Day Five: Fall Colours

I love Fall. It's my favourite season likely influenced by the fact that I'm a November baby;). I love the smell in the air, the crisp temperatures (sweater weather - yeah!), the change in the leaves. One thing I miss about several of the houses that we've lived in over the years not here in NL are the change of leaf colours.

Our current home was a new build when we bought it. Sadly, most newly built homes are placed on land that has been levelled of trees and our plot was no different. We are lucky to have a thick frame of trees on our property's perimeter but they are mostly black spruce and fir trees with two or three dogberry (Mountain Ash) trees scattered in for good measure. As you drive closer to downtown St. John's, the older, stately trees have just started to come into their own with Fall colours.

I thought it would be fun to walk down memory lane and I pulled some pictures from our time in Ottawa and Middleton, Nova Scotia to show off some of the trees and fall festivities close to where we were living years ago that I'm missing now.

The Rideau River from the Quebec side.

Orange, yellow and red reflections.

Wouldn't this make a gorgeous colour way for yarn?

These leaves remind me of crisp apples.

Moving onto Nova Scotia I couldn't find many pictures of the turn of the leaves. But, I did find pictures of Kentville, NS where the pumpkin people start to arrive at this time of year. If you happen to be near the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia right now, go and check them out.

Is there anything that screams 'Fall' more than pumpkin people walking through the leaves?

How are the leaves where you are?

Day Four: Brigus

We were lucky enough to host one of DH's cousin's a few weekends ago (Hi, R!!!). DH only has two cousins (TWO!) and this is the first time we've been able to welcome one of them into our home seeing as we are in the extreme East and they live in Western Canada. It was a short and sweet trip but we really hope that she had fun because we all really enjoyed seeing her.

This was R's first time visiting the East coast of Canada and we wanted to give her a good all around tour to give her a sense of our beautiful province. Here are some shots taken on our day trip to beautiful Brigus, NL.

The community park grounds.

Brigus has canals that ebb and flow with the high and low tides.

I could include architectural pictures until you were bored. Here are a selection.

The building is called 'Ye Olde Stone Barn.'

The houses that the people of Brigus get to live in are just striking.

I missed taking a picture of the church itself but...

... I did capture one of the traditionally used church gate.

Here's a little bit of history for you regarding the town and it's founders. You can click on the plaque picture to enlarge them if you fancy a read.

Graffiti makes its way everywhere, doesn't it?

Couldn't you just move in?!?

I love how even the fences are designed in keeping with the architectural age of many of the homes and buildings.

And that's that. Just another gorgeous day in small town Newfoundland and Labrador.

Day Three: Spindrift Shawl

Those of you who follow me on Instagram can probably skip today's post entirely. During the ten days it took me to knit this shawl, I posted regularly about it on Instagram. However, I realize that I have friends and family out there who are not on Instagram regularly (or at all) so I've decided to dedicate one post to this lovely project, Helen Stewart's Spindrift Shawl.

I cast this project on the same night that I'd purchased the skein of Sweet Georgia's Tough Love sock weight yarn in the Mirror Pond colour way on September 1st. I completed it on September 10th. This skein was purchased during a visit with R (Hi R!) to Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria, BC and knitting it in ten days is a new record for me.

Likely the long airplane(s) ride across North America helped me get quite a bit done.

Don't you love my project bag? It's a drawstring bag from Brindy Linens a local print artisan and it's the perfect size for airplane travel.

And on I knit.

Here I'm knitting at the Geo Centre in St. John's where the boys were playing happily in the Kids Zone.

At home, I settled into my 'butt groove' spot with some company from Bella. She is great around fibre and rarely tries to play with it.

Then I started the picot edge bind off. Glorious!

Soaking before blocking.

Blocking on the guest room mattress with piles of blankets and towels to protect the mattress from getting wet. I used my new wire blockers that I'd purchased from Cast On Cast Off.

And finally it was ready to display.

I'm in love with this shawl. I've used it most days since it dried and it's the perfect size and warmth for the warmish fall we've been having here.

Just look at those eyelits! And that edging!

This shawlette was a pleasure to knit and I'd highly recommend it to a beginner lace knitter like myself!

Day Two: Paw Patrol Party

I'm sitting here with an over full stomach, my body struggling to process an excess of sugar and fat with the knowledge that Youngest had a great party and now I have a month or so before the next one. Score!

As had been our tradition, there was a balloon forest in red, white and blue Paw Patrol colours.

Rubble is Youngest's favourite Paw Patrol character so he was the star of the heavily sugar-ified cake. This cake idea is straight from Pinterest and took me about twenty minutes to decorate. Compared to my usual 2 - 3 hours, decorating this cake was a dream. I even got some knitting in last night!

Paw Patrol was out in style from toys to napkins to plates to the papers under the Rice Krispie squares.

The paw print stamp from last year worked perfectly well for this year.

Youngest's banner was ordered from this shop on Etsy.com this year. I love it!

There you have it. Another party according to our 'formula' done and dusted.

Day One: 31 Days of Writing and Crafting

It's Day One of my 31 Days of Writing and Crafting and I find myself back at the same place I started last year with a birthday party brewing (tomorrow) and the usual havoc that that creates the day before. Here's my 'To Do' list for the day just to keep me on track and to make you tired:

1. Bake cakes - two cake mix batters - I use Betty Crocker's French Vanilla every time.
2. Make icing.
3. Ice said cakes.
4. Decorate said cakes. 
5. Stamp loot bags (it's a Paw Patrol party here this year so I can use the same paw print stamp that I used last year.
6. Fill loot bags (we're down to less than ten kids this year so that's a piece of cake - no pun intended;).
7. Pick up Paw Patrol banner from printing at Staples (purchased at Etsy.com, we're using this one this year).
8. Cut out and string banner.
9. Hang banner after the kids are asleep tonight.
10. Clean the rest of the upper floor.
11. Pray for good weather for tomorrow because we're having a bouncy castle as per every other year. This might be our last year for this feature. We did a bouncy castle at Eldest and Middlest's double birthday party in the summer but, at seven and nine, felt that the attendees are getting too old to not be nuisance on the bouncy.
12. Clean the family room in the basement. Huge job. HUGE.
13. And lastly, and most important, try and survive all of these duties while parenting three, wired boys.

This might be our last year using our at home party format for our boy's birthday parties. We've already decided that Eldest and Middlest's birthday parties will not be at home next year. They're at the age (and their parents are getting old!) that a more intimate party with six friends on an outing will have to do as 25+ seven to nine year old children running havoc all over the house and garden has become too much for me. Therefore, I'm enjoying this last run on what has become a comfortable 'formula' for hosting birthday parties for the boys.

They sure grow up fast, don't they?!?

Write 31 Days 2016

31 Days of Writing & Crafting

Once again this year, I have decided to try writing for the 31 Days in October challenge which encourages bloggers 

to write a post a day for an entire month - October 2016. Again I find myself feeling intimidated and slightly 

overwhelmed but that's what challenges are for. I would love for some of my other blogging friends to join me on 

this journey. We can offer each other mutual support;)!

This is the home page for all of my 31 Days in October 2016 Challenge posts so check back daily to see what I'm 

writing about for 2016 as I will include all of my 31 day posts here.

Day One: 31 Days of Writing and Crafting

Day Two: Paw Patrol Party

Three: Spindrift Shawl

Four: Brigus

Five: Fall Colours

Six: Fourboysandanlgirl Episode 4 Show Notes

Seven: Fourboysandanlgirl Episode 3 Show Notes

Eight: Why Start a Podcast?