Thoughts for Thursday

I can't believe it's already Thursday-- this week is flying by!

(Actually, I can't believe it's the end of the month-- where did May go?!)

Today, I'm trying to get things done around the house... laundry, washing my floors (that was long overdue), making some baby cards for two women at church who had baby girls this week, mailing back my package from a seller on ebay that was suppose to be a Cars Gamecube game and turned out to be some MVP hockey cards, baking... Nothing too exciting, but good to stroke off a list nonetheless. It feels like I've accomplished something anyway.

I'm also getting ready for our 5km run/walk/ride for the Congo for our church this Saturday. It was calling for rain (like we haven't had enough of that!), but when I checked this morning (& two seconds ago-- I'm a little paranoid they're going to change it again), it's forecasting sunny weather and a high of 22 degrees Celsius!! Can you say "perfect weather"? So thankful!

Since we've had such rainy weather lately, Sage talked me into buying her this on Monday:

She can pronounce most words well, but she calls this her Dora "Bawella." So cute!

And I had to share these:

(Do you ever get surprises when you upload your digital pictures to your computer? Yesterday, I found these gems taken by Jonah: they're pictures of the wrench he got for Christmas from his Uncle Chris & Auntie Cheryl!) Too funny!

Tagged!

I got tagged by my friend Cindy.


Two Names You Go By:
1. Leigh
2. Leigh-Leigh (only by brother, Chris)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. black yoga pants
2. teal tee-shirt

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
1. love
2. commitment

Two of Your Favourite Things to do:
1. Scrapbooking
2. Shopping

Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. to lose weight
2. to take the kids to Minneapolis this summer

Two pets you had/have:
1. Coco (our cat when I was four)
2. Muffie (our dog from when I was seven to twenty-three)

Two things you did last night:
1. went out for supper with friends and to the park
2. watched the movie The Italian Job

Two things you ate today:
1. nothing yet
2.

Two people you Last Talked To:
1. Cameron
2. Jonah

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Getting my hair cut
2. watching a friend’s kids

Two longest car rides:
1. From Manitoba to B.C. (& back)
2. From Winnipeg to Dallas, Texas

Favourite Holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Easter

Favourite Beverages:
1. Skim Milk
2. Diet Root beer

Now, if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged!

Sign of summer #1

Well, it certainly isn't the cold, rainy weather outside (that postponed the 5km walk/run/ride for the Congo until next Saturday.)


But rather...


I went to Winkler this week and picked up a


nice,


juicy,



Texas

watermelon!

And with it, I made this:

Yup, totally spells summer for me!

My living room

Well, I added the final touch to my living room yesterday afternoon and thought I'd share some pictures of the completed room.

My new leather couch and loveseat (they're dark chocolate brown.) The wall hanging over the couch is what I made yesterday afternoon. It's a 24"x48" ceiling tile that I covered with leftover curtain fabric. The photos on it are 8x8" in sepia. Here's a close up of it:

Another view of the loveseat and our entertainment unit. The doors are broken off, so I still want to fix that and maybe paint it dark brown.

The chair from my aunt that weighs a ton and the pillow I got from HomeSense that matches the chair, the wall colour and the curtains perfectly.

My dining area. We moved the piano to where the buffet and hutch used to be (those are now in my bedroom!)

Anther view of my dining area. I cut two curtain panels down to make the valence. The rods used to be black and Cameron spray painted them silver.

I'm loving the extra seating room and how comfy and warm the room is now.

Photo Shoot

We had a bit of a photo shoot in our livingroom this morning.

Last night, we went to Winkler to Superstore to buy Austin the Nintendo Gamecube system that he's been saving for-- only to find out that they no longer sell the one he wanted for $87 and the one they have now is $107 (ten dollars more than what Austin can afford. :( )

So, I did some checking on ebay last night and found some systems for less. I told Austin that I'd found these on the computer and that I would show them to him AFTER I got some nice group shots of the three of them.

(Is this horrible to bribe them like this?)

Anyway, I was pretty happy with a few of the shots that I got. (It's so hard to get all three looking and smiling at the same time!)







Then Austin wanted a turn taking the photos. And he got this picture of me.



Well, it's a pretty gloomy and cool long weekend Saturday here. We went to the library this morning and the video store, so we should be happy for a little while (& maybe I can get some scrapbooking in, too!)

What I've been up to lately:

I got my livingroom & dining area painted to go with the new couch. I was going to go with Benjamin Moore's Delaware Putty (because I love it in Anita's house) , but Cameron found 3/4 of a gallon of paint in the basement and took it to get retinted. We did the first coat and it was a little darker than I expected (although anything different from the Cloud White walls I've lived with for almost seven years seems dark!), so when I did the second coat on Monday, I added a little white and am quite happy with the results. We're calling it a "custom colour."

I also got five curtain panels at JYSK and cut one apart and sewed it to two others from my front window. I cut another one apart and added part of it to a fifth panel and made a valence for my dining room. I also moved some furniture around and the effect is warm and surprisingly larger.



Jonah and Sage have been sick for the last week. So, we've been spending time inside. And they've been napping, which is kind of nice.



Sage has "given up" napping, but it's still fun to find her falling asleep in strange positions/places.



Austin had his first baseball game of the season last night. He hadn't hit the ball in practice yet, so I told him if he hit the ball and got on base, I'd take him out for ice cream. Well, at his third at bat, he hit the ball, made it to first and, when other team mates hit the ball, made it home to score his first run of the season. :)



Baked banana-oatmeal-chocolate chip muffins this afternoon with Jonah while Sage slept.



Jonah's sitting beside me watching a taped episode of Zoboomafoo while I get in some computer time. (He's rediscovered the cheetah head!)

On Monday, we had the second day of the photography challenge for Morden's 125th. Unfortunately with the rain all day and Austin's cancelled baseball practice in the evening, I didn't get the shots I wanted. I managed to run out at 1pm while Cam watched Sage and Jonah and take some pictures, but none that I was thrilled with. (Although, I'm realizing that I really enjoy photographing people. I thought all of my shots would have been great with some people in them. Good to know for July 1st (our third day.) Any volunteers to model for me? ;) )

The 5km run/walk/ride that I'm organizing will take place next Saturday. Proceeds from the run will go towards purchasing sewing machines for women in the Congo who have been abandoned by their husbands and need to support their families. I was emailed a link that you can listen to one woman's story, but warning, it's graphic and extremely disturbing. Click here if you want to listen to it.

Things were going well for the event, but I got a call from the Morden Police Service this afternoon, telling me I need to change my route and submit a new one today or tomorrow. So, when I go get Austin after school, we'll drive around and figure out a new route.

Austin, Jonah, Sage and I will be participating in the event by bike. If you'd like to sponsor us with a pledge, please email me. :)

I've finally gotten outside and started to clean up my gardens. My front one is a little busy, so I think I'll be pulling out some allysum and my one hydragea that didn't die, moving a few plants around and adding some wood chips. I think this would look nicer and be a little easier to maintain. (If you have any advice about where's a good place to plant an Annabell Hydragea, feel free to let me know!)

Okay, long post. If you're still reading, thanks!

One Little Word

Ali Edwards posted a link yesterday to a new scrapbooking "website/blog" called One Little Word.


I checked it out and loved the idea. They post a word every two weeks and challenge you to create a layout using that word.


The first word for the challenge was GO.


Here's my layout for the challenge:




I've been so busy with redecorating my livingroom, Austin's birthday, Mother's Day, R.O.X. & making cards that it feels like I haven't scrapbooked in a while.

Thanks for looking!

Happy Mom's Day!

I hope you had a good one!

Some highlights of mine:

1. Getting up early enough before church to take some family pictures on the couch.





(The ones with the five of us involved the self-timer and Cameron or Austin pressing the button and diving onto the couch!)



2. Getting a painted pot with marigolds in it from Austin, accompanied by a card where he described me as: "lovely, fun, funny, playful, nise and a good cook." Aww!

3. Getting a GC for a pedicure!

4. Being greeted at church by an older woman who hugged me and told me that I am a "great mom."

5. Going to the city and taking my mom out for supper to Boston Pizza.

Look who's eight!

Today, is Austin's birthday.

Because we have baseball practice tonight at 6:30pm, we decided to have his birthday party yesterday after school. The theme: the Amazing Race.

I wrote out clues for them to get to their next location (I drove them in our mini-van) and when they reached the location, they received their next clue, which had a task for them to complete. When they completed the task, then they received another clue.

It was lots of fun. I took them to the beach where they ran the length of the boardwalk and back, to our church where they counted the number of green stained-glass windows (32), to the baseball diamond where they all had to hit a ball I pitched to them (they enjoyed this one so much, they all did it twice!), to the Reasearch station, where they had a drink and then did a three-legged course and to the Arlington hotel, where they posed for a picture.

Here are some of my favourite pictures from the party:

(At the beach.)

(At the research station.)

(Austin looking so cute in his buff.)

(I always love the pleased smile on Austin's face after he's blown out his candle.)

Thanks for looking!

Happy NSD!

For those of you wondering, NSD stands for National Scrapbook Day! (Isn't it cool that there is such a day! ;) )

To celebrate this occasion, I spent part of the day doing one of my favourite things. You guessed it-- scrapbooking!

My Scrap Shoppe hosted an online crop today and it was fun to participate in the challenges.

I created this layout based on Anita's sketch:



This layout I created for Anita's challenge to shrink my title and Marcy's challenges to use something old and to create a column on your page.



I posted two challenges and used the same layout for both. My challenges were to use five of something on a page and to mat all the photos on your layout.

And lastly, I created this layout for Jen's Rainbow Connection challenge:

Thanks for looking!

Breaking in the new couch

Last Wednesday, Cameron & I drove into Winnipeg in the pursuit of a new couch and loveseat. (Our couch was over 12 years old, the springs were going, and it just wasn't looking very pretty anymore.)

Happily, we found a chocolate brown leather couch and loveseat that we both liked, for a price we could live with. So we loaded them up in the truck and brought them home.

We've still had our old couch in the living room, so the kids have mostly be sitting on that.

But this morning, I caught Jonah and Sage sitting in their typical tv-watching positions on the new couch. When I tried to take some pictures of them, they started goofing around a little. So I captured this:




But then they settled down and a little while later, I found them like this:





These two are way too adorable!