My little chefs :)

Friday was a good day as both Susannah AND Laurence cooked at school and brought food home for us all!  Susannah made Taco salad AND chocolate chip and oatmeal squares.  

Laurence baked a blueberry pie:

All of it was VERY yummy and the perfect thing to come home to after our adventures in the wet and muddy woods on Friday :)  

Almost perfect....

Today was an almost perfect day.  For me it was a wonderful day - but my mind was also on some friends who are going through some very difficult and sad times.  They remain in my thoughts xxx

My day started off very early as Susannah had to be at the school by 9am.  She volunteered to run the concession at the plant sale all day.  I came home and cleaned the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen, got the dishwashers running and swept up, and then relaxed out on the deck for a while.  It was such a gorgeous day!  

Rosie enjoyed the fact that I was home with her and outside - and she pottered about in the woods and in the back yard, reassured that I was out on the deck.  She would head down to the pond for a swim, to cool off every now and then :)  

I sat at the patio table and did some art journaling.  It was such a wonderful place to journal:

Lunch was a spinach wrap with cream cheese and veggies:

My crow family are back again this year and happily feed from the bird table:

I picked Susannah up from the plant sale just after 3pm.  She didn't want to go home as the weather was too good, so we headed to Whyte Ave for a stroll and to look for 

an Iphone cover for her (no luck):

We went to Coney Island Candy Store to see Zoltar.  Oh boy his fortunes are always sooooo accurate - it's amazing!  he knows us so well!! This guy was standing next to Zoltar:

 We then headed to Fuss Cupcakes for a drink and a cake each:

We did a lot more walking and window shopping on Whyte and then headed to Katies Crossing for a while.  We got home just before 8pm and then I cut the grass before relaxing in the sunshine again on the deck...

And enjoying a recipe from Pinterest - vodka soaked Gummibears :)  

Artsy stuff from the last few days....

I am still working on the 29 Faces in May challenge.  I think this face is one of my favourites so far.  I just think she is really cute :)  :  

And still loving my art journaling:

The page above was created using a stencil made from a $2. BATH MAT!!!!!  :)  Yep :)  I spotted it at Dollarama and thought it would be perfect cut up into squares to make several different sized stencils!!  Works great with my Dylusion ink sprays:

Loving using the sprays in my journals and at the moment I am using some photographs that I printed off on several pages:

This technique is called 'ghosting' - where you remove some of the ink afterwards with water through a stencil:

I LOVE this page but still haven't journaled on it - haven't thought of the ideal topic for it yet - but I will when the time is right!

I did this one today and my blue Copic pen ran out halfway through doing her hair (you can have them refilled thankfully) so I used the turquoise Dylusion spray to finish her off, and I think it worked out quite well even with her hair half done :)  

Scenic landscapes from the last few days...

Adventures at the dog park!

Today we headed to the local off leash dog park for a ramble through the woods.  It was a gorgeous day and really warm after a while - but after a few days rain, the woods were soooo GREEN and smelled lovely and damp and musty - like woods SHOULD smell!  :)  

The trails have all been re-done in the last year, and they look really good now.  It was a lovely walk and sooo good to be out in the woods - Sam loves to find big sticks to use and Abigail loves to walk Rosie and see the other dogs.  She's decided she wants to be a Pug breeder when she is older and wants 1,000 pugs!!!!  We saw a Pug on our walk today too so she was thrilled!  I think they are ugly little dogs hahaha but Abigail adores them - and I must admit they suit her personality :)  

We followed the trails round and then took the one we thought lead back to the main dog park area - but instead it lead into the middle of NOWHERE but we had gone too far to turn back timewise - so we kept going and then found we were in the middle of a BOG and the trail was all flooded.  We started to walk around it through all the trees avoiding the wet areas but then found we had lost the path completely and our way!!  Sam and Abby managed to climb across this thin log at one point but my shoes were already wet and muddy and slippery and I didn't know what to do.  I gave up and took my shoes off and just walked through the flood water - all muddy and boggy and stinky!  OMG it was a disaster hahahaha!  Rosie waded through the deepest point and ended up all stinky and muddy too - and she was even drinking it :(  

We finally found our way back to the dog park and headed for the car - my shoes were squelching as I walked and then I got a mosquito bite on my leg too.  It was a very damp and stinky ride home!!  I washed off my shoes (which were new last weekend) and showered - and made the children wash their feet and legs too to get it all off!  

Thankfully the kids LOVED it and had a great time.  And up until the water disaster I had had a lovely hike too!  Next time we take rubber boots!!!  :)