snippets of life

A little peak at our last few months....

this is life from colleensimply on Vimeo.

It's actually very bittersweet for me to watch this. On one hand it makes me so happy to see our life documented in a tangible way but on the other hand it just amplifies how quickly it is all slipping past. Being a parent is an amazing, overwhelming, terrifying, WONDERFUL thing.

I woke to the sound of rain splattering against the window this morning. It was in the forecast and so it really shouldn't have surprised me except that the sky had been so clear and beautiful yesterday evening. I was up with my husband as he headed off to work but everything seemed darker, and quiet. So quiet. My little early risers were sleeping unusually late, no doubt tired from all the sun and play of yesterday. I always enjoy when I can sneak in a few solitude moments before anyone else is up. A little bit of peace before resuming our usual chaos. Minutes later the littles were awake and our regular routine ensued. The rain has now stopped and I even see patches of light through the clouds that were so thick and grey just a few short hours ago. While I enjoy the peace that a summer rain brings I'm ready for the sun to shine.

summer

Today was the perfect summer day and so we decided to kick it off with an afternoon of splashing in the pool until our fingers were pruney and our teeth were chattering. Have I mentioned yet how stoked I am for this summer? Bring on long days in the sun and warm towels to snuggle in after getting soaked through from a day at the water park or an afternoon in the pool. Bring on dinners out doors, popsicles to cool you off and cool breezes in the mornings before the sun can get hot. YES! I love this time of year.

lately

we've been enjoying little tastes of summer in between all this rain. I'm so thankful for these moments.

spring

We've been "enjoying" plenty of spring showers around here lately and it can seem awefully dreary at times. This is just a little reminder that when it's sunny
OH when it's sunny
spring can be so so lovely.

what i'm reading, what's on the needles

I took this photo last week as part of the yarn along posts I've been (sporadically) taking part in but one thing lead to another and then the weekend happened and now here I am. I thought I'd still share though since the knitting part of this blog has been lacking as of late.

I've been ogling Jamie Oliver's cookbook Jamie at Home the past week or so. Wow is it ever inspiring. Not only is it full of amazing recipes it has tons of info about gardening and using local foods and such, the photography is amazing and the graphing design is just beautiful. All of Jamie's books that I own or have seen are inspiring but this is my favourite by far.

I decided to cast on for a new hat, a nice quick project to get the knitting juices flowing again. Or so I thought. I've since frogged it and so I have to re-evaluate my gauge before I start again.

To be perfectly honest my heart wasn't really in it. I've been spending all my creative energy trying to absorb as much info about photography and trying to better learn my camera over the past few weeks. Last weekend I caught most of Zack Arias' course on creativeLIVE and all I can really say is WOW. So motivating and crammed FULL of so much info. My head is swimming with all kinds of daydreams. But then that's not really news, I'm always dreaming about something. There is a course on food photography coming up this weekend that looks ah.MAZ.ing. I'm definitely going to watch as much of it as I can. if you haven't heard of creativeLIVE you really should check it out.

happy mother's day

My Grandma and my Mom reading to my kids.

Easter Weekend

~a loving gift from my sweet boy~

I'm {hopefully} recovering from a killer cold that left me voiceless for about a week. In spite of that we had a lovely long weekend. I hope yours was lovely as well.

sunshine coast

This past weekend my sister and I took a little trip up the sunshine coast for a couple days. It was laid back and relaxing and just a great time as usual. We are great travel companions. We enjoy seeing and doing the same things which makes for a lot of fun.

We arrived in the rain but that didn't slow us down. We're west coast girls after all, rain is kinda the norm around here

Warming up with some green tea and Japanese food. It was possibly the best Japanese food I've ever had. If you ever find yourself in Gibsons on the sunshine coast of BC Ichiban Sushi is a definite must.

A boathouse garden


rocky shoreline

Our second day was unbelievably sunny and beautiful. A perfect day to get in on the first market of the season.

my pretty sister




Hi!

Pretty, vibrant orange door to our cabin. each cabin door was painted a different colour. So charming.

Lunch in Gibsons again on our last day. Again, excellent food.

See? this was my crab and shrimp sandwich on toasted sourdough. Yum!



street art

headed home on the ferry

All in all a fabulous weekend!

yarn along

Spring always leaves me restless for new, fresh recipes and so I've been drooling over the pages of this book for the last few days. whenever I'm in a dinner rut the photos in this cookbook are a guarantee of inspiration. It's broken up by season which I think is brilliant!

some colour for a spring yarn along

I'm working on finishing up another shawl that I started last spring. I had hoped to have it finished in time to wear on my little getaway this past weekend but that just didn't happen so I brought it along to work on in our downtime. the pattern is a little monotonous but the yarn is the most stunning shades of deep teal and bright aqua that it's spurring me on to get it finished.

During my little break from knitting a few weeks back I finished up Pride & Prejudice and read Mansfield Park for the first time. I went into blindly, knowing nothing about the plot or characters and I really enjoyed it! I couldn't put it down. It may be one of my favourite books I've read and to be perfectly honest I'm not much of a reader so it takes a lot for me to say that.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have some more knitting to share as I've got a bunch of projects in the wings.

ETA: for those of you wondering the yarn is by Sweet Fiber Yarns and is even more stunning in person and the pattern is lacy baktus

this weekend with instagram