Happy Easter!!

Easter weekend festivities...visits with good friends, egg dying, plying ourselves with chocolate, birthday party and playing at the indoor play place, youth group reunion, Easter Sunday church, more chocolate, Easter afternoon nap, turkey dinner at my Mom and Dad's, more chocolate, move night with my sisters-in-law (Lincoln Lawyer was so, so good!), a long walk to the playground with the kids and Oz (and an even longer, much longer, walk home). A very fun, happy weekend!!

I didn't snap any pictures of the egg hunt. I do have some video on my ipod, but it was all so chaotic and over in about 20 min that I didn't really get much of a chance. Heck, I was still half asleep. The hunt began and 6:30! And the kids, for whatever reason, were up numerous times the night before. Yawn. But here are some other pictures I took over the weekend:

(Sorry, watching tv at the same time and had to add, that I really, really dislike the commercials where they make on person turn into another. Heads all melding into each other. *Shudder* I find it very disturbing).

Dying eggs. I'm sorry to say, some eggs were harmed in the process.

Playing dress up and eating a 'chweese stwing' :)

They clean up pretty good. Though Kieran needs a hair cut and Bridget repositioned her own barrette in a crazy place :)

Riley's bouquet of flowers was made in church on Easter Sunday. Cute :)

So, it's been awhile since I've blogged. I haven't really been doing much scrapbooking. I've discovered crocheting and have taken a scrapbooking hiatus. I suppose it also doesn't help that my scrapbooking area is still in renovation mode. Hopefully once everything is settled I'll be more into it. But the crocheting has been fun. I've been teaching myself and watching a lot of YouTube videos in the process. I think I've got it mostly down :) Here's a hat that I made for Bridget:

Pretty cute, I think :) Perfect for those still chilly spring days. And, in B's case, for wearing around the house, and to naps, lol.

For whatever reason, my camera didn't want to work properly (wouldn't focus or flash) when I was trying to get a picture of Bridget in her crazy outfit...crocheted hat, summer dress, tights and slippers :) And Oz's bum got in the way. But still captures a funny memory.

I was still trying to get the camera to work and took a picture of Oz. Yes, he always looks this pathetic :)

A few funny things my kids have said recently:

Kieran asked for a new Star Wars book Riley had gotten from the book fair for bedtime story. Riley says, "It's a family favourite!"

A couple of weekends ago we were at my sister-in-law's and my nephew was having some problems playing hockey with the other kids and crying quite a bit during their game. We were talking about hockey in the car and how my nephew would probably play hockey next year and we were telling the boys they could too if they wanted. Riley says, "I reckon he'll cry a lot for them too!" Reckon? Where'd that come from? LOL!

Kieran insists on calling it, 'James and the Ginormous Peach'. Sometimes he uses Humungous :)

Easter Sunday Kieran thanked Grammie, "for the candy we don't deserve." Heehee!

We were all playing a board game the other night and Riley said, "Riley's turn!" Bridget starts laughing hysterically and says, "Riley said his name!" Then she says, "Bridget!" More laughing. "I said my name!" At that point we both erupted into a fit of giggles :)

Riley, "Mom, Kieran was hitting me with bubbles!"

I'm sure there are many more, but they escape me now. Must be time for bed. Gotta start the sugar detox tomorrow, haha!

A Walk with Riley

Tonight Riley and I took Oz for walk after supper. He was excited to have some special time with Mom. We were probably gone 20-25 minutes. I swear Riley talked non-stop the ENTIRE way. There was much more than this but here is a sampling:

"Mommy, I want to collect things on our walk. Like last Thanksgiving when we collected leaves for the table. That was fun. And I got to sit at the table with the leaves. And at the grown up table too. It had leaves too. I got to sit at both. That was a good supper. And New Year's when we had those little things (appetizers) for supper. That was a good supper too. Those were my favourite suppers of last year!"

"I like the way the water flows in the ditch. I want a skateboard (we saw boys on skateboards...). The first move I'm going to learn is one like this (Riley demonstrates flipping a skateboard). That would be cool. Jake has a skateboard."

"Why is that dog barking at Oz? Do dogs always bark at Oz when you take him for a walk? Are they the same dogs? I remember when we walked down this hill before..."

"I can't wait until we have our little authors celebration at school! I'm one of the little authors!!"

And so on, and so on. I wish I had a tape recorder with me. It was so cute!

As promised, here are some pictures from Bridget's birthday party.

The look on Bridget's face when she looked in the fridge and saw her cake for the first time. Makes all those hours of baking and decorating totally worth it!

All decked out in her new hat and purse. Totally stylin' with her jammies :)

Bridget with her giant frog she got on her birthday shopping excursion with Daddy :)

A birthday dance with Kieran.

A fairy princess opens her gifts.

Not sure what she's up to here but it makes me giggle :)

That dress is so cute and it's got some great twirl to it! She was twirling all day.

Love it! Thanks to Bampie for capturing this picture!

Cake anticipation.

Make a wish. Actually, I think the only wish at this point was to eat cake!

It was a fun day. I can't believe she's three already. But, man, can you tell. She now has that three year old attitude. Fun times!

Here are some of my current layouts.

This one is my current fave. I started it for a challenge at Tally, but I failed to meet the requirement to have 2 pictures. I managed to make it monochromatic, have a title be a Green Day song lyric, and include something from nature (birch bark). Oh well, it turned out to be one of my favourite layouts yet.

An altered canvas. I kinda like how this one turned out. The fun misting and the pops of red. It's hanging at the top of my stairs :)

This one was my second attempt at that Tally challenge. Got all the requirements this time. I really like this one too. I'll have to do one for Kieran too :)

Ok, time for bed. I have to read a couple more chapters of my book for The Big Rothesay Read :) I might actually get it read this year in time for the author's visit! Night all.

A big week!

It's the end of March Break. Bittersweet. I love having the family all home together. No obligations to be anywhere or do anything. No rushing. There hasn't even been too much fighting. But in a way it will be nice to get back to routine. I think the kids miss school and I would love my quiet time back :)

We started the week off in Moncton on Monday. We hit Crystal Palace for the day and had supper with good friends. The kids even slept, kind of. :) We had to break them up a bit and Kevin laid down with Bridget to get her to go to sleep but after that they weren't too bad. And I even slept a little between being kicked/laid on by Bridget, getting her water, taking her to the potty and switching to sleeping with Riley because he was scared on the pull out alone. Phew. The kids loved swimming in the pool and eating a giant breakfast at the hotel the next day. A huge part of that treat was the pancake machine. So cool. You just push the button and 45 seconds later out rolls a hot pancake on your plate. Cooked to perfection. So.stinkin'.cool.

Some cute Crystal Palace pics...

The carousel was B's first ride but far from her last! That gal is fearless and rode the (pretty darn fast for a 3 year old) roller coaster 3 times!

The carousel again. Kieran is also fearless and rode every ride he could!

Unfortunately, I don't really have any pictures of Riley. He was far too busy running from ride to ride with his cousin. He rode the crazy swing ride (a ride that lifts tiny swings into the air spinning them around very fast at an angle) 8 times! I stopped fearing for his life after the first couple. It's a hard thing to watch your first born on something that I won't even go on, lol. Kevin went on once and that was enough for him, lol! I also feared for his life, btw. Oh to be young again. I remember being able to ride on that stuff again and again. What happens to you when you get old anyway?? Weird. I can still pack away a goodly amount of cotton candy, haven't lost that ability :)

Again, no fear. You want Mommy to come with you? Nope, I'm good!

Wednesday we had lunch in the market with friends. Yummy. I love the market and only get there a few times a year so it was a nice treat. Then we hit the SJ library. The kids love going to the 'big' library :) We had to leave early though because Bridget thought the library was a good place to run around and hide from Mommy and Daddy between the stacks.

Thursday was a quiet day at home. Like really quiet. Oz was at the vet losing his manhood so it was uber quiet. So strange to not have him around. Guess he's really part of the family now :)

Friday we had a playdate in the morning with friends and a movie date in the afternoon with other friends. Oh, have I mentioned how supercool we are? Gimme a call we'll pencil you in, lol! All of these friends were sweet to get me out of my disaster of a house. More on that in a minute. It was also nice to give Oz a little time to recoup.

So, the disaster. Have I mentioned that Kevin's middle name is 'the Destroyer'? So, we planned to take the wall down between my craft room and our family room. Good. Open up the room, allow for more heat flow from the stove. Good. Of course, after the wall comes down comes the painting, new flooring, desk/shelf building. Wall coming down took an hour or two, wonder how long the rest will take? Sigh. I'm trying to focus on the end result. But once Kevin knows that he gets to destroy something it's hard for him to resist.

"Arg, I am destroyer!" I know he looks harmless, but don't let him fool ya!

Goodbye wall. Oh, now where am I going to hide all the Christmas gifts? Maybe this was a bad idea....

And my favourite part...the orange rectangle:

When Kevin painted the closet in the scraproom, he painted the ceiling too. Nice. Hey, it's art, right? It will be painted over of course, you know...in the next year or two...

Here are all the layouts that I discovered that needs home. I just kind of tuck them away when I'm done...guess I've been doing that for awhile. Eeek! Need more albums! Quick :)

Today was Bridget's birthday and it was a rousing success despite the fact that Santa didn't show up. She was pretty convinced he was going to come. Luckily, once she saw her cake and the presents other people had brought she was ok with it. More on the party later, now I need a glass of wine and some food. It was a long day. A long week!

Is it wrong....(take 2)

That Kieran's most favourite song right now is Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name? And that sometimes I put it on in the car and peek into the back seat and see his huge grin and giggle! It's the best! (also, when we are in a store and Kieran or Bridget hears Bon Jovi they yell, "Bon Jovi!!!!" Yeah, a little brainwashing never hurt anyone, right? Oh wait....)

That Bridget requested a song from Buffy the Vampire Slayer for bedtime? I promise I don't let her watch it, we just listen to the music :)

That now that it's roll up time I can't pass a Tim Horton's without wanting a coffee? I've already won twice (out of 4) which is about my total for all of last year's roll up time.

That I still put Kieran down for a nap? I should probably stop that since he will have to go to school next year. Ok, ok, I'll stop in August :)

That Bridget can totally pull my strings? Spoiled. Completely, spoiled. Tonight she was pitching a fit about putting her boots on and after a bit she says pitifully to me, "Mommy, if you give me a hug I'll put my boots on." Dude, how can you say no to that?

That we told Kieran to eat 4 3/4 bites of supper (because, shockingly, he didn't like it. You know, because it wasn't hot dogs or pancakes...) and then he actually ate 7 bites because it was 4 plus THREE quarters? Please, don't call and educate him on fractions. Funny that he'll be eating less once he turns 5....

Hmm...can't think of anything involving Riley other than, Is it wrong that I want to strangle him one minute and hug him the next? Pretty much sums up our relationship, lol. Have I mentioned he's a lot like his Daddy?? :)

Speaking of Kevin, he's happy because he gets to demolish things. We're going to redo the family room/craft room area. We're going to take down the wall and open up the room and build a peninsula type desk/storage area. Hopefully have it so that I can work and kids can craft with me. Should be nice once it's done but we all know how long it takes us to accomplish things. We STILL don't have trim in most of the upstairs. Sigh. Someday. If anyone would like to recommend paint colours to brighten up my cave-like basement I'm all ears (er, eyes). Is it wrong that I assume this project won't be done until the fall? Nope, actually that sounds about right!

Is it wrong that I laugh at Kevin while he does his Wii workout? Anyone feel a YouTube video coming on? :)

I guess it's also wrong that I assume no one reads this because every now and then I find out someone else is reading. Makes me feel pressure to be fun and entertaining. Ah well, why start now? You were already reading when I was dull and boring. Really, my kids are entertaining enough for all of us!

Ok, back to the Wii workout. I think virtual, wii-land Kevin's back was sweating. Because that's such an attractive part of the real-life workout that they felt the need to simulate it on a video game... Blech.

Riley was in his first Judo tournament last week. If I knew how to get the video from my ipod to hear I would show you a match. Once Kevin reads this he'll probably figure it out :) I can show you a picture though. He came second in his group (of about 5-7 kids). He won 2 matches and lost 2, but did super well even in one that he lost! We were all pretty proud! He's going to be in a chess tournament in March too (seriously, I told you he was just like Daddy!).

I also took this shot at the tournament and it cracks me up for obvious reasons. Bridget can actually wink with both eyes. She is a freaky talented kid who can use scissors, hold a pencil the correct way, button buttons, zip zippers, cut her food all before she's 3! She's been getting herself dressed so long (tights, sleepers, you name it) that I can hardly remember having to do it for her! Ok, enough about my amazing kid, on to the funny picture...

Literally, LOL here!

(If my scrapbooking, or scrapbooking in general, makes you go BLECH, feel free to jump ship now!! If you like, look again at the picture above, pretend that's where I ended this heinously long blog post. Bye! :)).

Wow, just looking at what new layouts I have to show and I guess it's been awhile since I've posted here, so here we go...

Ok, this one's not a layout but worthy of mention since I handmade 20 of them (yup, made the flowers, handcut the leaves and the topper) for Kieran's preschool class. Took a bit longer than I thought it would but they're so darn cute!

LCOM is having a 'Big Brother' contest going on right now. Kind of a fun concept but I'm pretty sure I'll be evicted this week. I'm supposed to finish a mini album by Friday night and I'm not really feeling that happening, haha! Oh well, here are my layouts from week one and two. I kind of love them so it was worth it even for that.

TallyScrapper is also having a contest right now. A Survivor contest. Hmm....I think scrappers watch too much reality tv... Anywhoo, I'm on team Boston Rob (one of the very few survivors I actually know of...the other team is team Russell and I have no idea who that guy is...). Here is my week one layout following the requirements of negative space, using recycled packaging, staples, the colours brown and blue and a picture with more than one person. Phew, got 'em all :)

This one is a layout I did back when Tally had their online crop a few weeks ago. Love it! It is a scraplift Sarah, one of the DT members.

Finally, this is my last layout as part of the Stuck?! Sketches team. I had a lot of fun working with their sketches each month! A great site for all you scrappy gals to check out!

I am done. Let the celebration begin. I'll catch up with you in a few week with another quick (hahahaha) blog post!

P.S. The colour on that last layout is really wonky. I apologize, though I plan to do nothing about it :)

Family Fun

We took the boys cross country skiing yesterday. It was such a beautiful day out! And, I think if we had left after half an hour we would all have said we had fun. However, since it costs close to $50 for us all to go we stayed longer. The boys get tired and frustrated when they fall down and have a hard time getting up. Thank goodness Kevin was there to help. I'm badly balance enough on my own that I can't stand up and also help a kid up. I just do some verbal coaching and then we both end up frustrated, lol. They were troopers though. Mostly, they just want to go down hills. It was fun for Kevin and me, but we end up going pretty slow with the boys. We did do a couple of quick runs around a field while the boys played in the snow. All in all, a pretty fun afternoon. Bridget had some quality time with Grammie, Bampie and Uncle Scott :) There was another family there with an almost three year old. Yikes! It was hard enough with the boys. Kieran did really well for his first time out and Riley did better than last time, but after an hour or so I think they are just DONE!

On Friday Kieran's class went skating. Kevin came along and we took Bridget too who did amazing for her second time on skates. Especially considering she wasn't at all a fan the first time! Then she got to go back to school for circle time and snack time. She LOVED every minute of it.

Big girl!

Hot chocolate and marshmallows, please :)

Cute Bridget things:

Last week at Mom and Dad's Bridget has pistachios for the first time. A few days later she was drawing something on a white board and I asked what it was. She says, "a pistachio."

You know...I can kind of see it :)

One night she asked me for an 'Amanda' song. We were reading a Robert Munsch with an Amanda character at the time and they thought it was cute because it's Mommy's name too. I told her I didn't know an Amanda song (yes, I know there is one, but I don't know it. Maybe that's wrong, but whatever...). So, I sang 'Amanda the Spider', you know...Itsy Bitsy's cousin :) She asks for it almost every day now, lol.

One more cute Bridget thing (man that girl's on a roll!). She was saying a prayer with me the other day, getting me to repeat after her. This was how it went:

Dear God,

Help us and protect us.

Protect Daddy and Ozzy Paws and Kieran and Riley.

We love God and we love Bampie and Gammie

And ladybugs and ponies.

Amen

Couldn't you just eat her up?

And a cute Riley thing that he said seconds ago..."I am completely and impressively bored." Being six is hard you know?

Riley lost his second tooth the other night. Like, literally, in the night at 2:30. Who does that? The tooth fairy was already done her run so she came the next night :)

Last week I got pretty sick with a cold/flu something. On Thursday I was achey and feverish and sinus headachey. It wasn't good. And it was such a beautiful day that I felt bad keeping kids in. They seemed to love all the tv though, lol. While watching a show Kieran spontaneously came over to give me a hug and said, "My brain made me do that." Sigh, love him!

I know this blog is random and long. I mostly do it to record my life, cute kid things, some scrap stuff. I go back to it and smile. If others read it bonus for them (I mean, just think about how much this blog enriches your life!). I should blog more often, but things get in the way...feeding my kids, cleaning the house, watching How I Met Your Mother. Important things, essential things :)

I do have a new layout. It was for a challenge over at TallyScrapper (omword, I just thought I lost this blog post...excuse me while my heart rate returns to normal!). The challenge was to use some misting on your layout. I love how it turned out! And...my finger is still a little blue from the process, lol!

Kinda fun, right? I'm loving the blue and yellow too! Those alphas are so cute!

I'm also taking part in a fun challenge over at LCOM. They are having a Big Brother Contest :) Tanya always has the best contests! I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I'm going to do my best to stay in it! I can surely do a layout a week, right? Hope I don't get 'evicted' too soon, heehee.

Sigh, back to the essentials. Kids are calling (ie...whining). Must go find some sort of entertainment so they aren't 'impressively bored' all day.

P.S. You should all go check out my friend Meagan's wine blog. She is an attention seeker and needs people to comment for her life to be complete. Plus, she is very entertaining. Oh, and you'll learn a new word, so you get booze and education! Fun, fun. Check her out at Saturday Shiraz!