Home Wong Nga and Black Cty: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Birthday Party Recap

My childhood birthday party memories are filled with images of kids, cake, balloons, presents and pinatas (my Dad would make me pinata year after year for my parties). Simple pleasures. So I put aside the idea that Oscar's birthday had to be a production, and focused on making it purely fun. And to make it purely fun, I focused on making it easy. :) My 5th birthday party with my friends from the street.We hosted a birthday party on the Saturday for immediate family, which is why I was baking up a storm. A simply BBQ, and family brought...

A kaleidoscope of colors at the Aix-en-Provenceflower market. April 2011.French markets overflow with colorful goods and good people. Visiting villages on market day is often high on the list of priorities for many travelers. You can easily build a "market-a-day" travel itinerary. I've been to many markets in Paris, Provence and the French Riviera. Indeed, it is great fun and the fresh foods, flowers and handmade crafts are especially appealing. The interaction with the vendors is both educational and entertaining.After spending nine days in Paris...

Hello everyone, I am back again as there is just so much beauty all around us now so I wanted to share some of it with you. My husband and I went for a walk on the Confederation Trail today near our home and all around us there were lovely little gifts from nature.The wild apple trees were all coming out in blossom and they are just so beautiful and they smell good too! So I had some fun with my macro lens again.Appleblossoms in my new French watering can./I hope you had some beauty in...

Did everyone have a wonderful long weekend? We had a lovely and relaxing weekend here in town not doing much of anything in particular. We attended some family gatherings and messed about the house. Sometimes those weekends are the nicest, don't you think?How about you? Did you do anything exciting, go anywhere fun, or just hang out and rel...

Hello everyone, It is the end of May already and now we are coming into June my favorite month of the year! Although I love all the seasons everything is so fresh,lush and green in June and you still have all the days of summer ahead to look forward to. We have had some visitors to the garden already and although it is still early in our garden season there is still much to enjoy.I hope you didn't notice the daffys need to be deadheaded here.These photos were taken last week and already the garden has changed. Soon the early peonies...

Oscar's Birthday weekend was great fun. There are so many different elements to the weekend that I thought I'd break them into a few posts as each element is unique and special. This is my last "Baking" post for a long, long time. ;)Some birthday cakes are fancy, and beautiful. Themed and stylized. But I think there is something perfect about a simple, classic birthday cake. My Mom makes the most delicious cakes from scratch, and one day, I will try to recreate her famous cakes, but for Oscar's birthday his cake was courtesy of a Duncan...

I can remember when I lived in New York state several years ago, Memorial Day weekend was the weekend to plant flowers in all of my containers.So I thought of all of my northern friends this weekend and wondered if that is what you all were doing.Here in NC, I am able to plant my containers a little earlier. So I planted mine a few weeks ago.I love vibrant colors, so most of my flowering plants are reds, purples and yellows.Did you plant your containers this weekend?Welcome Home,Pe...

As most of you know, I am going to be entering the world of children's clothing pattern design. I have been sewing like crazy testing out some of my new designs to see if they are ready to be sent out. But on top of all that I have added some new things to the shop that I wanted to share with you all.I will be releasing some of these designs as sewing patterns (plus some that you haven't seen) and some of them will just stay as items in my shop and may be released as patterns in the future. Strawberry Bubble Romper. This is a...