Piano

I know in my last post that things were winding down here in the Bear house. Due to a ferocious winter storm, things got mixed up a bit and rearranged some. Baby Bear started piano lessons in September this year, and just loves it! She has the greatest piano teacher, who is calm and sweet and boy can she play the piano! Each year, all the students choose a song to play at the Christmas recital, Baby Bear chose to play "Away In A Manger". She also turning to to quite the fashionista, she loves dresses now, versus a few months ago I couldn't hardly get her near a dress. She is also loving have longer hair again, and being able to have curls, and French braids.

She worked really hard to get the timing right, to play the right notes, and to play the whole piece without looking at her fingers. On the recital night Baby Bear was the first person to perform. She did a super job! No stage fright, no hesitation and to her credit NO mistakes! She was just thrilled and so were Papa Bear and I.

Baby Bear seems to have grown 5 years in the past 5 month, she is such a joy to have in our family, we just adore her. I will leave you with the video of Baby Bear's musical number. (That is if the video uploaded correctly!)

Winding Down

Christmas is just around the corner, and with a full weekend long blizzard blowing through, it sure looks the part outside. We are keep warm in our little cave, enjoying having the 3 of us snowed in for the weekend.

We are looking forward to a milestone this month, Papa Bear will be finishing up his first semester next week! He has a couple of big projects due, and 4 final exams to get ready for, but after that we get him at home for 3 full weeks! He tells us that he has really enjoyed school so far, and is excited about what is to come. We are so proud of our Papa Bear! On his major tests and mid terms, his tests scores have been between 79% - 108%.

Baby Bear has really enjoyed the snow fall this last week, and was even more thrilled when she found her sled in the shed. She spent a full hour sliding down the ditches by the house on Thursday. I am so glad we live at the dead end of a lonely country road, so she could play outside. I am trying to come up with some more inside activities, since tomorrow will be really cold and there is no school.

We hope you are all keeping warm!

Halloween

Well, Halloween was more than a month ago, but I am trying to catch up on these missed posts. So here is goes.

Baby Bear wanted very much to dress up this year, for her class party, I reluctantly agreed to let her, but with some strict guidelines regarding her costume. This is what I came up with, using only items we already had

On the day of the class party, I was running errands and planned on meeting Baby Bear at the school after lunch to help her into her costume, which I had with me. I was on my way to the school, when I got a phone call from Baby Bear's teacher, telling me the costume parade was about to start and Baby Bear was without her costume. Well, I didn't know there was a parade, I didn't make it to the school in time for her to put on her costume. I was upset at the lack of communication, and Baby Bear was fit to be tied that she was the only child who didn't have a costume for the parade.

I was able to calm down the angry little bear, and get her into her costume so she could participate in the little party. Lesson learned though, next year the costume will be going to school with Baby Bear, not to the Grocery store with me.

Thanksgiving

I am Canadian, but I am posting about Thanksgiving today, on U.S. Thanksgiving. Why the 2 different dates? Weird. Anyway our Thanksgiving was done in 2 parts this year, and I am sad to say I didn't take a single photo of either event!

We went to my families home on Thanksgiving day, and had a blast! We had fun all day with rock band, and a bit of shopping. The meal was cooked by my older brother, who made the most delicious food ever! I really had no idea that he could even cook! The stuffing was my favorite part.

The following weekend we spent with Papa Bears family, their get togethers are far quieter than with my family, but just as fun. The food was pretty good, (but I won't lie, the 1st meal was better) and the company was great too. We had lots of fun playing with the babies, and playing the crazy confusing games that Papa Bears brother always brings.

We hope that your Thanksgiving was or is just as much fun as ours.

Whoops

Well, we have been very bad bloggers here lately. Sorry about that. We will do some updating very very soon. Things like Thanksgiving, Halloween and all the other fun stuff us bears have been up to. Stay tuned!

Wedding Fun

My little brother got married last Friday. It was such a fun day, being with family and celebrating with the happy couple. My job for the wedding was sewing (of course!), and I really enjoyed working on the dresses for the 3 bridesmaids and 2 flower girls. I also made a vest for the groom & ring bearer, 2 bow ties and my first ever long tie. I do not have permission from the entire wedding party, so I won't post pictures of everything today. If I do get permission, I will post more pictures of the day. For now, I will leave you with one I snapped of Baby Bear at the lake in her fancy dress.

Climb Every Mountain

It was a beautiful day here in Bear country, so nice I thought for a moment it was July, not the middle of September! I was struck by a stroke of genius today, as I was thinking about the nice weather and how little we have explored our new home. We didn't get a summer vacation this year, because of the move. Weekend trips are out due to heavy class loads at school and very little money. So I came up with a plan that would keep us close to home and be fairly inexpensive.

Papa Bear doesn't have school of Friday, and Baby Bear gets out early, we decided to get Baby Bear right from school and go to the very near by National Park. It is a breathtaking 40 minute drive away, and it is a great place to do some exploring. Baby Bear was thrilled that we were going to the mountains, and so we decided to climb one! Granted it is more like a large hill, and you don't even come close to breaking the tree line, but to her little legs it was mountain enough.

The mountain we climbed is a popular easy hike, called Bears Hump as seen below in the photograph. We had a nice picnic on top, enjoyed the great view, the sunshine and the wonderful fall breeze. Afterwards we enjoyed an ice cream and a leisurely drive around the village.

This is a picture of the view, looking south towards Montana. You can see the little village, the lakes and the mountain range. I plan on finding out which mountain is which so I can label this picture.

The Reason

We moved 2 months ago, to a little house on the Prairie. We like it, it has become home to us. We did a major renovation to it, and have made it ours. I often get asked why we would move where we did. There are lots of reasons, and a few days ago as Baby Bear & I were getting ready to meet the bus I was able to photograph one of the reasons we live where we do.

School Days

WHEW! It has been a crazy couple of weeks here. Baby Bear went back to school on the 31st of August, and Papa Bear went back to school on the 8th of this month. It took up a lot of my energy getting their things ready for them. We did manage to get everything, including a bag of textbooks for Papa Bear that weigh roughly the same as Baby Bear.

Baby Bear is enjoying Grade 2! (when did she grow up?) She has 2 cousins in her class, the bonus of being in a small town school! The other bonus is that there are only 13 children in the class. Yay! for small schools! Papa Bear on the other hand, is in college so his classes are huge! He is enjoying his classes so far, I believe his exact words were "School rocks!"

I don't have a first day of school picture for either of my school goers, but I do have this 5th day of school picture of Baby Bear. The fall clothes are out in stores, and the colours this year are fantastic!

Long Time...

It has been a long time since I posted, sorry about that. We are moved, we have been in our new house for 3 weeks now after spending 2 weeks at my in-laws place. Our quick renovation turned into a major overhaul overnight. I guess that is to be expected in an old house. We ran into a few problems, but after a few trips to Home Depot we managed to get it all done. Now we are on to other things, and getting ready to go back to school! We had a fun time shopping for school supplies, and new shoes. Thanks to my brilliant planning ahead, the only things we had to buy for Baby Bear in the way of school clothes was 2 pairs of jeans. It has been fun getting Papa Bear ready for school to, there is still a long list for him, but he can shop on his own.

Not much new other than that here. Baby Bear would like to show off her "new" smile though. Happy rest of the summer all.

Empty

MAN! Our house looks like we are camping!

SO! Here is the new look!

What do you think?

Quick Update

Quick update! Things are good. Packing is coming along kind of slow, and time is running out so I am sure it will pick up here soon ;-) Baby Bear and I were able to spend some of last week with extended family we haven't seen in a long time. It was really fun, Baby Bear jumped right in with the other girls her age and I didn't see her for nearly the entire evening. We also spent a few hours cleaning our new "cave". We don't have running water there yet, due to a leak in the bathroom so wall washing had to wait. We have some big plans for this new cave of ours, we will be doing some renovations! I am excited to break our my paint roller and go to town, Papa Bear will be putting his flooring talents to good use, and replaceing the old, old, Old lino that is currently in part of the cave. Stay tuned for a FULL feature before and after photo post to come!

Speaking of rennovations! The BLOG is getting one too! Very excited for our new look!

Quickly

Time is moving very fast toward our moving day. I have been super busy packing, sorting and selling, and launching my little sewing company. Things are good, we are all happy! Forgive us if the updates are few and far between for the next month or so, we will catch up soon!

Until then, enjoy this amazing Tile work that Papa Bear did! It is all slate tile, which is tricky to work with, but he did a fabulous job! I should mention as well, that he put down all the hardwood in this house too!

First is tile that goes around the island in the kitchen.

Next is The fireplace, tiling on the diagonal is not as easy as you might think.

Last is the entrance, So pretty!

♥ The Three Bears♥

Moving Along

Things are moving along in my quest to pack this house. I showed a picture a while back of the sewing room at the very start of my packing.

I was still in the d-junk stage at that point, I took a photo about a week ago to compare if I had made any progress yet. I think it is pretty obvious that I made the mess a lot worse! I was able to get rid of the larde storage unit, but I gained a PIANO! Baby Bear is excited about that, she is going to start taking lessons in the fall.

I had a burst of energy the past couple of days, so I put it to good use and I am very pleased with the actually progress that has been made. The final photo is one taken today, things are moving along.

July 1st

It is Canada Day today! Papa Bear has the day off, and we sure like it when he gets to stay home. We did some yard work today, the lawn really needed it. I don't have before and after pictures bacuase that is just, WAY too embarassing! We went on a bike ride, got some ice cream and just spent some time together.

This morning Baby Bear helped me out again, by modeling some skirts I made for the Etsy shop I recently opened. It was really fun to see her creativity in posing, like the last time, Baby Bear had complete control over where and how to pose. Here is a few of our best shots.

Where the WILD THINGS are.

Well, they are at the ZOO! And that is where the Bear House was on Saturday. It was the Bear country family reunion over the weekend, and we spent some time in the big city with our fellow bears. It was a great time playing with the medium sized bears and snuggling the little bears. Enjoy some pictures we got of some of the wild things we saw!

The Bear cousins.

Baby Bear was thrilled they had HIPPOS! I was thrilled that they were out and visible.

You could get really close to these long legged friends.

This guy was just wandering around the Zoo!

It's Summertime!

Not much new to report here. The sorting of the house is moving along nicely, we have several things we have decided to sell rather than haul them with us. Papa Bear is still excited to be going to school. It seems like it is taking a long time for the first day to get here, but looking back it has been 2 months since we decided to move! So I am sure the remaining time will go quickly as well.

Baby Bear's last day of grade one is tomorrow! This school year has flown by and she has learned tons! Stay tuned for the end of the year report, and perhaps a happy dance or two. We hope you all have a wonderful summer! See you soon.

Fun in the SUN

It was a super nice weekend here in Bear Country. We spent part of Saturday at the beach. First trip this year! Papa Bear & Baby Bear enjoyed the sun, sand and the lake, while I enjoyed the shade and a book. This next weekend looks really promising too, so I suspect we will be heading out there again, maybe this time with lunch!

A big THANK YOU!

I am pleased to announce that JaeJay has seen success already! After just 4 days, There are 29 members of the facebook group! I am thrilled! Plans are being made for an official Grand Opening of the Etsy shop. I have set July 1st as the day that I will be up and running there. I am currently working on some new things for the shop and setting up the first Give Away! That I will be running during the grand opening. I am so humbled at the support I have already gotten, and so grateful for all of you.

THANK YOU!

Going into Business

I have decided to try selling some of my creations. I like to sew, anyone who knows me knows that. I have been told a lot recently that I should sell my stuff, so after weeks of thinking and planning I am going to take the plunge! It will be slow going at first, I have only a few things ready to go.

I created an Etsy shop you can see HERE.

I created a Facebook Group which you can join HERE.

Orders are accepted at either place.

Here is a sample of what I have for sale currently.

Come by and see the rest of my stuff! and feel free to Buy!

The Beginning

So the news is out! The Bear house is moving. The rumor mill is running at full speed judging from the amount of corrections I have to make each time I am asked to confirm a version of the story. We are beginning to get ready to maybe think about starting to pack. The weekend was spent sorting out the stuff in the basement, emptying boxes and sorting the contents. Baby Bear was surprisingly cooperative about it too, there were a few boxes of kids stuff we decided to just get rid of and she didn't even bat an eye. This means 1 or 2 things, 1-she is growing up and showing her maturity or 2-she has WAY too much junk already and didn't really notice the 2 boxes and 1 garbage bag leave the house. I would like to think it is the first one, but I am afraid to say it is most likely the second one.

With our mind turned to minimizing this is what the sewing room currently looks like:

All the things we are trying to sell so we don't have to move them. That is nothing compared to what the basement looks like now. See for yourself!

That is the view from the top of the back stairs, I was way too embarrassed to show you Papa Bears workout space which is more heaps of stuff than space right now.

We are happy.

We are excited.

Just be happy for us.

More Camping!

We spent the weekend camping again! Papa Bear was able to have Friday off, after working extra hard the rest of the week. We headed to the deep south to set up camp, but that was just the ruse we came up with. The real reason we wanted to go visit was to see the newest member of the family! We had a lot of fun with everyone, and the camping was good too.

Night Out

There was a movie night at the school today, we didn't stay for the movie part it was getting late. Baby Bear enjoyed running around with her friends, eating pizza and just HAD to get her face painted. Pretty inexpensive way to entertain a little bear for an evening.

May Long Weekend...

...was spent camping and fishing. 

What else would bears do?

More Changes

There are more changes happening here at the Bear house. BIG changes too! Papa Bear is going to go to school in the fall, and the school is not in our current town. We will be making a big move in late August. There is much excitement here in the Bear house about this. 

It is kind of funny though, when you have a plan and suddenly you have committed to doing something very different. You see, we had a plan. 2 Months ago we had a good plan, our lives where falling into place and we were happy and excited. Out of no were we had a thought, and suddenly we were having second thoughts about our first plan. In a matter of 1 week, we had completely changed our plans. I should say, our plans were changed for us. 

We know we are being guided and that this big change is what we need to do. We will be sad to leave this town, we love it here. I guess change in necessary for growth, so we are off to grow!

Good Day

I had a good mother's day yesterday, despite looking like I had been in an altercation the night before. Baby Bear was super sweet, she was all geared up for the traditional best pancakes on earth breakfast in bed, but realized quickly that I can't chew, kind of a bummer. Not to be down for too long Baby Bear brought me an envelope of things she had made at school. 

Inside was a handmade card with a touching get well message written inside and,

A raft, I wondered about it for a minute, but she quickly explained it was for my drink.

 

Papa Bear also gave me a gift, something that I will treasure.

It certainly was a day of rest at the Bear house yesterday, and I was grateful for it. We enjoyed a nice quiet afternoon, my favorite way to spend a Sunday. The only really disappointing part was that Baby Bear spoke in Primary yesterday and I missed it! I was told she did very well though I would have liked to have been there. I hope your Mother's Day was great too.