Enjoying time off....

Lloyd has been making the most of his time off of work..this afternoon, despite the horrid weather, he went out on his quad and tested how tough the ice was on the puddles........the front puddles weren't thick ice at all but in the back field the ice was thicker and it took a while to get the weight of the quad to fall through......

Do men ever grow out of the boy scout type of stuff??????

Its April...so why is still SNOWING????????

It has been snowing here all day today...it is windy and cold and horrid out.....we have had snow since October :( it has been a very very long winter here this year :( it is 13 degrees colder than it should be for this time of year :(

Dumb dog!!

I guess she'll never learn lol...Amber came in tonight with 3 quills sticking out of her nose! AGAIN!!! Why won't she learn that porcupines HURT???????

Crazy dog! Next time she does it she can suffer a minute longer while I grab the camera!!!

conversations in the car.....

Coming back from the Farm and Ranch show yesterday...


Lloyd: "Abigail! Stop picking your nose!!!"

Abigail: (starts to cry) "But Dad I'm sooooo thirsty!!"

Sunday - and its cold again!!

I spoke to my Nephew Daniel again today and he sounds so excited about coming to visit - which is so great :) I can't wait to see him as it has been YEARS!!!

He was hoping to book his ticket today so I should know when he is coming over!

Lloyd had to run to Home Deopt for apaintbrush todya - he has spent the afteernoon doing the edges in the sitting room...around the window etc etc.....he has a week off of work so he is hoping to get a lot of unfinished jobs done.

While he was in Home Deopt, I ran into Michaels and chose an icing nozzle - I want to have a go at decorating cupcakes really nicely.....so I bought a beginners kit by Wilton.......it teaches five basic techniques to do star flowers, shells, swirled flowers, dots and sweet peas...and I got an extra star nozzle for doing big swirly cupcakes.......so this week I will be baking a lot of cupcakes to practice on :) I used my 40% off coupon so it didn't cost much at all :) I love those coupons - and next weeks is 50% off too!!!!

I also found some Wizard of Oz scrapbooking stickers so I can scrapbook the pictures of the witches hat from MGM Studios :)

Apart from that though we have all stayed indoors and kept warm as it is cold again and they forecast snow (NOOOOOOOO!!!!!)

Now I am going to go and make a cottage pie for dinner :)

Explosion Box.....

This is my 'altered item' for the contest......I had great plans for it but I just can't do 'shabby chic' which is all the rage right now......all my pieces end up too simple and basic no matter what I do!

But I did enjoy making this as a gift for Susannah.....you pull off the lid of the box and all the 'pages' flop out to reveal pictures of Susie from babyhood onwards.....and even if it doesn't win many points in the contest, I know It has won a lot of points with Susie and the colours and style are sooooooo Susie!!!

Now I just have my card to do and maybe do a few alterations to these two pieces before I upload the pictures to the contest folders at scrappershaven.ca

Rhinestone Cowgirl.....

My layout for Iron Chef round2........using 'monogram' and 'bling'.......

SPLASH!!!!

Making the most of the HUGE puddles we have around here right now :) Great fun!!!!! :) Lloyd took the girls out on his for rides too and the dogs had so much fun running with us........Charlie our pig was quite happy to just sit in the sunshine and watch us :)

Mouse rescue.......

Heather don't laugh lol....while we were out on the quads, we saw a mouse run across the snow......unfortunately the dogs saw it too and chased after it.....eventually they caught it and threw it in the air but Lloyd got them to leave it....he then grabbed the mouse and rushed it into our house.....where it is now recovering from it's ordeal........

So yes we are playing doctor to a mouse :)

Mmmmmm cup cakes!!!!

At the farmers market there was a stand from St Alberts Farmers Market called 'The Cupcake Shoppe'.......they sold the prettiest looking cupcakes! $2 each......

I treated Lloyd and I to:

Cafe-au-lait: 'our scrumptious white cake with delicate coffee frosting'

and

Lemon Drop: 'Our sweet lemon cake with zesty lemon frosting'

YUM!!!!!

They bake to order and they also do birthday cakes/ novelty cakes!!!

wwwedmontoncupcakes.ca

The banks have burst.......

This is how our pond looked yesterday - including the evening when the children were all playing outside:






And this is what we woke up to this morning:






So at some point during the night, one of the ponds further up the hill must have burst its banks from the thaw......the water runs down to our woods and floods our woods and the woods then burst into our pond making it flood too........it happens every year and is amazing to see........and its even more amazing that before you know it, the woods will be all dried out and the pond will be back to normal :) Until then though the kids will have a blast with boats and rafts :)

Agriculture show.......

Today we went to Northlands for the Farm and ranch show.....we went last year so they sent us free tickets for this year.....its such a great show....full of cowboy-types! Lloyd was in his element looking at all the tractors etc and the children had fun climbing up on all the combines and tractors......and almost every stand had free candy for them!

There was also a farmers market and a cattle show...and we got to watch the blacksmiths making the horse shoes the old way with the anvil.........

Great show!

Last nights sunset.........

More good news...

My friend Samantha is starting a new parentlink group in my local community hall every other Friday morning...kind of like a drop in playgrou with activities...crafts...toys...refreshments etc......it starts in two weeks time she thinks....which will be great :) I love having things happening here in the village.......its such a great community :)

Its going to be such a great excuse to see more of her and so convenient that it means she can come back to my place for lunch some times - or we can go to the Esso garage for lunch :)

It was kind of crazy today at MP so we didn't get to chat much really but it was so great to see her!

Oh and I did warn Samantha that if she ever buys anything in the local store for lunch after the group that she is to DOUBLE CHECK THE SELL BY DATE on EVERYTHING!!!!!!!

Some parents!!!

Chris's friend arrived about 40 minutes ago.......then they realised he had forgotten his extra handset thingies for Playstation...so he calls his dad and his dad says he will bring them over....

They live in the Park and thats a 20 minute drive up the Hwy......is he a great Dad or is he crazy to say he'd do that????

Maybe I'm a terrible parent but I would have said no!!! No way!!! If it was just around the corner thats fine but all this way? For some PS2 handsets????? Uhhh....let me think about that....NO!!!!

The movie is done and they are all outside playing basketball/ badminton and on the trampoline......Sammy and Abigail are watching Treehouse for a while slowly getting sleepy.....

I have done some laundry for the twins.....they went up in the side field in the snow and got SOAKED and really muddy - so right now they are wearing some of Lauries clothes which are too big and I washed theirs and they are now drying..........

Lloyd is on his way home - early!!!!! This is not such a great thing for once as he can never relax when other peoples kids are here and he gets fed up with the noise etc and stresses me out...its so much better when he goes out for the evening until LATE...but his friend got sick and had to go home early :( so Lloyd is coming home...and he is off now for a week maybe because he has no contract :) I'm happy - he isn't so happy lol!

It means I can go to the school Easter Celebration without Sam :) thats a good thing :)