More sleep caps in store!

I just loaded up some more sleep caps into my on-line store. Thanks to all my customers! as this is our travel fund for Lesotho. We are constantly amazed by how many sleep caps we have sold; I guess it is simply because they are the best hair protection product out there! (Not to toot our own horns or anything, but seriously, they are!)
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.
Sleep Caps Store Open!
Our last days in Addis
Yes! We are home now… but before we left, we met with more of our partners, and stopped at a friends’ mom’s bar to eat some tibs and toast our successful trip with tej!
New Traditional Clothes for the Family
Today we went shopping at the shiromet at the base of Entoto Mountain in Addis. We had lots of fun…But my mom still complained that I was a woman on a mission. I agreed! Not only did I have some shopping for the family to do, I also was buying lots of beautiful scarves, bracelets, hoodies, etc. for our Vulnerable Children fundraiser when we get home. T was also out shopping today, and she scored some roasted coffee beans to sell (to go along with the green beans I purchased in Nakemte. See a preview of our fundraiser sale here.)
The problem with traditional clothes is that they tend to (literally) fall apart at the seams. So today I was shopping with an eye for stitching.
I got two lovely dresses for my girls. Their others are falling apart, and they wear them several times a year. Spice, the white and black one is for you…just like mine! And Sugar, the yellow one is for you, it has the same stitching as your sister’s!
I also got a traditional outfit for a three year old boy… we still haven’t heard any news about our April matching meeting in Lesotho. But I thought it would be good for “the new guy” to have Ethiopian clothes when we go to parties, too.
I got a cool hoodie for myself…it’s a new style and it actually really suits me. I also got some bracelets. For Jrock I got the beginning of our coffee set. He wanted me to buy a traditional pot and these are the cups I chose to go with it. Cute, eh?
Lastly, I got two suits for the girls. They’re the latest traditional clothes style, and I thought they would e good for winter Ethiopian events. You girls can choose which on is for whom. They are the same except that they each have a different pattern on the stitching.
After shopping until we dropped (Thank you, thank you, Sintayehu, who negotiated for us and drove us around.) We tried to find my favourite tibs restaurant near the university. Well, I think we may have ended up in the wrong place, but it turned out that the sheep tibs (and I am NOT a mutton fan) were the second best meal I’ve had so far. Only second to the Nakemte Mate Resort omelettes. Tomorrow we have meetings and then we are off to Dukum to see my friend M’s family, and then on to Adama/Nazret. I can’t wait to see Meseret and the new Faya Orphanage digs!
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)
The Simpsons in Little Ethiopia
Even Marg loves Ethiopian food!!!! I had to laugh, because I felt like her a bit when I first pulled into the Queen of Sheba in Calgary Downtown thos many years ago… now all I think is “yummy!” and “home.”
The Easter Bunny visits Prince George

We spent 3 days at Easter up in Prince George, visiting my best friend S, her husband T and their little daughters. The daughters names are also S and T - which could get confusing. So from here on out, I’ll refer to them as Mac and Cheese.
I was reminiscing during our visit – although only 22 months old, Mac and Cheese are the same size (weight and shoe size, anyway) as our girls were when we brought them home just short of their third birthday. So little! So packable!
Sugar and Spice were apparently reminiscing as well, since they turned from independent 5.5 year olds who can make their won breakfast and get ready for school, into helpless children who needed mommy to put their pants on. But whatever. With Jock gone, I’ve spent a lot of my time at home with them ignoring them and trying to get my work done, so it was a chance to coddle, nurture and lovey-dove them up for a few days.
We went to the local science centre as well as to a friend of S&T’s for an Easter egg hunt, but the highlight was definitely just hanging out and catching up.
Funny, I could tell the girls apart right away, even though I hadn’t seen them since last summer… and didn’t mix them up once! Must be a mom-of-twins thing
However, I may have mixed them up in the pictures… the chick pic, I can’t remember who was wearing what, and I can’t see her face! lol
Enjoy the pictures!
- S letting all the girls “fix” her hair. So patient!!
- Honestly, this is not her regular look.
- Spice and Sugar growling like bears at the science centre.
- Cheese, checking out the chicks at the science centre.
- Spice concentrating on making her Ukrainian easter egg (clear crayon and multiple dips!)
- T is really a hands-on dad… I think he enjoyed the decorating as well.
- Sugar helping Mac with her egg decorating.
- S and her namesake (Sugar) chopping up some strawberries for breakfast.
- The girls opening up the candy treasures they found in the nest at the end of their airmattress bed.
- Cheese opening up the eggs in her Easter nest.
- Mac opening up an egg she found. S’s non-barette usual look.
- Cheese and Mac enjoying the bunnies their gramma sent for them
- All the kids ready for the outdoor Easter egg hunt. The big girls are so helpful with the little ones!
- Sugar running for the next clue!
- S, Mac, Cheese, Sugar, Spice and I post-nap, watching Nanny McPhee on TV.
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!
At the Cultural Fashion Show
We all had such a great time at the cultural fashion show at UBC last week!
The dresses from the Toronto Fashion Week Dare to Love show were amazing… but equally as cool were the traditional costumes from all over the world.
We ended up being a huge group of people that knew each other, with ties to Ethiopia. We actually ended up with 3 five year olds, 1 six year old, a couple of eight year olds and a couple of teens, in addition to all the moms. Such a blast!
The girls stayed up way way too late, but it was so worth it. They were just enthralled the whole time, and it was just such a positive experience for all us. (All proceeds to the amazing Stephen Lewis Foundation, BTW.) Spice especially, my fashionista, was making all these insightful comments and exclaiming over the details.
Enjoy the photos… I went a little paparazzi, but seriously, it was such a fab time. It was over an hour long, but here are my favorite pics.
- Our neighbor
- My friend M and her son
- A and her two neices from down the street
Planting Potatos
Well, our first veggies (ok, tubers) are in the ground! Sugar and Spice have been growing some of our seeding potatos… they started sprouting in the warm spot beside the microwave, so we decided to see if we could get them to the small plant stage.
It worked! By both methods, actually, so this weekend we prepared the barrels and planted the potato sprouts. With the help of our neighbor’s donation of some pop bottles, we made cloches for each plant, so hopefully they will be ok in this weird spring weather.
Funny, actually: since we got a pop machine, we just don’t have any plastic bottles anymore! So we had to schlep over to the neighbors for some discards.
I also tilled and toiled and got two of the garden beds ready for planting. The soil has been compacting, and I’m convinced the reason I can’t grow carrots for the life of me, is because of that dratted clay soil. So I worked in peat and manure… and hopefully this looser soil will produce some orange munchers.
Well, along with the daffodils in full bloom in my windowboxes, it’s official! Spring has sprung!
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???
Cultural Fashion Show for Stephen Lewis Foundation
Guess where we are off to tonight? The girls and I are off to a cultural fashion show, featuring some of the dresses form the Dare to Love show from Toronto Fashion Week! (Video above) We’re going with a gaggle of friends, and it should be a blast. All proceeds to the Stephen Lewis Foundation! Yeah!! It’ll be a late night for my pip-squeeks, but a real blast, I’m sure.
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…



























































































