mobile from Le Petit Papillon

This morning Gwen let me sleep in until almost 9. After I got her up and dressed and fed, we had to take the dogs for a walk. I’ve mentioned it before but Tuesday mornings, with Taylor at work and Sym at her dad’s, are the most difficult mornings for me in terms of dealing with the baby and the dogs. Tuesday mornings are when I wish most that I had my own fenced yard and I could just let the dogs out instead of taking them (and the baby) for a walk around the park.

When I started getting ready it was cloudy. By the time I’d gotten everyone ready to go out it was raining lightly. After a bit of deliberation I decided I’d better put the rain cover on the stroller, and by the time I’d done that and gotten it up the stairs it was pouring. I actually had to run back inside and change into my waterproof jacket.

The rain kept up for almost the entire walk. I hadn’t bothered putting on proper footwear so my cheap canvas shoes were soaked and muddy and the dogs looked like drowned rats. The raindrops were splashing up so high when I looked down the street it almost looked misty. It reminded me of when I was a kid, and when it rained hard, the water hitting our back deck would splash up in two droplets that made me think of rabbit ears. I’d imagine little water bunnies jumping all over the deck.

In classic form, I forgot to take pictures with my real camera this weekend. I even remembered to charge the battery, but I forgot to put it back into my camera, which was annoying to discover after I’d already left the house. So instead of real pictures, please enjoy these instagram pics from Taylor’s first Father’s Day.


As you can see, Gwen & I were twinsies. In case you & your baby girl wanna be twinsies too, her romper is from the Gap and my dress is from Hello Holiday.

My hair has been driving me bonkers recently and yesterday I finally did something about it. I was thisclose to cutting it all off, like SHORT short, but I chickened out and just got a trim (but a huge trim) and layers. Weirdly, after I had a shower it dried really curly! It’s actually kind of perfect: it airdries nicely so I won’t have to deal with my blowdryer all summer, and it’s still long enough to put up.
before

after

Tragically, this cut makes my hair about 1″ shorter than Taylor’s so TECHNICALLY I lost our long hair contest. However I can still lord it over him because my hair is curlier and therefore envied.

On to the links!

Fascinating article about Monette and Mady, adult identical twins who dress alike & do everything together.

This frozen watermelon “Slurpee” sounds delicious.

Love these geometric stamps. I have a bunch of mini 3/4″ blocks so I’m thinking of making a tiny version (you know I love tiny things).

Chvrches announced their full album, hooray!

What Gwen wore this week on Tiny Buttons.

I feel like a real blogging slacker lately. Partly because I’m still kind of sick and prefer to spend all my free time lying on the couch, partly because I just don’t wannnnnnnna.I have lots of things in my head that I’m PLANNING on posting about but I just can’t be bothered to sit at my computer and do anything but scroll through tumblr, which is not a waste of time AT ALL.

One thing I have been doing is attempting to teach myself how to shoot in manual mode on my camera. I’ve had it for four years and it’s been on auto the entire time. Anyway please enjoy the fruits of my manual labours (HA HA, GET IT???) while I try and motivate myself to something other than lie on the couch.

This weekend was such a bust! Tragically I was still sick (and am still sick now, gross) so even though I TRIED to have a good weekend I really didn’t. OH WELL.

On Friday night I needed a book to read in the bath so I downloaded Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall (there was an excerpt of it at the end of my copy of Requiem that caught my attention). I actually couldn’t sleep that night and stayed up until 3:30 am reading and crying, oopssssss. I actually have a lot of feels about this book that I’ll be posting about separately, so GET EXCITED for my thoughts on my own mortality (sort of).

I would have liked to have slept in for a million years on Saturday morning but I had plans with Sym to go shopping. She needed a white dress for the school play, and a plain white dress in tween sizes is actually pretty hard to find. Sym is at an awkward in-between size and age; a lot of children’s dresses are too childish for her and although she can fit into some adult clothing (in size zero/extra small and I never thought i’d be complaining about not being able to find 0/xs clothes, WE COULDN’T FIND ANY WTH) most of it isn’t appropriate for her. We finally found a white lace dress at H&M, but what she REALLY wanted was a high-low dress or skirt, because they’re “really in” right now (her words).



I was shocked she agreed to let me take pictures of her/post them so I have to post them all, SORRY CRABBY H&M SHOPPING BAG LADY.

On the way back from the mall we stopped by the City of Bhangra festival at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but only had time to watch one performance before I had to get Sym home to meet her dad. Later that afternoon I went back down with Gwen to watch a few more teams. I wanted Taylor to come as well but he had work to do, so it was just me & the baby.

The rest of the weekend was literally (LITERALLY) spent lying on the couch and complaining, so I want to give a big shout out of appreciation to Taylor for a) putting up with me, b) doing the majority of babycare & housework, and c) going to the store to get me things to eat & drink on multiple occasions.

And finally, it’s June 10th so my vacation is over, and my etsy shop is back. I need to save up a bunch of money so I can go to San Francisco with Taylor in August so GO BUY STUFF.

You would think I’d have a lot of things to share this week seeing as how I haven’t had to spend all my time working on banners, but I’ve actually hardly spent any time online at all. Not having to work = not having to procrastinate from doing that work by wasting time on the internet. I wish I could say this means I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff living my life but tragically & typically I’ve been sick all week. OF COURSE I’M SICK DURING MY WEEK OF FREEDOM 9__6 I have been trying to live my life anyway, regardless of how I’ve been feeling, but yesterday I was forced to admit I feel like garbage: headache, nausea, fever, muscle aches; basically the whole shebang of sickness. In fact, the only reason I’m posting now is because a) I had to get up off the couch to make my Tiny Buttons post lest I disappoint my co-founder, and b) I already started this post earlier in the week when I wasn’t feeling sick, so all I had to do was add this whiny paragraph and now I can return to eating Twizzlers & watching Star Trek: Voyager on the couch (YES I’M STILL WATCHING VOYAGER SORRY I’M NOT SORRY IT’S A REALLY GOOD SHOW).

Sara is now offering choose-your-own nail decals.

I’m super into tiny things so I’m super into this list of tiny crafts.

An intensely adorable tumblr.

Love Kate’s blog Red Maple Hair & wish she’d post more often.

Meg Zandi’s DIY temporary pastel hair dye is making me regret giving all my fun-coloured hair dye to my teenage neighbour.

Since I went to all the trouble of posting, you should go see what Gwen wore.

Have a good weekend for me, everyone!

On Tuesday Gwen and I went out to run some errands and serendipitously met up with Taylor at the Pig on the Street truck outside the Vancouver Art Gallery (I had actually just texted him to ask if he was still at work when I spotted him in line for food).

I went down to the shouting sea,
Taking Christopher down with me,
For Nurse had given us sixpence each-
And down we went to the beach.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.

The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand-
And Christopher held my hand.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.

There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.

When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes

Sand-Between-the-Toes, A.A. Milne

Since I was able to get all my etsy orders finished & shipped on Thursday, my weekend started on Friday (and since my shop is staying closed until June 10th,it’s a ten-day weekend, yes!!). The weather was still pretty cruddy in the morning, so instead of our Seawall walk, I dragged Taylor with me to a mall out in the suburbs so I could buy clothes for Gwen: a couple more rompers, some shorts and new socks since she’s outgrown her 0-6 month socks.

I also bought more suede to make her some new shoes; can’t stop won’t stop making baby shoes.

I’m really happy with how these turned out, but I’m less happy with the fact that while I was out on Monday Georgie chewed one of them. DOGS, ugh. Luckily it wasn’t totally destroyed because I don’t have enough suede left to make a new one!

Saturday was the first farmer’s market of the year. We bought some strawberries & baked goods, including this chocolate chip banana bread we had for breakfast. Gwen in particular enjoyed smashing it to smithereens. She’s not very good at eating but she does like squishing food between her gums and spitting it out.

After breakfast Georgie and I met our dog park friends Jessica and Socks to hang out. We met them last summer when Socks was still a little puppy, but they moved out of downtown in the fall so we hadn’t seen them in a while. They just moved back Georgie and I were both happy to see them.

Socks! I stole this pic from Jessica’s instagram.

Sunday we went for brunch at Subeez and then walked back around the Seawall from Yaletown.

Now that the weather is nicer we are able to actually GO OUT and DO THINGS, which is good because otherwise I’d just be blogging about all the Star Trek: Voyager I’ve been watching (if you are interested in my thoughts about Voyager I have been tweeting about it).

Really excited about Kori’s new blog!

The supremely amazing & talented Maitri finally opened her etsy and I’m like ♥____♥ A lot of her pieces have sold already (I got mine!) but I’m predicting big things for this shop!

Meg & Katie both roadtripped to Nashville and it’s making me want to roadtrip somewhere.

This “Perfect Picnic Dress” literally IS the perfect picnic dress.

In case you missed the link in my post on Monday, the Vancouver Aquarium live cams are the greatest. I particularly recommend the spotted jellies for calming.

Even though we never left the house, I still managed to put clothes on my baby so check out what Gwen wore.