So we're coming up on Halloween, but of course when you're a little kid, you don't wear your costume for ONLY Halloween. Earlier this month we went to the scarecrow festival and she wore her costume there..........Who's the cutest pumpkin in the pumpkin patch???? So we'll we decked out again tomorrow night. Hoping for warmer weather and a good night. We'll only hit a few house. I think that is enough. But I'm expecting many many many kids to be showing up at our house. We shall see how it goes......

Let's just pretend that it didn't snow here two days ago, and that it's not that cold outside (although it's only a couple degrees below zero). I prefer to remember the lovely October days we did have. Halloween is coming up. Maybe the snow will be gone by then. Let's hope.

Tea Time!!!

No, wait...Coffee Time!!!

As you can see there is a very serious tea party happening here. Lots of concentrating. Elmo must be a tough customer to please....
Adding some sugar or honey to the tea. I think it was actually 'coffee time' that was announced, but let's stick with traditional and think that it is a tea party.

Time to sample the wares oneself. She has a bit of an obsession with toast. Good thing the tea set came with toast. Although I'm sure cookies would have done the job quite well too.

Gramma came over with this tea set last week sometime and we've been having tea/coffee parties since. What a hit! Just so you know....yesterday there were 2 Elmos sitting at the table having coffee.

I woke up one day to find that one little girl has decided that she is now....

Super E!!!!!

Blasting around the house with her special 'blanket cape"!

Saving little kids around the world from yucky lunches and crappy snacks.....(look out bike, you're about to get tripped over!!)

And making sure that bedtime is fair, and not just what mommy decides it should be!

And of course just showing off sass, and being awfully cute in the process. Also spreading love, hugs and kisses where ever thou shalt need such.

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