An update

So, it's 7:17am and I have already gone for my second run (okay, walk/jog) this morning. I ran the same distance today, but it only took me 22 minutes. I'm going to take the weekend off and start again next week, eventually moving up to running two blocks and walking one.

I leave for Calgary tomorrow!! I'm 90% excited and 10% nervous. I've never left Sage before. I have gone to Calgary twice before with a group from our church for Children's Ministry stuff, but we always drove. This time, I'm flying!

I'm totally looking forward to hanging out with Cindy and going to IKEA, etc. It should be lots of fun and I'm hoping to scrapbook with her, too, if we have time.

I'm also looking forward to meeting Heather !!! We "met" through Scraptivity and have been emailing each other back and forth since before Christmas. She has become such a great friend to me and I can't wait to meet her face to face!! It'll be great!

So, I'm sending out a request for prayer for the weekend. If you would like to pray for me, I'd appreciate prayer for safety for me, as I travel, and for my family, as they stay here. (This is the 10% nervous part!) Thanks!

I spent last Saturday at Super Scrap Day, hosted by My Scrap Shoppe, where I had a great time! I got 10 layouts done in 12 hours, which I was quite pleased with. If you click on the link in this paragraph, you can get to my gallery to see most of the layouts. This one was one of my favourites, though.



Have a great weekend!

I found it!

Okay, I found the link on the Simple Scrapbooks website to my album. Here it is: My babies album

It looks so cool on their website. AND, they called it "her too-cool album." How awesome is that!

The only correction I'd like to make is that for the 6 weeks old layout on page one, it's turned wrong. It should have the title running up the left side of the page and the photos in a row from top to bottom.

I went for a run!!

This morning, I went for a run!

This is news because I don't run! Ever! I've always blamed it on my asthma, and, of course, my laziness.

But I set two goals for 2006: to lose 27 lbs. (I'm already half there!) and to run in the Terry Fox Run in fall, so I thought it might be time to start training!

So, this morning, shortly after 6:30am, I went for a run. Well, it was a walk/ jog. I'd walk a block, then jog a block, etc. until I got home. I haven't measured it out, but I'm pretty sure it might be a little further than 2 km.

So, now I'm tired and my head hurts a little, but I feel pretty good! Let's see how motivated I am to do this again!

*Edited: I measured it when I took Austin to school, and it was 2.5 km. That means that if I jogged half, I jogged over 1 km today!

Interacting

Okay. I'll admit it. I'm not very good at playing with my kids. Like playing with toys or Lego or cars.

However, I love this:



Talking to my kids. Listening to what they tell me. Joking with them. Teasing them. Interacting with them. Making them smile. Making them laugh.

Making a connection.

Ten years

Ten years ago today, Cameron and I got married. This is a real milestone for us! After the kids were in bed, we set up the tripod and had some fun with the remote for my camera. These are my favourite shots.




On Saturday, we're going to a photo studio to get some portraits taken of the two of us, the kids and the five of us.

Happy Easter!

Okay, so I'm a day late...

Our Easter weekend was a busy one. We went to the Good Friday service at our Rec Center (5 churches combined for the service) and then to my sister-in-law's for the rest of the day. It was beautiful, so we went for a nice long walk and the kids played in the park for a while. So nice that Spring is finally here!

On Saturday, we spent the day raking at my mother-in-law's farm. Lots of work. She has a big yard. I raked and worked on memorizing the drama I performed in on Sunday morning at our church. I think my nephew got a little tired of listening to me tell the Easter story over and over and over...

On Sunday, we planned an egg hunt for the kids. It was actually nice enough this year that we could have had it outside, but I hid the eggs in our living room. The kids loved it.



At church we did our drama, which went well (whew!) After lunch, we drove to Winnipeg to visit my mom.

It was a nice weekend.

Love this!

I got home at lunch, after picking up Austin, and the doorbell rings. And here is the UPS guy with my "My babies album" and the May/June copy of Simple Scrapbooks. How cool! It was neat to see my album in print (even if I'd already peeked at it this morning at Anita's!)



In the magazine it says you can check out the rest of the album online here: www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/mag, but I couldn't find it anywhere. If someone else finds it, please let me know.

Not a baby anymore

I've probably already posted something with this title before, but now it is official.

Sage is no longer a baby.

Why?

Because of this:





No, not the full head of curls (which are adorable & I know not baby-like!) but the fact that she climbed onto the top bunk of the bunkbed by herself. With no help. She climbed up that ladder, smiling the whole time at what she can do.

I hope this doesn't mean that I have to stop calling her "Baby Girl", because I don't know if I can do that!

Goodbye, Satellite

Our neighbour goes down south for the winter and as a thank-you for us keeping an eye on her place while she's gone, she lets us use her satellite.

However, she returned yesterday. Sigh.

So, the satellite was returned yesterday. Sigh.

I didn't realize how much I was use to it. I love scrolling through the menu to see what's on.

So it's back to peasant view for us. Now I'll have to flip through the five channels we get to see what's on.

Sigh.

Scrapbooking me

This is a layout I made for the international scrap yourself challenge. The journaling reads: "I am a child of God. I am a woman. I am a wife. I am a mom. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a twin. I am a friend. I am a life artist. I am a reader. I am a writer. I am sensitive. I am friendly. I am honest. I am both an introvert and an extrovert. I am genuine. I am caring. I am creative. I am organized. I am structured. I am content. I am thankful. I am loved."

Skating carnival

Austin has been taking skating lessons since fall. He is in CanSkate and got his level 1 & his level 2 badges this year.

Last night was the skating carnival-- their windup and presentation for the year. The theme was Grease. Oh, what a fun time! Austin was one of the football players at the pep rally-- so cute!! They skated to Oh Mickey (You're so fine).



The skaters got chocolate bunnies for participating, as well as a "record" with their name on it. Austin asked me what it was and I had to explain to him what people listened to before MP3s, CDs and cassette tapes!

Remember

Crystal suggested I scrapbook the photo of me holding my daughter while she's sleeping. I already did! So I thought I'd post the layout here:



If any of you would like to see more of my layouts, you can find most of them here:
My Scrap Shoppe Gallery (Leigh)

Everyday

We do this almost everyday. After lunch, we grab Sage’s soother and her blanket and sit together in the navy blue chair in our living room. Jonah often joins us and watches TV on the couch while I hold Sage until she falls asleep. It’s a nice cuddle time that I really enjoy. In the evening, we do this again, after we’ve eaten night lunch & her brothers are in bed. We sit together, I pray for her and she falls asleep in my arms.

Life artist

On Ali Edwards' blog today, she wrote this:

"I introduced my new name for scrapbookers/creative people who are into celebrating life through art: life artist. "Scrapbooker" just doesn't cut it - it is so much more than that name implies.

"So who is a life artist? Do you take photos of your family, yourself, your environment, your world? Do you tell stories? Do you bring them all together onto paper, into your computer, onto a canvas (or some other cool concoction)? Do you create art journals with all kinds of wonderfully interesting pieces of your life and thoughts and emotions? Do you celebrate your life through your art?

"You are a life artist.

"I am a life artist.

"And man, I love it."

I love this term!

I am a life artist.

So cool!

This little piggy...

... is so cute!

My mom bought this towel (along with a cat one and an elephant one) for the kids last Christmas. The boys were playing outside after supper (gotta love the longer days!) and I gave Sage a bath. She wasn't crazy about the towel until I started playing "This little piggy went to market..." with her. Then, she was giggling and pretty much just being her adorable self!

The ONLY way I like to camp...

I am not a camper. I never went camping until I was in grade 11 and didn't take to it well then at all. Cameron and I have camped a few times with friends or while travelling somewhere, but it's not something either of us have really enjoyed. The last time we camped was on the way back from B.C., where I was awakened in the middle of the night by Austin throwing up on MY sleeping bag! Not a pleasant experience at anytime, but especially unpleasant at 7 months pregnant. Needless to say, we stayed in a hotel the next night!

Now, however, I have a 3 year old who has been asking me lately if we can go camping. So, because I dislike it so much (& because there is still a TON of snow outside!), I came up with a good solution. This morning, I set up our tent in our basement so he and Sage could "camp". They loved it!

Five things

On CKonline today, I read this by Ali Edwards (love her!)

"Welcome to life. Before reading any further, stop. Look around and note five things in your environment, five things that are happening right now. "

Here are mine:

1) I'm chatting on the phone with Anita (love her, too!)
2) My laundry is waiting to be folded.
3) Jonah is watching Treehouse.
4) Sage is napping.
5)My furnace kicked in, warming up my cold basement.

Nothing too exciting, but this is my life on a typical weekday afternoon.

Easter cards

I worked on Easter cards this week to sell in the two stores that sell my LPDesigns cards. I decided to make them without buying anything new, that is, to use up some stuff from my stash. (I think I bought this Chatterbox paper right after Sage was born!) I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Coffee

Okay, so I don't actually drink coffee (a friend at church asks me when I'm going to be a grown up and drink coffee!) but I love to go for coffee. With Jonah & Sage as my constant companions, I don't actually get to go to a restaurant for coffee very often. But on Sunday evening, after the kids were in bed and Cameron was settled on the couch, I did get to go out with a friend for coffee. One drawback of the town where we live: the restaurants close at 10pm! So, the waitress let us linger a little longer as she cleaned up. So nice to visit, have a few fries (shh!) and talk without constant interruptions.
Then, this morning after taking Austin to school, our team went to another friend's house for coffee. So, my coffee comes in the form of hot chocolate (sugar free, of course!), but that's okay. It was nice to sit on her couch, with the kids occupied with different toys than they find at our house, and catch up. The days just seem so busy and are flying by, it was nice to reconnect with a very good friend this morning.
And now, with Sage asleep and Jonah watching Dora (even Sage can say "doe-a"!), I'm hoping to get some Easter cards made this afternoon, before picking up Austin and his friend from school this afternoon.
Just an example of the not-so-exciting, but ever-so-content-with life I lead!

Another inspiring quote

My friend, Heather, is doing a 21 day challenge, in which she creates a page for her art journal everyday. She's posting them on her blog and they are fabulous. Not only wonderfully designed, but filled with honest journaling and wonderful quotes. Here's one from today that really resonated with me:

"Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be." Karen Rayn

It's so true. I've been talking with a friend lately who always wants to get to the heart-- the centre of us. What really matters. And this can be hard for me. I don't always want to "go deep." Sometimes, shallow seems safest. But this quote reminds me that I'm only going to live a shallow life, if I refuse to "go deep." So, as hard as it can be, that's where I want to go.