My Mother’s Day Carnivorous Breakfast in Bed
For breakfast Mother’s Day Jason and the girls made me a fabulous, very meaty breakfast in bed. Yum! This is a big deal in our house, since it the one day a year that Jason cooks. (No, I don’t know what his mother was thinking either…) The girls are reasonably proficient now, so I think they did as much as her did!
The rest of the day we enjoyed at liesure, starting with a long trip to the garden store to buy a new peach tree (the old one died mysteriously after four years) and a zillion heritage tomato plants.
Then we went out for Indian, hung out with the neighbors, planted my tomatos, and relaxed. Happy Mother’s Day to me! And to the rest of you moms out there too!!
- Spice, ensuring that I have my requisite orangey vitamins.
- Vegetarians hold onto your hats – Jason is cooking.
- Note that it takes the five of them to do what I normally do – lol.
- OK, so I don’t look so fab in the morning. But the girls do. We are ALL SO floral!!
- The fathers hanging on the stoop while us moms chill.
- The sweet gifts from the girls they made in school.
“It doesn’t matter” – my daughter’s song
As promised, this is the song my daughter (5.5 years old!) and her friend wrote on the playground the other day. Their teacher heard them singing it and asked if she could transcribe it. I was pretty durn PROUD!!!
Of course, I’m not so whistfully naive to think that my girls just randomly happened along to the values of acceptance, appreciation and openess. We’ve tried really hard as parents to teach them to embrace others’ religions, cultural makeups and family structures. It is a pretty nice bonus that Sugar has found a friend who has the same values too, though! Good friends you can’t plan; they are a gift.
The girls’ beautiful multicultural murals
[Preposted] I posted about the girls’ choices for their new room murals a couple months ago, but was remise in posting the results! After 5 days of visit, Auntie Ena still has two to go… hopefully they will get finished in the early summer. Gorgeous so far, though! The girls picked the cultures for their family and friends. They also wanted Italian and Swazi, but there wasn’t quite enough room on the wall!! lol
YES, Auntie Ena does commissions….
- Canadian
- Indian
- Japanese
- Basotho (from Lesotho)
- Chinese
- Oromo (their tribe in Ethiopia)
Book Sale This Week!
My daughters are trying to raise money to fill the educational centre in Gindo, Ethiopia, with books, gardenng supplies, furniture and learning supplies.
Above is the posterboard they made to solicit book donations and tell the school about their campaign!
If you can, please stop by Raymer Elementary in Kelowna at 2:30 on Thursday the 19th to buy some books!
If you can’t make it, please consider donating a small amount to their campaign! Here is the link. Thank you so much!!!!
The picture below is of some of the kids benefiting from the preschool, library, and afterschool programs!

March pictures
Somehow I didn’t get a bunch of random pictures posted.. but they are worth posting!! Enjoy the randomness…
- “Find the palomino!” and other fun games at horse camp.
- Spice making friends.
- Auntie Ena brought some chicks to our house after a day trip to the Lower Mainland, much to Sugar’s delight.
- Spice, cuddling one of Auntie Ena’s chicks.
- Jrock and our friend C – we went on a couple’s night to Sparkling Hill Resort – decadent!!
- J and I, relaxed from the 9 saunas and ready to take on a marathon supper.
- The view from Sparkling Hill, late in the day.
- Okanagan Lake at sunset…
- The family out on a Sunday ride… The girls are so big and independant now! We rode for a few hours around town.
- My goffy girls waiting for lunch.
- Spice bowling at a friend’s birthday party.
- Silly beans.
- Sugar and Spice
- My pretty girlets.
- Our friends, back from a 3 month voyage across India.
- Sugar – up to something…
- Doing some reading with Sugar… they are both coming along nicely!
Yellow Belt!
Way to go Sugar! Today she graduated to a yellow belt in Kung Fu.
It’s funny that we managed to find such a great hobby for her – it’s nothing Jrock and I would ever be interested in. But the structure, positivity, and focus is exactly what she needs. Plus (being a chip off the old block) she doesn’t like competition against others, but excels at competition with herself. In Kung Fu there is no sparring with her peers, so the self-improvement focus is perfect for her.
Super twists! Ready for the fashion show
I’ll post pictures of the fashion show in a few days, but for now, please enjoy Spice’s new fashion show twists!
I don’t usually copy styles, but when I saw this on Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care I knew it was perfect for my little girl too. Doesn’t she look FAB???
Little Chefs

Sugar wanted to bake some muffins from her latest cookbook the other day – she now has two and is on baking fire!
So Spice (left) joined her in the kitchen to use up the last of the zucchini and together they baked delicious zucchini chocolate chip banana muffins!
I’m so proud how useful and helpful the girls are. I made a little mistake yesterday, though. Jrock bought me some new Global knives for my birthday (nice!!) and I was letting Sugar chop apples with one. Ooops! and she cut her finger. I think I’d better let her stick with the not-as-sharp knives…
Hands-free Spice-style
This kid TOTALLY cracks me up. She’s on the phone to her aunt and is having trouble coloring and chatting at the same time. So what does Spice do? She invents a new purpose for a sleep cap. Hands-free device!
Wanna buy a fab sleep cap? Visit AfricaSleeps.com , our super duper sleep caps website!
Horse camp! and next year’s B-day theme
This first week of spring a break Sugar and Spice have been going to horse camp. That’s right- morning of heavenly horsey bliss.
That’s one seriously fuzzy pony.
The girls are 2 of the 6 kids in the horsecamp. The funny thing is that 2 of the other kids’ moms have the same job as Jrock. Coincidence? I think not… Lol
They have learned about catching horses, brushing them, and of course… They are riding ponies to their hearts content. I’d you recognize the ponies, the camp is at the same place that the girls had their birthday party last year.
BTW the girls have picked their theme for next year’s birthday party. And yes, I am talking about the end of the summer! But you know you have to plan these things in advance. The theme? Drumm rollllllllllllll….
Bollywood! We’re going to have Indian food, some Bollywood dancing, bindis, menhdi and colorful fun! Of, so much fun planning… And pint-sized saris to buy!
Ski! girls ski!
We spent a Saturday up at Big White, and took the girls skiing for the first time.
Little troupers! They did awesome. It was all smiles no matter how many times the bit the snow, and they both managed to cruise the entire bunny hill at the end, top to bottom, by themselves, and ski right in behind the magic carpet!
Enjoy the pictures form a lovely day!
- Me in my boots, giving the girls some pointers. I sure ran off a few pounds up and down the hill!
- Sugar taking a well deserved break!
- Jrock cruising down the hill with Spice.
- Spice is much more cautious, but she is persistent and actually had more control by the end of the day.
- Sugar the wold one – it was hard to get her to slow down to learn some control.
Okanagan Families With Children From Africa
Our OKFCA group recently met out for our annual winter warm-up. We had a wonderful time in February out in Lavington for the fourth consecutive year. Our group keeps growing and growing, and it’s wonderful to see new families joining and enjoying themselves. If you are in the Okanagan or would like to join us for an event (we sometimes have people come up from the Lower Mainland) please check out our website!
- We met one of our friends from out of town by accident in the mall parking lot, and she and her daughter came over for the night before the event. She has a lovely daughter and our grils were thrilled!
- The girls went out skating on the Lavington rink with a bunch of the smaller kids, and the nice older boys playing hockey squeezed into one end of the rink to let our kids zip around. (Spice and her friend Z)
- It’s nice at these events, because the children see each other several times a year, and they all know each other and get along so well!
- Sugar and spice love watching and babysitting their little friend L…
- Later in the evenng we put a movie on for a bunch of the small folks so us adults could listen to a slideshow talk in peace. These are about a 1/4 of the kids!
- This is super cool. And the end of the night, a bunch fo the older girls were playing, and we overheard them… they were playing “the Queen of Sheba!” Only Ethiopian girls…
- Our adult talk (we have someone share pictures and talk each year) was from Pam Carlson, who is a member of our group and runs the fabulous Swai Kids organization. Such amazing pictures, and amazing work she has done over the last decade.
If you’d like to learn more about SwaziKids, please check out their website!
My beautiful girls!
A lovely picture of my sweet girls on our way out to the concert!
Sparks Camp
A few weeks ago the girls and I went off to our very first Sparks camp! It was organized by the local Pathfinder group, and themed all around Valentine’s Day.
The older girls did a great job of planning great crafts, although they somehow forgot to plan to take the kids outside (which I spontaneously suggested in the afternoon. But an overnight in the local Guide camp dorms, tons of crafts and food made a wonderful introduction to Girl Guide camping for the kids.
- Making a carboard car… (Spice)
- Sugar concentrating on her cardboard car.
- The girls “drove” their cars to the hall next door and had a “drive-in movie” with popcorn, skittles etc. Very exciting!
- At the “campfire” at the end of camp.
- Sugar can barely contain her excitement!
Spice lost her teeth too! and we got it on video!
She was a month or so behind her sister, but Spice finally lost a tooth – and then another two days later!
It was great timing, since the girls had just made toothfairy pillows with Gramma in Creston. They sewed them themselves! So even if Sugar lost the first tooth, Spice was the first to use her toothfairy pillow… so they both got a “first.”
The tooth fairy pillows the girls made with Gramma at her quilter's group. Aren't they cute? It may not surprise you to know I had a similar one myself
Spice’s second tooth was so loose – I knew it would come out easily. I actually got it on film! Such a brave little girl!!!



































































