Pretty City.......

Wintry skies over Edmonton.....sundogs around the sun.....the pyramids and ski hills......

The Festival of trees was in the building shaped like a ski hill in front of the pink building.......The pink building is Canada Place - passport office etc etc and Federal offices.....and the ski hill shaped building is the Shaw Conference Centre (Shaw being a cable tv/ phone company.......)

The boat in the river is the Edmonton Queen - you can take rides down the river in the summer months and have dinner I think.......as you can see, it doesn't go very far during the Winter months ;)

Christmas Elves.......

Super bubbles!!!!

The children loved standing inside a monster bubble and then blowing to pop it! Although Sam just stood inside looking cute and waited for it to pop in on him ;)

The Festival of Trees...

Wonderful :) Really puts you in the Festive mood.....we had a lovely morning wandering the hall today....I think we spent 3 hours there. LOTS of pictures to bore you with but not many are very good.....I charged my flash but I think I need new rechargables as these don't seem to charge much any more....so the pictures are either really dark or too bright and I was enjoying myself far too much to stand around faffing with the camera :)

Fat quarters....

Here are the fat quarters I chose today.......

My Friday...

Today didn't start so great...I woke to say goodbye to Lloyd and then took an imitrex as I had a migraine....the side effects of the imitrex are as bad as the migraine but don't last as long...I slept in bed until 11am and was very grateful for the children who fed and dressed Sam for me!

I got up and showered at 11am and not long after, Susannah and I headed into town....we got another gift for Lloyd and the lady offered to gift wrap it for me, so we left it there and headed to Lori's Quilting Cottage.....Oh my!!!! This is the store that holds the annual charity quilt show in Sherwood Park for Breast Cancer....

This store is fantasic - I haven't been in a quilting store for so long - I had a favourite one in Lancashire in England that I would occasionally visit (Poor Nigel used to have to drive me to it as I didn't drive that far back then, and he found the whole little town so boring that I didn't go very often)!

This store here is just PACKED with the most gorgeous quilts and fabrics and items based on quilting.....it was like being in a candy store and I had so much fun looking through all the fat quarters and choosing the ones for a new project....

I got chatting to the lady there and she called out the tutor and we talked about beginners classes for the New Year....so I think a sewing machine is going to be top of my Christmas list! Then I hope to sign up for the beginners class for after Christmas!

After the quilt store, we went to Tim Hortons for lunch and ran into some English friends of ours, Derek and Sarah...they were picking up some snacks for the car as they were heading down to their apartment in Canmore for the weekend...it was nice to see them and we stood chatting for a while - it's been 2 years since I saw Sarah - although Lloyd sees Derek for lunch sometimes as Derek does some work for BCAL...

What next? Dollar store for a quick visit and then we swung by the first store again to pick up Lloyds gift - too funny!! The lady had gift wrapped Lloyds present in EXACTLY the same gift wrap that I have been using for all his other gifts!!!! How perfect is that??????

Then I had to head to Kinsmen for a meeting with my new boss....it was good to finally meet her, and in real life she is soooo nice! So down to earth and easy to talk to, and was so reassuring about everything....lets just say that I am feeling so much more relaxed about January and the start of preschool - although we still need an assistant! But she said if they can't get anyone (they still need another 5 or 6 for the county!!) then they will ask the parents registered if they would be willing to do alternate weeks with another parent)

After that we headed home....it's been snowing gently all day and Susannah and I had Christmas songs on in the car so it was really nice :)

Now the boys are about to head to WEM to go swimming with some friends....a big Christmas party thing for a hockey club and they were both invited to join in.....I think Lloyd and I are going to curl up with the girls and watch a Christmas movie and eat candy canes :) Susie had a candy cane hot chocolate at Tim Hortons today - I had a sip...Mmmmmmmm!!

Last night I had to go to the hall to help decorate - I took the boys with me...when we got there Jilles had already decorated the hall! So we all sat around and chatted about last minute plans for Sunday....everything is set ready to go....I'm looking forward to it now......

Tomorrow we are off to The Festival of Trees, and then Sunday the party....the rest of the weekend I am hoping will be quiet so I can sew :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bloody great :(

www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071130/cold_winter_071130/20071130?hub=TopStories

Urgh! Just what I need!!!!

But some good news! In April we are off to Toronto for a few days :) DH has another conference to attend and we are going with him :)

The last few days....

On Monday C was home form school, so he played various math games with A. Tuesday we went out for breakfast with a friend. Yesterday we went to Parentlink - there were two festive crafts and circle time was about germs...with songs and a story....afterwards we ran a few errands and had lunch at the mall...A chose a cosmetics set at the dollar store and came home and put her make up on :) a circus clown comes to mind ;)

Monday and Tuesday were too cold to go for a walk with -30 windchills. Yesterday A went sledding in the afternoon with S.

This morning we went swimming for a while and then to an indoor playground...lunch out again and then home where A painted with the foamy mixture :)

Thats our week so far!

Puffy snow pictures....

We tried this craft at Parentlink yesterday.....you make snowman pictures or other snowy pictures using this special mixture! It's shaving foam mixed with a little Elmers glue....stir it in with a spoon and add a little glitter....

When it dries, it stays all puffy and is all squidgy and rubbery!

The kids LOVE playing with this 'stuff' and it smells so good :)

Pram quilt.....

This is a pram quilt, baby quilt for a little boy.....this is just the quilt top and needs the other layers to be added and then needs to have the layers quilted together.....one day I'll finish it ;)

That said, I am not in the mood to work on either of these projects right now - I have a few fabrics I want to work with instead but I need more - so tomorrow I want to head to the quilt store and pick out some new fabrics to go with the ones I have, so that once the party is over on Sunday, I can actually get going :)

Please excuse the wwrinkles and folds in the work...they have been folded up and bagged up in storage for the last couple of years!

My quilting...

I have mainly quilted in the past for gifts for other people....but here are two projects that are in my quilting bag, still to be completed!

The green paper pieced quilt is a design called 'Snowflakes in Summer'....a large rectangle of green shades will run down the middle of the quilt, and this rectangle is surrounded by 'snowflakes' of green/ alternate fabrics.....in a white background.....

I haven't got very far with this - mainly because it's all hand stitched - I don't use a sewing machine! I also don't think I did ANY sewing last winter at all!

English piecing...

One of my favourite styles of quilts is created through 'English Piecing'....a technique my Mom taught me when I was pregnant with Christopher almost 15 years ago! Engish piecing uses papers as backing that are tacked to the fabric and then the little shapes are stitched together before the backing papers are removed....

I some very old quilts they find the backing papers are not removed and you can tell so much about the date of the quilt etc by the backing papers used.....

I treated myself :)

I wonder how long it will be before this nighty has gone grey in the wash.......

New ornaments for 07

Here are a few of the little ornaments I have bought this year to add to my collection :) They are already out on display as they are more 'wintery' than Christmasy :) well, the angels are just gorgeous so they are out whether they are Christmasy or not :)

The big angel is named Samantha as I bought her on my date night with my friend Samantha the other week :)

Thursday...

We went swimnning this morning...not a great day to go as a school bus of kids arrived at the same time as us...but it wasn't too bad thankfully. We swam for about 90 minutes and then dried off and had milk and muffins in the food court before heading to the indoor playground for a while....The Oilers were practicing in one of the rinks at the back so we strolled by there and watched for a while...not that the kids are interested in hockey at all!

On the way home we stopped for mail and two parcels had arrived - things I had ordered online at the weekend - I LOVE doing shopping online - last night we picked up all the things from the Sears Wishboook we had ordered online too....no having to stand in line or deal with crowds and the discounts you get online are great....I also got a parcel from CHER - Canadian Home Education Resources, with some books and games I had ordered....I'm still waiing on FIAR (our reading curriculum) but apart from that it was all there...they had called to let me know it would be delayed anyway.

The kids will be home soon...Abby and Sam have been at the table since we got home, painting with the foamy stuff again :) they love it! When the kids get home I plan to take my cup of tea upstairs and wrap some gifts....I have a few for Lloyd to wrap.

I have to run to the school to get Chris later - he's trying out for basketbal today. Then tonight the boys and I are going to the hall in the village to help decorate it for Christmas.

Tomorrow I am meeting my boss for the first time - so that will be interesting - although they can't find an assistant to run the class, so if they don't find anyone, the class still won't run! Such a shame about the area not having a class, but I'm not too bothered either way as to whether I have a job or not...I'm happy to teach or I'm happy to stay home with my two!

Tomorrow I also have some errands to run ....collect some meds, get a few things for Sundays party.....run to the quilt store....and a couple of other places I need to go for gifts for Lloyd that are easier to go to without the kids!

The kids have no school tomorrow.

Saturday we have the Festival of Trees in the morning..and there is a craft fair in our hall that I may go to in the afternoon......then Sunday is the party in the afternoon.

I'm tired this afternoon - oh and I have a big bruise on my shoulder from where I slammed the door on my shoulder yesterday lol!