From The Desk Of…

The lovely view from my temporary desk in my permanent office.

Mini Toque

I finished this little hat while watching Downton Abbey…it’s small and it’s a quick little one or two evening project…turns out it’s too small because it took me so long to actually make it…I cast it on months ago and now the baby who was supposed to receive it in the fall is far too big for it…Baby Jack modeled its twin back in 2006…

Downton Abbey

So, I’m a bit behind with my tv watching apparently…my mom brought me the first two seasons of Downton Abbey and has promised to lend me the third season once it arrives…with no husband and a sick-ish kid who just wants to sleep, I’ve managed to watch the first season in two nights…it seems that I like it!

Window Seat

Alex is away for the weekend and my mom was supposed to take J home with her, but my sicky poo didn’t want to go. Instead my mom gave J some money to get a treat. She had enough to treat us both to hot chocolate and get herself an apple fritter (Daddy’s favourite…she might be missing him!) and a new book.

Counting Pennies

My mom and I took J to the park and she had a great time climbing in the fountain (it’s drained for the winter). She was particularly excited to find some pennies the workers missed when they cleaned it out in the fall.

Crashed

J has not been feeling well and cuddled up to the Baby Bean and fell asleep…I actually took this picture because I couldn’t see if she was awake or asleep and I didn’t want to disturb her.

Airport Bound

Off to collect my mom from the airport for a visit.

Wallander

I’ve been on a Swedish crime kick (you can see that if you go here) and I just finished this book – I think it’s the second to last book in the series…maybe third last if you count the one with Wallander’s daughter….might be time for a new genre soon!

Pineapple

If we can’t be in the tropics, at least a piece of the tropics can come to us…J and Alex both love pineapple (me too) and if I don’t split the pineapple into two dishes, we have been known to polish one off in one sitting!

Couch Day

Can You See What I See?

This is J’s favourite book – the Toyland Express. She has the Christmas one as well, but of course it’s put away right now…I might have to go get a different one as she has almost got the pages in this one memorized!

Pilot

J, who is distracted by her camera, is the pilot of the plane (maybe she’s not distracted; maybe the camera is the control panel for the plane?) All of the stuffed animals behind her are the passengers. I believe the hat is required uniform for all pilots!

Duplo

After being homeless for a few weeks and causing more than one parent to exclaim after stepping on some of it, the Duplo finally has a home.

Return Of The Heartburn

Fancy Hair

J chose her own hair style this morning…she wanted a fancy bun, high up!

Umbrella

For Christmas all J wanted was an umbrella…so that’s what Santa brought her!

Purple Blanket

Now that Boxing Bean’s blue blanket is complete, it’s time to start on something more “girl” so I picked this purple with pink and blue accents (which you can see in its original incarnation here)…it’s going to be a baby afghan using my mom’s afghan pattern and I need to get moving…that blue blanket took me five or so years to complete and I only have three months to work with here!

Pizza Night

A couple of times a month we have pizza night on Saturday nights. J helps choose the toppings, I make the dough and we all get to top our own pizzas. Tonight J’s pizza has a snowman with arms and legs on it.

Relaxing

I went to get J for dinner and here is how I found her, lounging around in her room!

Room With A View

This is the view from my temporary supervisor’s office…not half bad, huh!

To Baby With Love

You might say that J is a tad bit excited about her new brother or sister. This rainbow is the first piece of art J made for the Boxing Bean.

Baby’s First Sleeper

J and I went shopping today to return some thing and to pick up a few new things for J. While we were there, she saw this adorable little monster sleeper that she insisted on getting for Boxing Bean…pretty cute for a girl or a boy!

Entrance To The Floo Network

I have moved into a new office space in an old mansion on campus. Many of the offices have sealed fireplaces in them from when the building was a house. One of my colleagues, who just moved out of a different office in the building, told me her son was upset she no longer worked in an office connected to the Floo Network. I guess in case of a magical emergency, I am lucky enough to have access!!!

Houses Of Parliament

Otherwise known as the Palaces of Westminster. Otherwise known as somewhere I’d love to be right about now!

Waiting For The Dance Party

J was invited to a beat the winter blues dance party this morning…we had a great time with the family of one of her best buds and some of their friends…in the end there wasn’t a lot of dancing, but there was a lot of playing and laughing and eating and dressing up, so it was all good!

Sunset

The sun is setting and it’s time to go home? Is spring really coming???

Only Baby’s New Blanket

Apparently Only Baby has claimed this blanket as her own because it’s pretty and soft and she needs a baby blanket :)

Winter Jam

Our favourite store bought jam now contains glucose-fructose, so we decided to stop buying it :( That made me a bit sad…jam that’s just fruit and sugar is hard to come by at the grocery store and the alternatives we found would bankrupt us quiet quickly as we do eat a lot of jam at our house. So, I dug around in the freezer and found some berries from last summer (then I sent Alex to the store because bags of 4 cups of frozen berries were on sale for less than $3/bag and that’s about two jars of jam) and called my mom and made jam. Her recipe has three ingredients: fruit, sugar and vinegar. And this jam has been a huge hit…I think we would have all had bread and jam for dinner if we could have!

Blue Blanket

One blanket done…this one is about 4.5 years in the making…I started it when I was pregnant with J, but I didn’t end up needing it…it’s done now and if #2 is a boy, it will be his. Otherwise, some other lucky baby we know will be given it as a gift. You can actually see its beginnings here…along with the pink and purple blanket that eventually became J’s and another purple blanket that got frogged and is now being made into a purple option for Boxing Bean.

Bride

I arrived at daycare tonight to find this bride waiting for me and asking for her picture to be taken…dress up is fun!

Ladies Who Lunch

J and I went on an excursion to the mall to return some things…J wore her super beautiful party dress and we stopped and had a very fancy lunch before heading home. J did the crossword puzzle while we waited for our food.

Say What?

This is my husband. Doing dishes. Voluntarily. I think I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened since I met him.

View From The Office

Can’t really complain…

Coming Fall 2013

I was pleasantly surprised to see this in the back of my book…I thought the series had only three books and this was the last one, but it appears there will be at least four books!

Olivia’s Necklace

J made this necklace and a matching bracelet for her penpal in England. She got two bead sets for Christmas and she loves them….

Exhausted

Bread Results

Yum all week!

Bread Day

or night…I was a bit late getting this week’s bread ready….good thing this is a quick recipe (even though it involves yeast)…we love it!

Ready For The Cold

J LOVES the coat she got from Lollie and Bop…tonight she got to wear it with all of its accessories and she was one happy little girl!

Lite Brite Night Light

We put J’s Christmas night light away with the Christmas decorations and thought everything would be fine – she doesn’t normally sleep with a night light, so  we didn’t anticipate any problems. Uh yeah. Right. Now she NEEDS a night light to sleep…so in the interim, her solution is to use the Lite Brite. It’s on a timer, but it’s sort of working (we’re putting off getting a new night light in hopes that she’ll decide she’s still fine without it!

Lite Brite

I always wanted a Lite Brite when I was a kid and I never had one. J loves the one they have at daycare so there were at least two happy people in our house when this appeared under the tree on Christmas morning!

Fashionista

 

J got a new winter coat from my parents today. She’s been wearing it all day with her goggles. Before dinner she got too hot, so she took the toque and removable hood off and wore those on her head and the mittens on her feet. I’m pretty sure she’d wear it to bed tonight if I let her! And the goggles are her favourite accessory these days!

Jewels

J loves the “jewels” in her sparkly new snowflake necklace!

Shopping Day

Somebody spent her Christmas money today (this is just one bag…I also picked up a few new maternity items).

Fire’s Burning

Cozy Sunday in our living room.

Thinking Of You

Thank you to my colleagues for the beautiful card and the basket of goodies that came along with it.

Seasonal Confusion

I know, these are a summer treat, but my throat was so sore, I just couldn’t resist.

Call the Midwife

I haven’t seen the series Call the Midwife, but the book the series is based on ended up in my mailbox today. Thanks Liz! (Do you like my stylish bookmark?)

Hot Apple Deliciousness

I managed to start the new year with bronchitis. I was given the usual prescription of lots of rest, lots of fluids and lots of hot steam. But I got to the point where I couldn’t drink anymore tea or water or juice. So, we put a pot on the stove, added 3 cups of apple juice, 1 cup of water, 1 cinnamon stick, four cloves, a couple of slices of ginger and a few wide zests of lemon (the last three ingredients are in a tea bag). I let it simmer and we kept it on low for a while and just added more apple juice and water (in a 3:1 ratio) all afternoon. Yummy…and I felt better too!

It’s A New Year

It’s a new year…I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than in a party dress building Lego! And I’m back. This year is a year of change for us and I missed being able to scroll through my pictures to figure out what we were doing earlier in the year. I am going to try to post the photos for the week every Sunday (or maybe every Friday)…we’ll see how that goes!