I Guess I Should Start 2010...

Well, I haven't been on here much lately. I'm not sure why - partly it's because my back gets sore sitting at the computer and partly I've been trying to get other things done (oh yeah, and falling asleep with the boys when they nap and...that's right CURLING!!) I figured that I should at least get a couple of weeks posted for 2010. I actually have a lot of photos for week 2 but that's OK. There's a couple of days before the Brier starts and I have to go back to watching curling again so I have a bit of time. That was the best thing about the Olympics this year...there was curling to fill the gap between the Scotties and the Brier...can you tell I like curling? The boys are even getting into it. Xander is SO cute curling with his wooden blocks and showing me what his strategy and path is going to be and how it will curl. Even Evan walked around the other day saying "I wanna watch curling". He mostly likes when it's yellow's turn.

I'm also getting more pregnant by the day. I'm really starting to feel huge and it's getting harder to get the boys around. Luckily, they can both now climb into the car by themselves and that really does help...especially with their motivation to actually get in the car. Xander has made it into a booster seat so he can get himself out of the car, too. Work is so-so. I'm definitely not enjoying it like I once did and am ready for the end of April...8 more weeks of "winter" ;).

Anyway here are some pictures and I'll organize them by week.

Week 1 - January 1-2

This was Jan 1. Auntie Rona stayed with us for a day or two before she left town for visiting and, eventually, Edmonton. Here she is helping Xander build some LEGO.On Jan 2 (really early for me) we took down the Christmas tree. I'm not sure why, but I was ready for it to come down this year. I guess I just wanted my space back. Xander did a really good job helping me take down the ornaments and the lights. I also liked the looks of the pile of ornaments below so I thought I'd add it to week 1!

Week 2 - January 3-9

This was the final for our fantasy football league. The last game of the year and my husband played my dad. Oh the tension! Not really but my husband won for the third time in four years. This trophy hasn't been out of our house since we started the league!

Here is Evan doing actions to "12 Men Went to Spy on Canaan". He is so incredibly cute when he sings this and he is doing "spy" here. The cutest is when he sings 10 were bad and 2 were good and his thumbs up ends up being more like an arm swing to big band music (or maybe Carlton-style if you know what I'm talking about ;) ).

Xander had to go get his 4 year immunizations. He's so good about needles and he did really well. He did freak out a little bit because the nurse made Jason hold him down. It was the holding down that made him cry and he could have cared less about the needle. She should have just let him sit nicely. Anyway, here he's showing me the gum he got for a treat while we wait our 15 minutes before leaving.

This is Xander's Mii from the Wii. He finished all of the cups on 50cc in MarioKart Wii (pretty good for a 4 year old) and it "took" this picture of him with Mario and Peach. I'm finally getting to the point where I can beat him (sometimes) but it has taken a LOT of practice.

My brother-in-law Tyler got to run with the Olympic torch in Manitoba and he posed by this giant pumpkin at the end of his run. It was great for exposure, since he made the news and even the Olympic website, I believe. We didn't get to see him run in real life but this is a picture of the TV from the news coverage that night.

The Saturday of this week was the day that the Olympic torch came through Regina. Now, it really no longer means that much to me but I remember my parents taking us to see things like this if they were coming by and those were great childhood memories of things I got to experience. I kind of wanted that for my kids, too. As I was thinking we should do this, Jason's parents invited us to come watch it from the balcony of their building as the torch would run right past it. Now we definitely couldn't pass that up. I think this might get a separate page as I'd like to get in pictures of all of us there (even new baby).

Here we all are waiting for the torch to come by:

Me (and new baby) - my mother-in-law actually took this picture because I am never in my own pictures!

Jason and Evan watching for the torch:

Xander waiting in the slightly chilly evening:

Then came the torch. It was dark and we were on a second floor balcony so my pictures didn't turn out that great, even though I had my good flash on. They are OK for what they are, though.

This is probably my best one. It's a bit foggy but you can actually see the person and everything.

This is without the flash. It's not bad lighting-wise but it really is quite blurry.

This one was from a distance so the flash didn't do much but light up the reflective parts of their uniforms. I actually kind of like how it turned out because I ended up with a good picture of the flame and the Olympic rings lit from behind. Kinda neat, I think.

And that was the second week in January. So, I guess you can see how my photo project for 2010 will turn out. Some days may have multiple pictures and some days may not have any but I'll try to capture a slice of life.

Now, the boys slept horribly last night (and in my bed so I had very little sleep, too) so I should really go to bed now.

Until next time...

New Kit and Luggage Tag Blog Train Freebie!!

Hey Dude! Scraps of Ellay has a new kit out! She's teamed up with The Scrappy Kat to bring you a great teenaged boy themed kit. It's full of cool elements and great boy colours! It was a lot of fun to work with. I've got this LO to show you (I did it for the STS template challenge).

You can click on the preview below to check this out in the store - it's even 35% off right now!...but don't leave yet! If you scroll down a bit, you can pick up my contribution to the luggage tag blog train!

Here it is. Scraps of Ellay's CT has teamed up with the Scrappy Kat's CT to offer you a ton of free luggage tags with this kit. You can pick up mine by clicking the link below my preview. I've included a list of Scraps of Ellay's CT but if you head over to Ellay's blog, you can hop to Kat's CTs, as well!
Download here

The blog hop:

Ginger

Jodi

Christie

Knittinjen

Katie

Amanda

Sandra <---You are here

Ellay

Until next time...

Time to Finish 2009!!!

Well, today has not been the best day that I've ever had. I am cranky and tired and taking it out on my boys, which makes me feel even worse. I think I need a nap but they started theirs so late that I thought I'd take some time to do a few things I wanted to on the computer. Though, even this is getting more difficult because my back is starting to bother me when I sit at the computer too long. I am now 6 months pregnant and while this pregnancy has been pretty easy, it's definitely felt different than the others, which makes it harder, in some ways! I am looking forward to a long weekend and hopefully getting some rest and a few things done around the house!

Now, here is the final batch of pictures from 2009. I can't believe I finally got them all on here - now to just get them all scrapped! I'm done up to week 5 so I have made some progress.

Day 354 (Dec 20):

The day after Christmas, we went to church and then just hung out at my parents' place and at my brothers' place. Most people left so it was very low key but enjoyable! We played some new games (like my niece's Extreme Jenga above) and snacked. It was great to hang out and that Extreme Jenga is kinda crazy!

Day 355 (Dec 21):

Really, my picture should have been of the fried fish lunch that I finally got to have at Mom & Dad's thanks to a gentleman from their church! I've been trying to snag some fresh lake fish for a meal for a while now both because I love it and Xander wanted to try it. It was a yummy lunch, even though I wasn't feeling particularly good. However, this was the first round of the playoffs for our football pool. My Dad, brother, husband and I all play in it and the four of us were the ones who made it past the first round! I am NA, my husband is TC, my brother is PH and my Dad is TD. After that, it was a family affair that my husband won for the third time in four years! (I won the other year :) ).

Day 356 (Dec 22):

That not feeling well turned into actual sickness. Tonsillitis or some such thing. I used to get it all the time when I was little and doctors threatened to remove my tonsils but I wouldn't let them. Anyway, I was pretty impressed that I called the doctor's office and was able to get in the same morning. My mother-in-law came and stayed with the boys and I got to go get these lovely pills. I love the fact that I can get pills, too - I used to hate that banana flavoured medicine. As soon as I could convince the doctor (about gr 1 or so) that yes, I CAN swallow a pill, I never had to have it again. All is took was another day and I was feeling much better (after wasting two vacation days from work sick).

Day 357 (Dec 23):

This was the day we got a big dump of snow. I was really glad that we didn't have to go anywhere. I guess it was a good thing that we'd been at my parents the weekend before. We got several inches of snow, as you can see on the picnic table and got this nice drift right outside our dining room doors.

Day 358 (Dec 24):

This was after the Christmas Eve service (but before supper, I think). We do our celebration then. It was a tradition in my family and I like the coziness of doing the presents and stuff at night. I figured we needed a family picture, too, and I think it turned out really well! The boys loved the timer on the camera and would grin like crazy while the lights were flashing so we got great smiles from everyone (even though Evan wouldn't put down his trains - oh well!)

Day 359 (Dec 25):

We had Christmas Day at our house with Jason's family. His mom wanted to start a new tradition of reading the Christmas story and having each grandkid be a character. When their character came into the story, they would light a candle on these cupcakes. I wasn't sure about the lighting the candle part (the oldest is 7 and the youngest 2) but it worked out OK. Evan was baby Jesus and he just ate the cupcake instead. What do you expect when you ask a 2 year old to hold a chocolate cupcake for the duration of the Christmas story? He devoured it, too - it was kinda cute. Then, everyone sang happy birthday to Jesus. It was kinda nice.

Day 360 (Dec 26):

Boxing Day was a day to just relax and hang out...yeah!! Xander even slept in until 10:15! Here he is have a relaxing jammie time just playing video games.

Day 361 (Dec 27):

This was my niece's birthday (isn't she cute?). She picked that cake out all by herself! We went swimming with my brother and his family to celebrate her birthday that day. Man, do the kids all love that! We need to do it more often. Then, we went back to her grandparents' for pizza and cake. It was a lot of fun and the kids always have fun playing together.

Day 362 (Dec 28):

Here is Xander tucking Evan in for the night. It is so cute when they do this but I'm glad that Evan usually still needs some cuddles from Mom afterwards. They're getting so big and independent!

Day 363 (Dec 29):

These were my nails after the manicure (or my "new nails" as Xander called them). I took my sister-in-law for her gift this day and we went and got manicures and then went for lunch. It was nice to get the pampering and to be able to just hang out and visit. My brother brought all the kids to our house and they all hung out together, too, so it was a good day had by all!

Day 364 (Dec 30):

This is a friend of ours who came over with her husband to visit. They seriously live not very far away but we hadn't seen them in ages. Jason & Allison are also friends with them so they came over, too. It was our friend's birthday so my nieces picked her out this adorable pink ice cream cake (not really her style so I had to take a pic). The moment Evan saw it, he beelined for it and tried to stick his finger in it. He loves ice cream cake! Hence, he got in all the pictures, too!

Now...DRUM ROLL PLEASE....

Day 365 (Dec 31):

New Year's Eve and the last of my pictures. New Year's Eve means very little in our house since we had kids. It didn't mean much more before then, either. We spent the evening playing video games with the boys. Evan really love Mario Kart Wii and was so excited when Xander was playing it. Then, I remembered that we had this plush Mario that we'd bought a few years back. I dug it out and Evan was so excited to see it! He was smiling and hugging it - so cute!

Wow - that's a year's worth of pictures. I'm glad I did this project. I think it turned out well..now I can't wait to get the book done up. Now, I'll have to start posting my 2010 stuff. It's not really a P365 or a P52 so I'll just call it my year by the week!

Until next time...

Quick Note About a Freebie

Hi! I'm a bit late with this but Ellay of Scraps of Ellay and her CT have put together a blog train to celebrate her birthday this weekend! Life has been too crazy so I didn't participate but there are a tonne of goodies out there. Not only is it her birthday, but we just started up the CT blog this weekend, too so there's double to celebrate. Ellay has a full kit to give away for free and there are mini-kits and quickpages from the CT, too. I have a preview of Ellay's part and I will show you a few pages I've done with this kit - then you can pop over to her blog here and start collecting!! This is a grungy kit called Streets of Ellay and is a lot of fun. I used it to scrap two of my pages for my 2009 P365 book:

This one also uses a template from Scraps 'n Pieces.

This one uses parts from Ellay, Ginger's House, Scrappin' Serenity and IvoryKeys Digital Dreams, as well as a template from Scrapalicious Cereal.

The cardstock and glitter is sold separately in the store but I love them and these painted elements so I wanted to do a softer page to show that grunge isn't always manly! I love how this page turned out!

Here is a look at Ellay's preview!

I'm really tired so that's all I'm going to post today.

Until next time...

Rachel's Room

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've posted any scrapbooking stuff but there's a new kit out this week that I have to tell you about! It's an incredibly cute baby/little girl kit by Scraps of Ellay. It's the counterpart to her adorable Thompson's Room kit that was released a couple weeks ago. I don't have a lot of little girl pictures but I did manage to snag a few of myself as a week tyke from some slides I scanned in of my parents. Editing them was a bit of a challenge but I think these pages turned out awfully cute!

The word art on the second one is by Wordart World by Jennifer. It was fun to do some girl layouts! This kit is on sale this week for 25% off so if you hurry, you can still grab it. You can see the full kit preview below. As well, Ellay has done up some additional parts (glitter, age markers and...my favorite...quilted papers). I've shown the quilted papers below - you can get these all as a bundle and save! Make sure you scroll down for the store link and some further excitement...

You can find these in the store here.

But...this weekend is also Ellay's birthday and, to celebrate, she is having a big sale that started today. Everything in her store is 38% off! See the flyer below and click here to go to her store.

I've done a little bit of other scrapping, but mostly simple P365 from 2009 stuff. I'm lazy tonight and don't feel like posting more LOs for now but I'll be back later this weekend, maybe with pictures or LOs or both!

Until next time...

Almost done 2009!!

Well, I have the rest of my 2009 pictures edited so I will have to try to get them all posted! I have about two more weeks to post and then I am back on to my 2010 pictures. I love getting caught up on stuff and I slowly but surely seem to be doing that lately. I even seem to have gotten a couple things organized in my craft room so that's progress! Anyway, here are my pictures for this couple of weeks.

Day 340 (Dec 6):

Here is Evan playing with part of Xander's birthday present...Mario Kart for the Wii...or, as the boys call it...Mario Kart Wii Woohoo! Evan actually sounds quite a bit like Mario. It's pretty cute. Evan was having fun playing with the steering wheel that comes with the game.

Day 341 (Dec 7):

Here are Xander and Jason playing another of Xander's birthday presents...Hullabaloo. It took him a while to take to this game but he seems to really like it now. It's kind of a random game but it's for kids so it's all good.

Day 342 (Dec 8):

Even Evan can play Hullabaloo. It was the end of a round and somebody won so he was smiling and clapping like everyone else. Such a cute little face!

Day 343 (Dec 9):

Evan learned to peel the Christmas oranges that he so greatly loves. The only problem then was that he always wanted an orange...even when he didn't want to eat it but just peel it!

Day 344 (Dec 10):

This is one of my new Christmas decorations this year. I think this one is so pretty and I finally got them on my tree! They're more sparkly than they look in the pictures, too. I love pretty decorations!

Day 345 (Dec 11):

What's so good about Christmas? And so horrible? The candy!! I love chocolate and sweets so Christmas can be a real challenge for me! These are incredibly good, too. So yummy (except the white ones!)

Day 346 (Dec 12):

Jason and I went Christmas shopping for the boys and we got to go out for lunch, too. We went to Red Lobster, because I was craving seafood. This was actually pretty good, but the scallops had a peach glaze on them that was SO sweet that even I could barely stand it. Really, scallops should be seared in some butter and maybe wrapped in bacon.

Day 347 (Dec 13):

Check out these temperatures. Usually we expect really cold weather in January but not so much December. This went on for a few days, too. The windchill was nasty!

Day 348 (Dec 14):

Evan was just sitting here so cute with his Wiimote. He just "plays" with them as everyone else does but he's not usually hooked up to the Wii. It's pretty cute!

Day 349 (Dec 15):

This was the first Christmas present that I wrapped this year. It was actually for our care group gift exchange that night. I love things getting all pretty and wrapped up but I put it off this year for fear that the boys wouldn't be able to leave them alone!

Day 350 (Dec 16):

This was my new haircut. It was a lot shorter than I thought but I liked how it turned out. I had it done at lunchtime (that's the great thing about working in a mall) so it was a new hairdresser. She straightened it for me, too, just to see was Xander would say (he didn't like it last time). He thought it looked good but it only stayed like that a couple days.

Day 351 (Dec 17):

Here is Evan opening his very first present of the Christmas season. It was from Auntie and Uncle and they got them the day before so I let them open them in the morning. Evan got a great train set...Auntie sure knows what they like!

Day 352 (Dec 18):

We went up to my parents' place for the weekend to celebrate Christmas. I always love going to visit and it gave us an opportunity to go see how their new house was shaping up. It's come a long way from a hole in the ground and I think it will be a really nice house when they are done!

Day 353 (Dec 19):

We celebrated Christmas this day. It was a lot of fun with brunch, sledding down my brother's hill, supper with all the trimmings and gifts! It's always a great time, getting together with family and just getting to hang out and enjoy each other. We try to get a picture of the crew each year. As the kids get a bit older, it gets a bit easier! This is our picture from this year!

Well, now I'm almost to the end of the year. I just have the last 12 days or so from the year to post. I'll do that next week, sometime. I'm just off to watch the Scotties - Xander and I are both excited to have curling back on TV this week!

Until next time...