Oh my goodness… Sam had such a fantastic time in his little bath tub art studio this afternoon. If you’ve ever wondered how to paint with your toddler without creating a total disaster, or if you’ve avoided toddler art projects all together because of the mess they make, this is for you! Not only is the mess contained within the tub, but clean up is a total cinch and it’s never been easier to transition straight into bath time afterwards. Win!
You know those days that, despite the camera roll full of lovely photos you’re left with at the end of the day, were just sort of a disaster? That was our last day of 2017. My gosh. Now in all fairness, our kids are sick. Like really sick. And have been since our house cleared out after Christmas. Grae’s got a terrible cough and a sore throat and in addition to the cough, Sam’s super congested, has been experiencing some laboured breathing, and hasn’t been sleeping well. In short, they’re both miserable.
Now, our day was off to a rough start after a ridiculously early wake-up from Sam (we’re talking in the 3 a.m. range) and our girl waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and we had already cancelled having Brad’s family over for our annual NYE fondue night, but then a delayed flight meant also cancelling the big family farm walk we’d planned in place of the fondue too. Oh, add to that the fact Sam only napped for 57 minutes when he *desperately* needed his usual 3 hours and Miss G basically hung off of me while making non-stop requests during those 57 minutes, and that was our day. Ugh.
But, you know… It is what it is. Our kids are sick and our New Year’s Eve wasn’t the happy, chilled out day filled with grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles that we’d hoped it would be, but oh well. There were lots of good moments sprinkled in between the whining and needing and grumpiness, and these photos are a reminder of that.
I know social media sometimes gets a bad rap for not being ‘real life’, but are we really going to pull out our phones and snap pictures when our kids are having a rough time? When our toddler is banging his head against the tile floor in frustration? When our big kids are storming off and slamming doors? When our spouse is feeling stressed about cancelling plans with his family because he knows how desperately they want to see our kids? Of course not. And thank goodness for that. Because in that moment, our kids probably need some love and someone to talk to and our spouse probably needs some space just to be.
All that to say, I’ll happily take the camera roll full of fun memories. Of course we take the lessons that come from the hard times along with us too, but when I look back on New Year’s Eve 2017, I’m going to be remembering the epic morning dance party we had in the playroom, the joy balloons and play dough brought about, and the delicious fondue we ended the day off with.
Roll on, 2018.
this year’s celebration play dough
If there’s one thing I’ve done a lot in my life, it’s moved. My gosh, have I ever moved.
One Christmas several years back, my brother and I got out a notepad and listed every single home we’d each lived in just for fun. It started out as one list, split into two separate ones during our teenage years, and then came back together for several summers while I was in university. It was LONG. And thank goodness I had Gar there helping sort it all out, because sometimes my memory is total crap.
One of the things I try really hard to do as a mama is make to carve out a little bit of time each day to spend just with my little Miss G. It’s usually not a ton of time, but being that she was our one and only for more than 5 years, I think it’s important. Sometimes we read together, sometimes we read side by side, sometimes we chat, sometimes we colour, sometimes we watch a show, and sometimes we work on a project together… The list goes on, but a few nights ago, we sat at my computer together and created a holiday bucket list filled with all of the things we hope to do while she’s on break from school. {I can’t wait!}
Lately Miss G has been asking about ‘home’. Like where it is and which home is actually our home and if this is going to be our home for a long time. I don’t blame the poor kid for being a little unsure… While she was born in Vernon {where we live now}, we brought her back to Kuwait when she was just 19 days old, we lived in the Middle East for a while before moving home to Vancouver, then we moved BACK to Kuwait, then BACK to Vancouver, and then to Vernon just recently. Of course during our time in the Middle East we also took her on trips to France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and made a bunch of stops in other countries along the way, so I can see why ‘home’ doesn’t feel like one static place for her like it does for other kiddos.
This summer, just before we left Vancouver for good, we were lucky enough to sneak in a birthday party for one of Miss G’s special little friends. We had been swamped with the move and we were living with next to nothing and sleeping on foams by the time we got around to putting together a gift for the birthday girl if I remember correctly, but we just couldn’t help but put together something special. {Miss G’s totally inherited my love of gift giving.}
If you know me well, you know just how much I love putting together creative gifts for kids. I don’t know what it is… I know I could just pop into a store, buy something fun that’s all ready to go, wrap it, and be done, but putting something special together for a particular kiddo is just so much more fun. I love it.
Last fall, Miss G went through a huge ‘inventing’ stage. She loved nothing more than putting random bits and bobs together to create these elaborate structures and objects… It was SO cool to watch her imagination come to life. Since she was constantly rifling through our craft drawers and recycling bins to find what she needed {and often wanted help locating specific things}, I asked her if she’d like to help put together a DIY Inventing Kit – a collection of items that she could have organized and in one spot whenever the urge to invent struck – and of course she did! The result was this awesome kit full of colourful recyclables, materials, and adhesives, plus a couple of inspirational books.
When we decided that the time had come to leave Vancouver, I was immediately sad about so many things – leaving our friends, our East Van community, all of the local shops and cafes we loved visiting and supporting, city life, the ocean, our proximity to Whistler and the island, and a slew of other things.
Oh, the awesomeness that is the annual ‘cousins’ birthday’… A few years back, my sister-in-law and I came up with a plan that allowed us to celebrate all of our kiddos’ birthdays in person, despite living in different provinces {or on different sides of the world}. With all 5 of our kiddos having birthdays between July and November, we simply decided we’d do ONE celebration the one time we were guaranteed to be together each year – August long weekend in the Okanagan – and make it an official celebration of everyone! And that’s what we’ve done ever since. It’s super low-key… We sing a big ‘happy birthday’ song that includes everyone’s names, each cousin opens a special gift, and then we play or hang out or get on with whatever else we had planned. It’s something we look forward to each year!
My gosh it’s been cold in the Okanagan already… The other day, after a two degree school drop-off, I actually told Brad that I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter up here. My bones are chattering just at the thought of several months in the negative temperatures – brrrr! All I have to say is thank goodness for fire places, fuzzy slippers, cozy blankets, and hot lattes. Thankfully the kiddos don’t seem to be as bothered by the cold as I am, though they’ll very happily take a steamed milk anytime one is offered. Lately I’ve been making them these delicious maple spice steamers on chilly mornings and crisp afternoons and they’ve just been loving them.
My gosh… Our move. We’ve now been in Vernon for a little bit more than a month, and while I wouldn’t say we’re ‘settled in’ just yet {there’s still so much to do!}, we’re certainly settling in. Thankfully, this move has been one of the more low-key moves we’ve done, and let me tell you – we’ve done quite a few moves in our time.
Fun fact? When we were going back and forth between Canada and Kuwait regularly and spending our holidays travelling, one of my go-to occupy-Miss-G plane items was tape. Washi tape usually, but I’d stash a roll of masking tape or painter’s tape in my bag in a pinch. I know that seems weird, but honestly – there’s just so much fun to be had with a roll of tape! You can rip off pieces and stick it on paper to create art, you can fashion crowns and bracelets and rings out of it, you can play tic-tac-toe on the meal tray using it, and if you’re quite little, you can simply stick it onto things and then pull it back up. It’s fun, it’s no mess, and it’s fantastic for little ones’ fine motor skills!
I can hardly believe that we’re through the first two weeks of school and into mid-September already… I know it’s such a ‘mom thing’ to say, but time just seems to pass more quickly each year. Here in Vernon we’ve already had our back to school BBQ, I’ve attended the first PAC meeting of the year, and Miss G will have her school photos taken this week. {Spoiler alert: I know what happens next. We’re all going to blink for just a split second and when our yes open, it’ll be time to prepare for Christmas. Time is cruel like that.} The good news is that Miss G is really enjoying her new school. She really likes both her teacher and the helping teacher in her class, she’s made some lovely little friends, and she already seems to feel quite at home there, which is more than I could have hoped for this early on.
Everything is coming along.
Real talk? I think I had a little bit of anxiety about Miss G heading back to school last week. We knew we had to make a decision about what we’d do for schooling once in the Okanagan, but we spent the summer so caught up with buying a house and moving, we honestly didn’t officially decide which route we were going until the night before school started.
