100th Blog Post!

Wow, just realized this will be my 100th blog post overall! Seems like a milestone that should be marked somehow, but I have nothing very interesting to mark it with. It wasn't a great day here, to be honest. Laina woke up with a stomach ache and it progressed to vomitting and diahhrea by 10:30am. She is feeling a tiny bit better now, but I am not sure whether this thing has run it's course yet or not. Seems to have struck Evelyn and Laina rather quickly, so not sure what the next couple days will hold for the rest of us.

I did get to go to a kid's swap meet this morning before the sickies started. It is like a huge garage sale with 2 buildings full of all things kid's related. I got some cute bargains and got to spend a little bit of kid-free time with a friend, so that was nice. It was a gorgeous but slightly chilly day here and I took the two healthier kids outside for a bit to play. This metal pedal car is a frequent visitor in my pictures in the summer, it is a great way to get the kids to sit still for long enough to snap a picture! And yes, Mylie is in her pajamas in the middle of the day.

Final day of Valentine's Week

Well, Valentine's week has wrapped up, and I got another nice gift today (as well as a not-so-nice one). I got a new Iphone4! And in honour of that, my pictures tonight are from my new phone.

This is at the store where I picked up my pink phone (matches my pink purse! Aren't I disgusting?)

and here is a picture taken by Laina on it. Adam and I were snickering behind Mylie's back all day today because I had gelled her hair yesterday to put it into a bun for dance, and hadn't washed it since. Once the bun came out, she was left with a very interesting 'do. Doesn't she look like Garth from Wayne's World???

And finally, my not-so-nice present. Evie barfed in her crib tonight after having diahhrea for the last 3 days. My emetophobic self is really on edge tonight. Hoping my little baby feels better in the morning (and none of the other kids or Adam or I gets sick!)

Cooking & Cleaning

Not a terribly interesting day... but satisfying none the less. I have been feeling like my house could use a lot more organization and decluttering. I would love for some HGTV show to come and finish all the renovations on our house and/ or clean and declutter it. It is an older house... a fixer upper and it seriously lacks storage space. So whatever storage I do have is jam packed with household crap. I am not even a hoarder. I donate and sell bags and bags of items every month! But I can never seem to get a handle on it.

So I figured I would start small. I went to Walmart and invested in some small storage containers and dividers in order to attack my baking cupboard. Here is the before (and this really doesn't do it justice because you can't see the depth of the mess. Let's just say that opening this cupboard was like asking for an avalanche of baking goods to come crashing down on your head.)

And the after:

Seeing and sorting all of my cute cupcake wrappers and decorating stuff made me feel like making mini cupcakes for dessert. I also thought I would try to find something to make ladybug cupcake toppers for my niece's 1rst birthday that is coming up. Warning, you will probably be seeing lots of ladybug stuff in the near future from me!

I used my Cricut Expression and Sure Cuts A Lot2 plus some free SVG files that I found on the internet to make cardstock ladybugs. I would resize them next time as these look way too big on a mini cupcake. My icing was too runny (although it still tasted great!) and the toppers were a flop, so these aren't beautiful. But since I was taking pictures anyways, I practiced playing around with my white balance.

Picture taken on automatic white balance:

Picture taken with custom white balance:

And picture taken with the camera's preset for tungsten (indoor) lighting:

Interesting to see the difference! Normally I would say that custom white balance does the hands down best job of getting the proper coloring to the picture, but I actually think the Tungsten is the best in this situation... the CWB looks too cool for some reason here. Oh well, this is why I practice!

(and in case you were wondering.... on the fourth day of Valentine's week, my true love gave to me.... a bead and spacer for my Pandora bracelet)

And on the third day of Valentine's week...

Today was the second day straight of having all three kids home sick. Up until this evening, they were all feeling pretty decent except for the horrible coughs and runny noses, but tonight Evelyn has a fever and is probably the crankiest I have ever seen her. It doesn't bode well for a good nights sleep for any of us!

It was a fairly nice day outside and we were going stir crazy so we decided on a little walk around the block. You are probably all getting tired of seeing my kids everyday wandering around in the same jackets and with the same looks on their faces... but hopefully soon we can bust out some spring jackets (ooooh, spring jackets, haven't bought any yet!)

Puckering up for sister smoochies.

They were all holding hands here. A short moment of three-way cooperation that I had to document.

And... on the third day of Valentine's week, my true love gave to me....
a pair of Guess jeans and two Billabong hoodies (and yes, I did just sing that in my head to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas).

It is possible that I am too old for these jeans. Let me know, m'kay? I don't want to be the mom wearing purposely ripped jeans that people snicker at behind her back. For the record, one time when I was a teenager and faded jeans were in style, I wore a pair so worn in, they were almost white. At some point during the day, I wondered why my butt felt wet, so I gave it a quick, discreet pat down, only to realize that the jeans were ripped right under each cheek. Big time. It wasn't wet I felt, it was the cold air. Makes me a bit nervous of these purposely ripped pairs. Do they still maintain their structural integrity after being treated? I guess I will find out!

Love Hate

Not feeling too wordy today, to mix things up, I am going to post my loves and hates of the day.

LOVE: the fact that I made Adam's lunch for the second day in a row (this never happens... I usually make him put together his own lunch, and instead of doing that he buys fast food. Sometimes to make me feel guilty, he tells me "So-and-so's wife makes his lunch everyday... actually I am the only one whose wife DOESN'T make their lunch" pout)

HATE: that all three of my kid's are sick with nasty coughs and colds AGAIN

LOVE: that my photography teacher used one of my photo's in her blog about the wrap up of our class!

HATE: that when I tried to drop a sick Laina off at school this morning, the kid in the van in front of me hopped out and vomitted all over the ground in front of my emetophobic eyes.

LOVE: that Adam brought me home a new Macro lens on his lunch break, just because! (basically Macro means up close... see the rain drop on my snowdrop?)

HATE: the fact that I am coming down with the kid's cold!

LOVE: that Adam brought me home a new pair of Lululemon Cuddle Up Pants
after work. When pressed about why all the gifts, he said, "It's Valentine's week, I just wanted to"

And I think that is it! And yeah, I do realize that was pretty wordy after all. Roll on the pictures!

"How princesses garden"

"Please excuse my snotty nose"

"Why shouldn't I sit down on a pile of dirt in my tutu and HTF Janie and Jack footless tights?"

*!Excitement!*

I will probably post again tonight, but I was so excited and wanted to share! My fabulous instructor Lynne used one of my pictures on her blog to mark the end of our course!

Check it out here!

If you are interested in learning how to use your dslr on manual, I would highly recommend this course, it was worth every penny; I learned so much!

I Don't Live in an Igloo

I have always bristled a bit at the misconception that Canadians live in igloos and have snow most of the year, and that it is very cold and dark here. I beg to differ. I think that I live in one of the most beautiful, scenic and mild-mannered and weathered places in the world. I always wondered how these rumors of our drastic weather came about.

Well now I know at least part of the reason.

Laina's home reading tonight from school was entitled "Viens voir mon école" which means "come see my school". It looks at the school situations in a whole bunch of countries... the US, Australia, Afghanistan, Ghana, Japan and Canada, among others.

So let me show you the section on Canada.

Now let me translate a few choice bits for those of you who don't read french. I will put my translation in italics.

"Chez lui, l'hiver dure du mois d'octobre au mois de mai." Where he lives, winter lasts from the month of October to the month of May.
Ummmm, no. It is February and I have spring bulbs flowering in my garden and buds on the trees. Also, at the end of October, I wore a tutu and a t-shirt and tights around the block for Halloween. Enough said!

"Il tombe beaucoup de neige." A lot of snow falls.
Nope, not where I live at least! I think I have seen snow maybe 5 days in the last year?

And then there is the diagram, where it says, "Parfois, les élèves vont à l'école en motoneige." Sometimes, the students go to school on a snowmobile. Oh come on! I don't even know a single person who owns a snowmobile!

So I guess this is how these dumb myths are born. And I do realize that the book is talking about Iqaluit, Canada, but seriously, the book could have picked a city that was a bit more representative of Canada as a whole... not just show a tiny city in the least populated territory in Canada (for the record, the entire population of the territory of Nunavut is much, much smaller than the population of the city I live in!), and act like it is representative of the whole country!

Anyhow, enough ranting... if you don't live in Canada, just keep visiting my blog, I hope to show at least of bit of it's beauty in my photos before this year is out!.

Switching gears, I turned in another 10 tutus today... here, I model them on my arm.

They are black and white striped, and quite cool, if I do say so myself! Great design Miss T!