Edison's Return the Zoo

When Jonathan was playing piano for ballet a lot on the weekends, I was taking Edison to the aquarium to wander around. We went quite a few times, and he loves it. Now that the weather is starting to perk up, I thought it was time to renew our membership to the zoo and enjoy wandering outside.

One nice thing about the zoo is that it's open until 7pm now, so even on days that I get home from work there is still plenty of time to head over there and check things out.

This was the first time that Edison has been to the zoo and been a good enough walker to walk/run the whole thing by himself. Last summer he was still a little unsteady and only walked small parts. This summer he'll be charging around it with me chasing after him the whole time.


My mom bought Edison a new pair of sunglasses and he loves wearing them. The day that I took these photos wasn't super sunny, but he would not let me take them off... even if they were falling off his face half the time.

Checking out the chickens 

Gobble Gobble 

We were able to see the lion and tiger feeding 

Showing me all the little things he was finding on the ground 

He loved walking on the tracks and was a little upset that he had to move to let the train go by 

This camel always makes the funniest faces 

I'm lovin' the cherry blossoms! 

He may have had more fun examining everything on the ground 

Waving at all the people walking by 

 My little mini Elton John

Here is a video of our visit from a couple of days ago:

Wordless Wednesday - Helping Daddy fix airplanes!

Ooooo, look what I got! 

He's fixing it with a little screwdriver  

Super glue! 

He brought his own plane out to fix

Adventures in Quilting - Part 1

After finishing my last sewing project, the Tramp Heart Bear, I knew I needed to start thinking about what my next project was going to be. Now that I have my own sewing machine... the sky's the limit!

I've always wanted to make a quilt... however I know nothing about making quilts and the thought of sewing an adult sized quilt is a little daunting. I ordered a couple of books with patterns for easy quilts... easy being the operative word there. After flipping through the books and putting much thought into whether I really wanted to go down this road or not, I decided to make an Edison-sized quilt first. I thought it would be a good chance to see if I even like quilting... and to see if I can do it without it turning into a total disaster. So... off I went to plan out my new little project...

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Step One: Chose pattern...
I narrowed it down to a couple of quilt patterns that I liked and then showed them to Jonathan who made it very clear that he liked the Dinosaur Quilt....  so Dinosaur Quilt it is!



Step Two: Go to the fabric store and spend a ridiculous amount of money on fabric.
Honestly, with the price of fabric these days, no wonder nobody makes anything... it's way cheaper to just go out and buy whatever you are trying to make. But as my bank account was draining... I tried to reassure myself that this is a hobby that will keep my occupied for many hours, and will (hopefully) be something that Edison really loves in the end.

My very patient mother and I spent a couple of hours in the fabric store, where I probably drove everybody crazy because I pulled down about a billion different bolts of fabric. After exhausting my options in the blue and brown department (the original colour scheme of the quilt) I decided that there wasn't enough different blue patterns that I liked... so I ended up with greens and brown instead.

Step Three: Cut all the fabric into the desired sizes (after pre-washing it all). This was a very tedious task and probably my least favourite part so far. Everything has to be cut to the exact measurements... or it won't look like a quilt in the end. This project also involves a lot of pressing... ironing has never been one of my favourite activities... but once I got to the sewing stage it became much more enjoyable.

Step Four: Sew! Once I got to this stage it really started to come together in a hurry. Before long I could see what the whole thing was going to look like and was quite happy with my fabric choices.

I finally bought real pins... no more safety pins for me! 

Just keep sewing, just keep sewing 

The middle of the quilt 

All of the patches sewed on. Four more brown strips went around the whole thing. 

Step Five: The dinosaur appliqué.
The pattern that came with the book has the outline for the dinosaur, but it wasn't the right size... it had to be blown up 200%! Cue my trip to Staples, my encounter with an incredibly frustrating Staples employee, and having to buy a very large piece of paper... that cost me 15 bucks!

Once I had the dinosaur cut out, I used fusible web to attach the dinosaur to the quilt. Fusible web is an iron-on adhesive that basically turned my dino friend into a large sticker. Once stuck to the quilt I will sew around the edges to make the quilt his permanent home.

Isn't he cute? 

Peel it back and stick him on 

Ta Da! 

My next step is to sew around the edges of the appliqué and then to add the green border of the quilt.

To be continued...

On The Home Stretch

Spring is always crazy at work! Last year, being on maternity leave, I wasn't even thinking about work. This year, I was quickly reminded how insane it can be.

Usually in April I take 180-200 kids to music camp for 3 days. This year, due to the teachers job action, I wasn't able to do that. Thank goodness! I did however, put on the musical Grease with a couple other teachers at school. Doing a musical is a crazy amount of work. Every time I do one, I vow to never do it again... until I see how great the end result is and how much the students love it.

During the week that we performed the musical, I only came home for an hour and a half each day before I had to turn around and go back to the school for the evening performances. The drive home was worth it though, because that was the only time in the day that I got to see Edison. Thank goodness Marilyn came home from her travels early, we wouldn't have been able to get through that week without her.

As soon as the musical ended, my report cards were due! Because of all the teacher vs. government drama, it ended up that I had to do retroactive report cards right back to the beginning of the year. Between all of my Explorations classes, 2 concert bands, and a choir.... I had to input over 800 marks into the computer. It was time consuming to say the least!

To top it all off, Jonathan was still playing piano for a couple of ballet schools until the end of April, so his schedule was crazy and there really wasn't very much time spent as a whole family.

Last week my schedule returned to normal, Jonathan finished ballet... and we all got to relax a little and spend some much-needed time together.

I only have two more months of work before summer vacation hits and it always goes by fast. I only have one more performance on my plate, the Music Department Year-End Concert... and once that's over Mrs. Reichert has checked out! I basically count the days until the end! I am so excited for the summer.

Usually Jonathan works every summer, but this will be the first summer since we've been married that he is not going to work. We're looking forward to a week in Tofino, Edison's 2nd birthday, a visit from Auntie Sara, lots of camping (hopefully), and lots of time spent at the farm.

We've been in the process of getting our backyard summer-ready. In the fall we fixed up the path that goes  through the backyard to the back gate. The path used to be stepping stones... but because the dog is always running around back there, it was very muddy around the stones. My dad helped us turn the path into a solid path... but we had to dig quite a bit of dirt out to be able to do that. Because we were doing it in early fall.... the dirt that got shovelled onto the grass never found a new home before winter hit. So, we've had a big dirt pile on our grass all winter. Jonathan has finally relocated the dirt so that our grass can start growing again and our backyard should look nice for the summer.

Edison, being the helper that he is, wanted to help his daddy shovel. My apologies for the no-pants look that Edison is sporting...

Daddy helping him load up his shovel 

Concentrating very hard

Almost there... 

Putting the dirt in behind the garage 

Hurring back for more 

He made many, many trips 

Showing me his shovel

Now that work has calmed down, I am going to try my hardest to keep things updated. Stay tuned for pictures of my latest sewing project!

Christ is Risen!