Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone out there celebrating....

A Very Happy Holidays!!

Sledding...

These are a little older but I had to share our sledding experience at the field down the street...

We left the house under partly cloudy skies...

By the time we got down to the field almost blizzard conditions had Fionna worried that we might not make it back home... a 5 min walk...
Dylan was unfazed by it all...

Once the clouds parted to reveal the sun he was more than happy to partake of the fresh powder...




In heaven this little man...

Then on to the serious work of sledding...

And crashing...


They love crashing...

Those bushes next to them are blackberries so I had to get a good berm up to avoid a prickly end to the run...

After a few hours outside it was time to warm up...
Love that fire...

We woke to lots of the white stuff this morning and Wes got a great sled run going here at the house... Just too much fun!!

A prefect kick off for the first official day of winter...

Happy Winter Solstice!

Another Wintery Hike...

We headed out to Oakfield Park today...

The gates are locked for the season so we hiked in...

We had not gone far before Dylan started to get hot...

He now has a two piece snow suit thanks to a wonderful new friend who passed it down...

So he can take his jacket off to cool down... happy little hot body!
Fionna was loving the little ponds of ice along the road...
A lot of snow has melted away but this is going to be an awesome sled run this winter...
Down by the water the ice was amazing...
I could not get enough of this rose bush...
Ice was covering all of the rocks... Wes and Fionna had fun breaking some of it off to make icebergs... Dylan was more than happy to play in the sand...
He did find this great twig... came running up... "I found a Y"
The guys went ahead while Fionna and I wondered back to the truck...

Looking for the beauty in winter... it's going to be around for awhile!

Big Snow...

We did not get snowed in at the Farm this last weekend but we might have if we had not cut our trip short. Our plans to stay until Sunday afternoon were thwarted by the coming storm...

On Friday night we did get to enjoy some Christmas caroling at the local Museum (where John and Christina volunteer) and had fun with the night of festivities.

After a Saturday morning hunt for our Christmas tree and loading up some firewood we headed back home...

It was a good thing because we woke in the morning to lots and lots of snow and more coming down...

So we spent the morning decorating the Christmas tree...

Then headed outside.... where we had snowball fights, made a snow man and hiked in the forest behind the house... Great fun snowy day...

We have been hiking on the forest path and doing some sledding the last few days... And some more Christmas making of course! I will share that soon...

Hope you are all having a good week!

Lovin'

Some things I am loving right now:

~Nature Exchange from Annie... So fun to get bits of nature from the other side of the country! Speaking of Annie I am also lovin' this project she is working on... Beautiful!

~ This terrarium ornament by Ella...

~Visits from the Winter Fairies have begun... Great fun to see the excitement for little bits of nature from our Fairy friends!
~My necklaces made by my wonderful friend Dana... Her shop can be found here!

Miss you dear friend!
~Fungi identification...
~ Seeing Dylan play in the snow with the new mitts we made him in about 10 min standing up at the sewing machine... He loves them!

They are made from a recycled wool sweater that I felted. I first saw the idea from Ella and Molly reminded me when we were talking about fingerless gloves. I am going to try fingerless for Fionna soon...

For these: Trace around the hand... give some seem allowance... sew... turn right side out... easy! The next set of mitts I will try it like Ella made them with wrong sides together and sew with seams out... I will keep you posted!
~ Trying to catch snow....

~ Log boats sailing in huge puddles....

Hope you are finding some simple things to love right now!

We are off to the Farm for the weekend to hunt for our Christmas tree and kick off the season with some of the festivities the Island has to offer!

Have a great weekend!

Christmas Making...

I have been doing some Christmas making...

For a lucky little girl I know who loves to rig up hammocks for her dolls. I found this doll hammock pattern in this book... which is full of awesome toys to make out of felt, fabric, yarn and wood...

Are you doing any Christmas making?

Stormy Day at the Beach...

This was the first weekend in the last four that Wes did not have to work... We took advantage and headed out to Crystal Crescent Beach.

The gates are locked for the winter so it means a little bit of a hike to get to the beach...

But there is plenty to do for entertainment along the way...
It was stormy and the waves where big... for here...
The kids were excited to get down to the beach...
Lots of interesting things wash up on the beach in fall and winter...
Wes was giving the kids a lesson on slope stability...

The water flowing out here is stained with all of the fall leaves and other "organics"... making it look like tea...
Dylan loves watching his tracks...
Trying to keep up with sister... The tide was coming in and she was a little disappointed that we could not go out to the tide pool rock... Be she knows enough to respect the ocean!
Little hero tossing sand at Mama!
Tide coming in... She was great about keeping an eye out while she collected.
It started to rain on us just as we were getting back to the road...
Holding on to the bag of "beautiful rocks" and hat and jacket... while Dylan was off to puddle jump!

A good stormy day at the beach. I am happy we took a chance on Saturday because Sunday was windy.... and I can take the rain over the wind any day!