Pure Ella

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winter wonderland

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Actually it’s the Winter Festival of Lights – but it might as well be a winter wonderland. It certainly was full of wonder!

We spent the 1st weekend of 2011 in Niagara Falls (the Canadian side ;)  My mom lives there so it was an easy and convenient trip to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ – see her and the lights. My daughter loved it because her favourite characters were dazzling bright right in front of her. The displays are on till January 31st, so mark that on your calendar and go – that’s if you’re a local ;)

For Gabriella who is 3, this was a lot of fun. It’s an annual trip we try to take and somehow I think we pick the coldest evening to go. So there wasn’t a lot of walking around but enough to feel the excitement of the event. Each time we go we plan a different zone that would include a nicer path for walking with hot chocolate and carmel popcorn stands…. spiked hot chocolate would have been nice, to get people warmed up – but this is a city event so that is definitely not happening ;)

At my mom’s we relaxed a bit, had dinner and desserts, watched VHS tapes (they were hilarious to see and we laughed when we had to rewind one of the tapes). We saw While You Were Sleeping, every year it’s the same movies ;) It’s great to be at mom’s ;) My daughter was in a dancing mood and kept spinning round and round – as a mom, I watched with my heart panting outside of my chest! (She wore the cutest fuchsia polka dot dress from Gymboree which was a gift from my friend and kept calling herself a lady bug ;))

Later we had tea and desserts. I brought a gluten-free, vegan treat that was AMAZING! A yummy cake with apples and cranberries! Ahh… I will share the recipe with you next week. My mom made roll pastries that used to be my favourite one with poppy seeds and one with chocolate. My mom makes the best desserts but it’s hard to go so much out of her comfort zone with baking – she’s still confused… ‘you mean a cake with no flour, no eggs, no butter and no yeast?’ Yup, I said. She made the roll pastries with all the ingredients above. Moms are the best ;)

Today we are getting the first REAL snow (real snow is snow that needs shovelling) – so it’s a sleigh ride day for sure! Let me know what you’re up to this weekend?

I hope you have a lovely weekend my friends.

Comments

  1. Oh that looks like fun! Our local botanical garden does something like this, a “garden of lights”. Sadly we didn’t get to go this year, but it is always much fun. Looking forward to the recipe!

  2. I love your photos…we actually went to Niagra Falls for the first time over Thanksgiving..we enjoyed it so much..especially all the lights..so much fun..you are so lucky that you get to go all the time! How wonderful!!

  6. The festival of lights looks so nice! And your little lady bug is so adorable, I just love the pictures of her dancing! It’s hard to figure the whole GF baking though. I have a bunch of GF flours here, and everything I’ve tried to make did not taste edible, except for 1 recipe. So I keep going back to wheat flour (I don’t have health issues with wheat), but one day, I’d love to have a couple baked GF recipes in my book that I can make for the kids too. Can’t wait to try yours when you share it :)

    Have a great weekend!

  7. Ohhhhhhhhhh how cute!! I don’t even really like that poppy cake- but right now I really miss it!! Nothing like being at mom’s. Love you, xo.

    • We missed you too babe. I only went with the father-in-law and Gabi
      you would have had a lot of fun (and so would he) he he

    • Oh wow Miranda. That looks beautiful – for sure way more fun to have a whole street in lights ;)
      Thanks for visiting my blog. Stay Warm ;)