Homeward Bound

Had a great weekend in Ottawa visiting my parents last weekend. It was amazing to see the exhibit at Carleton University and get to hear my mum speak about the collection. After almost 40 years, it's very special to see the result of their efforts being recognized. Trying to collect images and recordings that the curator pulled together so that I can archive it for our family.

And also trying to convince bill and babs to write a book about their time in Africa!
Great to have Andy and the kids in the house I grew up in. We spent a few hours on Monday just going through old photo albums and showing Conor pics of me as a kid...think he was a little thrown off by the whole thing. The weather was terrible so we didn't have a chance to do all the things I had imagined doing with the little man...skating on the canal and then hot chocolate and beaver tails, museum of civilization...
Thanks for a great weekend Mum and Dad!

New Fireplace Mantle

Slowly but surely we're putting our stamp on this house. The fireplace in our family room drove me crazy--I felt like it was made for a ski lodge--so I designed a very simple mantle to work with the existing gas fireplace and tile surround. We have a great carpenter who helps us with smaller projects around the house and here's the before and after. In the before, they'd already started pulling the mantle off. Also note that I moved the outlets from the front of the wall to the side (since we'll never put a tv up there) and painted the wall the same color as the rest of the room (accent wall had been a good idea in theory.)

Will Work for Food

Just out of reach thereby forcing a little hard work...

Note the mohawk that just won't go away.

M is finally getting a tooth on top so she'll have four on the bottom and one on top.

Picture In My Mind

There are little moments throughout my day that I just want to take a picture of and hold on to forever...
...walking in from work and seeing conor tear down the hall toward me with a huge smile
...sadie snoring on the couch
...conor and andy lying in bed reading books together at night
...madeleine crawling toward an outlet, stopping and then looking up with a mischievous little grin on her face
...conor yelling downstairs in the sweetest, most curious little voice: hey, guys, what are you doing? don't forget i'm up here.

They're just these fleeting moments, but each one is so special and I get these weird overwhelming feelings sometimes that my kids are going to grow up and I'm going to forget about all the wonderful things I get to see every day.

The other day I ran out to the car to grab some groceries, leaving conor and madeleine in the house together. When I came back, conor was rocking madeleine in her carseat singing "You Are My Sunshine" -- about the sweetest thing ever.