A Make-shift Pool..

A few weeks ago is was crazy hot, so instead of working, my mom and I were going to head to the lake. Since we figured that the local lakes would be crazy busy, we decided to head to the veddar river and sit on the rocks for the afternoon with our feet in the water, taking the occasional dip. But, when we got there, the dyke to get there was closed due to construction. What a silly time to close off access to the river! So, we thought to head to Albert Dyck, right in Abbotsford. Because of the air show, the lake park was closed. So, to beat the heat, we lined the back of mom's truck with a tarp, filled it with water and hung out there for the afternoon. Earlier in the day, mom had soaked Camia to cool her down, and Camia was not very appreciative. So, Camia got her back. Several times.

And had fun doing it.

Go Camia!

Sew, Mamma, Sew!!

As mentioned in a previous post, I finally got my Christmas quilt from last year done. (yay!) But, I have set a rule and no close-ups are allowed. That's how many mistakes and uglies are in there.

I need to learn how to cut fabric properly, I think. Although, I just discovered last night that my ruler is crooked. By almost 1/16 of an inch. When quilting, that's huge! Thankfully only one edge is crooked so I can still use the other one fine. Hopefully this will help correct the issues I've been having with lining up the seams. I also got this one together, I am making this one for my mom since her house is always so nice and cold in the winter and the furnace is never on.

but I am pulling it apart since if you look on the left side of the quilt, the rows are very uneven. I am going to blame this on my ruler. :D. The one thing that gets me is that when I purchase fabric from a fabric store, it is almost always cut crooked, so I end up wasting a bit of fabric trying to straighten it up a bit.

I recently started another quilt for Camia since she will be going in a toddler bed in the not so near future (and it will take me that long to finish it) and I am excited about it. I measured and cut carefully so that each piece was the same size. And then I sewed. My seams didn't line up.

Grr!!! I had vowed that if this quilt wasn't going to work, I would quit. Throw in the towel. Be done. Thankfully this time it was only because I pinned it wrong. So I ripped it out and sewed again. Almost there this time, but not what I want:

So, out it came again. Yes, it's all about perfection. It's so disappointing when something doesn't turn out like you imagine it should. See? The seam ripper got it's use, I got my patience worn thinner and my sewing machine got a few more stitches tacked onto it's life span. But, in the end? THIS!! Victory achieved!!!!

One block of 77 done!

I thought it would be fin to take a photo of my itty bitty squares all in a pile:

And all pinned up:

Chain sewn (such a great idea, wastes way less thread):

And in a heap, waiting to be separated and ironed.

Since we will be heading to Smithers on Thursday, I have been trying to think of ways to keep Camia busy while flying. So, after visiting blog land for a while, this is what I came up with.

A crayon holder! She loves to colour, and this is the perfect size for my carry on bag. Later on it will be great in the car as well.

And, a while back, my mom gave me this terribly ugly thing that she found on the ground at work and wanted me to duplicate it. It's finally done!!! (I think it only took about a year.) I drew a picture of it so I could remember how it was done, and then seam ripped it apart. Since it was in the dirt and exposed to all sorts of weather conditions, the fabric was very fragile and almost fell apart in my fingers. But, after a little monkey-ing around with it, this is what I came up with:

I don't have a photo of the original, unfortunately. This is a clothespin holder for my mom to hang on the line when she hangs her laundry out.

And, just to keep all things real and in perspective, this is what my house looked like while all this was going on:

I know. A mess. A huge, gross mess. I need a bigger kitchen. And, yes. So I can work around the current messes :P. Just kidding.

And it is possible to get even messier. This past Saturday it looked as though a hurricane had gone through my house. All because of canning.

Dug Up Onions and a Garden

While in the midst of canning, quilting and maintaining my household, Camia hung out outside. When it got a little too quite, I went to go check on her. This is what I found:

She had uprooted all of my onions I had growing in a planter in my back yard and scattered them all over the place. She even had them in the basket of her bike!

I couldn't help but take photos. I did try to re-plant them, but they shriveled up and died.

Here is a photo of my garden:

Weeds and all! And here is a photo of my first (or second, I am not sure anymore) picking.

Camping Herald 2010

This summer Ryan and I headed to Herald Park up in the Salmon Arm area for two weeks. It's our 3rd consecutive year visiting the park and we love it every year. It's family friendly, private and generally pretty quite as well. This year was a bit of a challenge in the way of keepingCamia occupied. While she did fabulous on the beach, it was after showers and after beach time that we had to find ways to keep her busy. Eventually, while in Vernon, I picked up some ponies for her to play with, some sidewalk chalk and some water markers for her to colour with. I felt a little silly seeing as I have ponies at home, but when I packed, I didn't know what kind of toys to pack. I took along a few of her favourites as well as some books, but they did not serve their purpose. It's hard to keep an adventurous two year old occupied for more than 10 minutes at any given time, but these ponies and sidewalk chalk did the trick for a little while.

As mentioned in the previous post, I am thankful that her molars did not come through like they did last year. She was also a fabulous sleeper, and slept through most of the nights well, which made for an added bonus. For the most part I can't complain since she was a good camper. We had Ryan's brother and his wife across from us, so she was a frequent visitor there. She told me 'I be back, I go to Dawson' and would run off. She did know, though, that she wasn't allowed past the edge of the campsite and for the most part listened well to that rule. Towards the end of the trip she got a little more daring and took off down the road on us several times before we knew what was happening. Given some understanding to an event in my past, I was quite leary of this and was paranoid when she took off down the road, even though it is a campsite and people almost always go slow. All it takes is one second and one person not watching. While we were there, I saw a deer just hanging out on the side of the road. Of the 20 or so pictures I took, none of them turned out fabulous. This is the best one of them all.

Camia has become a mimicker and discovered throwing rocks after watching her cousins on the beach. She even got a few skips from some of her rocks.

She also found a boogey board, and fell right in love. She played with it more than the floaty toys I took along for her, and when we went into town for groceries, it was all about the boogey boards. For a while, it was the only way that we could get her into the water without getting upset.

She also discovered sand castle building.

Though this mammal dumped her several times into the cold waters, she still found a special place for it in her heart:

Before we left on holidays, Ryan and I bought her this little chair, which she loved. It was nice for her to have her own chair instead of constantly occupying ours.

During the last week of our holiday, she fell in love with the inner tube and spent so much time just floating in it. Since I didn't want to continuously chase her down the beach to where she had drifted, we tied it to a log so she would stay close and in shallow water. It worked out quite well!

Sitting on the beach with Kelsey:

While we were there, there was a forest fire not far from Herald. A helicopter came several time to fill up with water from the ShuswapLake.

And, of course, the obligatory photo op for Mom. Can't not have one of those on a family holiday.

She's done:

And while we packed up to go home, Camia took her place in the drivers seat.

She hasn't quite caught onto the rule of don't drive and talk yet. We'll have to work on that one.

On the way home there were areas where the smoke from the fires was so thick that it almost stung your nostrils. It was hazy and it was difficult to see what lay in the distance. There are supposed to be mountains in this photo. Because of the smoke, they are impossible to see.

While we had a great vacation, I was definitely ready to come home. Things were going on here that I was feeling homesick for and I was ready for my own shower and my own bed. So, on our way home, we stopped in Yarrow to visit a sweet baby girl who had surprised her parents by arriving 4 weeks early. We visited with her mom too, and that was also grand. A lot happens in 2 weeks! So we spent the next few days catching up. You'd think we were gone for a lot longer than 2 weeks!!

A Bit Behind

Though it may not appear to be evident, I still exist in the writing world. I have a few posts with the pictures uploaded sitting in the 'to be published' file. I just need to write something to go along with those photo's.

Life has been busy these last few weeks. We came home from camping and I went straight into canning and caring for a teething tot. There have been many late nights of canning to avoid the daytime heat and many late nights with a tot in pain. It only took a couple weeks for us to realize that there was a logical explanation for her crankiness and consistent whining and inconsistent sleep pattern. I am just thankful that those teeth decided to wait until we were home from camping to make themselves known.

As far as the canning goes, pictures will follow from my garden as well as the canned goods - or, the fruits of my labour, since seeing it all lined up in rows makes me feel good and makes me feel like its all worth it. I don't mind canning. It's actually kind of fun. Kind of. I also feel like Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk when I pick my beans since I need a ladder to actually get them. Just call me Jack. They are in the greenhouse and have grown well into the rafters. So far I have about 42 quarts of beans, more to come on Wednesday and between 50 and 60 jars of diced tomatoes, also more to come on Wednesday. While up with Camia on Friday night, I read my canning book I purchased last year and found a recipe for pasta sauce and tomato paste, so I think I will attempt to try it and can that too. May as well, since I have access to all the tomatoes in the world right now. I also have 83 jars of applesauce that I canned about a week ago and enough apples in my freezer for 10 pies. I made 1 pie already and it was delish. Thanks to my mom, I have taken up almost 1/4 of her canning room and she has also graciously provided me with a freezer which is almost 1/2 full of frozen fruits, veggies and other random stuff that I don't have room for at my house.

Between all this, I have also found time for quilting. I finally finished my Christmas quilt from last year and gotten a few other projects completed that have been on my to-do list for quite some time. Pictures of all this will follow.

Camia has also blossomed in her vocabulary too. A lot. Something she hears often these days is 'Shhhhhhh!!!'. She is a chatter box, that is for sure. When she goes to bed, the silence is deafening. My ears ring. All that jazz. Her logic is hilarious, and she constantly keeps me laughing. The other day (or week, it's been a while) I was working on my quilt, and she was playing with her little baby. She packed up her doll in her play carseat, asked me please for a kiss, said 'see ya babe', and walked straight out my front door. I asked her where she thought she was going, and she said 'to the car, to my car seat'. Ok, then. See ya later. That same day she had herself convinced that Ryan was at work. Sleeping. With the craziness that's been going on, Ryan thinks that statement is not far from the truth. She also served me her first cup of coffee from her play kitchen. On a plate. I have her trained well. I. Need. Coffee. More than once a day some days. She wants to 'help mommy' oh so much. She wants to fold laundry. She wants to cut my fabric when I sew (yikes, that could get only slightly messy), she wants to do the laundry (haha, one day, little girl, one day...). She is ever so polite. When she is cranky, I ask her if she wants to go back to bed, she responds with 'no thanks'. And at dinner 'I don't want it, please. I don't like it.' We tell her to eat it. 'no thanks'.

She also loves to help me end beans and snap them. She's actually quite good at it. I mused to Ryan that I did this WAY more when I was a kid, I remember sitting on a blanket my mom set out under a tree and spending hours ending and snapping beans. Back then I thought it was cruel. All that free time I could have had. And now look at me. Still no free time, and I am doing this of my own free will...Some people never learn, I suppose. Or, as my mom likes to say, I'm a sucker for punishment. Who am I kidding? I know I will do this again next year too. The feeling of being domestic is going to my head. Quilting, canning, preserving...It's all good :D.

Another thing she has been dwelling on is boats and Uncle Richard. I tell her that we are going grocery shopping and her eyes bug out of her her head: 'Shopping????Boat???'. No, honey, we are not shopping for a boat. She asks about Uncle Richard. Yes, honey, we will see Uncle Richard in a few days. 'Boat??' Well, maybe Uncle Richard will take us out in his boat.

Her most used expressions include 'its pretty funny', 'I can't', 'help you mommy', 'no thanks', 'I be back' and anything to do with food, though her great eating habits have kind of flown out the window. Perhaps that is due to the teething.

She loves stories, and requests the same book every night. She loves the book 'Great Day for Up' by dr suess. She also appreciates a counting book I recently purchased from Usbourne. She knows her colours and her number from 1 - 10, even if she doesn't say them in the correct order by herself. She also loves music, the 'Six Little Ducks' and 'Old Mcdonald' and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' being her current favourites. Oh, and the infamous abc's.

This has been a bit longer of a moment of peace than I had intended (If you count a moment of peace being having a tot wanting to be held and listen to those silly 6 little ducks and asks repeatedly until it is playing.....who has who wrapped around that little finger, hey??). I will try to find a moment again soon to get caught up with my pictures.