A big weight off my shoulders....

The tutus are done! The tutus are done! I may never tie another tutu again, but they are complete! So that is a big weight off my shoulders... well maybe not off my shoulders, but now I feel like I have given myself permission to sew for my own pleasure again. Which is good.

I took a few pictures of the girls today and I was in love with little Evelyn's outfit.... it was a cute little red trench coat and beret from Janie and Jack's Strawberry Sweet line. I even got a gorgeous picture of Laina who seldom cooperates. So I happily posted a picture on facebook. And then an often socially-inappropriate friend (you know who you are....) totally ruined the outfit for me. I will tell you what she said AFTER you admire my little sweeties...

Cute, right?

Okay, if you are squeamish, avert your eyes... this friend asked where she could get a used tampon outfit. About my sweet baby girl. And now I will probably never put that on her again, because I will forever think of it as the used tampon outfit!

And no, my socially-inappropriate friend, you have not offended me... merely ruined a perfectly adorable outfit for me!! Lol!

Eating my words...

After my "I don't live in an igloo" post, I feel a bit sheepish posting photos of the snowfall we woke up to this morning. It wasn't huge, and it is already almost completely melted but nonetheless, I need to add another strike to the amount of days I have seen snow this year count.

The kids and I bundled up in our snow gear and went for a little walk to my mom's house. That was pretty much the extent of the excitement for the day... other than that we went grocery shopping, cleaned, and I tied tutus.

(Is there anything more ridiculously cute than a baby in a snowsuit?? It always reminds me of Maggie Simpson in her little star snowsuit... so puffy that she can't put her arms at her sides or keep her legs together...)

Snow Angel

Signs of spring, cute little crocus' desperately trying to peek through the wintery crust!

Showing motion... I have taken pictures of this before STOPPING motion, but here I was trying to show it.

This isn't a great photo, but I took it with one hand while the other hand pulled my large load of a family on a toboggan. If you know the size of me, these three children o' mine now combined weigh more than me. I am outnumbered in every way! Ack!

And lastly, my mom noticed this pair of Pileated Woodpeckers going to town on a neighbor's tree. You can see the damage they have done, I think eventually the tree will fall down from their efforts!

Thanks for looking! Leave me a comment if you can, I love knowing that there is someone out there reading!

Sugar Cookies, part 2

I tried again. Even though last time I tried to decorate sugar cookies I came to the realization that I don't enjoy the process, I decided I wasn't going to let these little b******ds get the best of me. So I made some ladybug sugar cookies for my niece's birthday party next weekend. I will freeze them until then...

I had more to say, but my eyes are burning from staring at those little critters!

Evie Cooperates

She let me take some pictures of her today with a surprising amount of cooperation! Also, with these pictures, I got to practice using clone stamp in Photoshop Elements 9 to remove a booger from her nose!

Why do kids love those little sprongy things behind the doors? You know, the doorstopper things? She could lay there and twang that thing for hours if I let her.

Turning around to see if I have had enough of the sproinging she was doing

"I'm done Mom, let me out!"

On February...

I am well aware that I have been super boring lately. I hope to slide out of my funk soon. To be honest, I have kind of a low-grade depression going on over here. I blame February. It is just a crappy in-between month for me. I like January because it feels like a fresh start, with new beginnings and all that. I like March because it signals the beginning of spring (which I think might be my favorite season of the year??) But February? Blah. Just an in-between month. Not much going on, and it seems like historically (as well as currently!) my kids spend the entire month sick, often with stomach virus' that make my little emetophobic self want to curl up in a ball and hibernate until it is all gone. So I have been a bit depressed and not very motivated to use my creative juices. I promise to perk up soon (I hope!).

In the meantime, today was Mylie's party day at preschool were they show off what they have learned this month. It was an utter gong show. Mylie was her typical cooperative self and did all her actions, but man, it was like some of those kids drank Jolt cola for breakfast today! It was generally agreed upon by all the parents to be the worst party day ever.

One picture from the festivities:

And I did one little project today... a birthday hat for my niece, again with the ladybug theme. My whole family decided to model it, each in their own way. I haven't attached the elastic to hold it on yet, and I think I need to add something to the top, maybe another little puff of marabou like at the bottom? This hat was made entirely from SVGcuts again, and the party hat was even a free download!! You can download it free from here.

Mylie:

Evelyn:

Adam:

Laina:

Pennant style Birthday Banner

Here is my little paper-crafty project from last night. It looks a lot cuter close up because in the pictures you can't see the dimension and the textures, but I love how it turned out and I hope my sis does too!

I made all of the pieces on my Cricut with my SureCutsALot2 program and SVG files I purchased from www.svgcuts.com. I adore SCAL because it is so much cheaper and easier to use than cartridges!

Day 53: February 22

Just a quick picture today... it was my chaotic day of kid activities and once they were in bed, I busted out the Cricut and started assembling the components to make a pennant style birthday banner for my neice. So I took a quick picture of that so that I could get this over with for the day, and get crafting! Hopefully tomorrow I will have a cute banner to share :)

Another day

Let's set the scene...it's Monday, which is the day I go into Laina's classroom with her to listen to the kid's reading. Since I can't take the other two little girls with me, I get everyone dressed and ready and deliver the little ones to my mom for her to look after. Laina and I proceed to the school, and for once, we are on time. But as I am pulling up, I realize something is wrong... the streets around the school are too empty and there are way too many parking spots available for the time. My mind quickly scans my options... either all of my clocks have somehow set themselves forward an hour and we are really, really early for school... or it is actually Sunday and we showed up for school a day early...or ??? Turns out it was a pro-d day (professional development day where the teachers go to workshops etc) today. And I had gotten the kids all ready and out the door by 8:30 for nothing!

It kind of set the tone for the day. Wasn't a great one, but not terrible either.

I did however take the worst pictures I have taken in a couple of months today. I really have no excuse. Their horrible-ness surprised me when I uploaded them and I am just too darn lazy to take more right now.

Nice way to spend a Sunday!

It is pretty much just going to be pictures today... Thankfully the kids were feeling a lot better today, hopefully that stomach virus will stay away from the rest of us! It was a beautiful day, so we got outside a bit, went to a swimming lesson, visited with family and cleaned up around here. All in all, it was a nice way to spend a Sunday!

And I wanted to share a giveaway that is open to US residents from one of my favorite blogs, Glorious Treats. For her blogiversary, she is giving away a party package worth $300! Visit here for details...

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!