears and cape. Thanks Grammy for the 35 year old skirt, thanks Fancy Pants Kids and Gretel for the costume awesomeness. It takes a village!

For the Love of Liam

No one else is in the room when her cousin is

Birthday cake

Last week Adara and her friend who was over visiting helped me to make and decorate Len's birthday cake. As he's allergic to wheat, It's always a big of a production to make him a decent cake. Thank heavens for my friend Dennie who gave me the definitive gluten free baking cook book and my sister in law Janice who gave me the definitive gluten free easy weekday meals cookbooks. My angels!

The kids went to town on the decorating with the piping bag that Len got me for Christmas that I thought that i would never use but already have used twice.
They made a bit of a mess of it, but it tasted good and was fun!

Family Day

We asked Adara what she wanted to do for Family Day. Since we live in a big city, there was a tonne of options. Zoo? Science Centre? Movies? Family fun Fair with camel ride and bouncy castles? Nope. She wanted to "go out for breakfast so you don't have to cook, have a dance party, watch a movie, play a game and have a picnic" Ok, we can do all of that since dance party refers to just her and me dancing and picnic means on our living room floor. As it was a beautiful day we threw in a little playing on the equipment at the beach for good measure.

The picnic it turns out was to be costumed. So, the Lone Ranger, A caped crusading bat, and a slightly over jewelled princess had dinner on the floor with candles. Can you guess who was who?

Photographer or Music Teacher

Tonight at Bedtime Adara was talking about how she wanted to be a music teacher, which I was thinking was the first time that she'd mentioned wanting to be anything at all. Then she reminded me that she'd wanted to be a photographer but had changed her mind for now. The photographer thing came up over Christmas when I suggested to Grammy that she lend Adara her digital camera to play around with for a while. Here are the results.




Not bad for four years old, eh? Really, though, with two theatre people in the family, neither music teacher or photographer is really floating my boat. How about stock trader or computer programmer? No? Oh well, fine then, be what you want to be kid! :)

Memories

I absolutely love when I see a photo of a friends kid on another mom blog and they're wearing something that Adara once wore. It immediately takes me back to that moment and time with her, to whatever age and stage she was at. I compare her at that age to the child currently in the clothes and think happy thoughts about both of them. It doesn't even have to be something that was Adara's to begin with. There are a series of sleepers that have passed back and forth between my friend Jenn and I and I love them just as much each time that I see them. It's like your life, briefly matched to the life of someone else that you love. Perfect.