And another sweater

Daddy's current school. And he did first year undergrad there too. And auntie Laura graduated from there too. Like brand new for $4.

John graduates in April! Last night, he said, "you know, I've been in school for 26 years of my life". Will be nice to be done. For now at least!

Maeva wanted to get in on the photos too!

ninja turtles

John grew up loving TMNT. I'm not usually a fan of character clothing, but I couldn't resist this hand knit for a $1.50! I'm guessing a granny made it for a little boy in the 80s. Well it happily has a new home, on my crazy little boy.

wardrobe

I did the major wardrobe haul at VV on Monday (it was 50% off day). I seriously love the fact that I got a ridiculous amount of clothing for just over $100. Most items were $1-$2, with a few at $3-$5 (like snow pants) Anderson is set for summer and completely outfitted for next fall/winter ( I seriously don't have to buy anything else for him for the next year). I had a little less luck for Maeva, I got all her summer shorts and skirts, but almost nothing on shirts. But in reality I don't "need" anything to clothe Maeva this summer, because I do have plenty of Anderson's t-shirts from last summer.

Photos of everything, plus two outfits for Maeva using Anderson's old shirts.

faces

little miss johnny-mae has so many faces.

some outtakes

of little miss silly girl

apples

my favourite part about them eating apples, is that they sit still and are quiet for a good 15 minutes.

play room

The winter is much too long here, we needed another place in the house to go, instead of having to bundle up and defrost the car for a change of scenery. Yes, sometimes we make it outside, but ideally just going to a different floor is about all I can handle most days. So I set up a little playroom downstairs. I've kept it a bit minimalist, to keep the chaos levels and mess levels to a minimum. In a separate room is the "toy library", so that everything isn't out at once. Nothing worse than 100s of little pieces to be sorted and picked up!

I also think, it is best to keep running and jumping superheros and flying hockey pucks out of the living room and more in the basement, where that kind of stuff doesn't bother me as much. And the room is self contained and child-safe, so I can sneak upstairs to get them a snack (aka standing by the coffee machine chugging 6 cups of coffee, opening the fridge over and over wishing that Guinness would stop saying "hey there" everytime I get them milk, or eating the last Dilly bar without them finding out). But I only have so long before I hear crying. The room is child-safe, not sibling-violence safe.

All I need to do is something with those walls, which is really fun. I have tons of ideas.

on the topic of instagram again

So I'm documenting all of our everyday in the easiest way possible right now. Because our everyday is super full right now. Full of running, playing, tears, yelling, curly-haired hugs, more crying (both the kids and myself most days). And the thing is with this parenting rollercoaster, is that the days are really hard, but the memories are really good.

And on top of it all, life is full of all this digital data overload, and all these little captures and slices of life are often only existing in a virtual world. Which overwhelms me and freaks me out at the same time (kinda like parenting, I guess) So, I try to commit to putting it to old-fashioned paper. Oh, I hope I never see the a day when the book is dead.

I plan to add this book to our shelf soon.

little bits of everyday ~ sept. 2011 to jan. 2012 by andrea traynor | Make Your Own Book

saturday morning

coffee date with my boy

february sunshine

i love february sunshine. it always feels so very much needed. sitting on the deck reading the paper last weekend. listening to the birds. i can't wait until we can extend our living space to the outdoors again.

miss maeve

instagram posts

here's the thing. i haven't been finding the time to post to this blog. the reason being, instagram has satisfied my needs for capturing all those little everyday moments and details. if we're going for frequency and trying to capture all those little joys that are often hidden in the chaos of life with a 2 and 4 year old, the iphone seems to fit the bill. i make a good effort to bust out the slr periodically and most definitly for holidays and birthdays and such. because i never regret getting some great slr shots. but i also never regret my instagram shots either. i was trying to make square vintagey photos before i had an iphone, can just do it in less steps now.

recently, my mom said, "you never post on your blog anymore". i keep telling her she just needs an iphone, but she isn't buying the idea. so i think i will just duplicate post some instagram on here, to keep my postingfrequency up. and mix in some other stuff too.

valentine portraits