The Best Things In Life Are Free...

... too bad cars don't fall into that category. Blah. The past few days our car has been at the car doctors as I call it for Ariel's sake. She misses volvo, its really cute. Hee. Anyways, it would have been finished yesterday but the part that got shipped to them actually had the wrong part in the box. Totally weird, but not their fault. So today it was finished... kinda. We will have to take it back prior to our road trip in August to finish up the last few things on the 'priority' list. I am really thankful for buying the 'club card' at my last visit, as it saved me nearly $100 off the total. Needless to say it was still a high bill. Volvo parts aren't cheap, but its a good car and worth it... at least I kept telling myself that.

Not much else has been happening since the weekend. Its been lovely weather so we have been getting out and about for long walks and visits to the park. During nap time I have been sewing and trying to finish up all my projects that I have had going for awhile. I finished the remaining sun dresses. Here is the Canada Day one (covered in maple leaves if you can't make them out).


My personal fav, the Disney travel dress. I plan on making the matching bag tomorrow, which will be her treat for the plane. I have been picking up fun little surprises whenever I find something on sale that might be good. Have some drawing things, a few books and some fun snacks.


Tomorrow I hope to finish the Cinderella dress, just doing the beading along the bottom. Its so pretty and I can't wait to see her wear it on our trip. Eek!

Today we did some brief shopping for water shoes. I have been on the look out for a pair for Ariel for a few weeks and finally London Drugs had some out! They are really cute and will be perfect for when we go to the water park and such. She was pretty excited about them, but then the girl loves her shoes.


While at the store, Ariel was greeting everyone who walked by her with a big 'HI!' It got many laughs and smiles from people. Thats my little social butterfly. Then she said hi to this girl, a month younger than her that walked by with her mom. I got talking with the mom when I complemented her daughter who was wearing a pretty pink bike helmet. She then said it was her 'walking' protection since she is a not so swift on her feet. Ah... ok... sure. To each their own I guess. Is this a common thing? Its new to me.

Afterwards we went to the park and had a wonderful time. Ariel was off and running, she was so happy to be there.

Hurry up Mommy!

Oooh, ducks!

My favorite picture from today.

Ariel is the master of the slide and was happily showing off her skill for a 14 month old gal who didn't want to leave her stroller. In fact, when her Grandma tried to get her to go on slide too, she screamed. Poor thing, not into it yet I guess.


I love her face here, she is glowing. Ariel just loves it here.


Today I was lucky to get her to leave without crying. She seemed tired and ready for lunch, so simply mentioning cheese was enough to get her to go. But before we left, she had to get me a flower, awe. Thanks baby!


At dinner tonight we had the most delicious corn on the cob. Gosh, it was so sweet and perfect. Yummy! Ariel wasn't too sure at first...

HEY! I LOVE CORN!

Want some?

We just got back from our post dinner walk and Ariel and Daddy are watching the Muppet Show. She just loves the theme song and cheers and claps. Its so sweet, and Daddy is oh so proud. Not much planned for tomorrow, except to visit Stella at the quilt shop in the morning and drop off some fliers for the animation festival. Friday is swimming lessons and then a potluck lunch with our coffee group. Until then, go out and get some corn... tell them Ariel sent ya.

That Darn Cat

Happy Victoria Day to my fellow Canadians! Hope you had a wonderful long weekend... to my American pals, you have your turn coming up soon too. Hee.

Well, you maybe wondering about the title of the post. Last night around midnight I was still half awake watching a Dirty Dancing commentary on DVD. Its almost full moon and like clock work, I can't sleep. Doh. Anyhoo, I was finally falling asleep when I heard a loud meowing.... I was sure there wasn't a cat in the movie, but I tried to forget about it and sleep. Then I heard a few loud thumps and then Ariel cry.

I sprung out of bed and ran into her room. She was still laying in her bed but crying with her eyes closed. So something scared her and yet didn't fully wake her up. I carried her to our bed and left her there so I could investigate. Then the meowing started again. I looked out her window to see the world's fattest white cat... and he was MAD! He kept jumping at her window like he wanted me to let him in. (I didn't take his picture, but here is a pretty close artistic rendering, lol!)


I swatted my arms as if to say move it or else kitty. I love animals but freaking out my kid is not cool, especially at midnight. Needless to say, the cat wasn't going for it. He continued to jump and meow. If anyone has been to our place, they know you have to be buzzed in, so I couldn't figure out how this cat had gotten in to begin with, especially since there is a no pets policy. Thankfully my lovely neighbors were getting tired of Mr Kitty meowing outside their bedroom window too and went out to remove him to the outside. Of course Ken slept through it all, haha.

We had a really nice weekend, very hot too. Like I mentioned in the last post, we got instant summer this weekend. It was amazing and soooooooo nice. After our fun time at Mike and Jo's place, we had planned a quieter Sunday. We went to church in the morning, Ariel sported her cute sail boat dress. Too cute!


Shortly before noon, we ducked out a bit early so we could drop the princess off with Dad and Rita. Ken and I had a date to see the new Narnia movie. Its always an event for us to go to the movies, since we never go. I had ordered our free tickets via airmiles and we were all set. Ariel wasn't sad to see us go either, so thats always a nice plus. (I think it was the big toy room under the stairs that made it that much easier... haha)


The movie was FANTASTIC! I really enjoyed it and it was fun to get out alone. After the 2.5 hr movie, yes its a long one, we ran into none other than Mike and Jo on the steps outside. They were waiting for the nieces, as they were taking them to the same movie. How funny is that! Chatted with them for a bit then as they went off to see the movie, we headed home.


Arriving back at Dad and Rita's house, we saw the stroller was gone and figured they went to the park. We found them walking back with a sleeping princess. Awe. We let her sleep till dinner and then had to wake her up.


Dinner was yummy chicken burgers and some ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Ariel really liked that... although she would lick it and wouldn't bite it. (Those are paint samples behind them, just in case you thought the house was camouflaged.)


Then Ariel spent a long time running in circles though the house with various toys. She is going to love track running when she gets to school. Hee. First is started with one of my old toys, Snoopy.





Then it continued on with the large exercise ball. It was a good workout and she worked off that ice cream dessert.





Ariel completed her evening with some flying with Daddy. She was laughing soooo hard.


Came home for bath and bed. I stayed up watching the Sex and the City cast on Oprah, finally getting around to remembering to watch it. I can't wait for that one to hit the theater. Wow, we are going to the movies twice in one month! Insane!!!!!! Hehe.

Today we woke up to very overcast weather. The rain was coming, so we ducked out for a quick walk down to the store and back. Of course on the way back the rain started, but it nice and light, very refreshing. Ahhh. We did a few loads of laundry and odd cleaning up around the house. When Ariel went down to nap, I spent the time sewing and Ken worked on his projects.

Ken is now cleaning the kitchen for me and Ariel is watching Muppets... she is indeed Daddy's girl.


This concludes our long weekend of fun. Off to enjoy the remaining time with Ken and Ariel. Bye!

Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

Ok, we seriously went from end of winter / early spring weather to UBER SUMMER overnight. Gack, talk about a shock to the system. It was insainly hot today and I found myself in shorts and a tank top. Really glad I got those tanks last week for Ariel. She is totally needing them now. Here she is modeling her blue top and striped shorts. CUTE!


So its been pretty mellow around here. Nothing blog worthy really, unless you call booking our car to get repairs exciting. We were going to get it in awhile ago, but I needed to wait and see if we were in fact going to do our road trip this summer, hence was something worth fixing now or waiting on. Needless to say we are going to do it now to avoid something bad happening on our trip. Wouldn't that be lovely. Haha.

Here is Ariel on Thursday coming out to see the sun. What is that thing in the sky mommy? She kept saying pool that day, I dont blame her. I might have to pull out her pool for the deck to keep us cool.


She loves watching the kids play ball. She kept calling to them... HI!


We went to Ariel's swim class on Friday only to find out we had to be in the cold pool due to someone's kid throwing up in our regular pool. Lovely! They had to clean the whole thing out, yuck. The big pool was ok, but Ariel got cold and didn't want to do anything except cling to me by the end of it. Poor girl. Her teacher felt bad since the other kids were feeling the same way. Oh well, next week will be better.

Ken has been busy working on his online course writing and organizing the animation festival that is happening at our church the first Saturday in June. If your in the area, check out Ken's blog for the poster for more info. I have been sewing up a storm again. The tinkerbell outfit is finished being beaded, so I will take pictures soon of the finished product. Almost finished the Cinderella one, and I got 2 of the sun dresses done. Did the purple one first as a test, and it was fine, just a bit big on her. So when I did the next one, I took in the sides more and it was perfect. I need to finish the hem and will post a picture. For now, here is the first one, which is big. Hee.


Tonight we were invited to Mike and Jo's for a BBQ with the whole family. It was a lot of fun and Ariel was totally pumped to see Molly.


Mike the grill master.


Ariel's favorite event of the night, running in and out the door. We kept waiting for her to fall on her face since its kinda a big drop for a little girl. Whoever was at the door was on duty to grab her. She also made quick work of the dip and chips... and freaked Jamie and Dave out with her double dipping. Haha.


Aunty Jo loves her nieces. Awe.


When we had arrived tonight I realized I had dropped my coat somewhere between our building and our car when leaving. I must say I was a little bummed but didn't let it ruin our night. Happily we came home to find it hanging on the outside door, someone had found it. How nice, and made my evening. Yay!

Tomorrow we have church in the morning then Ken and I are going on a date to see the new Narnia movie. Dad and Rita are taking Ariel, so that will be nice. I am looking forward to the air conditioning. Ahhhh. Then Ken is off on Monday for Victoria Day, but apparently the rain is coming, so it might be a good day for some lazy family time, laundry and Ken to write his course. Maybe even some waffles.... yummy.

21 Months?!

Gack! Today marks Ariel's 21st month b-day. Would have been nice to celebrate in the park, but it was another full day of rain. Blah. So we decided to make the best of it and have a fun art day at home. Look at my baby girl, looking all grown up. Sniff.


I asked her what she wanted to do first...ummmm. Oh good, she is indecisive like her mother.


While she ate her breakfast and watched the CBC kids shows, I made up some playdough. I kinda figured she might not be into it since she hates things on her hands... needless to say I was right. She did like the little knife to cut it, oh well, we will try down the road again.


Then we tried some of the paint brushes Grammy sent. She really liked those but it was hard for her to get the paint out. She needs to work on those muscles, hee.


To wrap it up we pulled out the finger paint. For some reason, she is happy with that stuff for awhile. After 3 pictures though she wanted it OFF her hands! I will take what I can get.


Look at that beautiful art!


While I cleaned up, Ariel played mommy to her dollies. She loves to carry them around and often brings a blanket to me to wrap them up in. Very sweet. She is such a caring little person.


I caught her laying on the floor reading later. I thought it was too funny.


For lunch, I pulled out the new recipe Nana gave me for a crustless quiche. I must say anything with less carbs is always welcome. Haha. It turned out sooooo yummy!


Ariel agreed! She filled her belly and headed off to bed.


During her nap, I pulled out the pattern I got yesterday to make a super easy sun dress for Ariel. I had all the fabric, so I cleared the coffee table and cut on there. I wish I had the same space to cut out my own patterns for me, but little clothes are easier. So I have 3 little dresses ready to sew. The red is a pretty maple leaf material for Canada Day. The blue is this pretty night sky that is filled with pixie dust, this will be her special travel dress for Disneyland. (4 MONTHS AND COUNTING!) I have enough material to make a matching bag for all her special surprises for the airplane. Hee. The purple is some cute Tinkerbell and fairies material I got super cheap online. I am really eager to start... maybe tomorrow!


Ken got home and after dinner we got to go for a mini walk because the rain had finally stopped! Picked up a tub to keep all Ariel's art supplies in since they have been showing up all over the house and frankly I need it to be organized for my sanity. Haha. The walk was short lived because it was the finale for ANTM tonight. Can I say how exciting it is that a full figure girl won! I was thrilled and I got Ariel cheering along with me. Woot!


Well, need to wrap this up so Ken can get back to work. Off to bed to view some movies. I am watching the Ghostbusters commentary tonight, by far one of my favs. I should do a top 10 of my fav commentaries, since I love them so much... soon... yes, I think I will. Stay tuned.

Television Star!

Well she isn't ready for an agent yet, but still our little girl was on the tv tonight! Her little swim class video appeared on the local cable channel just after dinner and will be running all month long. I ended up calling the station yesterday to find out what show it would be running on. The particular episode was all about activities for kids under 3 in our area. I actually saw some great things that I might look into for Ariel.

It was fun to see her swimming around, and Ariel kept yelling 'pool' while watching it. Since the kids had on their PFDs for most of the shoot, of course the camera people left after they were out of them, it was hard to pick her out. Ken was kind enough to add some titles so you can spot her a bit better. Enjoy!



Today was a miserable and rainy day. Yuck! Stella, Ariel and I had a date with the fabric store this morning. Yay. I found some AWESOME material to makes so super cool dresses for summer. I had seen these really pretty dresses at Old Navy made from this silky scarf like material, however, you had to be very small chested to wear them. I am sorry, little triangles on anyone bigger than an 'A cup' is just a bad idea, at least to me. Haha. Anyhoo, so when I found a similar material this morning I was sooooooo excited. Found a cute retro styled pattern and since I couldn't pick, I got enough material for 2 dresses.


Then I found a really cute pattern for a basic sun dress and some super cute surfboard material.


Afterwards we picked out lots of nice fabric for the quilts that Stella is making for Nana and Papa's beds when they go out to the new place. I can't wait to see them, such beautiful colors.

We grabbed a quick lunch at the mall and stopped in Gymbo so I could grab some cheap tanks and shorts for Ariel. $8 each and I had a %20 off coupon, score. Will be great for our trip to Yellowstone! Speaking of which, we thought it be fun while we go through Washington to stop at the various places they filmed Twin Peaks at. Haha. Yep, we are dorks and proud of it. Ken's dvd set had all the addresses on the map so it will be easy to find them.

Ok, I am pretty sleepy, so early to bed. Hoping for sun tomorrow... if not, guess we may have to find something to do inside. Perhaps its time to make some playdough.... what do you think Ariel?

Mother's Day and a Bloody Mess

This weekend marked another first for Ariel... her first bleeding nose. (Please note there is a picture of her bed with some blood, I took one in case we had to show the dr or something the amount she bled.) Ugh. At 4am Saturday morning, Ariel had woken up and was crying. Ken went to get her only to call to have me come to her room. Sure enough our little princess was a bloody mess. Poor thing wasn't really even awake or knew what was happening. I snuggled her as I tried to wipe off her face. It wasn't till I nursed her that she settled and then was all smiles and back to her normal self.

I ended up calling the 24 hour nurse line to check and see if it was unnecessary to take her in somewhere or not. After going through a list of questions, she deemed it not worth taking her to see her doctor unless it happened a few more times in the coming days. Most likely it was dryness that caused it or a random finger up her nose... I am thinking the later.

We cleaned her up, changed her pjs and tucked her into our bed with the humidifier running. Daddy then stayed with her and went back to sleep since he had to teach in a few hours. I ended up staying up another hour to strip her bedding and hand wash it in the sink so it wouldn't stain. I also had to wash poor teddy that looked like he hadn't survived the war.


After all was said and done, I was back in bed at 6am, only to fall asleep and be reawakened by Ken's 630am alarm. Boo. Oh well. I managed a nap in the afternoon. Ariel was fine the rest of the day and hasn't shown signs of having another nose bleed. Either way, I have been running the humidifier since then, hoping that helps. My poor baby girl. No fun, and pretty gross... blah.

While making our burgers for dinner, Ariel discovered her liking of the fake slices of cheese. I ONLY use them for burgers, but she seemed to think they were just as good as the regular cheese. She kept coming back and stealing them from the counter.

I took this one from the kitchen. She is trying to eat the evidence.


Nope, no cheese here.


Caught this cute one of her and Daddy after dinner. Awe.


Today was Mother's Day... my second. Whee. Its strange to think this day use to be so painful, and yet now its one of joy. I mentioned to Ken how happy I felt this year. It was such a wonderful feeling.

I got some breakfast in bed this morning. My usual Sunday routine of cereal and fruit. Yum. Then I got my uber cool card! It was a flip book made by Ken. Here is a little movie of the animation.



We headed to church and had a wonderful service. We had to go early since Ken had a meeting in regards to the animation festival he is organizing in early June. During that time, Ariel got really into the water fountain. Hehe. I can't get over how much she has grown lately.


After the service they had the richest chocolate cake, oooh it was good. Ariel is still talking about it. Cake, cake? I was also covered in chocolate after that thanks to her. Its all part of the job. Hee.

In the afternoon we got take out from the Boot for lunch. I wasn't in the mood to brave the crowds for eating out. Nor was Ariel, and she ate a quick sandwich and went to bed. Have to show you the beautiful necklace I got from Ken and Ariel. Very pretty, thank you so much!


We talked to Ken's mom in the afternoon and we now can announce we have booked our trip to Yellowstone Park for August. Woot. I am very excited and look forward to this little family adventure together with them. Will be posting details soon, so stay tuned.

In the evening we went to Dad and Rita's for dinner. They had a yummy steak dinner for us all, sooooooo good. Plus my favorite coconut cream pie for dessert. Talk about being spoiled. Hee. I made a warm artichoke heart dip... and there wasn't any left to bring home afterwards. Ariel was quite enjoying the chips and dip, and always looking for someone to help her get some. In this case, Aunty Jo was her second in command.


After dinner Ariel did some fancy footwork to the music stations on the digital cable. Sadly when it was time to go there were many tears. She was having lots of fun, poor girl. Breaks your heart when she cries that hard. Once she was home and bathed, she was asleep in minutes, so she was most likely tired.

Well Ken is wanting to blog tonight as well, so time to call it a day. Will leave you with Ariel and I, Mother's Day 2008.