Happy Birthday!

This was our birthday girl 5 years ago at age 2, and here she is today! :) We're in the midst of an all day celebration here, with lots of presents, good food, and much more fun to come! It's been a wonderful 7 years with this little angel in our lives, Happy Birthday Sweetie! I love you!

dishes........

We've been reading our way through the Little House on the Prairie books (we're on The Long Winter) and E's noticed how many dishes Laura and Mary are always having to do. It seems like they're always washing dishes and sweeping the floor! (Aren't we all!) Well, now she thinks dishes and sweeping are kind of cool, because Laura did them, so this is her in her "Laura" dress washing dishes for me! (My wonderful aunt Teresa made this dress for me when I was 5, some 26 years ago!) And yes, we wash all our dishes by hand and use the dishwasher as a drying rack. Seriously, under-counter dishwasher make the BEST drying racks! :)

I just have to share my yummy gluten-free apple pie! We had people over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and I made an apple pie with a wheat flour crust and I didn't have time to make myself a gf pie, so after they left and I had cleaned up the kitchen, I went back to work on a little mini pie for myself......and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

crafting........

We've had a bit of a crafting renaissance going on in our house lately. I'm sure it has something to do with the change of season, but I know it has a lot to do with Amanda's Soule's incredible book The Creative Family! I adore her blog and read it almost every day, but I just got around to reading her book a few weeks ago and since then, I am soooooo much more likely to let my kids come up with a project and just go with it. It's amazing seeing what they create, and I love getting in on it with them as well. I've picked up my knitting a little every day since then, and our art supplies and playdough have pretty much become a permanent fixture at the kitchen table.

This little house was entirely E's idea. We were at the dollar store getting stickers for violin practice charts and she saw these wooden craft sticks and immediately knew what she wanted to build. She told me she also needed a bottle of glue, so for $2 she had hours of fun puting this together. The sticks are glued right on top of eachother, and she used an entire bottle of glue, so it's not going anywhere! (When she first started the project I tried to explain how the sticks could be glued together log cabin style, but nope, this was the plan from the start and I let her run with it!) Once dry it was coloured and now it's a favorite little house for dolls. So fun!

back in time........

Last weekend we took a trip back in time at an old-timey park in our city. So fun! We've been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books for a couple of months now and we're on The Long Winter, so stepping back in time was so real to us, we kept imagining what Laura and Mary would think of everything.

Freshly gathered eggs.....

Going to school with Laura and Mary.......

The woodworker's cottage was awesome, the kids did hammering and sanding and made a button toy.

She's not mad here, this is her old-fashioned "serious" look for a photo.....

The "not-so-serious" look........

weekending......

......a week late. These are highlights from Labor Day Weekend, so fun!

Harvest!

I just have to share our first tomato with you! It was delicious......juicy, tart, sweet, acidic! Just perfect. Hopefully the rest of them will ripen before the cold sets in here, but seriously, it feels more like summer today, on the first of September, than it has all summer! It's nice and hot, perfect for ripening tomatoes! Pretty soon I'll share our apple harvest with you......I've been eating apple crisp almost every day for the past week. Happy Harvest season to you all!

Back to School........

Yes, hard to believe, but we're back to school! And of course, this week has been such beautiful weather, we'd rather be at the beach than in school! :) Actually, probably not, E has been sooooooo excited to go to "grade one!" (First grade for all you Americans out there.) If you look closely, you'll see her missing tooth, it fell out last week, just in time to be one of the "big kids" at school! She's loving it so far.......the highlights are having her own desk with her own pencil box, going outside for recess and gym, listening to the song "Puff the Magic Dragon," and having all her favorite friends in her class! (This picture is just posed by the bus, we actually walk to school but the kids really wanted pictures of the bus!)