December 27th, 2011

And so here is finally a wee bit of a photo catch-up, with a little glimpse into our Christmas day - we started out slowly with a quiet morning of good food and gift opening, then met everyone outside for a bunch of sledding and walk in our winter wonderland - yeah for a white Christmas:-) And then we finished off the day with baths, game playing, phone calls and more good food - a great day all around!

I also wanted to share another Tiegan quote from today - we were driving through Kanata (after Jamie and my date at the Nordik Spa, which was EXACTLY what we needed!) and ended up going past the Russian Orthodox Church where we'd seen Dominik be baptized. Only, Tiegan must have misheard us, as she excitedly exclaimed, "oh look, there's the church that Dominik got BATH-ized!!!!!" I guess that could be one interpretation of what happened that morning:-)

We're (*hopefully* - keeping an eye on the snowstorm situation) heading to NYC for a few days so I may be silent here - but I'll return soon with even more photos and stories.....and no doubt some funny quotes from Tiegan, she's such a nut these days!

December 26th, 2011

And yet another day with no photos, BUT it is a day with another interesting observation from Tiegan:-)

"Do you know what the one problem with Barbies is? It's so hard to play funeral with them. I mean, they always have these big smiles painted on their faces, and it just doesn't seem right when they're supposed to be at a funeral."

Okay then........

December 25th, 2011

Hello! And a very merry day to you all! We had such a low-key, family-filled, snowy day here, it was just wonderful! I hope all of you had a wonderful day as well.....

And I have so many photos to share, I do....but they're all on my camera. And the camera is so far away. And I need to go to bed soon. So for now I'll just share a Tiegan quote from today, and hope to catch up with photos soon!

After all of us had opened up our stockings, Tiegan was looking around at all the cool stuff we'd just accumulated, and astutely observed; "So Santa, he just brings us things that we *could* use, but not really anything that we need?" Yup, I guess that kind of sums it up - always interesting to see the world through this girls' eyes!

December 24th, 2011

We hosted Christmas eve dinner tonight, with Nana Heather, Meg, Ian, Cam and Keane. It was fun to decorate the front porch with boughs of greenery and mason jar lanterns, and then Meg and the kids placed a whole bunch of paper bag lanterns all along the driveway - a very magical entrance into a special night:-) Hope everyone's Christmas is full to the brim with magic and happy memories, full of love and laughter! xo

December 23rd, 2011

We celebrated the solstice with Sean and Chloe (Maya, Lucas and Elsie too!) once again, sharing a lovely meal of chili and then going out to singing carols!!!! A tradition I look forward to every Dec:-)

December 22nd, 2011

It's tiring trying to keep up with your older sisters all day long........

December 21st, 2011

I'm LOVING having a child who loves to bake AND is old enough to do so much of it on her own:-) Here she's making gingerbread dough, to decorate our cake for Christmas Eve. We had a busy day planned for today, but the freezing rain had everyone canceling/delaying them so we were gifted a quiet day at home. How lovely, and of course, exactly what we needed:-)

Getting VERY excited for winter solstice tomorrow, let's get this longest night of the year over with and start welcoming the sun back again!!!!!!

December 20th, 2011

With the advent of colder weather, we've been making a lot more of our comfort foods - like this favourite quinoa chili!

My friend Anja started a food blog a year or two ago, with the idea that we'd both post our food adventures on it. Such a great idea, and I LOVE so much of what she has posted on there, but I have to admit that I've been lacking in my posts. I wonder why?! Not like I have much else to do with my time:-) But regardless, I'm determined to keep plugging away at it, as it encompasses so much of what I love - healthy living, great-tasting food, playing with photography and spending time with my dear friend - even if just in internet land most days! Anyways, I posted the recipe for this chili on there today, and I encourage you to head on over and check it out!

http://onetasterule.blogspot.com/

And while you're at it, check out a few of the cakes that Anja has made - she truly is an artiste:-)

http://www.cakeworthy.com/
http://www.sugarsnapnyc.com/

December 19th, 2011

We have a full-fledged Barbie lover these days - luckily she has a godmother who is happy to buy fun sparkly clothes for her dolls, she was VERY thrilled to open those up:-) And PERHAPS, she'll be lucky enough to have a mom who will make an outfit or two for the dolls this holiday season, we'll see. One thing is for sure - the skirt will be a wee bit longer, and perhaps she'll have practical winter clothing too:-) I know, bah humbug. That's why the kids have god parents!!!!!!!

December 18th, 2011

I thought I would include a photo of our new neighbours, now that there house is pretty much finished. This is the view from our front deck, through the slog of tree debris (we're SLOWLY making our way through it, one bonfire at a time, and can't wait until this becomes more functional and beautiful. But landscaping seems FAR down on our priority list!) and then here's a shot from the driveway.....



Amazing to see how two families can turn the basic design ideas of the house into two drastically different homes - both very lovely and personalized to the families living in them!!! I love them both, and I can't wait to see what we each do with them as we settle into them. For now, it's just nice to both finally be 'home'!

December 17th, 2011

Today was the day we braved the freezing cold temperatures (and very lightest skiffs of snow) to cut down our Christmas tree.



It appears we still have a wee bit of trimming to do:-)



But the kids had fun in the woods, and who could ask for anything more on such a gorgeous sunny day?!!!!

December 16th, 2011

Ummmmmmmm, it's one more week until Christmas. Did you know that? CRAZY!!! Need to wrap my brain around what I want to do for it!!! But not today - today was such a gorgeous day, we HAD to get outside and finish up all those last minute things we need to do before the snows arrive (which I"m REALLY hoping happens soon, as a green muddy Christmas is NOT why I moved to Ontario!!!!)



We have many projects on the go, as usual - we LOVE to start projects, dream, plan and figure details out, but we've yet to determine who exactly the FINISHING department is. And so this is the latest project that we've started, a front deck that we're *hoping* to at least roof before moving onto the next project, so it's dry and protected!!!!!! Slowly but surely, the house is coming together........

December 15th, 2011

Cookie exchange today, and not one photo of the cookies:-) But who can stay focused, with such a cute face to photograph! This is my nephew Keane, hamming it up for the camera as usual and being his adorable self!!!!!

December 14th, 2011

Today was the day we put our pharaoh chicken to rest - after 5-6 weeks of drying him out in the closest thing we could get to natron (salt, baking soda and baking powder), we rubbed cinnamon and oil on his body, wrapped him in linen strips, and covered him with a mask. And sent him to his final resting place, the pyramid of garbage at the Middleville dump:-) An interesting experiment, for sure, but I'm glad we only have to do it once!

December 13th, 2011

Kea's loving her new glasses from Anja - though she does find them a bit dizzy-ing to read with:-)

December 12th, 2011

I'm kind of cheating for photos today, as it was a day full of cleaning/sorting/purging and errand running, and I did not pick my camera up ONCE. UGH! HOWEVER, I *did* make huge headway on getting my holiday cards ready for the post, so that made it all worth it, did it not???!!!!

And anyways, who can resist so many adorable faces? Dominik was getting A LOT of love on his baptism day, the kids absolutely adored him:-) Can you blame them?! xo

December 11th, 2011

December 10th, 2011

Today was a very special day - our newest little nephew Dominik was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church, and we were invited to celebrate this morning. It was a fascinating experience for all of us, and we learned a lot. And, of course, it's always so great to get a chance to cuddle such an adorable little baby!!! I'll share more photos of the morning soon, but for now, a glimpse of his little face before he got dunked under:-)

December 9th, 2011

This is where you will find Kea every night (until we tell her for the second or third time it's time to turn her light off as we know she'll get woken up too early by her siblings!) and also most mornings for as long as she can squeeze it. This girl LOVES to read, and is currently immersed in three different series (depending on which book she can get from the library!) and this new book that she got in her advent calendar from Anja!!! Crazy to think that only a couple of years ago I was fretting about her lack of ability to read, and here she is DEVOURING chapter books:-) Almost makes it hard to tell her to put the book down, but then I have to deal with the crankiness of too little sleep the next day........

December 8th, 2011

And with the wood stove comes much more of this type of activity.................(we're hoping that next year we won't be finishing the building of our house in the late summer/early fall and will instead have a spare moment or two to build up a wood pile!!! For this year, we'll be making do with what we can, and perhaps buying a cord or two!)

December 7th, 2011

Snow drops keep falling on my head........

December 6th, 2011

And the view on my kitchen windowsill these days - growing bits of fresh greenery to ingest during the long winter months!

December 5th, 2011

The view from my kitchen window these days - I never tire of staring at the glistening ice coating the individual branches and twigs, so magical in the sunshine......

December 4th, 2011

The kids are having a blast finding pockets of ice here and there, and they've become so well 'trained' that they come running to me calling, 'hey mom, take a picture of this'!!!!

December 3rd, 2011

We are so happy to have our new little woodstove installed now - just in time for winter time!!!!!

December 2nd, 2011

The seasons are changing out here on the property.....so lovely to see all of the ice patterns:-)

December 1st, 2011

FINALLY, I am going to catch up on these:-) I'm getting my blog mojo back, one day at a time.......let's hope I can maintain it to do a daily photo!



Jamie and I went on a date to take a night photography course and really enjoyed learning some new techniques! The top one is playing with flash lighting in the market, and the next two are playing with traffic:-) I'm inspired to try a few night projects, I'm sure my kids will soon be traumatized by flashes going off in their faces while they sleep!!!!!

Studying Egypt

We've been studying Egypt for a while now, through our Story of the World workbook and before we move on to Mesopotamia, Ancient India, Ancient China and then Greece we thought we would FINALLY mummify a chicken. Which seems very daunting, but actually it's not so bad. ESPECIALLY when I get all the supplies, wash the chicken out and surround it with 'natron' (a combination of salt, baking powder and baking soda) and let it sit in a plastic bag - and then when I'm meant to change it over a couple of days later, claim squeamishness to actually touch it and convince Jamie to take over at that point:-) The first week, we changed it over 3 times, and it was definitely a bit 'fresh', but after that it increasingly felt leathery and doesn't seem to smell at all. Next week we'll take it out of the mix for good, then cover it in scented oil, wrap it in linen strips, include a few good luck tokens and gather some items for the after life. We may even create a coffin for it, but we'll see how ambitious we're feeling.....it's been fascinating to watch this process at the same time we're reading all about ancient mummies in library books:-) Though I have to admit, I appreciate the fact that they had a separate temple to leave the mummified body in, the kitchen counter is perhaps not the best spot. We'll know for next time.......