Busytown Birthday

Yesterday afternoon Sydney and I had the pleasure of attending her friend William's 4th birthday party.  William and his Mom Michelle have really been into seeing live theatre this past year and so in keeping with this passion decided to take the kids to see the show 'Busytown', based on the Richard Scarry children's books, which was playing at Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island.

The kids so enjoyed the show, it was fun and entertaining and filled with singing and dancing.  A perfect combination of everything they love all wrapped up in one hour.

After the show we went across the street to their party room and enjoyed a fantastic firetruck themed celebration together.

William requested a green firetruck cake this year and did his Momma ever oblige!

Along with making a beautiful tower of handmade sugar cookies and chcolate lollipops.

Sydney and the other wee guests were most thrilled to get a loot bag filled with all things fireman, including their very own red fire chief hat!

What a memorable day it was celebrating William's big day together!

Signs of Spring

Sydney and I went for a little nature walk this afternoon and captured some beautiful shots of the blooms all around.  Spring is here!

Here's a little of what our neighborhood looks like right now:

Syd picked a few flowers to take home for a lovely spring bouquet, one of the first of the season!

Happy Spring!

Days Flying By

Oh my where have the past few days gone?  I don't know if it's just me, but it feels as though after we change the clocks in the spring that we not only lose an hour, but days at a time! 

It is definitely looking like spring in Vancouver.  Cherry blossoms are bursting everywhere, it's gorgeous and makes for some amazing Claritin days for me....the joys of hayfever season!

Took this shot of my sister's Magnolia tree yesterday while we were out having a visit, gorgeous! 

My sister and her family just returned from a week long cruise to Mexico and brought Sydney back a little stuffed Koala from the San Diego zoo where they visited before boarding their ship.

Syd has been loving this milder weather and being able to play at the park with more regularity again.

This past weekend we celebrated Sydney's friend Sophia's 4th birthday along with her entire preschool class.  The party was held at UBC gymnastics, it was such a pleasure to watch all the children play and laugh and enjoy themselves together.

Sophia's Mom makes the most amazing cakes and this year she made one based on the movie Frozen.  It was divine!

Not to mention the handmade sugar cookies and homemade marshmallows that literally melted in your mouth...yum!

Sydney came home from school this week with the most adorable hand drawn plates for the third year in a row.  I love seeing how her art has progressed year over year.

My heart melted when I saw that she had written "I love you Jen" on each of her plates.  She told me she wrote it so that she would remember how much she loved Jen when she was in Kindergarten....sniff, sniff!


Syd and I took some time to make some cookies this afternoon.  I love how Syd pulled out all the sprinkles that I had in my baking cupboard and lovingly decorated each one!

I've been spending a fair amount of time this week helping my friend Michelle move into her lovely new garden apartment.  We took the final load over to her new place this morning and she gave me a little gift on the way home, a beautiful new tea cup from David's Tea.  I savoured a cup of tea this afternoon in my very special new cup.

Syd pulled out her new guitar this afternoon and played a few songs for me singing at the top of her lungs all the while, so so cute!

It's been a good week, I can feel myself coming alive as spring is upon us!

Missed Moments

I was just looking through pictures I've taken over the past few weeks and realized that there were many precious moments that missed making it into a posting here.

So without further ado, here are a few moments that slipped through the cracks:

Sydney has been so enjoying her art classes at 4 Cats.  This term she learned about the artist Tamara DeLempicka and did both a self portrait in her style and made a necklace and bracelet out of beads she made herself with clay.  I love how she got to add sparkly jewels to her self portrait.  We are having it framed and will hang it proudly in her playroom!

Sydney makes me pictures most every day.  Most of the time she writes "To Mommy or I Love you Mommy" on them.  This one was so funny, she wrote "To Susan" on it!

S

My friend Christina gave me the most beautiful bouquet of tulips a while back.  When they were all done, Sydney decided that she wanted to keep the petals and lovingly plucked each one off to collect in her little wicker basket.

Sydney continues to love her riding lessons so much.  Her instructor Sonia is fast becoming a dear friend to us and we are looking forward to many more fun weeks of learning to ride horseback!

Menchie's Time!  With the arrival of spring Syd and I have been spending a fair amount of time at Menchie's enjoying her most favourite frozen yogurt treat!

It truly feels like spring around here!  Love that Syd can play at the playground with no jacket on!

Little Swimmer!  Man does my kid love the water!  Love these pictures of her diving off the tower at swimming lessons.

Granville Island Time!  We've been starting to spend some Sunday mornings at Granville Island again now that the weather is warmer and drier.  Syd absolutely loves the Sunrise Raviolini from Duso's there and the guy there now knows us so well that he painstakingly chooses all the red ones out and puts them in Sydney's own bag for her as he knows these are her favourites!

Camera Hijack!  Syd is honing her photography skills with still life pictures of the fruit bowl these days!

Kiwi Crate.  Our latest Kiwi Crate came packed with a huge map and a craft where we could make flags from around the world.  Syd loved learning about the flags from Brazil, China, Japan and France and made her own flag for her personal country of Sydneyland.

Sunday mornings are always quiet and sacred time around here.  I've been making Paul's favourite breakfast, lox on a bagel lately and we've enjoyed breakfast with a coffee and the newspaper.  A nice way to end the week!