Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Happy easter



: : new friends - a colleague of Cris, a cheerful young girl and her creative mum - from Sao Paulo : : 
: : silk paper-painted Easter eggs : : 
: : wet felting : : 
: : Ouro Preto's Easter procession and its wood-shaving carpets : :
: : a treasure hunt for homemade chocolate eggs : :
: : bacalhoada : :
This is how we celebrated Easter this year.
















Saturday, April 19, 2014

{this moment}

A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.
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Sunday, April 13, 2014

More puppy love

For one week already we have had this morning ritual where Leila wakes up, quietly gets out of bed and visits Thembile and her puppies until comes the time for Coline and I to slip out of sleep and the three of us find ourselves with a puppy each in our hands, mesmerized by these warm furry pocketsized little beings. It has not been that hard lately to get any of us lazy cats out of our beds. And the girl's new sets of warm flanel pyjamas does the trick in the evening, some pleasant sewing improvised soon after the first complaints were heard of their pyjamas being too cold for them to change clothes and go to bed. Soon we will be in the mood for some flanel sheets too, and perhaps even a little heating and for sure as much puppy love as we can get until they find a new home. Isn't it a pity that you all live so far away?!





Friday, April 11, 2014

{this moment}

. . . . . . . . .
{this moment}
A Friday ritual inspired by Soulemama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.
. . . . . . . . . .

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Our trip to a land of snow

There have been some requests and so it is with great pleasure that I present today some pictures of our February trip to a land of snow.

We were blessed with amazing weather in this little ski ressort of the Pyrenees (les Agudes), a late afternoon of sledding and throwing snowballs, some heavily cheesy winter-in-the-mountain dinner, a bit of play before bedtime and a good belly laugh with Coline and mamie, an early morning escape for me, or so I thought, but Leila caught up with me as this early bird usually does when anyone tries to sneak out, us having breakfast while watching the snow fall outside, and then my successful escape to make it to the opening of the slopes, just as the sun came out and made it all shine white, the cold wind that bites my cheeks and the tip of my nose and imobilizes my lips while the rest of my body is snuggled up in warm waterproof garments, this feeling that my lungs and heart are too small to take in such overwhelming beauty and feeling of greatness at being up there so close to the sky, so free sliding down the soft snowy hills nothing compares to. Sigh! What a priviledge to be there.

Leila made it quite clear that she was going to ski, and that she did, regulatory helmet on, in the morning sun with mamie and until she was the last one on the rolling carpet with tatie. There was none of the regular complaints about the clothes being too itchy and her legs too tired, she was just into it.

Coline, our little miss naked, who did not wear a pair of trousers on any other occasion during this stay, did allow me to dress her up, layer upon layer, but only once she was already feeling the cold on her skin. She and Leila described the snow to grandpa as "delicious" and eating snow is what she did for most of the time, or when she was not busy making little snow people of throwing snow balls or rolling herself in the snow.

These 27 hours of us the females of the french-brazilian clan in the mountains were pure bliss.













 








Sunday, April 6, 2014

many more (puppy) lives

In the play house today we welcomed many more little beings. I was deeply touched at attending the very first birth of my life that wasn't mine or my daughter's (and how strange it is when I think about it). Oh what a beautiful day, one where I got to see sunrise as Cris woke me up on his way to a town far away for a week, how immensely more awake I felt when he said Thembile was digging under the terrace and hiding away, and many hours and cuddles and panting later, seven tiny maowing puppies on their simply professionnal first time mum. It is hard to keep it out of my mind that finding a home for all seven of them is not going to be a piece of cake, but today was just about being together and life, the beginning of it, being just perfect.