Snow Day...Great Time to Get on the Blog!!

Well, it has been crazy winter weather all weekend. It has snowed (A LOT) and we had blizzard conditions for the past day or so. The roads are crazy and so is our yard. I will post some pictures but I want to get some people in them for scale, first. I declared it a snow day today because my babysitter lives on residential streets and I was NOT going to try to get the kids there! I could just see me getting stuck. In fact, the city buses were getting stuck both yesterday and today. My parents drove down yesterday for a retreat (and didn't check the road reports). It was my Dad's birthday so they spent the evening with us and we got to celebrate with him. It was actually really cute. On Saturday Xander asked how many presents Grandpa would get. I told him not many (we don't really do presents) and so he asked why. I told him Grandpa's a big person and they don't get many presents like kids. So Xander said, big people only get big presents? and I asked him what he thought we should get Grandpa for his birthday. His response - a house. It was very cute! They didn't have to be at the retreat until today, so it was nice.

I decided that the miserable weather would be a good time to update my blog with some LOs and pictures. First the LOs. This is a new kit that Scraps of Ellay has in her store at STS. It's called Thompson's Room and was inspired by the little boy she nannies for. It is so cute and goes great with the boys' baby pictures. I especially LOVE the quilted papers. She also has a new set of templates in the store called "Dress Me Up". I used one of the Six Months LO. You can find links to the store following the previews.

Six months - this is Evan's photo shoot from when he was six months old. I have learned so much about editing photos that they seem so amateur before this!!

Kit - Thompson's Room by Scraps of Ellay

Template - Dress Me Up by Scraps of Ellay

This next one was of New Year's Eve 2007 - not that we do anything but that was when these were dated!!

Kit - Thompson's Room by Scraps of Ellay

Here are the kit and template previews. You can pick up the kit here and the templates here.

The kit:

The templates:

And now...my pictures. I have two more weeks to show you and that will bring us into December of 2009, which means I'm getting close to caught up. I love being caught up on things. I am also working on scrapping these and I will show you those pages another day.

Day 326 (Nov 22):

This was the last day of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series for 2009. Papa invited Xander and his cousin over to watch the final race and see who won the championship (not that there was much question). Of course, Jimmie Johnson won the championship and Papa and Nana gave the boys these bumper sticker to commemorate. It's the first thing that Xander's stuck on my nice, painted white bed. My first gut instinct was no...not my pretty bed! Then, I remembered how we used to do the same thing as kids and its no big deal!

Day 327 (Nov 23):

Here are the boys playing computer together. Really, Xander's playing and Evan's watching. I am loving it now that they are old enough to play together. They do fight and rough-house a bit too much at times, but that's boys for you (and siblings). It makes me smile when I do see the times that they just sit there together and play. Or (like today) Xander will sit on the couch beside Evan and put his arm around him or cuddle with him and it is SO cute but it never lasts very long so I have yet to get it on film!

Day 328 (Nov 24):

This is the day we have entitled:

Illustration - I Guess Nobody's Perfect

I got all my pictures off my camera and, apparently, did not have a single picture for this day. I don't think anything out of the ordinary happened, it was just not meant to be! Oh well, nobody is perfect...not even me ;).

Day 329 (Nov 25):

Xander wanted Daddy to read to him and Evan (who rarely goes to sleep before Xander goes to bed) had to hop up on Daddy's lap and join in, too. It's a pain when they're supposed to be in bed already but it really is a cute little scene!

Day 330 (Nov 26):

Illustration - I Guess Nobody's Perfect part 2

Apparently, I do not have a picture from this day, either. I guess I might sort of have an excuse since it was a very long day of just me and the boys. Jason had a client reception at work so he didn't come home until after bedtime. Maybe it was just a long, rather than cute, day!

Day 331 (Nov 27):

This is a representation of what we did on Friday. I went to the church and cleaned toys with a couple other ladies. I didn't take my camera to church so this is just a representation using our toys at home. During flu season this year, we have decided to clean the toys from our infant/toddler/preschool areas once a week just to help put parents' minds at ease. Due to H1N1, everybody has been a little more concerned this year and we want them to be comfortable bringing their kids to church. Germs, H1N1, that kind of stuff has never been that big a deal to me, personally, but I want to help make others comfortable, too. Actually, since the whole H1N1 thing has kinda died down, my co-worker and I (neither of whom got vaccinated) were joking that you should just watch us come down with it now. So far, nothing but regular winter colds!

Day 332 (Nov 28):

This was a crazy day...kids' Christmas party through Jason's work, quick naps, pictures for Xander...couldn't stuff much more in. I think I've regaled you with the tales of the kids' Christmas party so I won't go into much detail here. This is Xander picking his golf ball out of hole #14 - the one he got a hole-in-one on. That is one more hole-in-one than I got that day. He has a bit of trouble with the concept because he thinks that it's not a hole-in-one since it bounced off the wall!

Day 333 (Nov 29):

This was Grey Cup Sunday...the Riders made it to the final again and they were playing the Montreal Alouettes. It was a closer game than it should have been and ended up being lost on a too-many-men on the field penalty on the very last play of the game. While the Riders would not release the name of the extra player (kudos to them after other incidents that have taken place in this town after other playoff losses), the focus was all on this play. However, if you want to be fair, there were many other chances during the game that they had to put it away so that it would not have come down to the last play of the game. Still, it was a tough loss to take, especially after we watched Duval miss that first field goal!!

Day 334 (Nov 30):

One of Xander's favourite new games is Go Fish. He loves to play it. Evan wants to get in on the fun, too, but is too small so we give him the jokers to play with and he can play "Go Fish" by himself. Here are the boys having fun playing with Dad.

Day 335 (Dec 1):

I decorated in stages this year. Jason doesn't like me to put up the Christmas decorations before December 1st. I cheated a little and put the tree up before so that Xander and I could get in the decorating before bedtime. This is our small tree that we put in the basement this year to make the basement feel a little more cheery and Christmassy. The big tree didn't get done until much later!

Day 336 (Dec 2):

I tried taking a picture of the snow on the tree in the backyard after dark. I kinda like how the brightness of the snow still picks up so well with the flash, even after dark. The contrast was what I was going for. I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but I think it's still pretty!

Day 337 (Dec 3):

This was the day I decorated Xander's cake. December is such a busy month for us with his birthday and Christmas all in there! He wanted an Ewok forest cake with storm troopers and speeder bikes and a walker (please forgive me Jason, as I've probably used a wrong name in here ;) ). So, we recreated the bunker from the movie with these things and put a little Ewok hiding in the forest. I thought that was really cute so that's my picture today. What you don't see in either picture is that Jason also built a LEGO death star to hang from the ceiling above the cake. It turned out really cute!

Day 338 (Dec 4):

Here is Xander at his birthday party. It's really just family that comes at this point in time. He was so excited for cake and presents and to have people sing Happy Birthday to him. It was really cute and he had a great time!!

Day 339 (Dec 5):

This was Xander's actual birthday so we had one of his favourite meals (that's too hard to make for 25 or so people)...steak and corn on the cob. He absolutely loves it so I managed to find some corn on the cob and we had a great meal with Grandma and Grandpa Stein.

Well, there's two more weeks of pictures. I can't believe I'm into December...YAY!! Pretty soon I'll actually be current - won't that be great.

I think I may go do some scrapping now...see if I can't knock out a few more of those weeks.

Until next time...