Happy Mother’s Day to Me + You!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s, Grama’s and Great-Grama’s out there!

We ‘did’ Mother’s Day on Saturday this year and had a good time.

It was a sunny day! I picked up Nana and met my Mom/Dad at a Farmer’s Market in North Vancouver for a walk-about. Tt joined in the fun and had a good time running about with his Grampa. He’d made me a lovely bracelet out of metallic pipe cleaners that I wore all day.

We left there and met Hubby, the girls and Boo at a Milestone’s in West Van for a brunch.
They brought me a lovely card and all the Moms some flowers!

And of course there was shopping nearby, so we walked about and shopped!

But I only bought something for B, then later something for A… I told them they owe me next year .

We went on home and played in the backyard, gardened, the girls did a bit of homework, had a friend over, then our neighbours stopped by with their granddaughter and we ended up BBQ’g and roasting ‘schmallows – YUM!

My younger daughter A had made me this WONDERFUL cake from a Williams-Sonoma mix we’d bought while shopping together on South Granville the night before! It was YUM!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
It’s another sunny day and we’re off to Mother’s Day service (via Starbucks non-fat easy-iced latte), Japanese food for lunch and shops in Kerrisdale. I saw a lovely bracelet the other day while shopping with B that I think I NEED as my gift for raising 4 wonderful kids .

Enjoy your day!

Crafting Time – Part 4

Yes, Part 4! I’ve put only 6 crafts per post because I personally can’t read past two or three paragraphs without coming to the end of my own attention span – I’m giving you all the same courtesy . Who wants to read a post that’s 50 photos long?! So, here we go one more time.

Yes, even our pumpkins get downright crafty! One year we eve had one with little white lights poking all around it. These ones are an owl and an… anteater?? Can’t remember. We’ve had some pretty impressive ones around here, though. I’m pretty sure I remember these templates being in a Martha Stewart mag.

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It’s a bit hard to tell what this particular craft actually IS by this photo… We bought dollar store colored sponges, cut them into strips and tied 6 or so together to make water bombs! Then we put up barriers, like the trampoline on edge, and bombed each other away. They also made good, fun, wet, baseballs to hit with a bat for a splash. And far easier to “fill” than those fussy water balloons!!

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This craft was a great birthday gift for our then-4 year old niece/cousin. B painstakenly drew out the Dora and then her and A decorated away, front and back. She got to wear it the whole day – the whole year!

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Nothing is safe from a crafty soul – not even breakfast. With tubes of raspberry sauce and spray-whipped-cream, anything is possible!

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“Craftiness” around here not only includes food, but also clothes. B bought this “Gr 7 Grad” dress during our trip to Paris, and then sat and sewed on row after row of matching colored beads around the bottom rim and top collar. Way to go, B! It was a very rewarding craft – she was so proud of it on her “Grad” day.

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I can’t remember what we did with these after we went to all that trouble to make them, but at any rate, here they are! I’d found a dough-bead recipe online and away we went from plain round to super fancy. Dough-beads were fun to make, that much I do remember.

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Keep tuned for more craftyness!

Easter Weekend

I spent much of Easter long weekend with complete and utter fatigue, and almost-migraines, despite the mass caffiene intake… ThankGOODNESS for Advil or it would have been a complete write-off.

HOWEVER, there were many a hilight to the weekend…

• Thurs pm after Hubby was finished work we went out to pick up MIKEY!
• Friday Hubby + Tt went to see “Monsters vs. Aliens”, which according to one was “the worst” and to the other “great”. You can guess who said which.
• Friday was also filled with cat snuggles… And the girls were home for the weekend! YAY! We rented movies, ate junk + chilled. Sweeeeet.

• Saturday I drove A to her vball tourney for the day, while Hubby and the other 3 played. We came home to a wonderful lamb, caesar and corn dinner. YUM! The girls didn’t play as well as they’d hoped, but I did a DANG-GOOD job at scorekeeping, so at least one of us did well!
• Oh, and Momma beat Hubby at a game of crib. Guess it was just MY weekend!
• Sunday am we were all up for waffle breaky and Easter service. A man in a kilt played my all-time favorite song – Amazing Grace – on the bagpipes. Beautiful.
• Then out to the mall for Japanese for lunch. All you can eat. We ate 56 items between 6 of us. And only stopped because it was taking so long anyhow. Then I took Hubby next door to the pet store and introduced him to our next pet – a Beagle.
• Momma + Tt read some books and did an “easter craft” of painting eggs to paste to a basket. We’ll take it to SFran with us in another TEN DAYS for my Bro + wife.
• The 4 kids played at home after being outside. Spontaneously! So nice to watch. Leaves a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart – especially thinking of B going off to Uni soon…
• Momma made “Breaky for Dinner” – eggs benny. YUM! A + Momma were already tired after lunch, so we changed into our jammies right away – before walking to the corner for groceries! I’m sure people thought we were strange. We took this pic to show how strange we were – even though you can’t even see our jammies and rain boots. Trust me, we looked ridic-ulus.
  
  
  
• Right after dinner B + Hubby went out for a drive around her soon-to-be-new campus together! They had great chats and a nice time, from what I’m told.
• I set up “Cozy Corner” for Boo + Tt to watch some cartoon while B, A, Hubby and I watched “Sex in the City” movie. OF COURSE, I bawled. Again.

  

• Hubby and Momma taught A how to play crib, while B started a bake-a-thon with her friend (for the record, Angel Food cake from scratch is SOOOOGOOOOOD!). Momma won. Again.

Ahhhh. The girls go off tomorrow am, but we still have one whole day at home – what to do! Clean the house? Put down soil for my tomatoes? Do some more work? Sit around and eat leftover French Butter cake and Angel Food cake?? The options are endless.

Regardless, it’s been a lovely, relaxing weekend with no one much about except us 6.
Just wonderful.
I hope your weekends were all filled with great memories too.

HAPPY EASTER!

From the Kents.

Wedding Memories

My kid cousin, GC just asked a cute gal to marry him – and she agreed!
Ahhh, young love.

It’s made me look back an entire 6.5 years to my own wedding.
I don’t mind saying it was fabulous.

Hubby and I, and the girls, were all married together at the Vancouver Art Gallery, in the Rotunda.
We each had a close couple stand with us. I LOVED that we were facing everyone – it was fun to see everyone faces rather than have them stare at our backs. And it was ok to be standing – the ceremony was only 15 mins long!

A sang a song for us, with B playing piano and my new bro-in-law accompanying on guitar. Aren’t those two just soo WEE?? They performed “A Whole New World” from Alladin. Sweet.
While my uncle performed the ceremony.

With photos and videos taken by a few friends all afternoon in a park and at a gorgeous hotel across the street.
In dresses – including mine – made by my Nana.

We even jumped in the fountain… It was FREEZING.

This (below) is Hubby’s most favorite photo from our wedding. I like it too!
We’d taken  Yellow Cabs from the hotel to more photos, then back for the evening wedding.

This one, taken by my best lady, was my favorite.
The nice thing about having friends do our photography was that we could “afford” 3 official photographers and ended up with a big variety of shots.
I’m lucky there was no dog poop on this grass…

Here we are with each of our “besties” couple that stood with us – mine on the left, his on the right.
You can’t see, but it’s an old (“vintage”) dark red velvet couch we rented from the prop shops.
Had to mention it.

Me + my new daughters.
When they found out we were getting married, B jumped up and down for 20 minutes shouting “I have a new Mom!!”. They were VERY excited, and we exchanged rings with them as well in the ceremony.
They’re both taller than me now…

Then a stand up reception, with friends’ jazz band, in amongst the art…
We rented all the plants and furniture from a local movie prop place.

Ain’t we sweet?

I think we should re-marry each other one day just for the party.

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Other posts you might enjoy:
From the Mouths of Babes – Being a COOL Mom
Travelling with Kids – Italy
Travelling with Kids – Paris

WHSSAHM(4).

Whew! That’s a mouthful!
Well, I’m back at work, after a totally not relaxing 3 whole months “off”. Thanks, Boo, for those precious sleepless nights, btw.

I must say, being a SAHM (stay at home mom, for those non-bloggies who haven’t encountered the lingo!) could suit me, had I more rest to truly get into the groove. And more cash to truly get into the shops.

In the past 3 months I actually loaded and unloaded the dishes into/out of the dishwasher at least 6 times. I managed to do 3 or 4 loads of laundry that wasn’t mine (I generally do my own, although not so often…). I tracked our daily finances. We ate at home far more, as I had time to do more cooking. I cleaned out a few of the rooms in the house. Like, at least 2 of them. Maybe. Ok, fine, I just cleaned one. I got almost up to date on my scrapbooking after being an entire year behind. And I managed to blog – a lot! Not bad for 3 months of officially being “the house-bound” person of the family!

But, it wasn’t meant to be forever. Today I had a meeting for two house renovations, and I must admit, it felt great to be “back in the game” – and to have reasons to wear all those high heels I’d stocked up the past few years. Fortunately they’re small jobs, and hopefully I’ll adjust back to being a Working-Homeschooling-Staying At Home Mom (of 4). Because, Lord knows, we sure could use the cash .

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Other posts you might enjoy:
Busted.
tuesdays for tea 09.03.31
Mom at Large