creativelykate

Last week the kids and I traveled to Barrie, Ontario to meet up with our family photographer Tim Smith from Shutterhead Photography .  For the past couple weeks we had been on standby waiting to hear from Tim, in hopes that we could arrange a photoshoot while the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  It seems this year they were a little late arriving, but when I finally got the call I knew it was only a matter of days before they would be gone so we immediately scheduled a time and meeting place.  Unfortunately on the day of the shoot, they were calling for rain all day and we nearly had to cancel.  However, at the last minute I decided to make the long trek north to Barrie - rain or shine...and thankfully just as we arrived the clouds began to clear and it turned out to be a beautiful evening (much like the evening back in April when we went to visit the cherry blossoms in Toronto). For the photoshoot my original plan was to do some maternity photos with only my daughter because

For the past several weeks I've been enjoying delicious salads for lunch at least a few days every week.  They look pretty intricate and maybe even a little intimidating to prepare but honestly they were so simple to make.  In the past I've often taken salads for lunch but since having kids my lunches have dwindled down to grabbing last's night leftovers - much less time consuming...especially first thing in the morning when I'm running around trying to get myself ready, help with the kids and get out of the house by 7:15am.  In April I started teaching kindergarten full-time and suddenly my mornings got even crazier.  After forgetting to set my alarm one morning I woke up with just enough time to brush my teeth, get dressed and throw a bunch of raw, unwashed vegetables and some spinach into a large Tupperware container.  My hubby actually laughed at me when he realized what I was bringing for lunch, then passed me some salad dressing..."this might help"

Look who's 2!   Our little guy turned 2 last Sunday.  We invited our immediate family and a few friends to join us for a birthday barbeque in celebration...although we tried to keep our numbers low, we had almost 25 people for dinner.  You can't really invite a 2 year old to a birthday party and not include their parents - suddenly one guest turns into 4 or even 5 (depending on the size of the family).  The nice thing is some of our closest friends these days are people we've met because of our kids.  When we do find time to get together our kids always have such a blast and my hubby and I look forward to spending some quality adult time with our friends - double bonus! Although not everyone knew each other, it wasn't long before all our guests were interacting and enjoying the afternoon.  There was very little structure in terms of activities and games (very different from the party we had for our 5 year old last fall).  Instead, I relied on parent