river side picnic and lobster tag.

June 28, 2011 by mama lola

dear hubby and i hit the road on our bikes, with the kids in the chariot and headed to the river. it’s only about a 5 minute bike ride away. i had packed a picnic lunch and we biked until we found the perfect spot for eating and then some exploring.

lion was tired and had a lovely park nap, while bear horsed around expending serious amounts of energy!

here’s a game of lobster tag at its best. bear is the lobster and is chasing dear hubby all over the playground. it’s a fun game and after lion woke up from his nap, the lobster came after him as well!

i love the chariot and think it’s the best BIG money we have spent in a while. it’s so light and easy and the kids are great in it. our town has increased the number of bike lanes, which makes me feel a bit safer cruising around.

HAPPY TRAILS!

there’s a little bit of gypsy in me.

June 23, 2011 by mama lola

dear hubby and i have been watching this fascinating documentary on youtube about gypsies in the UK. it’s made for the BBC. each episode of the series focuses on the important stages of one’s life; birth, communion, marriage and death. men and women have very specific roles and defined boxes which they must fit into. their lives are ruled by old, strict traditions, which have been influenced by modern times. worth a look.

the part of me that’s a little bit gypsy, is the yearning for movin’ and travelin’. a part of me has the yearning to move all the time; get up and go, find a new adventure. i grew up on the move and i feel quite fortunate to have experienced so much of the world before adulthood, thanks to my folks. we moved around, because my dad’s job gave us those opportunities. i was born and grew up mostly in finland, although a year of that was spent in england and almost two years in australia, until we landed on the shores of kanata and settled in t-dot. in and around these big moves we travelled as my parents were (and still are) big on experiencing new cultures. i don’t want to brag, (or do i?), but i have visited over 20 different countries and have lived in 5. i feel very fortunate.

dear hubby has also lived overseas in a couple of places and has travelled lots. that was one thing that made him so attractive at planting; he was straight off the plane from living and working on a brazilian cashew farm for the winter. dude was muscular and tanned! yum!

wasted at carnival in recife, 2001.

dear hubby and i lived in china together. he took off right after planting, right before 9-11 and i joined him on my birthday, december 28th in 2001. in china we taught english to make a (very small) living, but it was enough to see the country from top to bottom. going to china after the love of my life was the best thing i ever did- look at us now!

china pics 2002: dear hubby when he was still dear boyfriend sleeping on the (slow) train to xi’an from zhenjiang; i’m the blonde on a hard seat train from nanjing to zhenjiang; that’s me checking out the metal wares in kashghar; dear hubby and i at huangshan (yellow mountain) with wild monkeys in the trees.

i hope desperately that we can offer bear and lion similar opportunities to see the world. it is expensive to get on the plane, but for so much of the world, once you are there it’s cheap to eat and get around. i want my kids to be curious about other people and other places that are unfamiliar and brave enough to jump in when they can. it’s not easy to travel from one country to another, and although i sometimes wish i had stronger and longer roots to a place, i am still glad my parents chose to ship us around a few times.

our trip to finland 2008: bear learned to move at iso-mummo’s; at hietalahden flea market with bear on my back; dear hubby with bear in front of kiasma the modern art gallery in helsinki.

happy father’s day!

June 19, 2011 by mama lola

here’s wishing all the daddy’s and papa’s out there a wonderful day!

to nap or not to nap, that is the question.

June 18, 2011 by mama lola

the warm summer breezes have brought with them new changes to our trusted routine. bear is bursting at the seams with growth and it really shows. every day i look at him in awe as he looks bigger, says things that blow me away and, get this, needs an afternoon nap. if he doesn’t get an afternoon nap in, he turns into a growly beast who screams and stomps and carries on.

bear dropped his last nap a year ago when we moved into our house. i was a huge pregnant mama desperate for my own afternoon siesta, so instead of napping, we introduced the colourful world of DVD’s to bear.

now, i have no idea where things stand with his sleep schedule. his cycle seems to be shifting quite significantly and throw in this huge growth spurt and i guess we’re napping for now.

children of the forest.

June 16, 2011 by mama lola

we spent a wonderful weekend up at the cottage with some special friends. friends we haven’t seen in about two years as they live on the other side of the pond, in germany.

we had time to chat and catch up on the important stuff, but also had time to just be together. the kids had an especially wonderful time together playing, running, reading and getting to know one another.

the cottage is the perfect setting for all this catching up. there are few distractions, no internet or tv. instead there is plenty of nature to stimulate the senses.

there are also some funky, home made toys at the cottage, like this red wheel thinga-ma-doo-der (see pics below) that dear hubby’s grandfather made for him back in the day. it was touching to watch bear run and laugh, just as his dad had done many years before!

we frolicked in the water splashing and laughing, ran amongst the tall hemlocks, climbed over fallen trees and branches while looking for treasures and kept an eye out for the black bears.

the bugs were almost non-existant, although looking at lion’s wee head that would be hard to believe. he has bizarre bumps and lumps all over his head from the darn mosquitoes!

i know this all sounds too perfect and as though i’ve sugar coated the whole weekend, but really, it was perfect.

the muskokas have a reputation for being the playground of the rich and famous, but as you can see it’s also fun for the less rich and you certainly don’t have to be famous to enjoy its beauty.

even the kids were mostly smiles and giggles; there were only a few tears and only tiny tantrums, which for one 2.5 year old and one 3.5 year old is pretty amazing. they just wanted to play together and that is what they did!

bear is going to miss his new, lovely, lady friend.

happy rest of the week everyone!

ode to the hammock.

June 6, 2011 by mama lola

there is a sad day looming in the horizon for our family. a very sad day indeed. soon we will be taking lion’s wonderful hammock down from its strong, trusted hook in the heart of our home. this simple beauty has been hanging in our living room since lion’s birth in early july 2010 and now that he is almost one he is just getting too big for it.

tiny lion only weeks old here is almost swallowed by the hammock.

while still pregnant, i was concerned about bringing a tiny, vulnerable newborn home and not having anywhere for him to sleep that was safe and out of reach of his older brother and the dog. we didn’t own a crib or a pack ‘n play and had no intention of getting either of those items, so when this hammock was recommended to us by dear, dear friends it made complete sense to get it. it fit well with our small home and our parenting style. My friend also enjoys having an adult sized hammock in their their living room they got from somewhere similar to JUST Hammocks maybe that is something I might look into at some point judging from how comfy my little one looks in their hammock.

lion at about a month old.

when lion is placed into the hammock he is always fast asleep. he snuggles into the soft organic cotton, while life continues around him, whether it is playing of games, DVD’s watched in the living room or dinner prep in the kitchen. we wanted to teach our kids how to sleep while activity was milling around them and it has worked.

a cozy nap spot, while bear watches DVD’s on the laptop.

it is a soft, comfortable, cozy place where lion can close his eyes and sleep away any worries. he has clocked hundreds of hours in the cozy hammock. i have always felt that he was completely safe in it, but i know many look at it with scepticism and concern, and because it is high up off the floor some assume baby can fall out. but, there are three separate clips to strap baby in that hold a squirmy lion when he wakes up crying.

i want to leave you with this amazing picture of another mama’s baby in her hammock.

sweet dreams…

smart meter bills, bills, bills.

June 3, 2011 by mama lola

time of use billing.
for our household it started on may 1st according to the bill we received yesterday, although we never got any formal letter or notice informing us of the start date. there is much confusion among the residents of my community as to when the billing for water and electricity will switch to time of use. the local hydro company has been giving mis-information to residents and there has been nothing on their website about the may 1st start date. strange, eh? some friends of mine were told june, others july, and when i checked their website on tuesday (31 may, 2011) it said people would be notified.
i guess our letter got lost in the mail.

so, now what?

i’ll have to revise my laundry routine and figure out how many loads i can get done in an evening after peak times. some people wash their laundry in the evening and then hang it up in the morning, which i think is what i’ll end up doing. but, evenings are when the kiddo’s bathe, the adults shower and the dishwasher runs, so our hot water use is maxed. it’ll be interesting to see what our bills will look like in the future. it’s hard to plan for something that hasn’t happened yet, but at the same time, it’s always good to be prepared and to have some extra money saved just in case. there was this one time when my friend didn’t have any cash to pay for one of her bills, and she decided to borrow a loan using the value of her car. i think she said it was called a car title loan and it can be done by a company similar to Qik Car Title Loans. depending on how much your car is valued at will determine how much of a loan you can receive. it’s a good idea if you ask me, and it could be useful if you only need to repay a short sum of money because your car will be used as collateral until it gets repaid. so obviously, you don’t want extra bills and debt hanging over your head. but i’m hopeful that it won’t come to this. in preparation for the billing switch i’ve already started unplugging small appliances that are not in use and i walk around turning off lights. these new habits, i think, bug dear hubs, but he knows better not to say anything. i also hardly ever use our clothing dryer; we have a great clothesline in the basement and one in the backyard plus two racks. now that the weather is hot and sunny, i can start using the clothesline outside more regularly. which is really lucky considering that this will help lower our electrical bills at the end of the day. the idea of cheaper bills this month is actually a great comfort. perhaps i should start looking at using a different energy provider though, as this will surely help me save money on my energy bills. perhaps i could use someone like this Chariot Energy company… i should probably spend an afternoon thinking about this first though.

stuff i found in pockets; front loader; stuff i found in pockets wet with detergent, oops!; the detergent i use; deets of my AMAZING machine!

i feel a bit targeted by this new billing method, as i am an at home mama. that means that, while most people’s homes are quite dormant with electricity use, ours is at its highest. whether it’s to clean, cook, brew coffee, or watch a DVD, peak times are when we use the most electricity at home. it’s very rare that we go a day without using a lot of electricity. it’s quite bad really, but it’s true. I’m just glad that we’ve had our electrical panel checked recently, as the electrician said that it was starting to look faulty, and we could’ve run into trouble if we let it go on. with that being said, I would recommend that you do the same, as you can try Aardvark Electric, Inc., or somewhere similar, to make an appointment with their electricians to get it checked right away, as it could have consequences if you don’t. and you’d hate for it to be too late. in this instance, you could say that the new billing should be the last thing on my mind, but it’s not. it’s really affecting me. i don’t think at home parents are the only ones who are really going to feel the ramifications of this. what about the elderly who live at home, or people with disabilities or the unemployed, what about big and small businesses whose electricity usage is probably the equivalent of 4 “always-on” households, do they get different Business Electricity offers? on an environmental level i get the whole concept, but my laundry isn’t really the one depleting our natural resources; it’s the INDUSTRY out there. all the factories, offices and stores have their A/C’s cranked, computers humming and other equipment or machinery sucking all the power from the grid.

i also think having the non-peak time so late into the evening, it encourages people to use their dryers, instead of hanging up laundry, which is the whole point of this, right? the environment, conservation, mindfulness?

i am already behind in my laundry and the thought of going into the basement right now to sort colours, delicates, diapers and what have you, kind of makes me want to stab my eyeballs!
wish me luck!

sunday was party day!

May 31, 2011 by mama lola

yesterday, sunday, was party day for us. we hit two birthday do’s and lived to tell the tale!
whew!
the first party was a kiddo party for lil’miss C who turned the big 4. bear had a fantastic time in his own quiet, shy way. there were a lot of kids there he didn’t know or remember, so considering, he had a blast. then it was off to grandpa E’s birthday. He had a lovely birthday. We decided to treat him to a new cellphone from somewhere like fanmisenior and he was overjoyed. I’ve never seen him so excited! We don’t live very close to him so it’s good that he can call us whenever he wants now.

horatio.

check out horatio’s V-tongue!

playin’ with auntie K’s turtle puzzle and empties.

lion LOVES dogs.

this was a family do with lots of chatter, beer and laughter. the food was great and the strawberry cheesecake was fantastic [props to dear hubby for baking it].

lion sleeping on the couch before dinner was even served.

a birthday “ta-daa” for grandpa E; thanks for teaching everyone bear!

birthday cake with sparklers.

as we were leaving an incredible thunder and lightning storm rolled in and dumped buckets of rain on us.

i caught a bolt of lighting!!!!!!!!

p.s. bear got a new hair do on saturday.

meet tallulah.

May 29, 2011 by mama lola

about 12 years ago i was selling soap at LUSH in the big city. the job was great and i made some wonderful friends [props to sun], but as a poor twenty-something living on my own it was tough to pay for rent, booze and public transit. so, my mom bought me a bike from crappy tire. this supercycle and i spent years clocking gazillions of kilometres together. i named her betsy. i eventually spray painted her bright blue and added a basket decorated with dollar store flowers. but, unfortunately all good things must come to an end and it is now time to bid adieu to betsy. she rode well, but in her final years her brakes just stopped working, as did the gears and it seemed silly to invest money into her. plus, she weighs about 100lbs!
so…
today is the start of a new era. meet tallulah, my beautiful new bike with a shiny white seat and gears built into the handles. she’s a perfect lady’s bicycle for someone like myself who likes to wear dresses and skirts.

we went to crappy tire to get me another supercycle, but as we perused the bike aisle, that’s when i saw her. tallulah, sitting all pretty like with her pretty white paint and dainty curves; the opposite of the cheapo super with harsh angles. dear hubby saw how smitten i was with tallulah and told me that’s what we were getting.
sweet.
sweet hubby.
sweet bike.
bear told me i looked good sitting tall on tallulah! oh, that little cub knows how to sweet talk me!

can’t wait to start using tallulah and the chariot together. i’m hoping to hit the parks and trails with the boys this summer and this is such a fun way to do it!

there’s the chariot, tallulah and myself going for our first neighbourhood cruise.

heading to the park. lion was not impressed with being stuck next to bear,
so dear hubby carried him in the ergo!

le park.

May 27, 2011 by mama lola

the weather has been so dreary and soggy this spring. we have had a minimal number of bright, sun filled days with warmth. bear talks about the rain as though it is normal for it to be this wet; i guess he doesn’t remember springs past!