Snow day!!

We got a big dump of snow last night and today....we didn't let it stop many of our plans though.  I didn't make it to the party I was planning to go to - but then luckily that was postponed so I haven't missed it!  

I didn't go to the showing of the Oscar shorts at the Princess Theatre...there is always tomorrow...

Laurence's girlfriend came over for the day though and Susannah and I headed into town to go and see her friend Jacobs first art show!  

Jacob has been taking oil painting lessons from a man at the Seniors Home where his Dad works.  This weekend they had their art show.  Wow - beautiful artwork!  So many different styles and topics, but all so well done!  

After we had seen the art show, Jacobs Dad offered to show us around the entire building.  Wow I was stunned at how nice it is in there - and so HUGE!!  It is gorgeous and I would be more than happy to go and live somewhere like then when I'm older!  There was a lady in the chapel doing manicures for $1!!!  They have an arts and crafts room, theatre in the auditorium - they even have their own bar!!  A hair salon!!  Little store!  Games room.  A dining room that they can book so they can have private dinners with their family when they visit!!  The main dining room was also amazing and the tables were laid really nicely!!  I was so impressed!  The new big area with the huge fireplace was gorgeous and there are animals all over the place - even a pigeon in a cage who was so gorgeous!  

Susannah and I grabbed a few groceries - fresh vegetables, 

and some baking ingredients and then we took a drive to take some pictures, before heading home!

This evening was spent watching Cars 2, baking, eating the amazing pulled pork that I had in the crockpot all day, with buns and steak cut fries,  and relaxing/ pottering/ editing pictures....

Oh and planning the upcoming week....it was going to be a very quiet week, but today several invitations popped up, so I'm really looking forward to the week ahead!!

Fruity popcorn!!! Yum!!

Today I tried another Pinterest activity!  

We mixed condensed milk with jello powder and heated this for about five minutes over a medium heat.    We then made air popped popcorn.  Combined the popcorn with the jello mixture and spread it over a greased oven tray.  Placed it in the oven for 20 minutes (stirring every 5 minutes)

Once it is out of the oven and left to cool, it goes crispy again and doesn't stick together.  And it's totally yummy and fruity!!  We made orange and lime....It was a big hit here.  Later in the week we'll make strawberry and raspberry.  

Pinterest has so many amazing ideas :)  

TGIF :)

Today was blissful :)

Our website went live and was a HUGE success - Niki you are a STAR!!!  Wow :)  

Awesome :)  

THE ART HOUSE

Best partner I could ever have!!  Poor girl has to vanish to her basement to escape 

me hassling her hahaha.....no I hope I'm not that bad xxx

And the response from things the last couple of days has been so exciting :)

Then today Abby and Sam had a class at The City Arts Centre - so we headed down to the Garneau area of Whyte....I dropped them off with their lunches at 9:30am and they were there for the DAY - so strange having the day to myself lol!!!  What to do???  

So I headed to Chapters and sat in Starbucks (thank you Tara for the GC's xx), did some art journaling, made notes on some ideas for art journaling classes....updated my instagram account and left some comments and likes on friends pictures...I say 'friends'...but they are people that I follow on there.  I love instagram - love seeing the pictures people post - their style...getting a sense of them through their comments and titles and pictures...like Crash Money...gameoversquare...bettyann.....anjemaster etc...

Then after picking Laurence up after his Commercial Foods class, we headed back to the Whyte Ave and spent a while strolling around the Antiques Mall looking at the collectibles...always so much funny stuff to see there....

After that, it was back to the City Arts Centre....Sam and Abby had spent the Day creating Digital Interactive story books....and have now been put on to cd for us to have a copy :)  It was a LONG day for them and they were EXHAUSTED - especially Sam.  He really enjoyed it, but I think he was very glad to get home :)  

I had found him some large Lego boards at the Antique Mall (love my Lego dealer there)  and a bag of Lego that had plan wings and windscreens etc in it for adding to his space ships he likes to design and build.  He has wanted some of the big boards for a while and it was great to get a selection of all different sizes and colours for him!  Sam sat and built a big ship and played with that for most of the evening by the fire - tired out.  

Laurence made chocolate pudding - from scratch :)  It's amazing!!  Oh the delights of having a Son in Commercial Foods :)  Susannah played guitar all evening...Abby did gymnastics and pottered about...gymnastics is still her obsession :)  

I spent the evening replying to work Emails, pottering about re the website with Niki....and editing pictures....and hoping for snowfall worth sitting and watching - but there isn't any falling that you can see....

The weekend is here....hopefully the weather isn't too bad as we did have some plans that we wanted to be able to follow through with....but if we have to stay home then thats fine too....

Snapshots from our week..... :)

Abigail took an online homeschooling class again - they've done a few of these over the year...this was one of the American Girl series and involved paper weaving....Each class has a teacher, list of materials needed and often a book or topic you can study before the class.  The Lego classes vary depending on what bricks you need as to whether we can take part...love Currclick live classes :)

We picked up a load of new books this week and this was one of the ones we read and LOVED - Scaredy Squirrel.  Susannah had loved it when she was read it at school years ago, and Sam and Abby thought it was hilarious:

Sam flew through pages and PAGES of his math book this week and we also played math games and spelling games...read books and he did some writing...I'm still not pushing hi as when I do he gets upset and I want him to LOVE writing and reading....and so when I go at his pace he really enjoys it :)  

I got a new app for  playing around with my pictures....actually I got two - one that Uberdoodles on Instagram mentioned, and one that I have noticed quite a few people use to animate their pictures.  I used  both on this picture of my marshmallows:

Felt sad for this little plastic bag stuck in the bare tree:

Grocery shopping night....store was lovely and empty....cart was noisy and squeaky so Laurence took it back and changed it.  We stocked up ready for the weekend in case we do get bad weather....ingredients for baking and for pulled pork...and a yummy stew....and a roast.....and got Sam a jar of his favourite plum sauce so he can have that at home and not just when we go out :)  

Rosie Posie.....

There was a lot of chat on my Facebook page about cooking this week - all kinds of things and for all kinds of reasons - Jason was to blame for a lot of it I'm sure - that man is TROUBLE!!!  What can I say??  Hahahaha!!!  Anyway...one of the topics discussed was poached eggs.  Laurence was studying eggs in commercial foods and was also taught to poach eggs properly.  I decided it was time to teach Abigail, so we watched some video's online of proper techniques and she had a go!  Her first two were a fail as she didn't wait until the water was boiling properly.  So I helped her get the water to a rolling boil instead of a simmer and then got the water spinning and dropped the eggs into the middle and VOILA!!!  perfect poached eggs!!  Well, maybe a little over done - next time we will cook them a little less but she did great and they were yummy!!!

Had a wonderful night out on Wednesday night - laughed and laughed and laughed.

With thanks to the wonderful Pinterest, we created these amazing bowls out Perler Beads

this week :)  Super easy and clever and so fun and fast to make!!!

Science project!!

Last weekend I helped Susannah and her friend work on their join science project.  They had to create a 3 dimensional animal cell, showing all the parts and then provide a key to those parts.

Sometimes it helps to have a fully stocked art studio in the house :)  

We used a polystyrene ball and cut a third of it out, then used a smaller ball and stuck that inside as the nucleus.  We used plasticine to shape other elements of the cell.  Susannah painted it all and then mod podged over it all with glossy mod podge.

To finish off she made 12 little flags from cocktail sticks and cardstock and matched them to the key that her friend H created.

I think all together it is a fabulous project :)  

Snapshots from our week..... :)