making friends

{Miss S with the cat from Village Metalsmiths in Merrickville}

let's plaaaaay ball!

I was so excited for the kiddies to start ball.
T-ball and soccer.
Both kiddies.
Same team.
{Miss S is playing with the big kids - they let her in even though she isn't 3 yet}
So much fun.

Here are the lil' sluggers...

{E and the other Miss S are on the team too}

I took Miss S shopping last week to get her a 'real baseball glove'. It is pink and purple and sparkly. And we bought a pink baseball too. Of course.

Go Team!

look who showed up at skating...

Spartacat. The Senators mascot, Sparty. Or as Miss S calls him...Smarty.

My kiddies have always had a love-hate relationship with mascots.

They love them from afar.

Hate them when they get too close.

This is huge progress...

{The fact that Miss S is skating on her own without the assistance of a big orange pylon is also huge progress. Go Miss S, Go!}

Maybe soon we will attempt a trip to Disneyland.

Mickey Mouse, here we come!

canadian tulip festival

While Sharlene was here, we checked out the tulips that were part of the Canadian Tulip Festival at Commissioner's Park by Dow's Lake. {Read about the history of the festival here - the first festival was held in 1953}.

So pretty...

Cheers!

being a tourist with sharlene

Sharlene, who has been my friend for as long as I can remember, came to visit me in my not so new new city last week. We had a great time being tourists and doing girl things together...

We thought it would be fun to take a fabulously cheesy bus tour, but only if we could sit on the top of a Double-Decker, so we took the Lady Dive Hop On Hop Off tour...

We hit all the touristy spots in Ottawa and Gatrineau. We started on Sparks Street...

visited Parliament...

the Fairmont Chateau Laurier and the Rideau Canal locks...

We admired the tulips in Commissioner's Park at Dow's Lake...

and shopped and ate in the Byward Market...

and spent some time on sunny patios relaxing and catching up. With cocktails, of course.

We also spent some time in my favorite little village, Merrickville {see my posts about it here and here}...

eating, drinking and being merry {i.e. shopping}. And spent a day shopping across the border in New York state. Sharlene's husband most likely will never want her to come back and see me again, after he sees the amount of stuff packed in her suitcase for her return trip home!

rideau antiques

All one and one + two of us went antiquing Mother's Day weekend because K didn't buy me a gift and thought it would be smart to suggest I go find one for myself and act like he intended to do that all along. So off we went, on the hunt for some it is art to me even if you don't think so to hang on the big empty boring wall in our family room. I had my heart set on three antique church windows from here, that I spotted a while back, but by the time I finally convinced K how cool they would look in our home, they were gone.

I remembered Rideau Antiques having some windows, so we looked there...

{Read about the shop here}

Some windows, it turns out, is a major understatement. There is no shortage of windows...

or doors as it turns out. I thought about hanging a perfectly peeling door on my big boring wall, but K did just not 'get it'...

He did not understand how pretty the shutters would look on the flat, empty yellow vastness that is our family room wall either...

It was not really the right time to tell K how cool I thought one of these posts would look, just leaning elegantly in a corner of our home...

or about how I have always wanted an antique claw foot tub...

in every room in the house...

In the end we went home without finding the art of my dreams to fill the wall of my decorating nightmares. We were worried that because the windows have been out in the Canadian elements for who knows how long through wind and crazy humidity and rain and snow and more snow and more snow, they may have too much mildew mold, maybe??? and ick on them. Which might be hazardous to the kiddie's health. And I should probably not endanger my kiddies health with my Mother's Day gift.

I didn't find my art that day, but I did have fun taking photos at Rideau Antiques.
I love that place!

my heros

My little caped crusaders...

Superboy...

and Miss Supergirl...

Off they go to save the day...

{photos taken before they decorated their capes at R's Superhero Party}