garden bounty

Graham and I plucked the rest of our garden produce.  It looked so pretty!   

~ Mrs. P

our little fiddler

Stella Bella got her own violin and she is thrilled!!!

My momma is super talented on the piano and Auntie Alyson the piano too. Auntie Leslie, Grampa Hinko and Great-Grampa Hinko all play guitar.  Our girls have a lot of music loving genes coming at them.   Stella was able to take piano lessons last year and was so pumped to be able to learn to play the violin this year.  It has been impressive to watch her desire to learn, she is doing great!  Love this little lady.  Also super lucky that both girls are able to take lessons with their old music teacher from school, pretty special.  I can over hear their lessons and I love when the teacher tells them they are doing 'brilliant'! 

~ Momma P

the hundred dresses

Big fan of books!  I love the power of a good book, a good story.  'The Hundred Dresses' is an incredible story that I have had on my must read book list for awhile.  This story is so beautifully sad, we can all learn from it.  The summary is as follows;

Eleanor Estes’s The Hundred Dresses won a Newbery Honor in 1945 and has never been out of print since. At the heart of the story is Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in a Connecticut school who is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn’t and bullies her mercilessly. The class feels terrible when Wanda is pulled out of the school, but by that time it’s too late for apologies. Maddie, one of Wanda’s classmates, ultimately decides that she is "never going to stand by and say nothing again." This powerful, timeless story has been reissued with a new letter from the author’s daughter Helena Estes, and with the Caldecott artist Louis Slobodkin’s original artwork in beautifully restored color.

It took us three evenings to read it.  I even shared with my girls some of the things that happened in my school.  Somethings I wished I could change, no standing by.  Such good discussion came of it!   I am absolutely adding this book to our yearly reading list for the end of August. Such power in a good book.

~ Mrs. P

after school is cool

We have school kids now, both head off to school for the entire day.  So after school time 

is absolutely the time of day I treasure!  Ok, sometimes there is post school hangriness or people drag their feet to get homework done BUT still is now the time of day I look froward to AND bonus it leads right to dinner when Graham comes home and everyone is together.

I have set the goal to be present with my girls: dinner as ready as it can be, no phone or distractions. We can sit together and read, get through the daily grade 3 math facts, practice spelling and maybe get some crafting in.

Our costume bin continues to be used and imaginary play is just so great!

~ Mrs. P

prolong summer

We have been so lucky with the weather lately.  I feel an absolute urge to capitalize on the days we can play outside in bathing suits and ride bikes in tshirts.  This past week was the girls first full week of school, well four days with Labour Day Monday being off.  We checked out Andy's Park and ran into our friends the Hogg's and Nelson's, so fun with our nine kiddos on the circle swing.  It was so unexpected and lovely to hang out and watch our children play.

Wednesday was early out from school and it was again just stunning outside so we headed to the spray park, so nice to hang out with friends.  Some were new to the area, some were old friends and the Birds are family.  In Amelia's case, there were a lot of guy friends.

We are very lucky to have Kingston living close now and we all got to hang out after school.  Again, the weather was so gorgeous we pulled out the little pool and the slip n slide.  Goodness that little pool has put in its time and the slip n slide we recieved as a gift, so perfect on hot days.

The warm weather has us hanging onto summer, wishing and hoping we can prolong the fun!!!

~ Mrs. P

into routine

We are into the second week of school and the ladies are enjoying some of their new apparel, cats are very popular and they both wore cats saying "Auntie Leslie would love this!!!".  While I loved the freedom of summer, I am also a big fan of routine.  Activities start this week and the programs I facilitate start next week. We were off to do measurements for ballet costumes when I asked the women to pause so I could photograph the cat apparel, they were going on about these new cat school clothes.  I love that we have only two busy nights, we are getting into a routine....the other nights we are home, Mr. P is home and the women can play and unwind.  Violin lessons and Activity Day Girls/Young Men's fall on Tuesday's and Ballet is Friday.  I always seek peace in my heart to know what our family should take on, how much to get involved with.  Not just our women but for myself too, I seek balance. This fall I will be facilitating two programs with Families First, enrolled in a yoga class, volunteer for the SYNC Program and hope to be the school helping out in the women's classes. Graham in YM and me in RS for our church responsibilities.
  Life is good.
So good sharing it with these beauties.

~ Mrs. P

dating the Mister

Getting out with this dude is always good even if it is a football game hahahaha 

He likes football and I like him so we try to hit a few games a year.  Every time we go he has to re-explain the rules to me but whatever, it's a night out! Sure love the guy.  I wanted to join him at this game because the Arkells were playing the half time show and I really like them so really it was a win, win - an evening with Mr. P and the Arkells!

~ Mrs. P