Frog ATC swap

I received this swap during the week from a swapbot swap. It was from the Frog swap I took part in! I couldn't believe what the lady sent me! As well as the one frog ATC she sent me - with the glass eyes, she also sent me a blown glass atc!!!!! And she also sent a glass bead necklace!!! And also a bee embellishment and a lovely little note about hummingbirds and how they have them all year long where she is - then she sent me a note online to say they had had snow and yet they STILL were feeding the hummingbirds!!!!!!

Sam and his paper chain snake....

Sam had fun making paper chains the other day with some paper chains Grandma sent from England that we had left over still form last year...

A gift from Stacey!

When I visited Stacey on Tuesday she gave me this Christmas gift!!! A box for my ATC's that she had painted and embellished just for me! It's so pretty - I don't know if you can tell but it sparkles in the light!!! And it has my name and bees on the top!!! Just so sweet and thoughtful! I love it! It has pride of place on my new shelf!!! Thank you so much Stacey! I don't know what paint you used but I LOVE how it sparkles in the light by my window!

Santa came early.....

Today Lloyd put up the first of two new storage systems in my room for my crafting supplies! The first is the Making Memories large Embellishment Centre which was on sale at Michaels for 40% off its usual price so I couldn't resist! It comes with a ribbon holder but my ribbons are currently stored in the decorated paint can on top so I haven't added that yet - maybe I will eventually but for mow I like the extra shelf space.

Sad news

We had a phone call this morning from England, to say that Lloyds Granddad had died today.

Lloyd will be flying over to England for the funeral next week and visiting his parents and my parents while he is there.

photobooth funny pic!

Sam and I funny pic!

The Twilight Before Christmas.......

Just click in the square to play!

;)

Paleontology, archeology and digging for treasures....

The children had fun digging for treasures in sand this afternoon......it was good fun! I loved seeing Taylors eyes get wide when he saw a bone or arm of his Mummy in the sand and it was so sweet every time Kylie screamed with excitement when she a dinosaur bone in her sand!!! :) So much fun :) Poor Stacey had to deal with the sand setting her nerves on edge the whole time but to be honest it felt like sweet revenge for the fact that she has gorgeous nails and I don't ;) hahahahaha!!! sometimes life just isn't fair hahahahaha ;) OMG her nails are so gorgeous - naturally gorgeous - I mean how unfair is THAT?? lol!

j/k Stacey ;) see you soon :)

Singin' and dancin' with Santa!!!

Today Sam and I went to spend the afternoon with Stacey, Taylor and Kylie!!! We had sooooo much fun! They have this giant dancing Santa who sings, and we got to dance along with him! The first time we switched him on, Sam wasn't too sure what to make of him. He didn't exactly run away, but he did go and get a book and pretend to sit and read and act like he just wasn't interested at ALL ;)

Then a little while later Sam got used to santa and joined in with the dancing but the children were dancing so fast and furiously that they didn't stay near Santa long enough for Stacey to get a picture! So I joined in the dancing to try and get them to stay with me near Santa - but that didn't work either!

Staceys family just had the most gorgeous family pictures taken for Christmas!!!! Sounds like they had quite an adventure getting them taken, but it was well worth it!! Beautiful pictures Stacey!

Thanks so much for a great afternoon Stacey - hope to see you next week :)

I've been naughty!

Talking to mum yesterday I was saying how this will be the first year we don't have a proper Christmas pudding - no one has visited us this year and brought any over.....and yet she has 4 sat in her pantry including a large one waiting for someone to bring it over for us! Olly isn't coming over in time :(

Lloyd said to get Mum to Fed-ex the puds over and we'll pay and I was thinking about that and then I started looking online at the British Import stores. The local store didn't have any decent puds on Sunday - $20 for a tiny one that had some weird sauce with it, and it was a make I had never heard of! So I may as well pay $10 in Safeway for theirs! But thats a gamble for Christmas Day!! So I looked online and found a place that sells all Marks and Spencers goodies, and I've ordered two M&S puddings!!! Also two cans of Lucozade original WOOHOO!!! Ad a big tube of jelly tots :) Oh I am so spoiled :)

I looked for Lloyds favourite goodies and they didn't have anything really that he liked :( So tomorrow I will look for him! Maybe the place in Calgary will do his favourites!

But woohoo - we WILL have Christmas pudding - it isn't Tesco but at least it's M&S!!!!

In our thoughts....

We had news from England yesterday that Lloyds Granddad has been in hospital now for five weeks with pneumonia.

We have been trying to phone him but there has been no answer and they could not find our contact numbers, but then got our address when our Christmas card arrived (I assume) so wrote to us but that has not arrived yet, and then finally found the emergency contact numbers and phoned us yesterday.

The pneumonia has been treated now but he keeps getting recurring infections now. He is 94.

Please keep him in your thoughts. He is extremely independent and will NOT be happy in hospital - he will desperately want to be back at home in his apartment by the sea. I hope he is home for Christmas but it doesn't sound like he will be :(

There are worse things I could do......

Tonight we all curled up in front of the fire with the lights glowing from the Christmas tree, and we watched Grease. Abigail LOVED that she knew some of the songs from her tap dancing routine and couldn't believe that John Travolta did some of the same moves as her (hahahaha) even though (as she put it) he looked a little like a vampire (hahaha)!

The children were laughing at me because I was singing aong to all the songs and knew all the words and was saying how I had always wnated to be Sandy. I used to have a poster of John Travolta in my bedroom when I was Susies age - from 'Look-in' magazine!!! I told them that he is now the voice of Bolt!!!

It was fun to watch Grease again - I guess it was the 'High School Musical' of our day ;) Actually it was of my sisters day as I was too young for it really. But I did love it :) I remember watching it on video at Tizzy Cartwrights birthday party - her Dad was showing off that they were the first in the village to own a video recorder!!! Too funny!

This song by Rizzo is my favourite song from the movie - by my favourite character!!! I may have wanted to be Sandy but if I had been in the movie I think I would have played Rizzo......I'm NOTHING like Sandy lol!

The finished houses....

And here are the finished houses.....each team with their own house...and Chris trying to pretend he was with the girls team because their house was the better house hahahahaha - ie it stayed together, the tree wasn't snapped in half and they actually remembered to USE the gingerbread men!!!!  All in all it was good fun!!!  And yes as you can see, Sam was sneaking candy the whole way through - he is TOTALLY wired on sugar!!!!

Our Saturday

Chris invited a group of friends over today...but in the end only a couple of them came...probably because the temperature is -26c and the windchill is (ie it feels like) -39c and some of them were coming from Edmonton on the bus!!!  But his friend from school came and a friend from the village here and I think they had a good time!  They had a gingerbread house making contest - girls against boys.  Max is quite used to our mad house as he has been here several times, and knows Sam and the others well but Kiray is an only child so probably thought she had entered a mad house with candies being thrown around the place (yes even at me) and Sam chasing people with Santa signs and lots of noise and chaos.....but at the end of the day she said she WOULD be venturing back here again!!!  So I will take that positively ;)

Laurence escaped with Lloyd for the afternoon - they went off to buy some more straw bales for Charlie.  I had the Christmas music playing, finished decorating the Christmas tree, worked on some VERY special scrapbook layouts I'm doing!!!  And on some more Snowman soup and things I'm doing!!!

It's been a lovely 'at home' day - staying snuggly and warm on a bitterly cold day.  The children have had fun - Susie and Abby also made Christmas cards.  They watched 'The Polar Express' as well and listened to their Disney Christmas music cd.

My latest craft project

So this is what I have been working on lately....packets of 'snowman soup'.  They are little baggies that contain a sachet of hot chocolate, some mini marshmallows, a hersheys kiss and a candy cane.  On the back of each packet is a label that explains what snowman soup is.

And On the front is stamped a row of snowmen - a stamp from Stampin Up that I got from my fabby Stampin Up demonstrator Tess!  She's such an amazing sales girl she actually forgets to charge you half the time hahahahahahaha!!!!  Ooooops!!!!  ;)  Problem is that I have found this website with this girl who comes up with a new idea every week using Stampin Up products and I LOVE her ideas, so now I see myself spending a small fortune in the next year :(  

I see my new scrapbooking island being well used anyway (what was that Lloyd?????  You mean that island in the kitchen is for COOKING???????  Oh.......REALLY?????????  wow.....who'd've thunk!!!!!! )

Anyway, the children are excited to dish out these packets to friends over the next week :)  I've enjoyed making them and making the most of my new stamps - finding new ways to use them!