my pia

photo taken by pia (age 4)

my pia gabrielle is quite the character

she is an instagram hacker--

often hacking into my instagram and taking photos of herself and posting them

her favorite color is still blue

keeps all her "treasures" close by

and has requested that we enroll her in karate

one evening while tucking her into bed she tells us

"i want to be a parent..."

me: "why?"

pia: "because i want to stay up late and only parents stay up late..."

"what do you do after i go to bed?"

"watch lots of movies and have fun?"

blogging has been almost nonexistent lately (sorry!)

i am still getting use to the fact that my beloved macbook has died

and to be honest, things around here have been hectic!

i really need to set aside some time to blog because i really do enjoy it

(how do you all balance life, family and blogging?)

of course, you can also find me here and here too!

these i can update from my phone so it's easier to update regularly

happy monday folks! i am hoping for a little sunshine and downtime for the week

what's your hopes for the week?

old man winter

old man winter decided to pay my little corner of the world a visit

now, you are probably thinking "doesn't she live in canada?!"

doesn't it snow in canada all the time?

don't canadians live in igloos?

have beavers for pets?

cross country ski to and from work?

and say "eh" and "sorry" all the time?

and the answer is no, no, no, no and yes

i live on the west coast of canada

where our winters are relatively mild

when we hosted the 2010 winter olympics

we had to make snow

yup! we made snow to add to some of our local mountains

so much to the amusement of the east coast canadians

(the east coast of canada is an entirely different beast, weather wise)

when it snows here

our city is handicapped

holy moly!
the city shuts down
snow days

road closures

accidents, accidents and more accidents

people on the road go balistic

now i must say, i don't mind the snow

unless i am driving in it that is

(i am one of those nutso drivers only going 5km an hour)

but it sure does make everything super pretty!

do you get a lot of snow where you live?

just because

i was at starbucks a few days ago and spotted this tumbler

it was a "doodle it" tumbler, which pretty much means

you could write or draw anything your little heart desires directly on to it

i thought it would be a cute "just because" gift for my hubs

he just started drinking tea and was complaining that he

didn't have anything to put it in when he was on the go

 i brought it home and let the girls go wild

and what's pretty neat is that you could erase it and draw something new whenever you want!

pretty neat eh?

i definitely thought so!

a walk in the leaves

around this same time last year, pia and i went for a walk in the leaves

yesterday, we were driving down a pretty tree lined street and pia asked

"mama, can we walk in the leaves?"

so i parked the car, and by golly that is exactly what we did

it wasn't raining that day, but pia insisted she needed her umbrella

this little girl will be in kindergarten this time next year

boy, i sure am going to miss her

who is going to take the time to 

stop me in the middle of the afternoon and ask to go for a walk in the leaves?

how they play

ok, if you don't already know this

i am a neat freak--ok, that's putting it mildly

i think that i am borderline ocd with it comes to cleanliness

everything is always neat and organized in my home and clean

and because God is good, he made my hubs just as ocd

about being clean as me (maybe more!)

our friends have a little joke about us

is it clean? or is it diguangco clean?

but, there is one room in my house

that doesn't stay clean no matter how hard i try and i have just learned to let go

that room is the playroom

one day i walked into the playroom and saw all their stuffies and dollies arranged like this

apparently they were playing school

zoe: ok, pia i am the teacher and you are my students. we are going to learn to spell!

pia: teacher, when is recess?

zoe: not until after math... a looong time from now

pia: but i want recess now

zoe: no, it's not recess

pia: but recess is my favorite

zoe: ok, it's my favorite too, so it's recess now

later that same day, i walked in and tripped right over 

a disney princess tea party picnic

deep breath in deep breath out

at least they are cute messes right?!

happy lunches

one of the many mommyhood challenges

that i face five days a week

is preparing healthy and yummy lunches for zoe to bring to school

she has been having lunch at school since last year

so preparing lunch for her to bring to school is not new to me

but it certainly remains challenging!

i am lucky in the sense that zoe is not a really picky eater

and once she likes something, she really likes something

she can eat it everyday if i let her

right now she is really digging nutella sandwiches

she has had it almost everyday since school started

i found these super duper neat sandwich cutters

they cut the sandwich into neat shapes and take the crusts off (bonus points!)

i alternate her snacks between fruit, cheese sticks and granola bars

and zoe doesn't like juice ( makes our dentist visits way more pleasant!)

so she brings water everyday

i also stick a little "love note" on her sandwich container with

happy tape... because happy tape makes everything happier!

now, i just need to brainstorm more lunch ideas 

for when the time comes and she decides 

that she doesn't want nutella sandwiches anymore

sigh...

missoni + target = eye candy galore

i am sure that you have heard about the collaboration

 between missoni and tar-get

 this collaboration was so anticipated

that the target website was so overwhelmed with traffic 

that it was down for most of the day

(some of you must have read my frustrated tweets about it)

i did manage to successfully get onto the site later on during the day

and oh me oh my!

 all the lovely eye candy was almost to much to bear

but of course almost everything was sold out

(ahem, ebayers)

if you know me, i tend to get a little obsessed

and once i saw all the missoni for target goodies

i had to get my hands on some!

the very next morning 

we crossed the border 

(there are no targets up here in canada!)

to hit up the closest target... and there was nothing left!

but my hubs was so awesome and drove another 20 mins away

to the next target

lucky me there were still some super cute items to snag

i got these flats, which were the #1 item on my list

(pardon the flip flop tan)

zoe needed new rainboots

so why not some cute chevron ones?

and this skirt had pia's name all over it 

 and i knew zoe would just love this dress

as you can see i was a pretty happy camper leaving target!

were you guys able to snag any eye candy?

it's a sad day

these photos capture the violene and destruction

that broke out in my home town last night

after our vancouver canucks lost to the boston bruins

in game 7 of the stanley cup playoffs

i am sorry to say, but yesterday i was embarrassed to be a vancouverite

and i can honestly say that is the first time i have ever felt that

please pray for my city and for all those who were injured last night

especially those police officers, fire fighters and other emergency response teams

who risked their lives to stop the rioting.

all images via instagram

all sorts of lists

so when my sis turned the big 3-0

(hope she doesn't mind that i divulged her age!)

she managed to cross off a big to-do on her bucket list

bunjee jumping!!!

(see video below)

it got me thinking about what kind of stuff

i would have on my bucket list

i don't really have a bucket list per se

but there are a few things that i would like to do

before i ''kick the bucket''

1. be a contestant on the price is right

2. spend new year's eve in times square

3. see the eiffel tower

4. attend a taping of an oprah show
(i guess #4 is definitely not happening)

and since i was on a roll, i started thinking about

a summer to-do list

1. make homemade popsicles

2. have lots and lots of picnics in our yard

3. go camping

4. bike around the seawall with the girls

5. enroll the girls in swimming lessons

(can you believe i don't know how to swim?)

tell me,

what's on your bucket list?

or your summer to-do list?

love letters

my zoe is 3/4 of the way through kindergarten

and in that short time she has learned to read and spell

lately she has been sounding out and spelling words on her own

and has been putting together simple sentences

yesterday she came downstairs and declared that she

had a love letter for me

my favourite part is that

she knows to love herself as well

smart cookie.

my pia says the darndest things

 we were sitting in traffic this morning

when a garbage truck pulls up in front of us

and pia points and says

"atat ..."

(ate means big sister in our language but she can't say it so she says atat)

"there is your new home

the garbage truck!!"

i couldn't help but burst out laughing even though it was such a mean thing to say!

technical difficulties

so

i just spent a good chunk of time writing my

mommy day post and then when i went to publish it 

it was gone!

everything just vanished into cyber space somehow

and i am so not a techy person

i don't know how to "recover it" and all that jazz

so i guess that post will have to wait until later on in the week

anyhoo

this is my baby seester and her fiance

( i can't believe my baby seester has a fiance!)

this snapshot was taken while on vacation in new york

they just got back home today

and guess what they brought back for me?

these lovely macarons

i'll take these pretties over an i heart ny keychain any day.

a five year old's perspective on being a grown up

the other day Zoe says to me:

"Mom, it's so easy being a grown up and
so hard being a kid."

Me: "Why do you say that, Zoe?"

Zoe: "Because grown ups can do what ever they want
and kids always have to listen to the grown ups!"

Sigh, if she only knew!

On another note, the photo above was taken during
our family photoshoot over the weekend...
I love it!

I am eagerly awaiting to get the rest and when I do
I will share more photos with you all!

Happy Weekend Everyone!