Monday, Monday

Well, we had a pretty good weekend. Cameron agreed to paint my mom's livingroom, so we went drove to Winnipeg on Saturday morning. While he painted, I took the kids to Old Navy & the Pan Am pool, where we met some friends and had a great time.

Yesterday, after church, I worked a shift at our baseball canteen. I ended up working with two women from my church and we had a good time visiting.

Last night was the Alias series finale. I loved this show and am sorry it's done.

Today, I'll be doing some cleaning, yard work, laundry and hopeful finish pricing stuff for my garage sale. Ah, the exciting life I lead...

Have a great day!

Two blocks!

Okay, I went for my run this morning (yes, I'm actually still doing it!) and I was able to bump up to "run two blocks/walk one." I've tried this the last two times I've gone, but haven't been able to keep it up for the whole 2.5K.

But this morning (insert trumpet music here: Dum-da-da-dummm!) I did it for the whole distance.

It's cool to see my body actually getting better at this. I just know it's going to pay off in huge ways for me: feeling better about myself, increasing my endurance, helping me in baseball and hopefully, (my biggest reason) reaching my weight loss goal.

I've been kind of stuck lately with getting back on my eating program, but this morning, I'm resolved. To eat healthier, count calories (fun, fun!) and avoid sugar, white flour & deep-fried foods.

Gasp. Did I just write that down.

Hopefully, this will help me stick to it.

So if you see me eating anything I shouldn't, feel free to knock it right out of my hands!

*An update: I took Austin to the hairdressers and she beaned him. She set the clippers and cut off all of his hair the same length, so it's definitely the buzz he wanted! When she did it, I thought: "I could do that." But then I realized that, no, I guess I could not.

Note to self

Don't ever try to cut your kids' hair again. Ever.

It started when Austin wanted a buzz cut. I guess a few kids in his class have them and he wanted one, too. Personally, I'm not partial to them, but I figured, hey, it's just hair, so why not?

So, I borrowed my sister-in-law's trimmer and thought, how hard can this be?

Well, I found out.

It was extremely hard.

I did a horrible job. It was uneven, crooked and I don't even want to mention the butcher job I did around his ears!

I can't even bring myself to take a picture, it's that bad!

I made an emergency hair appointment for before school this morning. Here's hoping the hair dresser can fix it!

Yay!!

I'm so excited!

A bride-to-be and her mom came over this morning and hired me to make wedding invitations for them! Yay!!

This is totally what I wanted to do when I started LPdesigns -- make custom cards for people.

So now I'm off to My Scrap Shoppe this afternoon to pick up some supplies to get started on my sample.

Not much to say

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while.

Not much is going on around here.

It's seeding time, so my husband, who farms his parents' land, is gone a lot lately. So it's just me and the kids.

The past couple of days have been gorgeous so we've been working in the yard. Today is cool and I'm wimping out and spending the days indoors. Doing laundry. Tidying up. Getting stuff together for a garage sale. Thinking about pricing the stuff.

And during Sage's nap, I scrapbooked. I got two pages done with the July kit at My Scrap Shoppe, which I'm happy with.

The kids want to go to the movie store and have a movie night tonight. The thought of snugling together on the couch and eating popcorn is very appealing so I think we might just do that.

Then, my friend, Darlene is picking me up at nine and we're going to DQ for coffee. (Okay, more like a pop and fries!) We have to go to DQ because it's the only restaurant in town that's open until 11pm. The other restaurants we've frequented have kicked us out at 10pm-- just when the conversation was getting rolling!

Hope everyone is having a great long weekend!

Seven years

Well, my son Austin turned seven yesterday and we celebrated in style! I took him, Jonah & five of his friends bowling in Winkler, where they had a great time-- bowling and "playing" the arcade games there. Then it was back to our house for hotdogs, a dinosaur birthday cake (made by yours truly!), gift opening and a treasure hunt to find the kids' treats to take home. The weather was perfect. The party was done by 6:30 and went by really fast, which was nice.

I took lots of photos of the party (I know, you're shocked!) but my favourites are these two:

I just love how everyone is smiling (well, almost everyone) for the camera, but Jonah is smiling at Austin. Too cute!

I snapped this one right after Jonah blew out Austin's candle. Priceless.

Trip to Calgary

I had such a great time in Calgary this past weekend!

I never go anywhere, especially by myself, so this was a huge experience for me (& a treat!)

My flight was uneventful, but exciting nonetheless. I was greeted at the airport by this beautiful woman, Cindy:

She is such a sweet, loving and generous person-- I am so blessed to have her as a friend!

We spent the whole weekend together and had a blast! Swimming with her family, trying Vietnemese food for the first time, shopping at Ikea, meeting my friend, Heather, in real life (who turned out to be just as wonderful in person as she has been in her emails to me!)

Don't we kind of look alike? I think she's the sister I always wanted!

I also enjoyed meeting some of Cindy's new friends at a bar-b-q Saturday night & hanging out with other friends from Morden on Sunday afternoon. (Cindy is blessed with lots of wonderful new friends in Alberta-- I'm so happy for her!)

We also enjoyed scrapbooking together on Saturday & Sunday nights. Although, I must confess, Cindy is much more of a night owl than I am! And, I'll never be able to hear the song "I'll fly away" again without thinking of her (she sang it all weekend long!)

So, I arrived home safely last night, to be reunited with my family, who were all pleased with the gifts I'd bought them! Thanks for your prayers-- I really appreciate them!

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.