A Week in April

My days have been filled with making lots of plans lately, a weekend getaway to Whistler, a summer trip to Suncadia, getaway with Grandma and Auntie and planning my 'runcation' in September to mark my 40th birthday.  It feels good to flip through the pages of my daytimer and feel excited about things to come. 

I spent my morning today meeting with an interior designer that my friend Erin recommended to me.  She was such a lovely lady and I really felt that she is exactly what I need to get me motivated to get cracking on some home improvement projects that are long overdue.  I'm feeling hopeful about the prospect of getting some things done over the next few months.

We had a full and busy week this past week.  Sydney and I continue to enjoy watching everything come into bloom in our own garden and all around us.

This amazing tree bloomed in our backyard this past week, it is in it's full glory right now:

And of course the lilacs, a full three weeks ahead of schedule are out in full bloom:

Love, love them. I have had a bouquet in my kitchen for days and never grow tired of the most amazing, fragrant smell!

This past Friday I had the pleasure of hosting a birthday dinner for my dear friend Sally with our precious group of Dunbar Moms.  We decided on a Mexican theme as Sally loves Mexican food.  My friend Erin dropped a box of fun Mexican items off to me and I had such fun decorating and making a lovely Mexican feast!

The girls loved the meal and stayed until the wee hours of the night laughing and visiting.  I loved every minute of it and it left me thinking that I really should host more of these events, such fun times!

The very next morning we had the pleasure of celebrating Ollie's 5th birthday at Science World.  What a fun party!  The kids got to see live bugs and learn all about them and then launch bottle rockets off before enjoying lunch and cake.

We have been busy going through the contents of Paul's Mom's house before it goes on the market later this week.  This weekend we brought over her beautiful sideboard which now graces our front foyer.

It is a wonderful addition to our home and we love it!

It is hard to believe that April is almost behind us and that in six short weeks Sydney will be finished Kindergarten.  Time is definitely moving faster than it ever has before and I'm working harder and harder at trying to hold onto and savour every last minute with my sweet girl as she grows up before my eyes!

A Home for our Teacups

As you may have guessed from reading many of our past posts, Sydney and I love having tea parties more than anything.  We often have friends over for a special high tea time and will even sneak in a few special times around tea on our own. 

When Paul's Mom passed away several months ago one of the things that Sydney inherited from her was her beautiful collection of teacups, many of which are well over seventy years old!

We were so excited to have these new treasures and carefully stored them individually wrapped in paper towels in a box in our storage room waiting for a special occasion when we could use them.

This past weekend we brought home another very special item from Bubbie's home, her china cabinet and now we have a beautiful new home for her teacups to be displayed along with a set of teacups that are the exact pattern that my Grandmother had.  I love that they are housed together, a china cabinet filled with memories for both of us!

I absolutely love it!  Sydney was so excited to see everything all neatly put away and to have the teacups on display at long last instead of tucked away in storage.

I feel some tea parties coming on in our future!

Back in Business

With sincere apologies for my radio silence for the last month, I am happy to announce that we are back in business with updating this blog and you can hope to see some more frequent updates in the days and weeks to come.

It has been such a great spring, the early bloom in Vancouver this year and string of bright, sunny days has been so uplifting.  We have had so many wonderful memories together with Sydney in the past month, here's a few of the highlights.

Easter Weekend

In keeping with our yearly tradition we did a photo shoot in the garden on Good Friday.  Sydney was only too excited to get dressed into one of her new spring dresses and enjoy the flowers while I happily snapped away.  I love that this has become a tradition and am amazed at how much she's changed and grown year over year.

We did our annual egg hunt with our Dunbar friends on Good Friday as well, the kids had a blast ripping around Dunbar Park searching for eggs and stuffing their baskets to the brim!

We started a new tradition this Good Friday as well by visiting Southlands Farm for their annual sheep shearing.  What fun we had watching the event and making Sydney her first ever roast marshmallow at the bonfire there!

Passover

Good Friday also marked the start of Passover this year.  We so enjoyed Seders with Paul's nephew Danny and his wife Heidi who are always such gracious hosts.  It was a special time of being together with family and friends.  Sydney enjoyed helping me make yet another gorgeous fruit platter for the dinners this year.

Visit from Grandma

We have just enjoyed the most wonderful week of having my Mom here to visit us.  She and I spent some precious time together one on one while Sydney was at school during the day, had a lovely lunch together at Seasons in the Park, spent the day at the Absolute Spa getting our nails done and enjoyed many coffees and chats together.  It was precious time!

Grandparents Day

While my Mom was here she had the pleasure of joining Sydney at school for the day for Grandparents Day.  Sydney was thrilled to show Grandma around her school, garden and playground and they enjoyed some special time together!

Melanie's Wedding

My Mom also had the pleasure of joining us in celebrating my cousin Melanie's wedding at the top of the Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish while she was here.  What a fabulous day it was sharing this long awaited celebration together! 

My Auntie Trish made a beautiful wedding cake for the occasion.

William's Birthday

Sydney and I so enjoyed celebrating her friend William's 5th birthday with the most fabulous truck and car themed birthday party!

William's Mom, my friend Michelle, made the most incredible cake for the day, it was amazing!

Coconut Wally Bear

It is hard to believe that Sydney is in her last couple of month of Kindergarten.  I am savouring each and everyday with her at her precious little school as we prepare to say goodbye shortly.

Sydney got to take home the class "pet," Coconut Wally Bear, for a couple of days and document her travels with him. 

We had fun taking him along on errands and showing him around our house!

It has been a wonderful few weeks filled with many special times, we are blessed!

Spring Break

**I apologize for the lack of photos in this post, will add them later as we are having a few issues with uploading photos to our computer at the moment**

We have officially finished our first week of spring break and what a great week it was!  I can't tell you how much I love having full days with Sydney to do whatever we want with.  It reminds me so much of those precious days before preschool when she and I were just at home left to do whatever we pleased. 

We managed to pack quite a bit into our first week, first thing Monday morning we hopped in the car with Sarah and Emma and headed to the states for a couple days of shopping.  We hit up Target and Bellis Fair, grabbed a quick lunch at Red Robin and then headed down to Tulalip.

We checked into our hotel at the Tulalip Resort and took the girls swimming for the afternoon at the pool there.  They absolutely loved it!  It was so fun watching them both jump like cannon balls off the edge of the pool deck into the water and swim to our waiting arms.

After our swim we headed to the outlets to get a lay of the land and then to Olive Garden for dinner with our two sleepy girls.  All that shopping and swimming just tuckered them out!

The next morning we had breakfast and then headed straight to the outlets to shop our hearts out.  The girls were so well behaved and even got themselves a little treat from the Disney Store as a reward for being good.

It was so fun to have a little getaway with them and a change of scenery.

Sydney and I had a 'Dunbar Day' on Wednesday, hitting up the local branch of the Vancouver Public Library and then on to Kokopelli for lunch and a play.  We were delighted to run into Susan and Maddie, Weston and Gwen and Kaitlyn and Luke while we were there.  The kids had an impromptu playdate, it was terrific!

On Thursday we had a very special girls day planned with our friends Angela and Elizabeth.  We all met at Samaya Kids Spa and had a fun time getting our finger and toe nails done.  From there we headed to Neverland Tea Salon for high tea with the girls which was just so much fun!

We love hanging out with Angela and Elizabeth and are excited to spend some time with their family on the Sunshine Coast this summer!

The last few days have been a bit of a down turn as all three of us have been feeling not exactly 100%.  Paul and Syd seem to have come away unscathed after a day or so of rest but I was up last night all night sicker than a dog so spent the day in bed unfortunately.  Happily I am feeling much better now and am hoping to hit the ground running again tomorrow to get some more things off of Sydney's bucket list!

We did manage to squeeze in a play at the new Terra Nova playground in Richmond on Saturday along with riding lessons during a rare dry spell. 

Looking forward to another fun week ahead doing some great things and connecting with friends!

March Musings

We are a few short days away from the start of Sydney's spring break.  The timing is great, I think we are all feeling as though we need a little bit of a break in routine, it's been a busy term at school and at home!

Several weeks ago when I was looking ahead at my calendar thinking about spring break I asked Sydney if she wanted to do any spring break camps or go away on a trip anywhere.  She shook her head and replied: "I don't want to do anything Mom, I just want to hang out with you!"  So she got her wish.  We are going to have a staycation right here at home enjoying all that our city has to offer and doing some of Sydney's most favourite things together.

Sydney often asks me at the end of the day what I did all day while she is in school.  Sometimes my days are so busy running from one place to another that I can hardly remember what I did to tell her.  So I decided to open an Instagram account just for her to document my travels throughout the day.  Feel free to follow my feed here if you want to see what a day in the life of Susan looks like!

I had the pleasure of tagging along with Sydney's class last Wednesday on a field trip to Carousel Theatre for Young People to see the play Shakespearean Rhapsody.  It was such fun seeing how excited Sydney and her classmates were to be going on a field trip and to watch them laugh and enjoy the show.

Coincidentally, I had bought Sydney and I tickets to the exact same show for this past Sunday so we decided to make a playdate of it and took Sydney's friend Julia with us to see it again.  The girls had fun visiting and having ice cream in the sun after the show. 

Julia's Mom gave me the most beautiful spring planter to thank me for taking Julia to the play, it was so lovely!

Sydney has been busy as usual in the kitchen these days preparing appetizers for dinner.  The other night she made a salad with snow beans (snow peas but she likes to call them snow beans!), cucumber and blueberries with a dressing of Italian salad dressing and cumin.  She even heaped a pile of cumin on the side for dipping.  I love watching her create a dish and work on her plating skills.  I think I may have a chef in the making on my hands.

Syd came home with an art file stuffed with some beautiful paintings from school the other day.  She absolutely loves rainbows and made some gorgeous ones.  I especially love the ones she made with her little fingerprints!

We had the pleasure of celebrating her classmate Jaime and Ryan's 6th birthdays this weekend at the Arbutus Club.  The kids had a wonderful time playing on the huge bouncy castle and with the riding toys in the gym before having pizza, snacks and cake in the party room.

Sydney came home with a Hello Kitty bag filled with fun trinkets to enjoy.  It was fun to see her classmates on the weekend outside of school!

We have been enjoying one of the most beautiful sunny stretches of weather that I can ever remember for this time of year lately.  We have had one sunny, blue sky day after another and yesterday the temperatures reached up to 17 degrees!  It is amazing!  Sadly the local ski hills have absolutely no snow at all so Sydney's ski lessons have been cut short but we aren't complaining!

Hope that March has been good to you wherever you are!