beauty is..

On a daily basis, I tell my Keikster how much I love her and ask her, why is she so darn cute? I think after all this time, this cuteness business runs right over her head. I mean, she knows it, I say it all the time to her. But what does it really mean? Lately, I've been telling Keira that she's beautiful because it radiates from the inside of her. Her kindness, her spontaneity, her happiness radiates all the way to the outside and it shows on her face. This, I keep telling her, is the real reason why I think she's beautiful.

She doesn't fully understand it yet. She takes it quite literally. Beauty inside? What's inside? Is there yucky stuff in me? It shows on my face? Really?

Kids really do say the darndest things.

But most times, they just laugh in your face and run away.

lingering evening light, sweet shot tuesday

So I saw Darcy of My3Boybarians tweet that this will be the last Sweet Shot Tuesday for a while (about 4 weeks!). Since I'm up anyways working late, I thought I'd get in a post for it. I took these shots on Sunday in the evening. I didn't even realize Keira was only in her skivvies until I asked her to please please put on at least a tee. The lighting was beautiful and I wanted to see if I could get some interesting shadows playing on her sweet face.

When I asked her if she could sit in the evening sunlight as well as put on a tee all I got was,
"But mommy! I'm super hot... like toast! I'm melting".

Um, did I mention we have central air with the a/c going on? Ye-ah. Only the Keikster would be 'hot like toast'. lol.

Oh and see that last pic? Where she's smiling? These will be the last of her 'baby' smiles as both top teeth are loose, one hanging on like a swing hingeing wildly back and forth. All four of her baby bottom teeth have already fallen out. I'm so happy to see her grow and reach all these milestones yet, yet.. am gulping back emotions as I can't bear to see her shed the 'baby' so fast!

Tomato #twitterfoodparty

Our mini garden bounty
Basil, cherry tomato & mini aubergine (eggplant)
She's all about the sauce!
Sundried tomato pizza

I made it! Well, I made it to this month's twitter food party (which I usually don't make it to) but we, as in Keira and I, made it! This month's twitter food party as hosted by the ever talented and wonderful LovelyLanvin. This month's theme: tomatoes!

About 2 weeks ago, Keira and I made home-made pizza together. I'm surprised there was any pizza sauce leftover to use on our pizzas as Keira usually spoons it out and eats it before it gets spread out. lol.

I used the baby sized aubergines (eggplants) and tomatoes from our garden that I had pre-baked with course salt and olive oil with fresh basil. Keira's version is straight up sauce, pepperoni and cheese. We didn't make the dough but instead bought it at our local deli who makes it fresh pretty much daily.



This weekend, I also made a tomato + goat cheese toasted sandwich. Our tomatoes are so tasty, packed with flavour without the big pockets of seeds and water like you get with the supermarket variety. Add some goat cheese to the toasted bread and you get this mouth watering bite of fresh tomato with warm creamy goat cheese, mmmmm...

Get in on the action and join the #twitterfoodparty!

We are here: BozAround!

I'm sure an introduction is not needed for BozAround, Vanessa Boz's inspirational travel blog (Vanessa is one of Milk Magazine's London correspondent). It's one of my favorite blog reads and I vicariously live through the lush and vibrant photos that she posts of her travels (like the almost year long world tour she did with her family last year) or of the families and people she features. My dream is to travel around the world with my little family one day and until then, I dream through BozAround.

A while back, Vanessa asked me to participate to be part of her travel features and while I wrote back about Virginia Beach, I think she had more in mind something about my home town of Montréal! Lol. Oops. Ah well.. Here we are today, featured on her travel series! 

Thank you so much Vanessa for letting us be a part of your fantastic blog! And for letting me reminisce yet again of sandy beaches, warm sunshine and wonderful memories. 

If you don't know about Vanessa's BozAround yet, head on over and let your wanderer self be inspired. If you are a traveller or will be travelling, you must check her blog out as you will get detailed information on where to stay, what to do and where to eat with or without kids! It's a site you need to bookmark and take notes.

bozaround.com

Also, send her a tweet! @BozAround

saturday family

The boys fight over who makes coffee and who makes the toast
The village is annihilated by this giant boy in green tee

Today solidified what we knew in our minds, that our Keira is quite the competitive sportster. The Mister and I couldn't stop laughing while watching Keira in her swimming class. The instructors pair up the little swimmers throughout the class and make them swim it out from one end of the pool to the in-water platform and each and every single time, we watched Kiki swim out her heart to reach the platform or edge of the pool first (occasionally glancing backwards, making sure whoever else is in the water with her is behind her). lol! While I love her competitiveness, I've seen it get the best of her and see her break down when she's not first. I only hope I can teach her to enjoy the process rather than become frustrated by it. I want her to have FUN.

Apart from all this, we've been enjoying some humid summer weather still and yesterday we had my sister's family come over for a fun visit. Not only do I love it when they come over, my sister usually manages to bring over some food. She's an incredible cook and we enjoyed her home-made honey glazed ribs (finger licking yumminess!) and salad.

The best part about the kids growing up? We can pretty much relax and have our laughs while they play, argue, work it out by themselves. We just provide the snacks and drinks. haha.

Hope you're all enjoying an awesome weekend!

happy friday friends!

Has a week gone by already? It felt as if it went by both quickly and slowly at the same time. Make sense? Mmmhm. Me neither.

Keira has been creating this 'village' for about a week now. Every morning before school and every night, she keeps adding, placing, replacing shops, studios, homes & buildings comprised of every single Pet Shop, Little Critters, Polly Pockets and who knows what else. She calls it her village. People eat cakes in the cake shop, have ballet in the studio and even go to school (you can't see the school, it's her Rapunzel tower father off)! Her brain, it's a-growin'!



Keira also had her first cooking class this week and came home with these goodies: mango chicken with cream cheese baguette sandwich and an orange smoothie. She wasn't too keen on the cream cheese taste but can't get enough of the smoothie. Thumbs up!

On top of the swimming, ballet, cooking and violin.. there is one extra class she wants to take: dramatic arts. We missed the registration deadline but we'll try to get her in it. Apparently, the Mister also loved to try every single thing when he was a kidster way back when. It seems the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. I am so glad and thankful I have a little girl with an adventurous spirit!

Happy Friday my friends!

premier pas, ballet

Velvet Hello Kitty jacket: Zara, Paris dress: Mini Rodini

Keira had her first ballet class and enjoyed it tremendously. She also met up with a few friends from school and the pool. It was a sweet gathering of girls, ballet slippers, giggles and squeals of delight.

There was also some fun face painting at our local grocery store!

late summer saturday sun

Are you having a good weekend? Hope so. The weather is spectacular here in the YUL. It makes up (mildly) for the fact that we are missing out on my niece's wedding to the man of her dreams out in California and missing out seeing and being with my family out west. Sadness. The weather also makes up for the late nights I've been working for the job. Talking about the job, our social club committee put on a fun end of summer photo contest and I won for best portrait with this photo! Actually, as the 5à7 festivities were happening in our showroom, I was still at my desk trying to get a few more things done before heading home and one of my coworkers (who was one of the judges) kept coming to my desk asking me when I'd be done. After 3 times, she finally grabbed me and told me that I should at least be there for the contest winners, just to show my support. When they called my name, ah... I finally understood why she just couldn't let me go!

Back to yesterday... After Keira's swimming class, my mom came over and we spent time with her. We then went out for dinner which was so nice and relaxing. Keira barely ate as fatigue set in and she spent most of the time fidgeting and lying down on the banquette chair. If it hadn't turned slightly chilly in the evening, I would have loved to have eaten outside. Eating outside in California with my family, celebrating my niece's wedding would have been better too. Ah well...

happy friday!

It's Friday! Keira has been watching Mary Poppins lately and occasionally, I can hear her belt out this song on loop: "just a spoonful of sugah helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down the medicine go dooooooown". lol.

This is also the start to another season of weekend activities. Keira will continue swimming lessons and new this year, ballet!

What are your plans this weekend? Whatever the outcome, I wish you all a lovely lovely weekend!

princess pancakes

Because there's no time like pancake time to wear your crown...

Cotton crown by EllieBellieKids

mini rodini + shak shuka = mixmatch heaven

As Keira pointed out to me recently, Fall is a'comin. Leaves are starting to fall (a bit) and turn yellow (slightly). I can't bear to think of it! I find dresses so much easier to deal with for Keira. Nothing that will hang off her shoulders or fall off her waistline. Just slip on and go! Accessorize with a skinny belt or baubles around her neck. That's it. When I saw the fall collection of dresses on Shak Shuka, I knew I needed to order some straightaway. Prerequisites: Long-sleeved, cotton and cool. To fit the bill? Mini Rodini to the rescue! Fell in love with their Peacock & Paris dresses. The quality is terrific and most importantly, the fit is awesome. I can't stand clothing that look amazing but have absolutely no consideration of fit and spec in mind. Especially for kids.

And once again, Shak Shuka delivered! Top quality, top customer service and in keeping with their green conscious company, the packaging is minimal in the mail. Top notch! I'm now eyeing all the gorgeous patterns on dresses from Winter Water Factory.

And thank you Shak Shuka for the wonderful extra surprise in our little package! Squeals of delight from Keira. xoxo


Shop Fall Collection over at Shak Shuka's shop: www.shakshuka.com and tweet along @shak_shuka. You won't be disappointed!


To view more Mini Rodini: www.minirodini.com and tweet along @minirodini.

bedhead on sunday

Someone woke up with extreme bedhead yesterday morning! Wasn't me. We made an impromptu visit to Chinatown on Saturday night for supper and picked up my mom on the way there. What's supper without guests? For some reason, chinatown was packed and Beijing was full so we headed next door, to MonShing. Delightfully delicious!

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Update: Thanks to Dabito and Lia, I now know that this is Mid-Autumn Festival/Mooncake Festival! No wonder chinatown was hoppin'.  

september 11, sunday

I didn't realize the date today until I heard the ceremony happening on the telly downstairs. September 11. Do you remember where you were, what you were doing that day 10 years ago? I certainly do. I had just settled down at my desk at work when one of our sales rep ripped through the design room where I was sitting and shouted, "New York city's been attacked! New York's been attacked! It's terrorism!" and upon seeing me, "Chantale, get up and get into the kitchen! It's on tv, forget what you're doing! Get up!". I internally rolled my eyes as this sales rep was known for being Mr Drama but I sighed, got up and headed to the tv in the communal kitchen. What I saw onscreen however, rooted me to the spot, drained my blood and I felt light-headed. Smoking twin towers.. All of us could barely work that day. It wasn't about who attacked who, what flew into what but more... that there were people still stuck within that burning structure.

So much has changed since then. For better, for worse? Who knows. Life cannot contain itself and pushes itself forward, memories linger. I have so much to be thankful for, so much to think about. A moment of silence & prayers.

Life is not about sadness but of living the moment & be at peace with it. So easy to say, so very hard to do. I looked around me Saturday and today, I saw my girl and her best friend bounce in the trampoline outside without a care, playing at the park with pure joy of being outdoors, together.

Wishing you all peace. Love.