EVERYDAY MOMENTS : 39/52 – the eagerest beaver when it comes to learning.
She wants to know all the things that her brother knows, and when he talks about school she often rushes to her workbooks to show him what she learnt that day. It’s part who she is and part, being the younger sibling – whatever the reason, homework (as she calls it) is something I look forward to doing everyday with her.
Weekends are for adventures, exploring and lots of relaxing. They are most importantly made for those “are you sleeping?” questions and the “nope, just resting my eyes” answers. I live for these heart melting cuddle pile moments, sometimes I’m weird and like to sit and soak up the cuteness of my cute family before jumping in to join. Part of my life job is managing the household. I try to manage it in such a way so the times when Chris is home with us and not working his tuchus off, we can all sit back and enjoy a family movie and a good ol’ eye resting. With a small side of “I cooked, so you do the dishes” of course. Many times this means when Monday rears her head, the entire house is in shambles. My work and life work is far far behind schedule – but moments like this make that heart pumping anxious feeling in my belly thinking about all the things I need to back on track come Monday, SO worth it. Hopefully you got to rest your eyes over the weekend, and now please excuse me while I rush off to run in circles before I get my loooong list back on track.
EVERYDAY MOMENTS : 38/52 – my little yoga teacher.
One of my closet and dearest friends Ashleigh, is a seasoned yoga teacher (actually the co-owner of a popular studio, since I’m the doting type) she is the person who pushed me to try yoga and the person I go to with all my questions and yoga chatter. She is also Harlow’s godmother, her family is our family. Harlow’s new favorite game is playing yoga teacher, more specifically she says she’s Aunty Ashleigh the teacher and I’m the kid – then she bosses me into poses that she makes up, not knowing that most of them are actually poses. I am obviously obsessed with her new obsession, it’s adorable and I pretty much laugh through the entire game and then always request we play it again tomorrow.
Last Friday the kids and I stumbled upon one of the still standing Nuit Blanche art installations, Nuit Blanche is an annual all-nighter contemporary arts festival here in Toronto. One day I will woMAN up and attend it properly like the rest of the cool kids – but while my kids are young, we are sitterless and I’m way too much of a baby to stay out all night, we stick to stumbling upon the amazing installations in the daylight hours. This was Ai Weiwei’s Forever Bicycles, 3144 metal bikes with working spinning wheels, to be exact. It was hard to capture in the mid day sun, the sun bouncing off the metal bikes pretty much created an optical illusion and added to the forever-ness of the bikes – it almost hurt my eyes. The kids loved running through the bikes, spinning the wheels and asking tons of questions – I actually might have had to bribe them with a visit to the apple store to leave. A few weeks ago we stumbled upon Tadashi Kawamata’s Garden Tower in Toronto, (another amazing Nuit Blanche installation) a tower of weary chairs which had the kids laughing. All the awesome art around the city made me think how badly we need to make another visit to the Art Gallery, too easily we let things that are close by go for granted (the art gallery being one of them). So I added it to my, TO DO VERY SOON list and promptly took my kids to the apple store. Because I needed a place to charge my dead phone, the kids love to play with the ipads on display and because it’s just so much fun (sarcasm font) to walk around the busiest store in the universe – from the lovely world of art to real life in 5 seconds flat.
Harlow // CARDIGAN: C/O American Apparel – TANK: H&M – LEGGINGS: C/O American Apparel – RAIN BOOTS: C/O Joules
Kingston // VEST: C/O Joules – SHIRT: C/O American Apparel – PANTS: H&M – SHOES: Converse
Watching them together I always get this overwhelming feeling of grateful happiness, because they are mine but also they have each other. They each have a friend for life, also enemies for life but that sorta comes and goes with fights and tiffs – and is good for them in so many ways. No matter where we go they will always have a friend and hopefully someone to count on as they grow up. Looking back on growing up with my siblings, I am thankful for even the fights and feel so lucky to have such great friends I can count on for anything. Of course these two always have Chris and I and the friends they will make throughout life, but boy am I grateful (and maybe most grateful) that they have each other.
As I get older Thanksgiving really does bring all those thankful thoughts. Though I find for myself, grateful fits so much better then thankful. Gratesgiving sounds pretty ridiculous and if I ever hear it short formed to “grates” I might (100% I will) bang my head against a wall. I feel much more grateful then thankful (though they technically mean the same thing, they exude very different feelings) on the offical day of thanks and all the other 364 days in the year.
I am grateful for freindsgiving, for having dear friends close by to share a good meal and a great evening with. For too far away family, though I am ever so grateful for them and not for the distance. Friends near and far (some family members fall into this category as well, double grateful) each one for most likely very different but very important reasons. This city and all it has to offer my family. Yoga and the endless tidings it brings my body, mind and soul (no you stop being so cheesy). My little (and to me) most perfect family, I could not be more grateful for them – they bring happiness and content feelings to my world, I have never in my life been more proud of anything as I am of my little clan. And this blog, I really truly owe so much gratitude to what this space has brought my way. At first for what started as an outlet for a Mom unsure of what life without work would be like, then the amazing connections and people that have come my way, of course the financial support for my family through sponsors and advertisers, the out of this world opportunities that I never would have crossed paths with or even been able to dream of otherwise, and the love and constant support all you readers have given – because none of my blog gratitude would be possible without you. So thank you, which doesn’t feel like the right words to express – but I just wanted to take a little moment to shout it out to the world how grateful I am for all you people and things.
Yesterday, on thanksgiving we took King’s new bike (sans training wheels, might I add) for a spin. 15 minutes into the teaching ride, Chris let go and he was off on his own! Like first ever time on a pedal bike and pow, he’s a pro! I think my Holy Poop face up there says it all, totally blown away and proud – what an amazing way to end the weekend. Harlow got her first spin on the “new to her” balance bike, she went from wobble to steady push offs in a few minutes – she’s going to have that thing figured out in no time!
*I really wanted to add a small little note because I am so grateful everyday for my little space on the internet, the people that visit and the amazing opportunities and support it has brought me and my family. I wanted to extend an offer of 20% discount on all regular sized ads for November and December (shoot me an email if you are interested), hopefully I can share a little of what makes me grateful abut this space.
EVERYDAY MOMENTS : 37/52 – a not so glamorous part of our day, waiting for our underground ride.
Waiting for the subway and riding it, these two are pros – the rule is backs against the wall and Mom needs two full hands. It’s definitely not a very glamorous part of city living, but one I would surely miss a ton if we were to ever move away. I’ve fallen a bit behind with this weekly series, no excuses other then my bones are feeling a bit more lazy then usual and I have a few extra things on my mind. I’m going to have to pick it up, since week 52 of the year is upon us very soon.
COAT: Zara – TOP: C/O Cauliflower Kids – JEANS: H&M – BOOTS: Joe Fresh – BAG: C/O Cauliflower Kids
Morning walks even if they are to do something boring like errands, are just so much more lovely in the fall. The same routes that we always take are different in the slightest most beautiful ways. The kids notice different things (like pink and yellow doors) and they find new treasures to bring home. Seeing as how we walk pretty much everywhere, the change of seasons always breaks our routine up a bit (though I would still be okay with skipping the winter season). As exciting as city living is, you still hit routine ruts even from the simple day to day things – temperature and nature changes really bring a breath of fresh air to everything. This morning Harlow and I went to run some errands, she stuffed her little bag full of fall treasures, sang songs about the things we saw and made me carry her coat and hold her hand (what a bum deal that was, super sarcasm).
