Little friends on the porch...

We spent much of the afternoon out on th eporch with our little feathered friends. We had three female Hummingbirds out there and one male....but it seems impossible for me to get a picture with any of them together....the closest I could get was a blurry picture of two in the same shot....and the male seems to be very unwilling to have his picture taken. What a shame as his red collar would look so gorgeous in the sunlight!

The birds and the bees......

Click on the picture to see this much bigger - a wasp chasing a Hummingbird from the feeder :)

Another design meeting.....

TV Design shows always make the planning of renovations and meeting with arc hitects and designers look really exciting and interesting...

Today we met with our builder again and went over the plans...again....and talked numbers...again....
and talked dates...again. We also ran into a kitchen counter store to have a look at samples of different colours and edges and materials....

And it's all stressful and tiring and....boring! I feel like its constant window shopping which isn't my kind of fun.....and Lloyd and the builder get into discussing measurements of beams and walls and windows and all that.....

I just want to pick out cabinets and flooring and get it DONE already....I just don't want all the hassle in between....and now we are looking at timescales and I will not have a finished kitchen for Christmas - thats almost definite.....even if the kitchen cabinets are in, the counters will not be ready....and the grading and patio and all the outside 'stuff' won't be done until next year....

And then we discussed doing the addition over the garage first and then the kitchen next year.....because the master bedroom/ bathroom and the bathroom renos and laundry room etc won't have quite as much of an impact on Christmas compared to a house with no kitchen and all the work taking place downstairs....

So who knows....and my head hurts.

It will all be worth it in the long run - or so everyone keeps telling me.....

Louise - Marks and Spencer

Hi Louise! We don't have M&S here in Canada - they used to but I was told that the last one closed a year or so before we arrived in Canada. I think they sold a little food and some clothes etc - not sure what else but I don't think they were quite like the M&S stores back home....

The Thomas sweater was a gift from Lloyds parents.....the children get quite a few clothes from M&S as gifts from Grandparents or as hand-me-downs from my Sisters Son Isaac.

A lot of Canadian Moms I know look on Ebay for Next, Monsoon and M&S childrens clothing to buy used and have sent over - its really popular because its a little different to the clothing here and for the most part the clothing they sell here is really poor quality.

We've had quite a few comments on Sams Thomas sweater....oh and thats another thing thats different - here in Canada Thomas is called Thomas the Train!!!!!! I still find that weird - I'm so used to Thomas the Tank Engine lol! It took me a while to figure out what a caboose was over here.....(a train carriage). Considering they speak English here for the most part, its still like learning a whole new language....but we're getting there and right now I kind of speak a blend ;)

Charlynn - coffee cake recipe

Hi Charlynn, the coffee cake is a simple white cake recipe - I simply dissolve a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee in a little boiled water and add that to the wet ingredients at the time you would add the vanilla - I often add the vanilla as well as the coffee flavouring.

The butter icing is normal butter icing again with the same amount of dissolved coffee mixed into it.

The icing is confectioners sugar dissolved in a little of the dissolved coffee. Decorate with walnuts - supposedly so that each slice has a walnut on top.

Marks and Spencer do a lovely coffee and walnut cake if you are ever in the UK :) But then they also do a lovely toffee cake too mmmmmmmm