Birthdays....

Birthdays are a time for smelling the flowers.....Encouraging others to take time to smell the flowers too......Colouring your favorite pet pink!

Taking the time to go to exotic places......

Trying something for the first time...all by yourself!
Indulging in a tasty treat!
Helping to make a special treat for a special person for a special day......
We made double chocolate cookies to celebrate...

Happy Birthday Auntie B! We love you!

Yes I think winter has returned. I'm freezing and my fingernails are blue. Really, they're blue. I just noticed that. No, there is no snow in our backyard....yet. I'm waiting for tomorrow morning as it's supposed to go below 0 tonight. This morning it was trying to snow flurry. Yep, love the May long weekend. Never plant your plants in the ground until after the May long weekend. Alberta rule of thumb. I didn't listen and I think I may have a few causualties. We'll see after tomorrow. My tulips are alive and well as we speak. Some have finished their bloomings....I think we should all just take time to smell the tulips...even if they don't really smell.

Some funtastic times

We went golfing on my birthday.We played nine holes and on the 9th hole....the above is what we got. Tired little kid. All she wanted to do was lay in the grass. Can't say I blame her. Even I have a tough time getting through nine holes sometimes. But she did very well and hardly even a complaint. Actually I don't think we had any complaints!

What do you think has happened in this raspberry bed?Let me give you a hint.......Apparently one doesn't need snow to do a little bum sliding! I had a helper today while I cleaned out the raspberries. She was dressed in pink and not afraid to get her little hands dirty. Was she really that helpful? No, but she was awfully funny to watch. And nothing but a steady stream of conversation from this garden helper. I'm not all that sure what she was saying, but I think there was alot of 'help' being said. "Help, help, help, help, help, ok." "Mommy, Ellie!" "Thank-you!" Dirt was flying!

I want to know.....I read a few craft blogs of very busy, multi-talented, mult-mediaed (is that a word???) crafty people, and every time they show a picture taken in their house, it's beautiful. And not just beautifully decorated, but beautifully clean. They all have kids and husbands and some have pets. HOW DO THEY DO IT????? I can't. I try and I can't. I don't have enough hours in the day. And that is that!

Ok, am posting just for posting's sake.

The weather has taken a turn for the worst. What the???? Snow, driving winds, cold air. This is not spring like. My tulips were coming up for goodness sake? Now what's to become of them? They'd better still be there when this is all said and done.

Anyone know how to deter wrascally wrabbits from eating new spring growth...ie tulips and said new greenery in my garden? I wondered if I placed a bit of doggie doo around them if that would stop them. Someone told me that rabbits fear to tred where doggies do their business. Now how to get a doggie to pee on command. Not sure. Or perhaps mark the x'd spot. Still not sure. Maybe if I strategically placed doggie doos around the garden it might help the 'stop rabbit. don't go there!' program. And it would blend into the colours of the dirt. Am I weird to think that? Maybe.

We're leaving for a week to go to Vegas. I'm worried for my spring greenery.

When a house is quiet.......

And the toddler is NOT sleeping.....

What do you think she's doing?

Yes.....do you think she wants to do what mommy does? I was busy sorting laundry or something like that, upstairs, and Lil' Missy had made her way downstairs to get into some sort of trouble....of course. But then I noticed that the house was awfully quiet. When I went downstairs, this was what I found. She had climbed on the couch, pulled my laptop off of the side table, and sat herself down on the couch with the laptop and was busy pushing buttons. Thinking that she was the greatest thing ever (which of course she is!) Then she pushed the blue shiny button that turns the laptop off. This is what happened next...

She's actually starting to get mad here because the screen has gone blank. Then she started pounding on the keyboard and I had to take the laptop away.

I tried to participate in another My Mind's Eye layout contest. But the layout I made didn't feel inspired enough to send in...so I didn't. Instead I'll post it here because the picture I used is pretty cute. The title says "Sweet like sugar" but the one thing I really dislike about acetate embellishments is that sometimes the colours they use on the acetate do not show up against anything (cardstock) put underneath. And My Mind's Eye does a lot of acetate embellishments unfortuneately. Anyhow.....I'm still plugging away on scrapbooking our Arizona trip we took last year at the end of April. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll get it finished before the end of April this year. I really hope so.............

I've got 2! Count 'em....2! More halloween layouts. I just have to photograph them. So instead I'll show my solution to putting multiple pictures on a 12x12 page. I like this solution as it's quick and easy and gives the ability to just fill the scrapbook with necessary pictures.

So the first picture is one side, and the next picture is the flip side. I had 7 pictures that I didn't feel like devoting layouts too, yet I really wanted them in my scrapbook. So this was my solution. I'm rather proud of myself and I think they turned out great.

Some random thoughts: 1.) I think blogger has a mind of it's own. Kind of sucks. 2.) Yes...I'm ready for spring. 3.) My days fly by way too fast. 4.) Right now I have a thousand projects flipping through my head....and no time to actually accomplish them. 5.) I'm going to work on my masterpieces for submission to Canadian Scrapbooker.....now!

I have a layout to post! Halloween 2009. Ellie was a pink leopard. And a darn cute one. Anyhow....

I have a couple more halloween layouts in the works....but I'm struggling to get them done. The pictures are cute, but the halloween inspiration just isn't there. I also had intended to use a totally different set of scrapbook papers to do these layouts...and it just wasn't speaking to me. So I changed. And found some really old stuff to use instead. Well, that is one of my plans for this year. Start using up the older paper that still appeals to me. Hopefully there will be a couple more pages forthcoming here shortly.

And for those interested in seeing what CHA had to offer this year for new scrappin stuff, check out this link. I found it pretty interesting. And tons of photos...which I like!

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/

New Layout!

But,..... you have to go to the My Mind's Eye blog to see it. Of course it didn't win. But if you go to the album that says Blog challenge 7; three pictures, in that album somewhere you will see my favorite girl. Hint....it was a birthday layout.
I do have a few layouts that I want to post. But I'm trying to choose a few to send into Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine. Of course they won't get published....but I'm sending them anyhow. What I don't send in I will post here in the next couple of days.

Okay....here's the link non-scrapbooking sister!!
http://mymindseye.typepad.com/blog/

Ok, new pictures for the aunties. You asked, you get.
Oh mom! Look what I found!

Wait a second....just a little comment from the peanut gallery here!

What? You talking to me?????

I'm just darn cute. No if's and's or but's.

I just tried to upload some cute pictures on Facebook and failed miserably. A lot of things on FB lately are just not working and it's frustrating. Perhaps I spend too much time there and should just ignore it for awhile. Good thought. So I'm going to post some pics here instead. That way EVERYBODY gets to see them.I bundled little miss up on saturday to take her out and help me shovel the two tonnes of snow that fell in 6 hours. First thing she did was faceplant. Didn't have my camera. So I rescued her instead and wiped the melting snow off her face. After she stopped crying she didn't really want to move, but I think she was quite interested in the white stuff falling from the sky. All I kept hearing was "whoooo, whooo". It was pretty cute. So she finally got up enough courage to walk in her marshmellow suit and she followed me up the sidewalk as I shovelled. She last about 30 minutes outside which was just long enough for me to shovel all the walkways around our house and our neighbors (my random act of kindness for the day). Then it was lunchtime and we don't mess with lunchtime in our house.

Miss E and I took a trip outside today, after supper. It was dark out, but the christmas lights already up in our neighborhood brightened things up. Miss E couldn't stop staring at the lights. We walked up the sidewalk, then back down again, then back up again. We looked at lights, Miss E pointed at lights, then she would talk to herself as she walked back down the sidewalk. I would love to know what she was saying. What does her baby gibberish mean? What is she trying to say? It was so neat, I could tell she loved the christmas lights. When one just stands in the middle of the sidewalk pointing and gibbering away, I would say she loved the chrismas lights.
I know this picture is blurry, but I still kind of like it. And Miss E doesn't stay in one spot long enough to take a good picture anyhow. She's fast!

Birthday Girl

Ellie's birthday is over. It spread out from the last week in october (we celebrated with gramma and auntie B!)All the way to yesterday, which was the 'shared' birthday party with our cute little boy neighbor, baby T!
So she is now offically one year old. Where did that time go?????

Halloween pumpkins!

The house is ready for Halloween. Got decorations up inside and outside the house. And today we completed the required pumpkins. Very exciting. What was even neater was that an Auntie was here to help with the pumpkins!This year the pumpkins are faces. They will look fantastic on my stoop. Pictures coming soon of pumpkins on the stoop of the house decorated for Halloween.

Hee hee! New post! So I think most of the people I scrapbook with know that I'm not much of an actual 'paper crafts' person. I don't like to make knick knacks or albums from paper....I really just prefer to scrapbook memories. I just don't know what to do with those cute little albums and knicker knacks that I would potentially make. They'd probably just pile up in my scraproom and I would be afraid to toss them because 1.) they're so cute 2.) they're made with my cute patterned paper and embellishments 3.) I put lots of effort into them. So I stick to the good old traditional scrapbooking thingy. Anyhow, having said that, I've been reading the My Mind's Eye blog lately and noticing that they do paper challenges over there. They did a 'spooooooky' challenge over there this month and I gave in and gave it a try.

I made a wall hanging that I'm going to hang on my wall for Halloween!! And it's made from paper! I guess you could consider it a knicker knack. But I'll just pack this one up after Halloween is over and then pull it out again next year to once again hang on my wall. BUT. I didn't just make one....I made TWO!! See, the one I submitted to contest won't be shown until Oct.28. Much too long to wait. So I've got this other one that I'm going to post here!

This is a big thing for me. I don't normally make knicker knackers people!!!!!

You'll have to wait until Oct.28 to see the other one. Cackle cackle cackle!!1

Snow. That's really all I've got to say. Snow. It's still snowing out there right now, but apparently we're to get up to +15 or something like that on Saturday. Here is my theory. Late September we got B-lasted with a heat wave. I do believe we made it up to +30 degrees. Abnormal for September, or any September that I've experienced anywhere. So now we're facing the extreme opposite. Some -10 degrees and such (with winds) (the such being snow snow snow...but that snow isn't really accumulating, just a small skiff on the ground). So after this week, we should be able to settle into some regular October weather. I'm hoping for the +5 mark. Nothing extravagant. I would like some nice weather for Halloween. Then come November 1, I'll be expecting the cooler winterness again. So now that I've given my theory on the weather, let's end off with a happy note!!! Scrub scrub people!! Scrub scrub!

Oh yes. And a quick addendum. Go the the 'My Mind's Eye' Blog (just google it) and check under their challenge #3 album. Somewhere in there you'll see Missy Magoo strutting her stuff in a fabulous layout using only my mind's eye product. And now I think I should get free product for mentioning this in my blog.

Woooo! New post! So for the past two weekends I've been trying to get published in Canadian Scrapbooker. I've been denied now for both weekends. So guess I'll just have to live with being published on my own blog. So here is some cuteness people!!!
The two green layouts are a double layout. Not really great pictures of the layouts, but just done on the fly for your viewing pleasure.

Hello? Hello? HELLO?????

Is anybody there????

I've posted a few jolly jumping videos, now I'm posting some stills. I think these are hilarious. So if you need a dose of cuteness, here it is.She' getting pretty good at this jumping thing.

Oh yes. I'm back with yet another jolly jumper video. But how can one resist a baby in a jolly jumper. They're just so cute. She's getting a little more air on this one than the rest. She had quite a session on this particular day. I could almost say the jolly jumping was getting out of hand.

Here is something for all those aunties that cannot access Facebook. I'm only posting this particular video here. And it is a special video. The baby bean has been doing this for the past 40 minutes straight. And getting stuck is odd positions (as she gets hung up on the jungle mat posts). It's kind of comical.

Oooh video!! I tried uploading onto facebook but it either didn't work or else I just wasn't patient enough. Perhaps patience was the issue as I see it's taking forever to upload here too. Anyhow, at least sister B gets to see it now too (non-facebookian). I love the way her leggies move. I like to compare Baby E's legs to a cartoon. You know how in cartoons the body always stands still but the legs are moving like mad. Well this is Baby E in the jolly jumper. It just makes me laugh. And she loves the dogs. She'll smile and laugh at them when she's jumping. Before she really could care less. I guess it must have something to do with her being on their level when she's in the jumper. Anyhow. I really hope this works. Ok, sorry, but you'll have to watch this on your head because I can't get it to right itself! Darn it!

OK, be prepared for some cuteness!!!!!

I love this beanie and I'm glad it still fits her noggin. It's nice and stretchy and just grows with her. Thanks auntie S!!!!!!Don't worry Gramma, no babies were harmed during this photo shoot! Ellie was a calm, cool and collected baby. I think she's got the 'blue steel' going on here.

And I love that we can still wear this cute little jacket. It's actually a 3-6 month jacket although She's been wearing this since she was born basically. There must be something really interesting about her fist here.....A little tummy time happening here. Tummy time doesn't really last all that long...but I would venture to say that she is getting better at it. At least most of the time she's on her tummy she's happy now. The break-downs and complaining don't start until well into tummy time now instead of right at the beginning. Ok, that's all for now!!

So someone commented to me that they were excited to see my blog and they got there and all they got for their trouble was a stupid cross stitch picture. Well fine then. I'm posting a couple of the baby munchkin!Why am I posting this particular photo you may ask? Other than it is cute (although the colour of the picture really does suck), I officially retired this sleeper today along with another of her 3 month sleepers. When dad comments on her ability to not fully extend her foot in her sleeper because the legs are now too short, I know it's time to retire the sleeper. It is a sad day because these sleepers really are sooooo cute! But I've replaced them with some new 6 month sleepers that she can fully extend her legs in. I don't want to stunt her growth or anything! And that is all I've got to say for today!

Cross stitch

Ok, there is need to spice this blog up. Or maybe just start typing more entries so there is more 'blah' to read. I think I tend to start each entry with the word 'Ok'. Onward people!

I've started stitching a new cross stitch pattern. You know, if you have a facebook page there is an application that is currently circulating called '25 random things'. I actually hate alot of the applications that circulate, but I like this one. Some people reveal some pretty interesting things about themselves and it has actually inspired me. One of my secrets I revealed is that I love to cross stitch. Yeah, not groundbreaking, but still a revelation for me. I tend to think that cross stitching is a granny-sport. But darn it, I still love it. Ok, onwards....

The pattern I'm stitching is designed by this fabulous designer who designs under the designer name of 'Chatelaine'. She's got some fabulous works that I love and one that I've actuallly already completed. Took me a year and a half, but I did it and I paid to frame it professionally. It hangs in my living room and I am proud. So I'm doing another. It has a caribbean theme (I stitch this theme because one day I'd actually like to go to the Caribbean) and it has not only cross stitches in it, it has specialty stitches, which makes the whole experience alot more exciting for me. But having said that, because I have a short attention span and tediousness makes me squirmy, I am going to list some pros and cons with the part I'm currently stitching. By the way, the pattern I'm stitching is a 'mystery'....one part of the pattern is released each month so you won't know what the final product is until the last part is released. Which will be in December. But I peeked...so I know what it will look like. Which is why I decided to stitch it. Onwards people!!!

Take a close look at that picture (I will eventually add) at the top people! Pros: that little green border of 'flower leaves/stems'. How cute are those! They are tiny and they were quick to stitch. Plus they were fun to stitch. I love them. And I love the colour. See that pink glitter in the corners? I love that. I'm a scrapbooker and glitter falls on almost all my pages. So I really enjoy the glitter that the designer incorporates into her designs. When this sucker is done it will be so shiny you'll need sunglasses to admire it. Ok, maybe not, but there will be a substantial amount of lovingly placed bling. Cons: scattered stitches. Each of those octagons has two colours stitched into them. I really find it time consuming and trying when the stitches are scattered and there is no where on the back of the fabric to hide my stitching floss tails. Not only that, but there are specialty stitches inside each of the octagons and surrounding the octagons (not stitched yet) so I can't even throw caution to the wind and cross through those open spaces with my floss to the next stitch because it will interfere with the specialty stitches. I was squirming while I stitched those. Boy am I glad they are done. But....alas! I'm not done with those suckers.....I might just hold off on the next set of scattered stitches. I think it's too much for my sanity at this moment.

So I just spent the last hour and a half stitching and writing this post while my ignored baby is sleeping in her swing. Productive things I could have done with that hour and a half: 1.) gone to the bathroom (geez I think my cup of tea is running right through me. 2.) had a shower...yes I stink (probably too much information) 3.) cleaned my kitchen...um, yeah right. 4.) had a second breakfast. So most people who read these options are going to think......um, ok, weirdo. But breastfeeding mommies with newborns, 3 month olds or the like are going to understand what I mean! Besides, earlier today I had to change the little girl 3 times due to 2 diaper explosions both occuring within about 30 minutes of each other. People, breastfed poop runs like the Fraser river through class 4 rapids during the spring melt....fast, unpredictable, and into areas it shouldn't be in. On that note...tah for now.