Summer Musings

I haven't had a real vacation since September 2002. This year we were planning on finally going for it and renting a cabin on Vancouver island. Real life had its own plans - and I am heading for another staycation this year. While it is fun to imagine taking just my baby (okay, I know she doesn't qualify as a baby really, but she is still *my* baby) and hopping on a plane - I'm not really that adventurous. Although my trip to Ukraine last year with her definitely counts as an experience in travel with kids, but inflicting this upon myself again is not my choice of vacation time. So, since for the first week of my vacation it will be just girlie and me at home we plan to

- go to the park/playground/water park every day depending on the weather;
- go visit friends that we see once a year (you know who you are)
- eat icecream
- visit library
- go to Starbucks
- *maybe* brave the nearby beach (I am not a good swimmer and am afraid to be alone with the kids near the water)
- bake some mini cupcakes :)

What else should we do? Other than spontaneously buying a plane ticket to NY and visiting a friend I haven't seen in 16 years? :))

P.S. Still no pictures, as I still have no phone :S

On Karma and Long Weekend

We had a wonderful long weekend here. We started off with going to the playground with my daughter and spending Saturday morning sliding down multiple slides, swinging on the swings and running through the sprinklers in the water park. Once my toddler settled down for a nap, it was time to sneak out with my son and go watch Harry Potter in 3D. And it was absolutely awesome. I cried. Twice. Thanks to the 3D glasses that had not been noticed ny my almost 13-year old as I would never hear the end of it :))

Saturday started with sour cream pancakes from my Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. I needed to do some shopping and my husband volunteered to take the kids to the park. We drove out within minutes from each other only to be caught in a downpour of epic proportions. After a short phone call it's been decided that Starbucks should substitute for the absence of the walk in the park. We met in our favorite spot inside a bookstore and had some drinks and pastries. It was lovely :) Once the kids migrated towards the play area in the book store I decided to and attempt some shopping. The result was somewhat more expensive than expected. Although I got some excellent deals, I also had my iPhone stolen. That put a massive dumper on my weekend, but it is what it is...

On Monday we made another trip to the playground, and later bought some fresh fruits and veggies from a little farm. It was a mellow and pleasant weekend, and aside from the stolen phone I wish all our weekends were like that. Now I just need to figure out whether to cancel my contract and pay the fees or just brave a new phone....

P.S. Reference to Karma in the title - 1) My iPhones have bad karma - first one had a hardware issue, so this was replacement phone. 2) Whomever took my phone better be getting some good slapping from karma...

P.P.S. All the pictures from the playground were on the phone, so I have no pics to show for this weekend....

Mid-summer recap

Wow, it's been over two month since my last post on here. Must have something to do with summer :) My daughter's 3rd birthday has come and gone. She is growing up into a beautiful and clever girl making her mama so very proud.


I celebrated my own birthday and my favorite thing about it was my flower tea.




In other news my first strawberries are a huge hit. One little girl checks on them every day to see if there are any red ones. I think I'll be doing this every year from now on.




Just to give you an update - fish tanks are doing pretty good. My betta is in good health and looking pretty, and cories are active and hungry as always.

On my summer's reading list I still have Divergent, Water for Elephants and enormous amount of fanfic ;) My newest obsession is with a TV show called Rookie Blue. I haven't been so excited about a show since Veronica Mars (yes, I know very immature of me, but oh well). Summer is short - we are enjoying it to the best of our ability - light books, summer shows and ice cream....

Summer obsessions

It seems that because of the summer heat I've lost any desire to cook and bake. All my wonderful new cooking books are staring at me mournfully from the shelf. Oh well, they can miss me just a bit longer, until the summer ends. I promise I will get back to baking and inventive cooking once the weather is rainy again and it is dark outside when we get home.

We are busy going for walks every night after dinner and I'm enjoying what may be our last babywearing summer. Sophia goes on my back eagerly for our evening walks and loves it when I do little jumps or pick up leaves and pine cones and flowers for her. Since nearby blackberry bushes are starting to get some of the sweet and ripe prizes for my little one we tend to stop by them every evening and eat a few berries. She absolutely loves it.

Last week we took Sophia to the beach for the first time and she loved it. Not so much into swimming yet, but throwing wet sand around seems like absolutely the best idea. She's been there three times now and each time she finds something new and enticing on the beach - sand, jelly fish, tiny crabs, more sand... I wish this summer could last longer.

At home the most entertaining thing for my little beauty is water. Every morning she loves to water the flowers, she runs after the spray bottle and sprays everything and everyone in sight, not just the flowers. She seriously prefers her brother's shark water gun to her little crab one.

Sophia is also potty learning on her own. She figures it out all on her own, and now almost always asks to go on the potty if she has no diaper on. Most naps and some nights she will wake up dry in the morning - and all this without any of the pains of the so-called training. She just came to this herself :)

I am still exploring my new sewing machine, and now have finished my first bandanna dress for Sophia, still struggling with making to little bows to go on the dress though. You can find a tuorial from Create and Delegate here. I love that blog :) Next - need to finish the pair of PJ pants I made for her. The crotch needs to be deeper, so I basically need to take the pants apart completely. Oh well, I'm still learning... As for the new projects - I would love to make a kimono dress from this fabric. Any suggestions for a free pattern?

I have to admit that my biggest obsession this summer was Waldorf dolls... I have discovered so many wonderful, fantastic, absolutely magical doll makers, that if I would buy all the dolls I want we'd go broke. So I have to restrain myself, but - we will be getting some cuties in our house this year, that's for sure!