Dear deer....

Not bothered at all by us:

Camouflaged:

Home and Garden show...

On Thursday Lloyd and I had a nice evening out at the Home and Garden show.  I had won two free tickets c/o Greenland Garden centre.   We were really impressed by the renovations to Northlands and the new addition to the exhibition centre.  It is HUGE now:

We were able to have a look at flooring specialists, talk to people about the stonework we need to have done outside, and pick up information on all kinds of things we needed to find out about for the house.  We stopped by the Apollo stand and said hi to the people we knew.

I liked the Habitat For Humanity ReStore exhibits!!  They had some great ideas on how to alter furniture and thrift store items to give them new 'life' - just my kind of thing ;)

My favourite part was the garden exhibit designed by NAIT students:

Most of the food available at Northlands is greasy burgers etc, but we did manage to find a little Panini place that did great sandwiches.  Lloyd and I had these amazing chicken and pesto panini's.  They were yummy and the staff were really friendly:

Breathe...

We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend in the Rocky Mountains, enjoying the gorgeous Spring weather and the lovely fresh air.  Plenty of hiking, swimming, sightseeing - and a little geocaching thrown in too.

Perfect :)

Fridays fill ins - a few days late ;)

And...here we go!

1. The right word is HAPPY!!!
2. Let the dogs out and shut the door quietly, please.
3. Up is one of my most favourite movies.
4. In Summer, outside is where you'll find me.
5. Ooh! What is that animal footprint in the mud...let's google it?
6. Getting the beef joint in the crockpot soon is a good idea.
7. And as for the weekend, Friday night I was looking forward to strolling around Jasper and watching the children swim in the hotel pool, Saturday my plans included Geocaching and hiking in the Jasper area and more swimming and Sunday we went for a walk around JPL before heading home!


Find your Friday Fill ins HERE

Notebooks...

I am still busy writing away in my little notebooks...these are just four of my billion little notebooks lol - these are the 'mini's'.....I also have a huge collection of the bigger notebooks all decorated up - some are being used for various reasons and some are ready to go....

I have a gratitude journal, a dream journal, a little book in which I make a note of all the lovely things my DH does for me, a book quotes book, a fitness/ workout journal, a notebook in which I jot things to remember, to blog, to look up, to tell people, to do etc etc, one for poetry...

This is what I do with all my patterned paper scraps....the children love making these too - and my older boys love having them - every now and then I will make a boyish/ guyish looking one and leave it in their room for them to find....I think these little books encourage them to write more, journal more, just scribble notes down more....

I LOVE notebooks :)

I think Kitty's winning!!

Sam

Paper bag album...so far

This was my little project today - still quite a lot to do but the paper that I painted with a wash earlier is now dry and I have started attaching it to the mini album.  It has a lovely shimmer to it.

I will put a title on the cover too....just not sure what yet..

Well, I have been out to pick Laurie up from badminton and gave his friend a ride home too.  They had a FABULOUS day at the P.A.R.T.Y program today - they learned sooooo much and said it was very eye-opening and has left a BIG effect on them!!!  They had a LOT to say about it all and Laurence was full of stories about everything that happened and all they saw and heard!  Some very sad and graphic stories :(  

I hope it stays with them and keeps them all safe!!

Now for dinner and then Lloyd and I are heading out.  

Showing off their wings......

So we're going to have a mix of brown and white eggs after all - which will be really nice :)  The chicks have grown soooo much and have a lot of mature feathers already!  They are soooo sweet :)  They make the loveliest chirping noises :)  

Craft day...

Today we spent much of the day crafting.....we made some brown bag albums...Sam decorated his with his name and then some spots so he would never forget having chicken pox ;)  

Abigail filled hers with pictures of London and stickers of double decker buses etc and then she decorated the front like a face.

I gave some pages from an old book some colour wash and then sprayed them with glimmer mist....the glimmer mist has kind of disappeared into the paper leaving this beautiful shimmer in the wash....I'm going to cover my album pages with those and then fill it with....hhhmmm - not sure yet!!!  :)  

Abigail started asking a lot of questions about art college and saying she could craft and do art all day every day and maybe she would grow up to be an artist and go to art school....we then ended up talking about whether you can do art when you are 80.....or if you are a man - for some reason she felt that men are not 'arty' - so we started talking about how well daddy can draw...and how good he is with scissors and how good he can paint and how well he makes things...and that the only reason he doesn't draw and paint any more is because of lack of time...

And still she said men aren't 'arty'....

So then we started talking about all the artists she had learned about at art class and how almost ALL of them had been MEN!!!  Then we talked about how Chris and Laurence were very good at their different chosen arts...and STILL she decided that men are not 'arty'.

I GIVE UP!!!  ;)  

Anyhoo...it was a lovely messy crafty day - but my house is all back to normal now and clean and tidy :)  

Keeping himself busy...

While I was working out this morning, Sam was busy in his bedroom creating this masterpiece with his duct tape:

It's a money jar!!  He cut up a water bottle, covered it in a  tissue for decoration and then covered that in duct tape to make it all silvery and pretty :)  

He came downstairs and presented it to me - he was sooooo proud :)

Wow my boy has talent  and wow does he LOVE his duct tape :)  

I love it :)  

Life Story....

This is a box I am working on for a class I'm taking - it will contain the album and ephemera for the class.  The class is yet another FANTASTIC class by Kara Haupt  called Life Story.  I am loving it so far!!  This is the third of Kara's classes that I have taken and I have loved them all and learned soooooo much from all of them!  I love that this one is created inside a little 'treasure box'!!  I'm really having fun with it!!!

Thanks so much to Michelle Clement who gave me the class as a prize on her blog!!!  

I love him :)

Because our weather today is this:

my wonderful Husband just Emailed me this:

And said "To cheer u up!"  :)

He searched downtown to find them as he had seen people walking about with them on this grey and snowy day!!  Each year they sell these pretties for The Canadian Cancer Society and Lloyd hunts them down for me because he knows how much I love them!  

It will be quite a while before they are popping up in peoples yards (gardens) over here!!

Yay :)

Yay I won two tickets to this show yesterday - this was the good news email I was hoping to get yesterday :)  

I was hoping to win a contest I had entered to win TWO TICKETS to this local show - and as I won, it means Lloyd and I are off to the Edmonton Home and Garden Show for date night this week :)  

I'm looking forward to seeing the garden designed by NAIT students and getting ideas for our basement and bathrooms as well as the back yard....but generally just strolling around with Lloyd for the evening...

It will be a lovely date night - not something we would have bothered to go to this year if we didn't have free tickets - so winning them is wonderful :)  

Thank you Greenland!!

P.A.R.T.Y. Program

Today Laurence is taking part in the   P.A.R.T.Y. program at the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton.  This  is a wonderful program that shows young people the dangers that alcohol can have - and how it can effect thinking, behaviour etc etc.  They will see and experience first hand the effects alcohol can have.

Laurie had to take food with him suitable for eating as a paraplegic - so he took salad and jello and will have to try and eat it with certain disabilities at the hospital.  They will see what happens after alcohol induced road traffic accidents.  They will see how alcohol can destroy lives.

You can read more about the P.A.R.T.Y program HERE