Pics!

What a gorgeous day! We spent the day at the zoo, but as usual, there was nothing to see. Our zoo stinks, seems like the animals are always so far away that you can't take their picture...or they're sleeping, all rolled up in a ball under a rock or something. Can you tell I'm not a fan of our zoo? 95% of the animals are brown so they blend into those rocks and dead grass pretty well. We have a prairie dog exhibit. Come on now.

The big kids started school last Thursday and so far are really happy with their teachers. Kylie's school is way, way under populated and on the verge of being shut down, I fear. Oh well, it was bound to happen. The school is falling apart anyway.


Kylie, first day of grade 8. Last year I couldn't get her to comb her hair when she got up in the morning. Now she has to get up early to trowel her makeup on.


Jacob, first day of grade 5. We freezer-paper stencilled the shirt with a tie that reads "epic", his favourite word. Things are either "awesomely epic" or "epic fail" in his books. Nothing in-between.

Sam starts preschool on the 13th. I don't think she needs it, per se...I don't think any kid 'needs' preschool, but she is incredibly social and it's driving my nuts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be anti-social and introverted like myself when you have a kid who is the complete opposite?!? So she will go to preschool to fill that need she has to be with other kids. I can stay if I want, or I can use that time to shop or exercise or whatever. Two hours, two mornings a week.

I'm going to start working Mondays soon, a full day. The opportunity came up and I really like the work so I thought I should take it. Turns out the office is closing for two whole months this winter so I guess I should make some money while I can :( .

Later, taters.

Stuff I did...and stuff...

Wow, did I impress you with my language skills with that stellar title?? See, I've been gone from blogging for so long that I have no imagination when it comes to titles.


I originally thought I would scrapbook the 740 pictures that we took in Maui last year but I honestly can't stand scrapbooking. Too much farting around with little fiddly bits, so I bought this frame on a clearance rack for $12 and filled it with our favourite pictures. It hangs in our dining room. Did I already post this??




I know I've posted pictures before of the kids planting flowers from seed using those little window planters and peat pellets, but can you believe that this is the first year that it actually worked? Impatiens generally love the shade in my front yard, but the giant spruces are gone so we are now dealing with full sunshine. I'm surprised these lasted as long as they have. I rescued that watering can from the neighbour's trash ha ha.




I don't like cartoon scrubs for work, but I liked these fabrics: Moda sock monkeys from Etsy and some fabric we bought in Maui. The shirt is purchased from Wal Mart, I sew a new panel over the front and then cut the original front panel out. I'm far too lazy to fit a made-from-scratch shirt at this point. I can't actually wear the sock monkey one because it's too big now, but someday I'll get around to altering it.



Invader Zim drawstring backpack for Kylie. Tutorial here:
drawstring backpack and stencil here: Deviant Art . I used freezer paper to make the stencil...if you are unfamiliar with this, it's this: stencil tutorial .


Dress for Sam, made with a free pattern from Fiddlehead and fabric bought in Maui for $5 a metre.

Today I'm repainting the wrought iron railing on the front stairs...what an ordeal! I don't know whose bright idea it was to make those things with all those funky little curves and divots that I have to sand. But it's been here since the 50's so it's cool and I bet it will look awesome when it's done.

Later, taters.

Pics.

Scott, wearing Sam's sock monkey hat from a previous year's costume. Darnit, I hope I didn't misplace that costume...it took me forever to put together!

Sammy Sunshine as a pink princess for Halloween, made from a Disney Cinderella pattern. I hate those stupid Big 3 patterns, they never fit right. Honestly, I had to cut about 6 inches off the bottom...what a waste.

Jake's 9th birthday cake. He told me how to put the icing on, what colours to use, etc., and then he added the army men. I think he did a pretty good job :) .

I haven't added pictures in a while...quite honestly, Facebook is so much easier. But I like the record that this blog gives me. Whatevs.

I think we are stuck at home today. I wish a certain someone would call and invite us out, but I doubt that's going to happen...and I'm tired of inviting myself. So today's activities consist of laundry, floors, and maybe a trip to the library. I really need to book myself a night off to work on those freezer-paper stencils but even then...not something I can work on in the bedroom or the basement so I'm not sure that will ever happen. God I'm negative today lol!

Pics Number 2

New basement bathroom. Still, even though it's been done for a little while, it feels weird that the first room in this house to get a total reno is the basement bathroom.


Jake's sink: zombie theme. Images from: vector4free , printed onto stainless steel-esque Mac Tac from Dollarama.


"Brains!!!"


Kylie's sink is, of course, Hello Kitty. She picked chocolate brown towels and Jacob picked a dark grey. First time I've bought bathroom towels since...actually, I've never bought them before. We got some really great quality ones when we got married 15 years ago and they're still in great shape. Thank goodness for bridal showers.

Lazier Than All Get Out.

So...yeah. I love summer, I don't have to do squat if I don't feel like it, other than maintain the cleanliness of our castle. Even that suffers most days lol.

The kids are getting along better than they did last summer, so I am not a frazzled mess most days. Tomorrow is Scott's first day back at work, so we are going to bring him a picnic lunch. His building has a really great rooftop terrace.

Anyway, here is the link to see our Maui pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255869&id=697888101 . It's so much easier to post to FB than Blogger, and it's set for 'friends of friends' so I believe acquaintances should be able to see it as well. I'm not sure how long I'll keep those settings.

Sam is napping on the couch while the big kids are watching tv and I'm off to work in a few minutes. Have a great Sunday :) .

Pics

Making toast. Two out of four of my kitchen walls are now Apple Green...not so sure I'm in love with the colour, but Scott likes it. When we come back from Maui I'll decide if I want to paint the other 2 walls green or buy a whole new colour. It only took me 4 months to do 2 walls...wonder how long it will take to do the other 2?


Another year of Family Friendly Soccer has come and gone. Orange won 3rd place. Yay!


Guess which one of these kids barfed all over me. Just guess. Okay, it was Sam...I gave her a bath and then Kylie read her a story while I cleaned up Sam's bed. Blech.


Napping in the chair on a lazy Sunday.

Nickelback!!

WOOHOO!!!! There seems to be two factions of music fans in the world: those that think Nickelback is awesome and those who think Nickelback sucks. I can assure you, they do not suck, they rule!!!! Woohoo!!!!

...and in case anyone ever asks you, it is my God-given right as a middle-aged, middle-class mother of small children living in Alberta to enjoy a bottle of Mike's Hard 100-calorie Lemonade in my backyard as I pull dandelions with my Canadian Tire Dandelion-er...and when 'Burn It To The Ground' comes on the radio , I may throw down said Dandelion-er, throw my arms up above my head and scream "Woohoo!!!" for all my neighbours to hear. So what if it embarrasses my children...and my husband...I'm gonna do it anyway :) .


Jacob at his first major concert. He figured that he would let his friends sniff his shirt for 25c a pop, so that they could smell what a real concert smells like lol.


After the first opening act (there was 3) Jacob wanted to go take pictures of the tour buses. Lots of ladies, both young and old, would comment on how handsome he was and how cool his hair was on our little walk. He even got a few high 5's on our walk around Rexall.


My boyfriends.





It was a great show, and now I wish I would have gone to see AC/DC when they were here last year. Think they'll come back?

Baking with Sammy Sunshine.

We've had a few days of cruddy weather, which is keeping us inside...which makes for a bored toddler...which makes for a mischievous toddler. Yes, she wore her pyjamas all day long. It was one of those days. We organized the pantry and found a cake mix, yay! That'll kill 10 minutes...






Oh my God, this was her favourite part. Putting big sloppy globs of batter in the paper liners...what a mess lol. But no way would she lick the spoon! She told me "dat's gwoss, ma!"


I have no sprinkles in the house...I didn't think that was possible. I guess Jacob used them up making donuts. Anyway, I gave Sam a pouch of gummies for decorating her cupcake...and she couldn't shovel them in her mouth fast enough lol.


And now I'm going to lick the icing off and then squish the cupcake in my hands...because it feels so squishy between my fingers. And my mom will clean it up. Awesome, hey??

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ps...today was an awesome day. We got to watch part of a horror movie being filmed, and Jacob can't stop talking about it. I got some wicked dirt stains out of a pair of white nylon leggings using dish soap and lemon juice. Could it have been a better Sunday??

Busy week....

Waiting for the drywall guy to come. He's actually one of Scott's very-good friends...the kind of guy who's good at EVERYTHING, including cooking, so I'm now very aware that my cooking skills suck and that he will be here for dinner tonight...

My baby :) . It's always, "Take my picture, mum!"

First ride of the year. The other day I was sort of mad because of something Kylie did and I turned to speak to her in a stern manner (ok, I was going to yell) and then I realized as I looked at her right beside me: she's nearly as tall as I am!!! How in the hell did that happen?? She's 11 years old and 5'4" . She's going to be ten feet tall by the time she's 16.

Starting our seedlings. I love these little boxes, they hold 24 peat pellets and I just figured out that I can stack them on my kitchen window sill, so I can buy 2 more! Woohoo! We planted 2 kinds of pumpkins, some petunias and some black violas. Kylie was supposed to save room in hers for some impatiens for the front yard, but she went a little crazy with the black violas instead. My house is not a raging mess right now, all of that stuff piled behind Kylie is going into the basement bathroom eventually...getting a bit tired of the giant shower stall box in my tiny dining room!

Two bikinis for Sam. Top piece is from a made-by-me pattern: Moda sock monkeys is finished with fold-over elastic and the other top is the very last scraps of the beautiful fat quarter that my bloggy friend Spacestitch sent me last year. I even had to piece it together, if you look closely you'll see a little seam running down the very front lol. The bottoms are both store-bought swim diapers...I can't be bothered to sew that stuff from scratch anymore. The red one was $3 at a consignment store and the blue one was Jake's when he was a toddler :) . I was going to add a ruffle, but figured that Sam needed one diaper that would fit under her one piece suits. Oh, side note: we've started swimming lessons one morning a week and Sam *hates* it. Not that she hates being in the pool, she's just two and those people like doing their own thing lol. Listen to the teacher, are you kidding me???

Later, taters :)

**photobucket is being funky today, hopefully that giant red swim diaper will be resized when I look at this tomorrow!!

Happy Easter!!

Sam could not get enough of the egg dyes this year. Forget doodling on the egg first, gimme that dye! It is an annual tradition for me to forget to buy a vinyl tablecloth for egg decorating, so I was lucky that the contractors left a big roll of vapour barrier in my basement. Not pretty, but it passed for a tablecloth :) .

My God, what a good meal today. I peeled and mashed 10lbs of potatoes, thinking that it was way too much...nope! It all went...along with the ham, roasted carrots and other yummy dishes. My sister's husband, Amir, took us on a long windy walk after supper to burn off some of those calories. Still...I think I'll be working extra hard at my workouts this week. But it was *so* worth it :) .

The kids are home for one more day, then it's back to the grind. Does anyone else in the world get tomorrow off *except* for school teachers? Even the bank is open tomorrow. There's so much on the to-do list for this week. The bathroom drywall should be started this week...so that means next month in Contractor Time, right? Poopie.

Pics.

No thoughts or crafty projects to share this week. The construction on the basement bathroom is at a standstill right now, and I've used my Word of the Year about 50 times already today because of it. Anyway, onwards...


My Jacob bought me flowers! I had a cruddy day last week, and so Jake asked Scott to take him to buy me flowers :) . I love that little man :) .


This scene started out by Sam taking Jake by the hand and leading him into her room...I could hear her saying, "I be da mom...you be da girl" lol. So he had to sit and play DSi beside her while she pretended to wash dishes in her kitchen.


This is a scene from Jacob's latest stop-motion movie: Darth Vader is getting revenge against Obi Wan on the lava planet. Someone out there probably knows the correct name for that planet, but I don't lol. Jacob is learning how to modify the Lego characters he already has, using plasticine and sharpies...sometimes he asks for fabric scraps to create costume elements. The background in this lava planet scene is his bean bag chair. There are almost 500 Lego pictures on my camera right now...


Sam has discovered painting and could do it all the live long day. But the best part for her is where you sprinkle glitter all over the wet paint!! She yells, "Glitter! GLITTER!!!" if I don't get it fast enough for her lol.


My awesome sister bought this for me. You still have to spray it with Pam and sprinkle it with flour...which seems silly for a non-stick pan, but it's pretty cool! From the picture, you can see that if you bake brownies in this pan, it will make you a better wife and a better mother :) . I love this junk.


These are the Hungry Girl pumpkin brownies my niece and I made, and they take 2 ingredients: a box of chocolate cake mix and a can of pure pumpkin. I'm not kidding, that's the only 2 ingredients. Mix it all up (it will seem really thick and you'll be tempted to throw in a splash of milk, but don't!) and throw it in the pan or cupcake liners. I really liked them, but Jacob and Kylie say that they have a bit of an odd aftertaste if you eat more than a couple of them in a row. Still, it didn't stop them from eating 6 brownies each lol...


Kylie's library stash for the week. It's spring break, so we've gone to the City Centre library and our local library. Lots of manga books, lots of Hayao Miyazaki DVD's, an Alice in Wonderland book on CD and the original Hairspray movie featuring Divine. Oh, and a Wii game. Honestly, we're always disappointed in those so I don't even know why we bother anymore. Library Wii games are usually so scratched up that we can't play them anyway :( .

iPhone Pics.

Making pizza at Gramma's...


We were bored on a Saturday night, so we drove to Sherwood Park for coffee...






Kylie on Scott's bike at the Santa's Anonymous 2009 Toy Run at Capilano Mall...


My babies :D