The times of me being reckless and not caring about measuring the body temperature of a sick child are gone. Long ago, I used to rely on my gut feeling about it. I prefer to control a situation now. Besides, I want to be able to tell the doctor how exactly the illness developed.

Marge was ill for the past two weeks, her temperature was going up and down all by itself, and I just couldn’t keep everything in my head. So I drew myself this handy template to fill and it actually helped me a lot when we had a doctor appointment. And having a true picture of what is happening helps not to panic beforehand.

If I were a poet, I would definitely write a poem about Latvian weather. It has so many faces and it changes its mood like a patient of a psychiatric clinic! We have weeks of tropical heat in July, we freeze to our bones in February. October either pours or drizzles on us and we have thunderstorms each night in June. Then we always have a whole week of rains around midsummer holiday time, that’s for sure. Our weather is truly unpredictable (except that rainy midsummer week). Yesterday we could easily go for a swim. Today we are wearing jackets (and some of us even gloves). Yep, one can’t be bored with our weather. It’s really inconvenient though when you’re trying to plan outdoor shoot. So when you have a sunny or at least partly sunny evening, you must grab it!

I am a cleaning freak. I like pleasing my eyes with a beautiful interior around me instead of trying to find the couch behind the mess. And I like tidying up things. And I actually do it all the free time I have while my littlest one is awake, so I also believe that I deserve some rest when she goes to sleep. Well, this is me.

I’m raising my third toddler now, and this stage of her age is the hardest for me as for the cleaning freak. She can mess everything around us much faster than I can clean it. She is much skillful of messing things than me of cleaning our rooms. Usually I like having my floor washed at least once in two days (don’t like feeling sand under my feet in our home), but now I can’t get to actual floor washing for weeks! Well, this is her.

I have two bigger girls on a summer break in addition to Marge now. They can clean, I’ve seen them doing it. But the sad truth is, they don’t seem to see any point in doing it. Besides, they have so many things that it’s no wonder that their young minds just can’t cope with the cleaning process. I must admit, there are times when I feel lost in their room too. Well, these are them.

As you probably already know, Anastasia celebrated her 8th birthday recently. Making birthday party invitations by ourselves has already become a tradition in our house. We try to think of a different way to do it every time, as Anastasia’s writing skill evolves. This activity always involved a lot of drawing, cutting, glueing, designing and writing. But this time I drew the templates on the computer and Anastasia had to cut and glue them together, so as write her friends names in.

Tadadadam! Do you hear the sound of drums and  trumpets? It’s my blog that has turned one year old! Once upon a bright and sunny spring morning (that actually happened a little bit more than a year ago) I was drinking my morning tea and reading my favorite blog feeds. The feed was bursting with lush colors in anticipation of a warmer season. For me it had always been a great source of inspiration and good mood for the whole day. I was sitting in my cosy green kitchen, that had been cleaned right the day before, and was eating a zephyr brought by my husband specially for me. Marge was obviously planning on staying a few days more in my belly and I had some free time and was feeling very creative.

First of all, I’m sorry to interrupt my 365 serries, that I always post on Sundays. Don’t worry, the project still goes on, and the post about the past week has in fact already been written. I just decided to postpone it till Monday as I have something greater to share for today!

(Just in case if you’re searching for the 2016 calendar, it’s here!)

Yeah, I know, you are thinking now, isn’t it a bit too late for a calendar? Well, I’d say, it’s never too late for a good habit, and these printable calendar pages will help me and hopefully some of you to start one.

Do you like to get together with friends and share interesting activities, like crafting or baking? Well, I do. And my kids do either. And now that it’s time for a winter cookies baking (I have one favourite cookies’ recipe for this time of a year that I’m going to share next time), Anastasia decided to invite her friends for cookies baking party!

To make the countdown easier, I drew this calendar (girls received it with a letter from elves).

Click to download English version.

Click to download Russian version.

I’m pretty sure, this time is the most favourite time of a year to my kids. Though, we not a truly religious family, we have our concept of why this holidays are so important to every human being and I’m also constantly seeking what this holidays really mean to me. That said, while it’s so unpleasingly cold outside, these days are always filled with warmth and magic in our house.