The Beach

While Summer came late, we still had a few beach days in which to enjoy sand and sun. Our place of landing was always Albert Dyck Park, such a great little hide out. It was never too busy, so there was always a good selection of beach to choose from and we still had elbow room to sprawl out on the sand. I love these photo's. Especially this one.

and this one

I almost laughed out loud when I read the sign. Beach. No swimming. Hahaha.

It took her a while, but after a few visits and almost when we were ready to go home as well as some convincing, Camia remembered that she likes water and she likes swimming. I don't have photos of it, but towards the end of summer, she let me throw her in the air and catch her just before she was fully submerged.

She loved to dig in the sand and make sand castles. The sand wasn't that great at Albert Dyck, but we managed and had a couple sand castle villages up in no time.

Anyone's Little Helper

Camia met a new friend, and while he was at the greenhouse, I found out how much work I could actually get done. Amazing how no interruptions changes work ethic as well as quantity! It was like having a babysitter. It was grand. :) His name is Ethan and he did everything she wanted to do. He got her to help him with his chores. I'm a little sad that this photo is a little blurry. She was on a mission, and refused to stop so I could take a picture. Now, that's good work ethic :)She adored him.

When Ethan wasn't around, we had to find ways to occupy her and keep her out of trouble. Not that she often found trouble. She was just a little bored and does not know how to play by herself very well. On hot days we took out the pool. But she would rather play with the hose than actually go swimming.

Observing

It never ceases to amaze me at how much a child learns by just observing. Some of the things she does things I don't even realize that I do them myself until I stop to think of where she might have learned them. Somethings, though, are simpler. Like filling up on gas. I got this car for her off of facebook swap for $7. She plays with it non stop, it's been a great toy to have with the limited space we have for a back yard. One day she took the hose and thought the car needed gas. I guess it fills up better if it's laying on it's side.

Imagination...A whole new world!

Imagination is one thing that I think I would like for Camia to have and try to encourage it whenever possible. Although she is not overly imaginative ie, has no imaginary friend, I still love to watch her play and often wonder what is going on in her head. While at my mother in law's place, Camia thought that feeding her teddy was a good idea. It was really cute to watch.

Another thing that humors me is that when I (or anyone, for that matter) am in her room, and she is in our room, she can't grasp the idea that even though she can hear me through the baby monitor, I am not physically in the monitor. She thinks of things to say on the fly just so she can have a conversation with the voice in the monitor. Another thing she was busying herself with at the greenhouse is the dryer vent. Although Ryan was at work, she was having a 'conversation' with him through the vent.

This too was cute to watch and impossible not to laugh at.

Shades

I just wanted to take a few moments - or a lot of moments to journal more about our summer. I have stuff from August still that I want to include here.

While driving in the car, Camia has her own sunglasses. She still likes to use mine every once in a while.

Tea Cozy

Between the few mending projects I've been doing, I threw in a project I've been wanting to get done for a few months. Since I've been borrowing a friend's tea cozy since July, I thought it should get done before all the other projects on my 'to-do' pile since I need to return it. Even though it was pretty straight forward, and not that hard to figure out, I was proud of myself for tackling it without a pattern. All I had to go on was my friend's tea cozy. Here it is, I love how it turned out!

It ended up being a little bigger than I had originally planned, but I also have a tiny tea pot.

A Lesson Learned

I wanted to take a moment to share a lesson that I learned this week. After this

turned into a project on my sewing table, I, for the third time, blew the dust off my sewing machine this season. The other two times were also mending projects. My lesson is that it is a silly idea to buy a costume or an item of play clothes for anything more than $5, maybe (MAYbe) $10. Play, break, fix is the way it went. At first I thought it was just the seam that broke.

Easy fix, just whip out the serger, throw the dress through it, done. I tried it on Camia to see if it looked silly, because in the process of breaking organza it shreds and because of this, I had to pull it in about 1/2 an inch to secure it somewhat permanently. It looked silly. I lifted one of the poofy things on the front and found a huge hole where the top meets the bottom.

After some pinning, and whipping it through my sewing machine, it's fixed and almost as good as new. I think I am going to put it away until trick or treating so that it is in one piece...

I say now that I am NEVER going to spend more than $5 or $10 on dress up clothes again. Never...It was hard to stay annoyed at Camia for her wrecking it as I was more annoyed at myself for thinking it was a good idea in the first place.