Chickadee Manor

Emma's Birthday!

We have a newly minted four year old in the house!  Her requests this for her party this year were for heart garlands, hearts on her cake, a Peppa Pig party game, and guests in costumes if they wished.  Although, mostly when you asked her questions about what she wanted for her party or who she wanted to invite she would respond with, "It's a secret."  I had to explain that she needed to tell me, if no one else, otherwise I couldn't make the things she was wishing for happen.  She conceded and we came up with a few things that made her quite happy and excited.  The cardboard box Peppa Pig game was the hit of the night.  I think the bean bag game was being played or the box was played in for 95% of the night.  It was only left on its own when it was time for cake!

Riley's Birthday

I'm playing a bit of catch up here!  Riley's birthday is in December but I didn't get any blogging done in December.  Riley asked for a rainbow tea party with her friends.  We also did a family party another day.

Riley loves to make these tissue paper pom-poms.  They've worked their way into each of her birthdays since we started making them several years ago.  This year we tried something different and mixed colours together in one pom-pom instead of doing them in single colours.

Streamers!  Also a perennial favourite in our house.

Close up of one of the pom-poms.

The birthday girl!

Tea party in progress!  Lots of tea (and sugar cubes!) were consumed.

The cake in the kitchen. My mom and Riley decorated this together.  This was a new frosting technique for us.  The white icing is buttercream icing and the rainbow drizzle is made with ganache.    

Deflecting sparks!

Kids on a couch!  The three boys mostly played LEGO or trains elsewhere but came for a photo or two.  Hendrik is doing his best to maintain a serious face.  

 

 

One happy birthday girl!

In front of the banner Riley, Abby, and Emma made together.

Opening presents at Grandma & GrandBarry's.

I had to include the unedited version of the above photo.  Look at Emma!  She's either spotted something in Grandma's hair or is shielding the doll's tiara from some impending disaster.

 Rainbow cake version 2.0!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{pretty}

Of all the bedrooms, Hendrik's has the showiest view in autumn. The trees outside his window turn marvellous colours and also have berries. There are also climbing vines just below his window that come back each year (I still haven't got to that flower bed yet!). There are hops and morning glories.

 

{happy}

My lovely friend Rosie came to visit and brought me some of her homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup.  So delicious!  Combine it with whipped cream and I am in coffee heaven.

 

{funny}

Judah has mastered the art of lounging.  Whether it be couch, crib, or bed, he knows how to be comfortable and slouches *just so*.  Last night he decided to actually wiggle in under the covers and get cozy.  It was so funny to watch!

 

{real}

 A new hairstyling trick.  A trick seems funny for the real section, no?  My real amount of hair twisted into a bun looks like this:

I can't even hide the bobby pins because they stick out on the other side of the bun.  The curse of fine hair!

My hair + hair donut looks like this:

I bought some in smaller sizes for the girls too (their are blonde in colour, mine are brown) so that we can all look a little bit more like ballerinas (or Princess Leia!). :)  I will snap a photo later on the girls with their hair-dos.  2 out of 3 have wet hair as they've just got out of the tub!

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Bonus entry - Accidental Otters

One or two {pretty, happy, funny, real} posts ago I mentioned how I was sleep deprived.  Well, further proof of that arrived in the mail today.  A few weeks ago, I ordered some school supplies.  I fell in love with an otter that I saw on the same website.  I had been fiddling around with my cart a lot, adding and taking things out, trying to find the optimum shipping sweet spot.  We live in a remote area and so sometimes dropping a heavier item or taking a couple of things is enough to get the shipping down by a signifcant amount.  I placed an the order late one night after I had been up with a teething Judah and dreaming Emma.  I didn't think much of it after that but the next day I placed an order for the otter I had been debating about.  The box arrived about a week later with the school supplies and the otter.  I figured that they had just combined my two orders into one box because they were placed so close together.  That was almost two weeks ago.  Today another box arrived in the mail with just a single otter in it.  I ordered the otter twice!  The kids thought this was not only funny but actually better because now Dwayne and I can each have an otter.  I found them posed in front of the dishwasher like this: 

Moral of the story - don't shop when you are ridiculously tired and not likely to remember what you bought in the morning.  Unless you don't mind multiple otters!

Dark Sky Festival

Over the weekend we had the pleasure of attending our local astronomy club's Dark Sky Festival held in Wood Buffalo National Park.  Wood Buffalo National Park now holds the designation for the world's largest Dark Sky Preserve, meaning that there are no artificial lights visible in the park (roughly the size of Switzerland) to interfere with views of the night sky.  There were loads of activities for the kids such as planetarium shows, painting, making Solar System Fruit Salad, rocket launches,  a LEGO robotics competition, stand up paddle boarding, votive holder making, glow sticks and scary stories around the campfire.  Quite a few telescopes were left set up over the weekend as well for those wanting to view stars, planets, and nebulae late into the night.  We also had guest speakers Peter McMahon (The Wilderness Astronomer) and astronaut Roberta Bondar.  It was a wonderful weekend and we are already looking forward to next year's event!  The Wood Buffalo National Park staff were amazing and coordinated many of the children's activities and were on hand to make sure things were running smoothly logistic-wise.  We all camped in a field - tents, travel trailers, campers.  So much fun!  Here are a few photos I managed to snap.  I didn't get a huge variety (and no night photos!) as I was chasing Judah much of the time, but it gives you a little bit of an idea of what we were up to anyhow. :)