Happy Mother's Day Mom

What a beautiful sunny day, Mother Nature's way of paying tribute to all the mothers out there who give so much of themselves to their families.  A mother is one who loves her family and works hard to make her children feel loved, safe and secure and making sure the family needs are all looked after. 
It's funny how certain smells can trigger a memory that is simply "Mom".  One of my memories as a young child is the smell of floor wax, crazy I know but when I was a child I remember coming in the house during winter and smelling the floor wax and the windows are all steamed up from Mom cooking and it is a comforting memory that all is right within my world at that time.  When you think about it, back then the floor polish had to be applied to the hardwood floors on hands and knees and allowed to dry before the buffer was brought out.  I know all eight of us kids would run for the socks when we realized mom was polishing the floors as that meant hours of fun running and sliding on the floors.  I am sure mom didn't mind as one, it kept us busy and out of her hair for a good hour or more and two it added an extra sparkle to those floors. I laugh when I think about it and quite honestly I don't know how my Mom did it with eight kids to look after and my dad worked away from home for a lot of the time when we were young. 
I do know that as a mother and grandmother it brings tears to my eyes to think about how overwhelming it must have been at times for my mom to look after eight children and run a household basically on her own with no car and living in rural areas.  I do know that I always felt safe and happy and never questioned that there would be food on the table at mealtimes and a hug if I needed it.

So I take off my apron to you Mom as you were and are an incredibly strong woman to have raised eight children when I am sure at times you wanted to run screaming from the house.

Thank you.

Love your "Middle Child" or brat some of my siblings may say.  :)

 

Spring is arriving

I love this time of year, every day I go outside and walk around the gardens to see what is poking up through the ground other than weeds :).  Digging in the soil and planting is such a satisying feeling.  I have planted the urns for the deck and have fingers crossed that we don't get a heavy frost or else my house will be a little crowded some nights with all the pots dragged inside.  This year I kept it simple and just used pansies and the most happy little daisies and in some pansies and new guinea begonias.  I am moving all my hostas around and my sister gave me a box of irises so I have to get those in the ground as well.  They are calling for a nice day on Friday so that may be an outdoor day for Molly and I.  Can't wait.

I was looking after Adelyn last week and we were exploring her yard and her Mommy's flowers.  Mind you she did a wonderful job picking all the dandelions from the lawn.  Her daddy would be proud.

The true sign of spring is all the fishing boats in the harbour setting the lobster traps and bringing home their catch.  Yumm, I have already had a couple of lobster feeds since the season opened.  My son is working 16 hour days right now as they collect the lobster from the fisherman to be exported.  Nothing like NS lobster and a dish of butter sitting on your plate.



With Mother's Day coming this weekend it will be busy but time spent with family is always fun.  A bunch of us are taking my Mom to lunch on Saturday which will be a noisy and laugh filled event.  On Sunday my son-in-law is making lunch for my daughter, his mom and me.  He is an amazing cook and I can't wait to see what he has come up with to serve us this year.  All I know is that he needs 1lb of lobster which I will have my son pick up.

I am busy getting my yard geared up for the weekends when Adelyn comes to stay.  I picked up the neatest sandbox/water table for her, it even has an umbrella so she isn't in the direct sun.  I have ordered a rocker to have on the deck as well so old nanny bones can sit and have her cup of tea while keeping an eye on my sugar baby.

The weekend of May 26th I am doing a felted over lace scarf workshop with about 4 or 5 ladies which should be fun.  After the workshop I am heading over to Halifax to pick up Adelyn as she is coming out until Monday.  Can't wait to see what antics she will get up to.  :)

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!


"Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone"

Rose's Art Show

My sister Rose has an art show coming up on Wednesday June 27th 6:30 - 9:30pm at 1313 Hollis St., Halifax and some of the paintings she will be displaying are below.   There will be 15 artists participating.

Easter Treats

Well Easter is now here and gone and it was a beautiful day to spend with family and friends.  The day wasn't sunny which was part of what made it a great day as you were not thinking about all the yard work that needs to be done on those sunny spring days.  My sister put together a beautiful meal and some of her neighbours came and my BFF came along with family.  Unfortunately my Mom was not feeling very well but she did enjoy seeing Adelyn and yes everyone else.

I did get my three desserts made to take to my sister's which were a hit.  My daughter also made a scrumpcious fruit salad which I enjoyed the next day while I was babysitting.  I think the favorite dessert I made was the Coconut Cream Cake which I had never made before and changed the recipe a bit.  So now I have to figure out the revisions to the recipe to send everyone.   aaaaggghhhhh

Here we have NS Wild Blueberry Cream Cake.  Yummy

Coconut Cream Cake... very yummy

Lemon Cream Tarts with Raspberry & Blackberries... tasty little morsels

Here is my grandaughter Adelyn dancing away with her tutu on that I had made her for Easter.  It is amazing how little girls automatically know what to do with girly things.  LOL  I made a matching tutu for her wear on her dolls.  Too cute.

Here is Adelyn playing in the tunnel of her play tent which the Easter Bunny left for her.  It took quite a bit of rolling around the floor and wrestling with Adelyn, the dog and my camera to capture this picture.  It was quite a workout for these old Nanny bones.  :)

Here she is Easter Monday when I was babysitting, we decided to go out on the deck and get some fresh air and she was obsessed with the snow and then of course being the little minx that she is, she decided to test her Nanny to see if I would let her eat the snow.  Not, so we played a game of chase around the deck with Adelyn chortling away as she thought it was hilarious. 

Here she is modeling a little sundress I had made her for Easter which isn't a great picture as the child never stays still or if she sees the camera she comes running towards me as she wants to see all the pictures on my camera.  Am I little consumed by my grandaughter, yes, yes, yes!  But I mean what do you do when you get them up in the morning and they come out to the kitchen and immediately start dancing for you?  You swoon, that's what and then you start dancing with her like I did.  :)

I am having Adelyn from Friday to Monday this weekend... yipppeeee!  We will definitely have some fun, I have loads of new toys for her to play with so she will be quite busy and we may have to do some crafts and blow big bubbles outside.  Hhhhmmm, her mother may not want to go home..... but I will have lots of pics to share from our weekend to share with mommy and daddy as they still have separation anxiety.  LOL

"Just when I thought I was too old to fall in love again, I became a Grandparent."

Author: Unknown

Maritime Fibre Art Retreat was a great success

Well the weekend was over far too quickly but it was absolutely wonderful.  Relaxing, creative and fun meeting up with people we hadn't seen since last year.  It is amazing to see the talent that everyone brings to the retreat and readily shares their ideas and thoughts.  My sister Rose and I were doing strictly felting this year and we commented on the fact that there were other felters there and how everyone has their own technique and area of creativity.  My sister worked on a beautiful tea cozy, a delicate felted over lace scarf and a funky picture of a face that was totally fun.  I worked on a felted over lace scarf and a couple of wall hangings, one of which is still in the throes of being worked on. 

On our travels to the retreat we came across a wonderful garden and gift shop called Oceanview, wow the things they had there were fantastic.  We could have spent a fortune there and yes we have plans to go back and spend more money.  Everything was unique and lovely and I wanted one of everything. LOL  I asked the owner if I could just move in but unfortunately they don't allow squatters. :)  We also stopped into a couple of used clothing stores as I was looking for buttons and it seems that a lot of these places no longer carry buttons which disappointed me as you can find some unique buttons normally.  I did find a nice pink wool blazer though and a couple of beautiful little dresses and a jacket for my grandaughter.  I got home late Sunday afternoon with all my treasures and crafts, rested a few hours, repacked my suitcase and headed in to my daughter and son-in-law's as I was babysitting the joy of my heart on Monday.  My sister and Mom came for lunch on Monday so Adelyn got to show off her entertainment skills and slay two more victims in her growing following of fellow swooners. She puts on quite the performance once she warms up and it is impossible to resist her charms.  I snapped a couple of great pictures of Adelyn with my Mom, she is a lucky little girl to have 3 great Grandmothers who live fairly close as well as grandmothers, grandfathers and a large group of Aunts, Uncles and cousins. 

Well Easter is fast approaching and I have to get my desserts in order to take to my sister's as she is doing Easter dinner and I offered to bring the desserts.  Should be a fun time and I know the food will be awesome.  So I am off to finish my felting project and gather my list of ingredients for all the desserts.

"The most beautiful thing in this world is to see your parents smiling, and knowing that you're the reason behind that smile".

Sew what, you say, anything and everything

I recently bought a new new sewing machine (Babyloc - Grace) which was a retirement gift from my children and a very dear friend (yup, a heart sister).  Well I took it out of the box and set it on my kitchen table and admired it for about two weeks before touching it.  You have to understand that previously I had a basic Singer which worked great and still does actually and now resides in my daughter's home but now I was faced with this machine that is computerized and tells me what I am doing wrong.  LOL  It's not quite that advanced but close, so I finally broke down flexed my fingers and ripped off the cover and pressed the power switch to on and I haven't looked back.  It is so quiet it is amazing and best of all it does about about 6 one step button holes and crikey it will even sew on the buttons.  So I have been out burning up the miles to the fabric stores buying fabric for....... are you ready?  Okay, okay all the fabric and patterns have been for my grandaughter, surprised... I think not.  Last weekend I sewed a little dress and matching hat, plus a blanket and dolly blankets.

Now I making a bunch of pincushions to put in my sisters gift shop.  I love pincushions and the weird thing is that I don't have one.  Well I do now, I just have to decide which one I will keep for myself once they are all done.

Easter is coming and we are all having dinner at my sisters which is always noisy and a lot of fun and this year I volunteered to make all the desserts.  Yummmm, so I think I am going to make Lemon Raspberry Tarts, Coconut Cream Cake and NS Blueberry Cream Cake.  I have made them all before with the exception of the Coconut Cream Cake but it did have rave reviews so I am going to give it a go.

Well I must get back to my pincushions as I want to get them finished and maybe start another dress for my grandbaby.

"Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory."

Swooning

This past weekend I had my grandaughter stay with me from Friday to Sunday and we had the absolute best time.  How is it possible to fall more in love without my heart bursting out of my chest you ask, I don't really know except that it happened and I survived.  She played with all her toys, her Uncle Dave and dressed up with her princess jewels.  She was obsessed with the resident cat, you noticed I didn't say my cat :) he belongs to my son and he is a one person cat, meaning he tolerates me living in his house which I just happen to own and does not take kindly to other people.  So my grandaughter who used to be terrified of cats is now obsessed with cats and would constantly chase after him when he was in the house so my son was on constant duty to monitor his critter and ensure that there were no scratches or bitemarks left on my wee baby.  Of course I had a few new toys which my dog Molly took a liking to the pink lamb which Adelyn decided she liked as well so they had standoffs all weekend over the pink lamb.  You will see a picture below of Adelyn holding the lamb and Molly in under her arm trying to take it away from her.  It was quite funny to watch the two of them fight over that lamb all weekend.

And here she is cleaning the lambie's bottom with her princess skirt on.  All her dolls and stuffed critters have the cleanest bottoms around.

Princess Adelyn with her jewels on.

I had to include the picture below which I had taken last week when I was babysitting, Adelyn wanted her duck to dressed in her outdoor gear which I did and she proceeded to walk around the house for about a half hour making the duck walk along with her.  It was the funniest thing to watch, the duck took on life and I am sure to Adelyn it was real.



"A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do."

Author: Lois Wyse