Fiona's Pool Party {Edmonton-in-April Style}

For the first time in forever {if you sang that you must have kids in your life, if not count your lucky stars, that's some catchy music} Fiona's birthday fell on Easter weekend.

We took advantage of the fact that the day after her birthday was a holiday and held her party on the exact date.

We missed a couple of friends who were away for the long weekend but still had a fabulous group of guests.

The party was kicked off with some swimming at our favourite pool.

When I asked Fiona what she wanted for dinner she replied without a doubt "san-wiches".

She originally only wanted peanut butter and raisin wraps but finally agreed that some other varieties would also be acceptable.

The only party items that were purchased were beach towels and mini beach balls.

I bought them originally as party favours and doubled up the use of each as decoration.

From the 24 pack of mini beach balls four of them were put to good use {use #1/4} on the food table.

The drinks were in a laundry basket lined with a garbage bag then a beach towel. 

Fiona was thoroughly impressed by all of the homemade cards she received.

When her school friend Livia handed hers over I heard Fiona exclaim:

 "Did. You. Make. This. All. By. Yourself?!?"

 A whale cake was requested and received.

 Use 2/4 for the beach balls was centrepieces.

 Use 3/4 was as party favours but not before an impromptu game of dodgeball broke out in this sturdy concrete room.

Cedric spent most of the time wiping out, I'm pretty sure on purpose, so dramatic that one.

 There was a ton of screaming, laughing, running and dodging.

 After swimming followed by these shenanigans you just know those kids crashed hard.

To all those who celebrated with us, you're welcome thank you.

Happy Easter to You

Easter has been completely overshadowed by birthdays this weekend.

I have also been on call and worked a shift so my mind has had a lot to focus on.

What am I getting at, right?

Well, on Sunday I woke up before my family and headed down to put the coffee on.

I treasure that precious quiet time before the house is full of needs and demands.

I was about to curl up with my cup and book when it dawned on me.

It's Easter Sunday!

I made a dash for the cupboard and filled those plastic eggs like mad.

As I just hid {I use that term loosely having toddlers and all} the last of them I heard "STOMP, thump, thump, thump, thump" from upstairs so quickly abandoned my mission.

Fortunately I was able to convince the early riser that she needed to go potty and was able to pepper the house with more eggs, this time of the foil wrapped variety.

Please excuse my dust, keepin' it real.

Disaster was averted, Easter was saved and I spent the rest of the day thanking my lucky stars.

Someone's Four and a Tradition is Born

I've had a busy day preparing for tonight's festivities so haven't had a chance to do my usual nostalgic birthday post.

It's probably for the best since four years sounds way too old and I'd rather not dwell on the fact that Fiona is just that.

Four!

I'll share more about her party when I'm not the victim of a sugar crash combined with the swimming sleepies.

Today I wanted to quickly share what I hope becomes a new ritual for us.

Jeff was at the car show all last weekend so came home Sunday night craving some quality family time.

The evening just screamed "Movie Night" and that's exactly what we did.

This was no ordinary movie night though.

 We rearranged the living room and brought down a bunch of flat sheets to turn it into a tent.

 Daddy filled our 3-little-bear sized bowls with popcorn.

 The kids were in fort heaven.

We decided to start introducing the kids to family movies from our childhood.

There's something so right {and sometimes so wrong, I'll admit} about 80's movies.

First up was this classic.

Afterwards I told Fiona that when E.T. was made I was her age.

 {I was actually Cedric's age I realize now.}

She stared at me blankly for a few seconds then between bursts of laughter said "no way Mommy" and gave me a look that had "silly Mama" written all over it.

Thanks kid, you're sure making it tough to convince myself I'm still young.

Track and Shield is Back for Another Season

My involvement with the shop is somewhat limited.

I do our bookkeeping from my home office and rarely go to the shop with the kids.

It's still a novelty for them to go in but I know that would quickly change if they had to hang out there more often.

It's not exactly a children's paradise with one toy and a single baby book.

Cedric much prefers to terrorize the filing cabinets, debit machine and phone.

In fact, he remains the only one who can change the language and turn the answering machine off.

Needless to say, I don't have a lot of contact with our employees even when I do manage to pop in.

It is so important to me, therefore, to have opportunities to feel like a part of the team.

Track and Shield was just that for me.

Last year we may have overdone it.

We registered the team for 6 races and also did Melissa's Road Race in Banff in the fall.

I loved each and every one but by the end of the summer our team was pretty sparse.

The owners may do as many this year with more of a focus on just a few for the staff who are willing to play along.

We have chosen our first two races for 2014.

We will skip April and start with The Mother's Day Walk/Run in May.

This is a really chill and fun event.

Last year we topped it off with a picnic to make it my best Mother's Day yet.

{No pressure for this Mother's Day of course.}

If you'd like to join our team drop me a line and I'll give you the sign up info.

We have also registered for Color Me Rad.

We were slated to do the Calgary race last year before the flooding forced them to cancel.

I have heard nothing but great things about this run so am excited to participate this year.

I mean, how insane does this look?

Luckily Chloe was on the ball and alerted us all that the race was open since it's already sold out.

There is still a waiting list if you missed it and are interested.

I have started outdoor running of course but haven't taken it too seriously yet.

I love getting into race season since I'm much more motivated to get on the trails.

Even the snow today {sorry about that} can't dampen my spirits.

This is a Scattered One

The end is near.

Our backyard is a lake as it always is at this time of year.

{And you think you have grading problems.}

But, honestly, I don't mind.

It means that all that snow and ice is slowly melting away.

 

I love this shot of Cedric because his getup reminds me so much of camping with my Dad when we were kids.

We have been making believe that it's spring for weeks now.

In the middle of March I swapped all of our winter boots and coats for rain boots and windbreakers.

I was rewarded for being so prompt with a massive dump of snow and -20s.

That'll learn me.

I was going through pics and came across these from around the time I was flaunting our rain boots in Mother nature's face.

I have now repeated this cavalier act so if we get a couple of feet tomorrow you can blame me.

 I also wanted to share our first macaroni art experience.

{I warned you, scattered.}

The kids loved it, especially since I dyed some of the noodles with food colouring {just a few drops in about a half cup of water, soak then let dry}.

 Of course this happened and believe me this was not the only ingestion incident.

 When I first set them up Fiona was meticulous, placing each perfectly.

I left the room for minutes and returned to a bottle of glue and the rest of the macaroni dumped on the page.

That sucker is so heavy I can't even hang it with my sticky tack.

Fiona has gone through phases of reserved and unleashed lately.

Sometimes it seems as though she wakes up a different girl than the day before.

She is more often than not delightful but we have been suspending privileges like nobody's business lately.

The difference as far as I can tell is that she's much more opinionated, is learning the art of negotiation and, unfortunately, manipulation.

She was in especially fine form yesterday and there's some residual tension today.

When we were out shopping today she suddenly asked me:

"Mom, why didn't I get a nice Mommy?"

Let the mind games begin.

Cloffice Part 1: DIY Moroccan Stencil

I have been meaning to share my "cloffice" for a while now.

I actually credit this little nook with my starting a blog.

Years ago I googled turning+a+small+space+into+an+office+nook and came across this new fangled site called Pinterest.  

Yep, that's how old this project is.

I wasn't sure what this Pinterest was but still put my application in to be accepted to this super exclusive site.

During those initial hours upon hours upon hours of perusing I kept stumbling on lifestyle bloggers and started following a few.

I was immediately hooked and was envious of how these women were chronicling theirs and their families lives so decided to do the same for us.

You Auto Know Blog was born.

Back to the cloffice.

This space was a little doorless closet right in the middle of the house nowhere near any of the entrances.

Practical right? 

It was screaming for a repurpose.

It's now starting to look a little worse for wear but has held it's function really well.

The best parts of getting the computer to the main floor are that a) we now have access to our music in our main living space and b) we all end up spending our time together on the main floor even if we're each doing our own thing.

The project basically consisted of 1) tearing out the closet rod and shelf 2) patching and painting  3) installing shelves and 4) moving in.

I just wanted to share the painting part today.

I was way too cheap to pay for a stencil so decided to make my own.

I made it fairly large because I knew this space would get cluttered enough without a busy pattern.

There are a bunch of free printables out there but I wanted it bigger than I have the capability to print.

After much trial and error this was by far the easiest {for me} and most precise without spending a lot of time.

Start by taping 2 8x10 sheets of paper together.

Using a kids plate {a side plate could work as long as it's not more that 6" wide} trace two circles touching one end of the paper and each other.

Make two folds, one on the other end of the circles and one on the top of them.

I like folding before cutting to get that perfectly straight line at right angles to the page.

Next cut both sides off so you're left with just the two circles in a rectangle.

Make sure to cut the side piece off first and keep the top strip {which should be the length of your main sheet} you will need this later.

Fold the above piece so each circle is folded exactly in half. {I used a dark pen so I could see that the circle halves matching up.}

Cut out the spaces between the circles. {Nicely, you will need these.}

Tape the two straight edges left of your rectangle together.

Fold then cut that top strip that you saved in half and arrange it above and below the main sheet then arrange the circle cut out pieces above and below that.

Tape it all together and voila.

With the stencil I simply started in the bottom, placed and traced on my wall {that I had already painted in my base colour} with pencil.

Once the pattern was traced over the whole  wall I used a small paintbrush {doesn't have to be fancy, I just used one of my kid's} to retrace in white.

Simple and easy but it ended up being the exact look I wanted.