Mother's Day

This picture is so special to me. I keep it in my jewelry box and look at it every day. I love how young and beautiful my mother is, even without her makeup, and how comfortable I look cuddled up to her sleeping.
It's so strange living thousands of miles away from my mom and only seeing her twice a year. When I think of her, I picture her in her mid thirties with her dark hair cut in a short pixie style, peering through her glasses that sit on the tip of her nose, rocking in an E-Z boy recliner while grading her student's papers.
I remember being little and watching Mom put on her makeup. I remember when she would curl my long blonde hair and "feather" my short bangs. I loved when she let me wear her jewelry  My favorite picture of me as a child is from first grade picture day. Mom let me wear her heart and rose necklace for the day, a big deal to a six year old.
No other woman will ever be as special to me as my mama.
I love you, Mommy.
xoxoxoxoxo

Ice cream and Grandma

Eylee girl had her first ice cream cone a few days ago and L-O-V-E-D it! She wouldn't let me help her hold it or help her lick up any sticky drips. She would give me the "stink eye" and reach her cone as far away from me as her short arms would allow. She ate it in a total of 10 minutes. Impressive for a lil' thing. The cold on her gums didn't seem to bother her at all. 

Tavin with Grandma for the yearly picture with the "monster truck."

So Grandma has come and gone. She was only here for three nights and two days. Tavin loves when visitors come, but he was ecstatic for Grandma to be here. He got to snuggle and sleep beside her every night. He would show off all his toys, karate moves, and they even baked cookies one morning.
 We drove Grandma half way to meet up with family to take her the rest of the way to Calgary to see the rest of the family. On the 1 1/2 hour drive back home, Tavin started bawling as soon as he realized we weren't going to Calgary too. It was the intense sad cries too, with pleads to take him to see Grandma. After about 30 minutes of crying, the pleading turned into demanding that Grandma come live with us forever. He eventually stopped when he cried himself to sleep.
broke. my. heart.
I miss Grandma too. Ben has been studying for the first set of dental boards his week off before he goes back to "dental summer school" for two months. Having Grandma to talk to and keep us all company was amazing! We'll be going to Calgary this Friday for a niece's birthday party, so I'm getting through the week by thinking how soon, very soon, we'll be surrounded by lots of family.

Summertime

 Lately we've been going on a lot of...

A certain little girl doesn't want to keep her helmet on and continues to pull on it until somehow she wiggles the thing off. Meanwhile her older brother is yelling, "Faster, faster, we need another master!" Tavin wants to go everywhere by bike. The park, grocery store, see cousins in Calgary (which is about 3 hours away for those of you who don't know).
Oh well. The weather has been so nice lately, and it only stopped snowing last week, I'm totally okay riding a bike all day.

And for no reason at all, MUSIC!

Break Time

Grandma is coming!!!!
We're trying to get the house ready but it seems to be taking longer than expected. Probably because we keep taking breaks. 

Lots of breaks. 

Dancing breaks, singing breaks, snack breaks, pillow fighting breaks...blogging breaks apparently..

During one of the breaks, we made this video for fun.

Afterwards, we had a laundry fight. This resulted in all the clean clothing being thrown all over my bedroom. Talk about counterproductive.

Don't worry, it's now sorted, folded, and put away.

Now on to making supper and sweeping the house.
Yippee-ki-yay! (insert sarcasm)

Midcentury Dresser

Finally after TWO YEARS, we finished the dresser!
A long long long time ago, in a world when we only had one child and most of our furniture was hand-me-downs or found in a back alley...
Ben spotted a beautiful mid-century dresser on Kijiji for FREE! (When I say "beautiful," I actually mean super ugly and chipped to pieces, painted a nasty dark poo brown. But it was solid wood.)
We picked up the dresser and lugged it into the garage for safe keeping until we figured out what to do with it. We were so happy to finally have something for Monkey to use, since his bedroom had no closet. -one of the downers to being in an old house.
While scouring through the internet for ideas, when I was too crazy to use Pinterest, I happened upon this from Designsponge.com, and inspiration was born.

After taking our good sweet time, we finally finished this beauty. (summers are short in Canada, especially if its the only time you have to travel and see family!) Monkey sleeps downstairs now, so little Eylee gets to use the dresser. I absolutely love how it turned out! For the cost of paint, stain, and sweat labor, this thing was altogether dirt cheap. Can't beat dirt cheap.

Now on to finish the 23,049,285,034,967,509,032,958 other projects laying around the house or stuck in the garage.

*I do have a before picture...somewhere..I just can't seem to find it. I mean, two years is a long time to keep track of a picture of a nasty dresser, right?

Popsicles!

After Eylee went to sleep for her evening nap, Monkey and I went outside to eat a popsicle! This was a big deal to Monkey for two reasons:
1. He made the popsicle himself and
2. He thought it must be summer if he got to go outside without a hat, gloves, AND eat a popsicle!
(It was actually only 5C/41F, still chilly but bearable)
 It was so nice to run around in the backyard, play soccer with Monkey's made up rules, and watch Monkey play on the swing set. Even though it was chilly and overcast, we had fun. When Ben came home, we decided to grill some tasty chicken.
*grilling present participle of grill (verb): to cook something on a grill aka I do very little cooking and I have very little clean up. yespleaseandthankyou
While waiting for the chicken, which was scrumptious, by the way, we all grabbed a shovel and scooped up what was left of the snow and slung it on one another. The goal was to cover your opponents with as much of the ice as possible without getting covered yourself. Monkey and I teamed up and dominated Ben. Cause we're cool like that.

sharing

Telling me he thought he might have a brain freeze

"Don't touch my hair, Mama!!!!"

The kid didn't wanna share the last bite. But I don't really blame him.

What's a popsicle party without some kung-fu moves afterwards?

Trying to talk me into going back inside for another popsicle. Sneaky stinker.

Music Monday

Ya know when you have one of those awesome YouTube music find moments?
Yeah, this is one of those.