ATC's from Erna!!!

I was lucky enough to be partnered up with Erna from South Africa AGAIN!!! So I now have FOUR of her gorgeous ATC's....Erna is an artist and her miniature works of art are just amazing!! I LOVE them! Her little notes in with the package are so funny too :) She added me as a friend on facebook si I get to see a little of her life on there now and her recent holiday was amazing - OMG the THING that was crawling on her bedroom window EEEWWWWW! But the monkeys outside were wonderful!

I love what Erna writes about her husbands artwork and the 'bride price'.....I wonder how much I would have been worth......in Canada maybe you could strike a deal in Elk or Bison....beaver pelts????

Dragonfly atc

Here is one of the dragonfly atc's I have received from a swap I took part in on Swap-bot. The lady also enclosed an extra atc she made for a map swap as well as some extra bits and pieces for me :)

12:30am and I can't sleep...

I blame a certain someone...and no names mentioned ;) lol!!!! ;) Or maybe its just me and my obsessional nature.....and my dad says thats my Mothers fault!!!!

I'm going to do a quick gratitude post and then go back up to bed and try to go to sleep....

Today I am grateful for:

1. My bravery this past week - In the last week I have driven on Calgary Trail for the very first time - YES - I drove to Toys R Us last Friday!!! OMG I think Lloyd was as shocked as I was but I DID it.....and Lloyd STUPIDLY said, well done, now you've done it once you can do it whenever you like..which basically means he's given me free reign to SHOP!!!! ;) Crazy guy ;) This week I also drove to Staceys house despite my fear of turning left across 50th St!!! She told me a way to get back where I could use traffic lights to turn left woohoo so no worries there and I had a great time at her place. And then today I drove to Tess's house WAAAAAAY up on 136th Ave - I mean thats practically Fort McMoney!!!!! Now I did have to take a Maxalt after each and every one of these drives but it was soooo worth the migraine every time :) I DID IT!!!! :)

2. Not having carpet in the living room - because the cat vomited in there today and if it had been carpet I would have had to scrub it for ages and because it was laminate, I was able to wipe it up in a couple of minutes and give it a quick spray of stuff afterwards.

3. Lloyd for making dinner two nights running.....pasta last night and butter chicken tonight! Yummy both nights - thank you baby! Last night I was in the bath getting rid a of a migraine and tonight he just planned to make his butter chicken.

4. All the waves and blown kisses I get from the children as they walk down the driveway towards the school bus in the mornings....

What are YOU grateful or today?

Snowflake/ Christmas ATC swap....

My friend Tess has hurt her back and is off of work at the moment, so today while Sam was at Pre-K I drove over to visit with her for a little while. Poor Tess really does look as though she's in so much pain :( I can't empathise with her at all because I'm the only person in my family who HASN'T had a bad back...(I got blessed with migraines instead sigh....) so I can't relate to what she's going through, but I do know she can barely move and can't stay in one position for long, so please keep her i your thoughts! She's off to her Doctor tomorrow and will hopefully get x-rays and thoroughly checked out and hopefully STRONG MEDS!!!!

I hope you're on the mend soon Tess!

The above ATC's were from a snowflake/ Christmas swap that Tess organized on the facebook 'addicted to atc's' group. Aren't they great? If you'd like to join the group then we'd love to have more members!! They're so much fun to make and swap and get in the mail!!! Get addicted and join at Swapbot too :)

After visiting with Tess I raced back to Sherwood Park and on the way ran out of washer fluid in my truck grrrrrr so had to run to get my pictures form Icon Photography then run to the 7-11 and grab some washer fluid and then get that into the truck then RUN to get Sam from Pre-K.....then we were finally on our way home!

The weather today was HORRIBLE....high winds (50-70km an hour) with a mix of snow and rain. I am glad to be home and warm inside although the sound of the wind blowing around the house outside makes me feel cold. The workmen gave up on roofing today - the shingles were blowing everywhere - they went back to decking and then left early - I don't blame them - pouring washer fluid into the truck was difficult - it was going everywhere because of the wind! I was NOT happy and told Lloyd so as I had asked him to refill it for weeks.....did not appreciate having to do it just off the highway on a day like today on my way to get Sam from Pre-K.....sigh.....and yes it IS one of his chores in this house - just the way we are...sorry if thats old fashioned - I'm a hopeless old fashioned pathetic girly - there - I admit it! And no I still don't put gas in my truck. My truck still magically refills itself. But I do know that it now refills itself much more cheaply than it used to ;)

Sam the photographer!

Sam took this picture of Laurie and I this afternoon! Great job Sam! He moves the camera around as he presses the button so Laurie and I were moving around trying to stay in the lens so we'd actually be in the picture! Thats why we look kind of funny :) But at least we are IN this one!!!! You should have seen some of the others ;)

Icon Photography...

In August we saw an advert in the local paper saying that Icon Photography were looking for models so that the photographers could practice....they wanted to take test shots on students in the Sherwood Park area before school started so they could prepare for taking all the school pictures once the year started. In return for letting them practice on you, you got two sheets of pictures FREE!!! Cool! So with 5 kids I thought this was a great deal! I called up and they said I could have all my kids done! So we went down to Woodbridge Farms and the kids had their pictures down (all but Sam who flat out refused).

We got to choose which images we wanted (I was shocked at this as I thought we'd get what we were given!!) and there was no pressure to buy anything - in fact we didn't even have to go into the office!!) and the images were ready weeks ago but I didn't manage to go and pick them up until today. I liked these pictures sooooo much better than the school pictures and they were free, so we didn't bother to get the school pictures this year - saved us over $60!!!!! And we got pictures of Chris too :) I have plenty of Sam from our own woods that I can add to mini albums etc that fit the style so I'm more than happy :)

Oh and if the pictures look a bit odd its because I put them on my bed and took a picture of them and then cropped them so they're cropped at weird angles and look a bit weird......I should have taken flat pictures of them but I couldn't be bothered to do it properly......so the pictures look much better than this in real life!!! Like Chris and Susies pictures look all a bit squashed and make them look fat for some reason and thats the way I've taken the pictures and cropped them and NOT what the pictures look like lol......sorry.........Just me being lazy taking bad pictures of good pictures! If I see an advert for this next year I'm definitely doing it again!!! Thanks Icon Photography!!! They were so friendly and helpful and great to deal with!

Tonights moody sunset for you.....

Thursday

All our snow melted fast yesterday. I wanted to take a picture of the snowman almost melted away but I didn't get to him in time - Laurence's foot got to him before me.....sigh....

Yesterday Sam and I went to spend the afternoon with Stacey and her VERY cute children Taylor and and Kylie :) We had a great afternoon visiting with them and Sam was asleep within minutes of leaving. Yet again I have to say I LOVE the Henday :) It would have taken me sooo much longer to get there without that road but because of it, Staceys house is like a 10 minute drive!!!

Denis had a dental apt this morning, so when I took the coffee out, I was chatting with Tim for a while. He was out spending time with Charlie. He says Charlie is his new friend :) Charlie follows the workmen everywhere and keeps an eye on them for us ;) I will take a lot of pictures of the house and update the reno blog this weekend - the workmen are here until after dark so its difficult to take any during the week.

My online course is going well - so far its been mainly preparation - making the binder, lots of printing and getting the pages all ready for the actual writing part. Today we are doing a practice exercise for writing and have some pages to read about writing in general......tomorrow the writing begins!!! The prompts and 'sparks' are interesting....and the detail she wants us to write with is interesting too - more detail than I had thought of.......it has already made me rethink the way I have journaled many memories in my book of memoirs that I keep - I dont think I have enough detail. The kind of detail I wish I had from my Grandparents. The kind of detail I want from the books I read. You know? So already it's a good course for writers and it hasn't even started properly yet!

Today is Thursday. Sam has Pre-K today ad I am going to visit Tess at her home because she has hurt her back and has been off of work all week. I'm just hoping the snow stays away until later - the weather forecast is for high winds and snow/ rain so I'm hoping that stays away until after I get back because I don't want to drive in THAT :( I also have to go to Icon Photography because the childrens pictures are ready and I need to pick them up - they've been ready for a while but I just haven't managed to pick them up yet. I NEED to do that today if I have any chance of getting the projects done in time!

Tomorrow is Rock and Ride for Laurences birthday - delayed form last month after THAT disaster......then the weekend.....

Sams in good form this morning!

Sam woke up this morning and was upset because he was at the water park and couldn't find me - he said he looked everywhere and couldn't find me. then he asked if the water park was open today so we could go. At this point I was stood looking out of the window at the snow, waving the children off as they left for the school bus....no, the Beaumont water park is NOT open today Sam :)

Now he's saying he wants breakfast because he's so hungry he could eat a giraffe!

Baking Gingerbread....

I spotted some of the Pilsbury Gingerbread dough in Stupidstore yesterday so I snapped some up and bought it - this time of year its a wonderful thing to keep in the fridge and bring out when the children are bored - instead of playdough they can use it to to play with and then bake and decorate the cookies and it smells so damn good in the house!!!! YUMMY!!!

I was busy talking to my Nephew on the phone while they were making the cookies so Lloyd took the pictures of them with the finished cookies and OF COURSE, men do NOT think......so he took the pictures in front of a sink of dishes......sigh........groan......so I have tried to crop them and edit them and blur the edges as best I can.......please when you take pictures try to look at what is in the background - I NOTICE what is in the background of pictures - are there houses? Rooftops??????? wires? clutter???? bags? cups?????? anything that can be moved or edited out????? MOVE or MOVE THE OBJECTS!!!! ;)

Love you Lloyd :)

Few more snow pics

They forecast rain tomorrow so the snow may all go. Lloyd and I drove over to calgary Trail today and just the other side of 50th Street - and then by Ikea on Calgary Trail, there was NO SNOW!!!!! Yet here we are with snow men not 20 minutes drive along the Henday!!! Crazy city!!!!

Fun in the snow.......

Scenes from our side woods...

winter scenes...

Waking up to a Winter Wonderland.......

We woke up to snow this morning......I took these pictures from my bedroom window.......I'm so glad Lloyd and the children have the day off of school to enjoy it. The workmen are here but they can't work on the roof doing the shingles, so are instead working on the back deck until the snow melts later in the week. Chris has to go to work this afternoon in this though - working on the acreage....brrrrrr cold!

It feels like a Sunday..all snowy and quiet and restful outside :) As much as I don't want winter, you can't deny it.....it's so very beautiful!