my pretty

This picture ended up looking a little wonky after I took it into PSE to lighten it up. She really doesn't have a black eye, nor does she have a lazy eye. But my reasons for taking this picture are this.
Hailey was invited to a birthday party this afternoon. In our house, parties=dresses or skirts. We've just always dressed the girls up for birthday parties, Christmas parties, and the like .. so it's firmly planted into their heads that when we say 'party' .. they promptly go to the closet to pick something pretty out. And today was no different. Out came a spring skirt (all black with white and hot pink flowers cascading it's length) and a hot pink top to match. And of course, with the cool breeze a blowing, tights were definetly needed as well.
15 minutes before having to leave, I let the girls know how much time we had, and asked the question all mothers do before leaving the house. "If you need to pee .. go now" So upstairs Hailey went and when she came back down, she was wearing pink lipstick. And she declared herself ready. Wow, where did my little girl go, and how'd she grow up so fast?

SPF: Behind

Kristine from Random and Odd is asking us for our 'behind' photos for this week's SPF.

So here's my shots from this past weekend that show the 'behinds' of my two sweet daughters. They'll probably kill me in about 10 years for having posted these, but isn't that what Moms are for? To embarass our children? ;)

A mix of children, sticky mud and this is what you're bound to have .. dirty behinds. ;)

shedding winter

There's so many things I associate with the arrival of spring. The sun peeking in my livingroom window most mornings, the sounds of the birds whistling their morning song, longer evenings .. making it possible for playtime outdoors after supper, sounds of playing children, dirty hands and faces, jars of insects, dandylions and cherry blossoms, the fragrance of freshly cut grass and sweet smells of other flowers in bloom, the change in wardrobe from long pants to some skirts and dresses, lighter jackets, and a good short haircut.
Yes that's right. Every spring I feel the huge urge to have a good chunk of hair (this time it was three inches) cut from my length. I like the fresh, flippy feel of a short do. I may have been a sheep in another life, because it just feels right to rid myself of the winter hair, getting rid of the warmth it gave to my ears and neck so I could endure the freezing winds. Off with the warmth that will soon stifle me and cause my neck to overheat during the summer temps. It's spring! Time to shed ourselves of the old, and let the new fresh inner beauty shine through.

Ammonite and English Man

As you've already come to know, we've really gotten into this geocaching stuff, and not only is it giving us a chance to really see some of the back country of this Island we live on, but we're getting excellent exercise as well.

This is Ammonite Falls, located in the foothills of Mt Benson (a small mountain that skirts the city in which we live). We hiked in for just over a kilometer and tho such a short distance, it took us awhile because for one, we have children with short legs and a short stamina, and two, the path was rooted and held scattered rocks not to mention the muddy parts we ran into. On the way in, Alissa's boots got sucked into the mud and she landed on her bum .. in the mud .. wet and dirty but still a smile on her face. On the way out .. Hailey's rear fell victim to the same mudpit. It really was such a sight .. and I couldn't help but laugh at their horrible fate. I know .. I'm mean!

Sunday we went hiking along a favourite nature path and falls, looking for yet another cache that we landed up not finding, but once again the fresh air and exercise was a nice past time for a Sunday. The river was high and the water, rushing. Ever wonder why moving water and flames draw you in and hypnotize you into a peaceful state?

And as we wrapped up our long afternoon outdoor adventure and I got over the fact that BOTH sets of batteries died and I was left with only a handful of photos from our afternoon, we all relaxed back into our seats .. content to relieve the pressures on our feet, and enjoy the ride back into town. But not until we had found us a snack at a little country store, to feed the monster that suddenly decided to make itself known in our tummies.

digital doings

I've recently discovered I'm a digital horder, who collects and collects various freebies, but never actually uses them. Maybe it's because I'm still such a beginner and find that it's SO time consuming to scrap a digital layout and that just adds to the huge amounts of time I already spend on the computer. At least with paper scrapping, I switch over to my other desk and chair so it doesn't feel like I've spent a huge part of the day sitting in one position/spot. Whatever the reason, I found myself downloading more freebies this morning, from some very talented and famous digital scrappers. I was inspired by what I saw and wanted to ruffle my own wings abit and see where a little playing would take me.
I played with a photo I took yesterday, in PSE and wanted to take it further, so dug deep into my folders of elements and papers and found myself making this layout. It's based on a layout made by K Sharon, using a couple of her things from recent kits. The flower and the notebook paper are hers, the doodle line is by Angie Briggs .. altered to make it a line not a photo corner, the background paper is Kako Designs.

Spring Break .. day 5

And we made it through the school-less week without killing eachother. Whew!
Today's activity (come rain or shine) was to visit the beach. I simply adore going down to the beach, scouring for pretty rocks and abandoned shell homes. I prefer the beach on a hot summers day, but I'm just so grateful to live nearby the ocean, that I can soak in that salt smell ANYday! The heavy rains broke for abit, and we headed out to take advantage of not needing an umbrella. The breeze was brisk, but that didn't stop the seagulls from floating about in it, high above our heads with the occasional one swooping down when it apparently caught sight of it's prey in the shallow waters.

The girls walked the beach all hunched over, searching for all kinds of shells. I don't know how their little fingers didn't freeze off, but even digging in the cold wet sand didn't fizz them.
After getting home, they sorted through the shells they scavenged, then came in, peeled off their wet clothes and are now playing in a hot tub. Perfect ending!

Spring Break .. Day 4

Safari Jeff and Shanon are here again to entertain the animal lovers during spring break. It was a packed house, and thankfully I have zoom or I wouldn't have gotten anything but the backs of the parental units heads. (I did in some still) After the presentation, they allowed the children to touch all but the little aligator, which became an even more daring act when the handler brought it nose to nose with many of the brave kids.

*next in line to pet the albino snake (can't recall what kind)

*nose to nose with a baby aligator

And even Flat Sara tagged along!

Spring Break .. Day 3

An online friend of mine put out a request for people to host a 'flat child' from her daughters grade one class. I threw up my hand in great anticipation that someone would want to send to an out of country family, because I just KNEW my girls would adore showing a first graders little flat self around for a couple weeks. If you've never heard of a Flat Stanley, you can read up on how it works right here. So guess what arrived today? Little Miss Flat Sara. She really is quite adorable all dressed in her precious Texan ensemble, and I promise to photograph her lots in the next little while so you can see what I mean.
My girls immediately insisted Flat Sara needed friends while she stayed here, so they busied themselves making their own little flat selves. This one is Flat Hailey, during the process of being assembled. We plan on making Flat Sara's stay very fun and an experience she can tell her friends about back in Texas, with photos included.

Spring Break .. Day 2

Be prepared to giggle profusely. As you can tell, I couldn't hold back my own giggles. Isn't the innocence of a child such a blissful state?
Cat Tails

I need me some rubber!

Yes I do, because if you're under 10 and you slip your feet into some rubber .. you automatically are guarentee'd fun. I want to enjoy the pure enthusiasm and the giggles I heard from my girls as they found puddles and mud to walk through while we were out yesterday morning. While the grownups (aka: Auntie S, and myself .. we'll forget about the boys because they just didn't care about the mud like us older girls) tried to find a way around the mud/puddles or tiptoed through the least of it .. the little girls were walking straight for them.

Let me show you some examples. My little volunteer for the day will be Miss 'Liss.

This is how you enjoy a puddle to it's fullest.

#1 Step into the puddle, get a feel for the puddle (it's depth, etc) swish the water around .. making your boots all shiny and wet.

#2 Start dancing, enjoying the water splashing up the boot and creating mini waves with the small amount of water.

#3 But be careful how carried away you get with the dancing, because you may come close to losing a boot with those high kicks.
So it's settled. Next chance I get .. I'm buying me some rubber and hanging up my runners so I too can enjoy our spring walks.

bribe or reward

Since last year, we've started giving rewards for good grades on report cards. And yesterday, the report cards came out, declaring the girls both at their grade level or in some cases, exceeding. I've mentioned before how I thought Alissa was struggling with her letter recognition and sound, but her report card showed she's perfectly on schedule. I guess I'm used to a little brainer who was reading at a first grade level at this time in her kindergarten year. I will continue working with her at home, but I'm not quite so worried as before.

To get back to the reason of this post. We reward for good grades, and the girls get to pick (within reason) what they'd like. The last couple times it's been a new DVD but this time .. Hailey was adament about getting a pair of Crocs. So today after school, we went a looking. We checked out three stores, and landed up finding these knock off ones, but the best part was they're Hello Kitty and are made by Air Walk, which proves to me they'll last just as well. We went back to one of the previous stores we had visited and bought up a couple croc charms (Hailey picked the butterfly, and Alissa .. Tweety). I can tell already we'll be buying up more charms in the near future.

So this little shopping spree brought up a question from my dear hubby. He asked if I thought this would be considered bribery. Get good grades and we'll buy you something. We have expressed to the girls that not always will they GET something in the form of merchandise. They may be treated to a little outing, or maybe dinner out at the restaurant of their choice (ugh McD's), or the like. I've also explained in words more fitting for a 5 and 7 yr old, that school is important and trying your best is even more important, and this 'reward' is because Daddy and I see how hard they work, and we want to show them we appreciate the effort they put in.

So you tell me. Would you consider this bribery or a reward?
(keep in mind MANY parents do this, tho both D's and my parents did NOT)

SPF .. letters

click on picture to see larger version
I decided it would be neat to go through magazines with Alissa this morning, looking for letters that are in our own name. Any activity involving letter recognition can't hurt right now (to know why, read here) so there we sat, flipping through hunting magazines (of all things), but instead of pasting my letters to just any piece of paper, I figured I may as well incorporate them into a layout.
And all this was spurred on because I needed to find MY letters for the SPF challenge this week. I defined Kristine's want for our letters, and gave the letters to my name.

TGIF

Not only is it just an ordinary Friday. It's also the last day before spring break! Yippee! I know I'll be recanting this premature excitement come next Friday .. but I'm just so happy I get a week off of the hassles of getting one very sleepy headed girlie up in the mornings. There are no words to describe how difficult THAT particular deed is. Oy!

So I have great plans of visiting the Safari Animals showings at one of the malls, saying hi to the new little ones at the animal petting farm and while there .. picking up some very delish local vegies, perhaps going to the indoor jungle gym also known as JJ's, treasure hunts down at the beach, playtime at the parks, and whatever else I can come up spur of the moment.
I can't wait!

I'll be back later to share my letters for SPF, as Kristine has asked.

geocaching

What is it, some of you have asked? Geocaching is something we've just recently discovered to entertain our family .. get us out in the fresh air .. get rid of trinkets and cheapy toys .. and spend quality family time together. Here's the site you can read, to technically find out more about it if you don't like my rundown.

See, about a month ago, Dave talked me into letting him purchase a GPS. Why did we need one right now? How was he going to get lost in the mountains when his motor bike wasn't in commision? Why did I buy that backroad map book for him awhile back if he wanted a GPS to replace it? Not sure, but he did figure out something we could use it for as a family, hence limiting the blow to the bank account. You see, there's quite a family of cachers out there, and they list caches they hide (usually on some nature path, in a hollow tree stump or behind a bush or rock), on this site. They list the coordinates and clues to their cache. Then people like us go hunt them down, find them and take a peek inside to see what goodies they have that we can trade our trinket/toy/item for. Some have themes, like the Dora the Explorer friendship bracelet cache we visited over the weekend. Another we're going to find this weekend, asks you trade nature related things, and most are just whatever you feel like doing. So basicly you can call geocaching the new treasure hunting. It's fun, we're getting fresh air, seeing nature, drinking lots of coffee, and having loads of fun!

success!

We decided to go on another geocaching excursion, in the rain, yesterday. This time we HAD to find the cache or we'd chalk this new found family adventure to be a failure. The trail was bumpy, curvy, spiraling down to a far below creek. We climbed down many stairs until we walked parallel with the water.

We passed this trickle of a waterfall, that's roar was bigger then it's bite. It set the beautiful atmosphere, really. And then when we had come to the coordinates where the cache was hidden, we set our coffee's down (okay, I did anyway .. because I canNOT search for a cache, hold my coffee AND be a good photographer) (oh and YES, we had coffee's .. like any good Canadian, we had our Tim's ;))

For some reason, Dave has a good eye for hiding spots, and found on the upside of the trail, this stump.(it's rather camo'd into the greenery, but there is a big ole stump there) And voila .. the cache was hidden inside a crevice.

There was alot of cheap kiddie toys for trinkets for the girls to rummage through and find what they wanted to trade for their poker chip.

And the rest is filmed, so no more pictures. I'd hate to show you how the girls sounded like seagulls, squaking over who got what, etc. But after all that was done, and we had hidden the cache back in it's spot .. we tackled the hike back UP those stairs.

Just embedding a new photo of myself here too!

bugs

Okay, NOW it's spring! The bugs are starting to come out, and we found this little gem walking up the schools exterior wall yesterday. Isn't it a beautiful colour? Personally, I wouldn't be touching a beetle that could possibly bite, but my fearless children can't get enough of their new found friend.

SPF

Kristine at Random and Odd is looking for our luggage this week. And because I'm past the diaper bag stage, don't travel much (though I'm sure you'd like to see my pink luggage I got as a high school grad gift from my family, and just recently had to buy blue cool luggage because DH refused to travel to Vegas with my pink suitcase), this is my daily companion. The bag that keeps on holding. Amounts you'd never ever guess. I stuff it to the brim, then empty, sort, toss, hunt for change, and put back important purse related items. And how can you not love the look? I was instantly hooked when I saw it hanging in Bentley Leathers and Luggage and knew I had to have that gorgeous piece of pink/brown camo. Married to an avid hunter makes me susceptible to camo, and when I found a purse in not only camo, but a girlie camo .. HAD to have it!

So there ya have it. My luggage.

beading

Hailey brought home this very interesting book from the school library this week. It's titled "Help, I'm bored" by Janine Lynn. It has over 300 activities for children 2-12 years of age, and we're talking HOURS of awsome things from recess games to crafts and recipes. I think I may need to go purchase this so we have it on hand at all times.

Anyway, so yesterday afternoon Hailey wanted to do one of the 300 things. So we snooped through it and found this really neat idea. Paper beads. A friend of mine on 123-scrap had made some just before Christmas as decorations for her mini tree, but I never paid attention to the instructions she had posted, but now I'm thinking .. why not? They're super easy, super fun, and make super little gifts.

In case you're in the mood for a little crafting .. here's the instructions scanned right from the book .. and our little samples thus far. The red/white beads with white fiber necklace is going to Hailey's friend who's turning 8 on Saturday. Oh and I must say, nail polish makes them look very lovely .. especially a pearly colour, or just clear too and this is a nice way of using up some of the longer pieces of scrap patterned paper you may have if you're a scrapbooker.

pet peeves

This didn't happen to me today to get me thinking about it, but it has in the past and I witnessed it this morning for someone else.

Pet Peeve #1:
Why do other adults feel it's their right to correct or scold a child in the presence of their parent?

I can sort of understand if it's in a store and the employee asks your child to stop climbing on the bars between checkouts because if they should slip and fall and bonk their head .. it's a lawsuit in the making. Tho I'd prefer if the employee asks ME to stop my child from hanging/climbing, NOT my child. Or if I'm taking the risk of letting my child stand in a cart, and once again, an employee tells my child to sit do to their safety .. don't tell my child, tell ME! But when someone corrects my child for behaviour that I'm okay with .. SHUT UP AND GO AWAY PLEASE. Raise your own child, thank you very much!

/petpeeves

If you're feeling the need to vent a pet peeve, please feel free to do so in the comments. :)

a treasure huntin' we will go

We just stumbled upon this new little phenominom called GeoCaching and it was only after D bought his most recent toy .. a GPS.

We decided that since it was a overcast but relatively nice precipitation free day, we'd head out in search for a cache. As it happened, this particular one was located in the city park land we live nearby .. so just a little jaunt in the car, and we were parking ourselves near the duck pond that had trails leading in several directions.

Once we figured out what general area the cache was in (we're talking a radius of about 10 ft or so), we went looking.

The girls, Dave and I climbed high...

We carefully climbed down ...

We looked low ...
Even pretended to look (or is that paying attention to where we're walking so as not to have any slips?) but not overly enthusiastic anymore ...

And when time passed and we couldn't find it .. my little protege turned to what she knows best.

And before we packed it all up and said "the hell with it" .. we walked off course abit and took in the beauty of the waterfall and the duckpond fountain.

And that is what we like to call .. the first Sunday in March waunderings.

*disclaimer .. all photos are FOOC (fresh out of camera) and haven't been tweaked, sharpened or the like .. my bad!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today's my Dad's 77 birthday! He's a beautiful man that has been through so many things in his lifetime. He's taught me so much, just by being himself, loving his family and life.
Happy Birthday Dad! I wish you many more happy years ahead, ones you will remember, cherish, and enjoy despite all you've been through.

I love you!

only 3

I got this little meme from my friend, Cori. I thought it would be fun to do today since there's nothing else interesting to write about.

THE RULE IS, ANSWERS CAN ONLY BE THREE WORDS. NO MORE, NO LESS!!!
1. Where is your cell phone? don't own one
2. Boyfriend/girlfriend? no, am married
3. Hair? I dye it.
4. Your mother? a fabulous lady
5. Your father? turns 77 today!
6. Your favorite item(s)? anything scrapbooking related
7. Your dream last night? didn't have one
8. Your favorite drink? Tim Hortons coffee
9. Your dream guy/girl? fulfills my life
10. The room you are in? corner of livingroom
11. Your fear? walking after dark (stole this from Cori)
12. What do you want to be in 10 years? a career woman
13. Who did you hang out with last night? hubby and girls
14. What are you not? courageous, witty, lean
15. Are you in love? yes I am
16. One of your wish list items? better photo printer (another steal from Cori)
17. What time is it? 11:50 am Sunday
18. The last thing you did? watched The Illusionist
19. What are you wearing? jeans, sweater, socks
20. Your favorite book? anything Dannielle Steele
21. The last thing you ate? bacon, cheesy eggs
22. Your life? what I dreamed
23. Your mood? tired, peaceful, relaxed
24. Your friends? some close ones
25. What are you thinking about right now? need to shop
26. Your car? white Chrysler Intrepid
27. What are you doing at this moment? typing this list
28. Your summer? nephew getting married
29. Your relationship status? married with children
30. What is on your TV screen? Flush Away DVD
31. When is the last time you laughed? earlier this morning
32. Last time you cried? watching a movie
33. School? not til Monday

wow, what a movie!

I watched The Pursuit of Happyness last night and all I can say is .. SO GOOD! It shows how easily one can lose just about everything, yet with the right doors opening, can climb their way back out of that devestation. I've often wondered how long we could live, should Dave lose his job, his EI run out and he couldn't find anything. He's a hard worker and he'd find SOMETHING, that I'm sure of .. as would I if this were the situation, but wow .. touching movie! You MUST see it! The determination Chris (Will Smith's character) had, to make it as a broker .. even to live six months on nothing .. just so he could enter the internship. And NO parent wants to drag their child through all that he was forced to, it was so so sad, but so sweet and wonderful at the same time. Just watch it and you'll see what I mean!

argh

Well, I'm being forced to eat all those words about how wonderful it is to see signs of spring, etc. Last night we got a dump of snow! I know! What's with that? We just don't get much snow here, and to have a dump on the very last day of February? Old Man Winter must be laughing at all the disgust rising from the city, as we try to manuever through the yucky white stuff yet again. I'll take a pic later, when it's actually light enough to.

ETA: I added a picture once the sun came up. I do have to say, it's beautiful and feels fairly warm with the sun shining, but still -3C.