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.

Friday With Friends

Well it is finally Friday again. Apparently its Mother's Day weekend... something perhaps I should have remembered. Haha. We are booked to go over to Dad and Rita's place for dinner, so that will be nice.

Ariel woke up at 5am and slept the rest of the night with us. I think she knew Daddy was home. When she woke up finally she was asking where he was. Sorry hon, he already left for work. Gotta be up early to catch him, so perhaps that was her plan for the early wake up. Hoping she doesn't do that again tonight... I was enjoying my full night of sleep.


Today was a bit of an odd day. We had our swimming class in the morning as usual, but today we had to walk home. Ken was bringing home our old animation pal Meeka and her boyfriend Ren for dinner. They are in town on a little surprise vacation trip, Meeka surprised Ren for his birthday. Anyhoo, the plan was for me to leave the car at the bus loop after swim class and walk home, and then they would get off the bus and drive back to our place.

So Ariel and I went to class... the pool was TOTALLY empty today. It was grad Friday, and I tell ya the whole town shuts down it seems, but more on that later. Class was great, Ariel is improving on her back floats. She was happy to see her teacher back today, apparently he had food poisoning which is why we had a sub last week. Yuck, been there, not fun.

After class we went to the car and got out the small stroller. Ariel was pretty hungry so we stopped at McDonalds before walking back into town (Its about a 20 minute walk from the pool). She was pretty excited about her chicken nuggets, since she hasn't had any since Mommy kicked the fast food back in January. She most likely won't see them again until next year, haha. I got a chicken burger to tide me over but it made me sick. I guess that tells you something eh?

It was a nice walk and it was good to see how the little stroller did since it will be the official Disney stroller. The one wheel needs so oil because its squeaking, but that is fixable. We walked by the hair salon and saw lots of girls getting fancy hair dos. I was kinda sad, this was the first year in a very long time that I wouldn't make it to the high school to watch the grads. Oh well, next year I guess. I think I only knew one student this year anyways... one that I remember fondly when he was born. Gack, feeling old. Eep.

Before going home we stopped at the post office. There was a parcel from Ken's mom for us. Yay. Inside was my birthday present, a pretty necklace and bracelet. Will get a shot wearing them this weekend to post later. Ariel also got a little treat from Grammy, a copy of Horton Hatches the Egg and a Horton stuffie. Needless to say she was very pleased!

I heart Horton!

Check out my cool Happy Meal toy. Go Speed Racer!


While Ariel slept, I spent the afternoon cleaning up and preparing dinner for our guests. It was around that time that Ken called to say Meeka had rented a car and they would be driving home... basically meaning I didn't have to walk all the way home from the loop. Oh well, it was a nice walk, but it would have meant we didn't have to eat the nasty fast food lunch that made me sick. At least Ariel liked it, the girl loves her nuggets.

A little after 6pm the troops arrived and we had a yummy dinner of Salsa chicken, strawberry spinach salad, rice and cupcakes for dessert. Ariel ate all the strawberries out of the salad, some chicken and half a cupcake. She has been talking about cupcakes all week and I think she was excited to finally get one.

Meeka brought Ariel a little gift that she made. Isn't it super cute, she sells them on Esty, check out her site here if you want one of your own to love!


It was great to finally meet Ren, and we had a wonderful time catching up and chatting. I wish she didn't live so far away, but I guess that means we will have to go visit them now on the other side of Canada. Hee.


Well, Ken is back to teaching Saturdays again, starting tomorrow. Gonna miss having him around, so I guess we will have to find something to fill the day with until he gets home. We were planning to go to the concert at the church tomorrow evening, but if my migraine continues to linger, that doesn't seem likely. Perhaps a quiet night at home is better anyways, I think Ken has some writing to catch up on anyways.

Hope everyone has a nice Mother's Day and a fun weekend. Bye!

To Market To Market...

...but first I need to start things off with my tag or challenge from Dianne to describe myself in six words. Hmm, I thought about this today, and as there are many things I could say or write, I shall leave it at this.

Live for today, dream for tomorrow.

Basically, in my life there have been moments that have shaped me to become the person I am today. One of the major ones was of course losing my mom, hence teaching me to live for today, because you never know how short it will be. The other major moment has been my life with Ken and the birth of Ariel, so that is the dream for tomorrow part. I am an artist and a believer in a faith that is bigger than words can describe. Anything is possible, miracles exist and dreams come true. I will always be that little girl no matter how old I get.... and my food will always talk to me. Hee.

Ok, I tag Amy, Brenda and Jill for starters... and anyone who wants to try it because its kinda cool.

Ok, back to the daily scoop. This morning Ariel and I were up early. Again another wonderful night sleep for both us princesses. However, this time I had to wake her up as she was soundly curled up with her stuffies. Thankfully I had laid out our clothes the night before and we were dressed, fed and out the door in little time.

No traffic today, yay, and we arrived a little after 930am. We hit our favorite spot first, of course. Ariel was busy socializing with all the other kids in the strollers. We got some great deals on some play clothes, and Ariel seemed pleased with our choices. Here is the little fashion show!

First she had to check out the bag, make sure her goodies were still inside.


Love this on her, very sweet.


Cute top and capri pants, although at the moment they fit more like jeans which actually is great since it hasn't totally warmed up here yet.


Finally a little terry cloth dress, so cute and perfect for play. Whee. This was her favorite by far, she kept running around and posing. Tee hee.


Then after Gymbo, we went to Old Navy for mommy. I found some cute tops and 2 cute dresses. Yay! Following that was a trip to the La Senza to buy new undergarments. Um, yeah, no fashion show from me involving those things. Haha.

We were just finishing up and got a call from Ken saying he was back in BC, woot! We came home, and briefly stopped at Nana's house. We were able to help her out by picking up Kitty from the doctor's office and driving her home. She was happy to see Ariel.

Ariel then napped and I cleaned up the house. Then when princess got up we sat and waited for the cab to come with Daddy.


Mommy's pretty girl.


YAY DADDY! Ariel was happy to be with her favorite guy. At this moment they are both watching Muppet Show episodes downstairs. Too cute.


Daddy brought Ariel back a horse, since he was in cowboy land. Haha.



Then he brought out this thing!



Ariel loves it, and well its much cleaner than a real one, so its all good. Plus this one can't bite her. Don't you want one too for Mother's Day?

We had a fun dinner of waffles tonight, since it was easy and yummy. I must say its much faster with 2 now, and then we don't have to wait long till we can all eat together. (Apparently, I had too much batter in one of them, oops.)


Ariel liked the Mickey Mouse shaped ones. Getting her geared up for Mickey food in Disneyland. My goal is to try and have a different Mickey item a day.


Well I should wrap this up so we can go on our walk. Its a nice evening and we want to spend it together. Good night!