Simple Traditions

One of my favorite things to do as a family is to create special family traditions. Some of my favourite may seem pretty silly, but to our family, they are truly special.

Last week Amelia and I decided to bake cookies, after they came out of the oven, I was reminded by my sweet little three year old, about the special "family home evening plate" we should use. She was talking about a plate that we use for treats on Family Home Evening night. It is not particularly fancy, not even ceramic, children are painted around the edge and the words for the primary song "Family Night" is written in the middle, but what makes this plate special is perhaps the fact that it reminds me of how important family night is to our family! I was so excited that she remembered about it.

What are your favourite family traditions?

Isn't That Grandpa's Chair?

In our living room, we have a beige leather recliner. It was bought before I had Amelia, and I often get teased by my dear husband that I don't use it enough to justify the cost. I am happy to report that although my favourite spot is on the couch, the leather recliner is much loved by both Grandpa Rawe and Papa Whitaker. When they are visiting, Amelia loves to race over to the special chair, and when we skype, both grandpa's tease her and say things like "It's my chair!" or "Here I come, I'm going to sit in the chair!" Amelia loves the banter back and forth.

On this particular day last week, she decided, it was "her chair" and she was going to lounge in it...so that's what she did, pulling funny faces the whole time. She's quite the character and brings so much joy to our family.

Enjoy the pictures, oh and grandpa/papa, I'm sure she'll share again when you visit!

Pink Floral Pom Poms, Fluffy Pups and a Beautiful Girl!

Spring is on it's way, or at least that's what the calendar shows. I have to admit, it's hard to tell, we have "enjoyed" lots of rain and it seems that winter wants to hang around forever. One delightful sign of spring is of course the pink blossoms on the cherry trees in the Capitol Mall outside the office where I work.

Continuing the tradition of the past two years, my friend Traci and I chose last Friday as the day for our annual photo shoot of her pups Kant and Echo with my girl, Amelia. The weather forecast didn't look good, but the blossoms don't last for very long before they fall to the ground, so we just crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. On Friday morning, it was foggy and cloud covered the sky, certainly not the conditions we had hoped for. I picked Amelia up from daycare around 10:45 am and we met Traci and her pups by the cherry trees. I pulled out my camera and after taking just a couple of photo's everything began to change. A teeny patch of blue sky suddenly expanded until the stormy clouds had all but gone, then the sun came out - hooray! What a blessing!

We had a blast, Amelia was great - the best yet...she chose where she wanted Kant and Echo to be, most of the time, she wanted to be in the middle. Last year, she wasn't really very interested in having her photo's taken, but this year, she seemed to truly enjoy it, especially seeing her furry friends again.

So, that's all the narrative I'm going to give you for today, but I'm afraid I do have to state a disclaimer, I always take way too many photo's (some might say), after all I am by no means a professional photographer, the thing is, I also have a hard time choosing my favourite photo's, since most of them fall under this category. The result of my indecision means that I have posted lots of photo's below, some of them very similar to each other, but hey, I thought you might enjoy them too. Don't forget you can click on the photo's to see them larger. I hope they make you smile!

This is my friend Traci, the "mom" to Kant and Echo.

" Happy Spring All!!!"