Update from Blighty

Just a little update from the other side of the Atlantic....I can't blog properly as I can't upload any pictures or anything and it's frustrating to blog without pictures as I have taken soooo many and all I want to do is add them!!!

Anyway, the renovations were stressing me out so much last week that it was either put me in the psychiatric hospital or send me off to my parents for a holiday......so here I am in England for a few weeks holiday with Sam and Abigail!

I'm missing Lloyd and the older children very very much :( in fact I miss Canada sooooooooo much. It's fun to be back here - and interesting......but yes, I have to admit that I really miss Edmonton and 'familiarity'!!! - I miss all my craft things in the evening and Lloyd - most of all Lloyd :(

But its nice to be back here and have a break from the snow and Sam and Abby are loving being able to play outside in the garden with no coats on and play soccer out there - we've been to the beach and played in the waves and got SOAKED.....we've been to Stonehenge......been shopping, we're off to London for a night this week....lots of visiting...we have Lloyds parents coming tomorrow for the day...

So thats my little update but you'll have to wait for the pictures - I might be able to add some Tuesday night at my Sisters. Lloyd told me to go and buy a Macbook but I think I will just wait until I get home....you can wait that long right????? ;)

Swap bot

Www.swap-bot.com

A few people have been asking where I sign up for all of the ATC swaps, so I thought I'd add the link again for you all. Don't forget there is so much more than atc swaps - you can swap all kinds of things from candles, letters, teas, to candy, crafts and postcards and you can join from anywhere in the world.

Have fun!!!

Tonights sunset for you

Like my kitchen?

So, this is my kitchen for the next few weeks...just an oven...yep......thats IT!!! An oven! No sink...no counters...no floor...no ceiling....no walls! hmmmmmm...this is going to be INTERESTING!!!!!

Don't forget you can follow the renovations along at:

home-renos.blogspot.com/

Valentine card for Lloyd....

This is the mini album I gave to Lloyd for Valentines Day on Saturday.....it has a lot more pages than this but I'm not adding them all here.....

A few from Susannahs dance....

The stage area at the garden centre was tiny, but the girls did very well fitting in there to do their dance.....and they all had fun dancing for everyone! the next time they dance for an audience will be for their recital in April :)

the girl with the shaved head had 'gone pink' to raise money for cancer and had had her head shaved that week for charity - she also had two hearts shaved into the back of her head for Valentines Day - good for her - she does this every year to raise money :) very brave :)

Other dancers.....and the girls teachers...

Teacher Rachelle (in the front of the line up in the green outfit) is also the Mom of Chris and Laurences friends Chris and Scott) so it was nice to see her dance again. And the other lady speaking at the microphone is the girls dance teacher this year. Susannah especially adores her and Susie is a big favourite of hers I know and gets lot of hugs from her!

Susannah and friend...

On saturday we had to be at the Salisbury Garden Centre mid morning as Susannah was dancing in the Strathcona County Mayors art show......(or something or other....).

This is Susannah with a school friend as they waited to go on to do their dance! Her friend kept whispering to Susie "Your Mom is taking pictures AGAIN" and they would turn and pull funny faces......

Saturdays Winter Wonderland.....

Frosty trees that we woke up to on Saturday....

Sam......cuddled up with me......

This is Sam cuddled up on my shoulder one morning last week while I watched the Global breakfast news....

HSM Cheer Team Member!!

Abigail was given this Cheerleaders costume for her birthday from Grandma and Grandad Thorpe. Isn't it great? It will make a great Halloween costume in the Fall and is big enough to fit over Abby's coat if it's a cold Halloween too :)

Birthday dinner at Boston Pizza.....

Abigail chose to go to Smitty's for her birthday dinner, but Smittys in Sherwood Park closes at something ridiculous like 4pm on a Friday, so we couldn't go there.....so we chose to go to the BP's on Wye that has just been refurbished. It was good because despite being supper time on a Friday, we got a table straight away (for 7 of us thats pretty good)!

Oh and the pictures of Chris are supposed to look a certain way because he wanted them for his FB profile pic lol!

It was a funny meal - Susie and Abby were on their DS's to begin with and then I used on and we were chatting via picto-chat - Chris was texting, Sam was watching Wall-E on Lloyds i-phone and Laurie was using my i-phone to play games. Lloyd started complaining that we were all on our little gadgets and not communicating - but I WAS communicating with the girls - chatting via pictochat in fact it was fun getting Abigail to write to me even though we were sat opposite each other hahahaha. But we switched all our phones and DS's off and chatted instead hahahahaha. I didn't realise that other people could log in to pictochat and join in - Abby and I were chatting and writing to each other and all of a sudden some other girl in the restaurant logged in and started chatting to us......weird! No clue what table she was at lol Abby and I were writing funny things and I was drawing hearts and saying 'I love you' and then some girl logs in.....

Making a wish.......

Birthday wish time.......

Abigails birthday

Last Friday Abigail turned seven years old. She chose a carrot cake for her birthday cake and came with me to the party store to choose something to go on the top of the cake - she chose these Tinkerbell badges to stick on top and decorate and then she could wear them afterwards :)

Someone told her that carrot cake was a strange choice for a birthday cake but in this house you get to choose whatever kind of cake you like for your birthday! Carrot cake is one of her favourites so we found a great BIG carrot cake and I scraped off the orange carrot decorations off the top, covered it up with pretty heart sprinkles and then popped on her choice of decorations.

Everyone LOVED the cake and agreed it was a GREAT choice :) It vanished quickly :) whereas when we buy normal birthday cakes there is often some that gets left over because no one is that keen on the frosting or the actual cake......so why should we HAVE to get a certain kind of cake????

New drug approved....

www.theonion.com/content/video/fda_approves_depressant_drug_for

Know anyone who needs this??????


Hahahahaha

love it!

Phone line!

We have no home phone line AGAIN...so if you need to get hold of me it will have to be via my cell # or Email or by leaving a comment on my blog (which goes through to my Email. If you want my cell # just ask :) Hopefully as soon as they have finished pulling down all my walls and ceilings and pulling up my floors they will fix my phone!!!

Stressed????

hahahahahaha course not ;)

Some atc's I've worked on lately....

For two swaps at Swapbot:

First picture shows ATC's for a swap where the ATC's had to be 80% made from brown bags/ lunch bags. You could do anything you like so long as you used brown bags on your atc's. You had to make 2 atc's for 2 partners.

The other two atc's are for two partners and the theme was 'Winter is Here'.

My little cutie pie......

Lethal.........

.......I don't know what they put in these but once I start eating them I just can NOT stop..............Mmmmmmmmmm

Dinner at Moxies....

After shopping we had an early dinner at Moxies...I had never been there before but really enjoyed it. Great choice of food - probably a little TOO much choice of food (which can be a BAD thing I think).....Lloyd wasn't keen on his curry..but everyone else enjoyed their food. Chris had the calamari salad. I had the crab and scallop cakes and also had the med bread and dips with it and it was YUMMY - two appetisers as an entree - delish! Laurie had some kind of noodles with shrimp I think.....

We only had to wait 10 minutes for a table - very good considering it was Family Day!

All in all it was a great day - fun and lovely to spend the day with all the kids - everyone was in great spirits and had fun at the mall! The only downside was that the dragon wasn't working as it was being serviced!!! fancy servicing the dragon on a holiday weekend!

Oh and the piccy of Lloyd above shows him colouring while he waits for his meal hahahaha :)

Build A Bear....

Today is Family Day here in Alberta. A Provincial holiday that allows families to spend the day together (hopefully) doing something fun together and drawing a little closer!

Unfortunately (or so we thought), our workmen were going to be demolishing what is left of our kitchen today, and so we had to vacate the premises for the day. So we couldn't stay at home and curl up with family movies and board games which is what my first choice would have been!

Instead, we decided the time had come for the children to go and spend the money they had received for Christmas and that they had earned recently. Our children don't get paid for their normal chores around the house but there are extra chores they do that they get paid for (ie the boys babysit and Susannah gets $10 a month for washing floors until the new floors are put down).

So we headed off to West Ed Mall for the day and they had fun choosing what to spend their money and gift cards on. The older three chose typical teen type things, gadgety things or clothes. Abigail chose a DS game and Sam chose a Playmobil car and then they both went to Build a Bear ad chose matching horses! Abigails is named Angelina and Sams is named Chestnut! It was fun watching them make and name them!

See..

........I just asked Lloyd again and he says 'just ask'

Men......no social skills ;)

Puzzles...

Other peoples lives puzzle me...especially when I'm not sure what is going on in them and when they just WON'T give me a straight answer or leave it MONTHS between replies. Sigh.....

I have a friend and he seems to be going through some 'issues' and I'm concerned for him.....I hope he's ok...and yes ok part of me is just plain nosy......because some of the changes in his life make a lot of sense to me. They were basically ones I told him to do last year! Anyway - two major things I suggested to him he has DONE....and this puzzles me considering I have not seen him for 20 years and didn't know him very well even then.

Anyway....with my obsessive personality I puzzle over things like this and so I have questions about a few things and yet he doesn't reply and just when I thought he would AGAIN...and I didn't get to ask the question I wanted to ask.......and Lloyd told me to JUST ASK HIM.....but I thought it would be nosy.....lol. See men are simple beings hahahahaha Lloyd says he would just say 'what happened to.......?' but Lloyd isn't that rude? and nosy?

He was traveling around NZ and Australia and then was in the US supposedly for a few weeks but today it says he has headed home - after just 3 days??????

Traveling the globe is fun but at some point you have to go home I guess ...and to what? Your real life is still there right? And then what?

But I doubt I will get a reply anyway...so yes I'm still waiting.

I'm sorry if none of this makes sense...I'm rambling more for me than anything thing else.....puzzles with no answers.

Happy Valentines Day...

I hope you're all having...or all had....a lovely Valentines day. Lloyd surprised me with this wonderful little card that he made himself while I was out for dinner on Thursday evening. He used my rubber stamps and stamped a bee, cut out a heart and even coloured in the bees :) He totally won me over with the thought he put into it :)

I love you Lloyd!

The cutest moose?

Tess just could NOT resist trying on the moose head ;)

Samantha turns 42...or DOES she??????

Last night I went out to help my friend Samantha celebrate her 42nd birthday. Tess came with me for the evening and it was great to catch up with her and see her again after so long! We ordered our drinks and we all had soft drinks except Samantha who had alcohol - and the server asked to see her ID!!!! She ID'ed her!!!!!! oh my gawd!!!!! At 42 she got ID'ed - and she was serious! Samantha was laughing and she didn't have any ID on her as Tracey was driving her home, so Tracey showed the server hers, and the server said no, she needed to see Samanthas!!! we were all in hysterics!!!! Sooooo jealous!!! We finally got them to believe she was 42 and the server apologised and said 'forget I mentioned it' and we were like 'no way - it's like the highlight of her year' hahahahaha!

Valentines...

Yesterday Sam had his Valentine party at Pre-K. He had to go dressed in red white or pink - so I put him in a red sweater and stuck heart stickers all over it! He took the treats for all his friends (the straws we had labelled) and there were bags lined up for them all and we had to put one for each in the bags. He also gave his teachers a little bouquet of Tulips each.

They had party food and decorated cookies, made the heart winged butterfly clips in the picture above and went to the indoor playground. They made necklaces too. He had a lot of fun at his first Valentine party! His treat bag was FULL when he came home :)

Kids can make atc's too (2)

These are the atc's that Abigail and Susannah have made for the second round of this swap. Abigails is on the left and Susannah's on the right. They love to get mail for themselves with all the stickers and goodies!

Sams Valentines...

These are the Valentine treats Sam is taking to give out at Pre-K tomorrow. They are straws with hearts on and I've tied a name and greeting to each one with red ribbon. Simple yes but I think they're cute. They'll have to do this year because I just don't have the time and energy to do anything more creative this year! Other years I've gone more over board but this year I just can't!