One Month, Seven Months, Two Years

Wow, only one month until Christmas! Hard to believe that it is nearly December. This year seems to be flying by!! I better get out there and get my shopping done. The stores are getting crazy, even though the news reports that retail sales are down. Perhaps people are hanging out at the mall but not buying things. Or perhaps the media trying to scare people, as per usual. :P

Speaking of time flying - little Sara turned seven months this past Monday. Not so long ago she was a tiny baby and now she is getting so big. She is developing quite the cute little personality. She adores her big sister and desperately wants to do everything Danielle does and have everything that Danielle has - it doesn't seem to matter if it is food, or toys, or homework. She isn't crawling yet, but I am sure that she will soon figure out that it is the best way to reach whatever she wants and then nothing will be safe!

This past two weeks, I have taken on my largest digital scrapbooking project to date and I am happy to report that I am finally done! I created a 12 page book of Danielle's second birthday party. I learned that it is very different putting together a book vs putting together one page. I found myself redoing a few pages to get a more cohesive feel. And I did a lot of two page layouts, something I haven't done much of lately. At any rate, I am very pleased with the results:















Credits: Emma's Birthday by Inspired Mommie Designs, fonts are Book Antique and Pea Devon Caps.

One birthday down, five more to go! Maybe I can get some of them done before Sara's first rolls around! :)

Anyway, that is all from me today. Have a great week!

November is half over already??

Wow, where is the time going? It seems like only yesterday that it was June! Maybe because the temperature is about the same now as it was then - ha ha! The summer was cold and rainy, but the fall sure has turned out to be unseasonably warm. It is still +7c today and sunny. The long range forecast is looking good too. I hope it stays this way for a while!

We all got our H1N1 flu shots on Friday. The needle itself wasn't so bad, but boy did my arm ache a few hours later! It seems about 90% better today, so by tomorrow it should be back to normal. I am glad I only need to get it once, but the girls will need a second dose. :P

We had a nice weekend, pretty much just kicked back and relaxed. We ended up going to Sears and bought a new microwave since the old one died (that makes 3 microwaves in 6 years!) I am hoping this one will last. It is a microwave/convection oven/grill combination. We gave it a try last night and it works really well! We did baked potatoes (convection), steaks (grill), and green beans (microwave) and it all turned out really well!! The steaks were medium and very tender, not at all tough like microwaved meat. All that in under an hour in one appliance. I was very impressed! Now I want to try making a chicken or baking a cake to see how it turns out.

I did a few Christmas scrapbook pages late last week since the season is fast approaching and I still need to scrap photos from Christmases past. I am trying to incorporate more journaling in my pages so that they are more meaningful. I better put the memories behind the photos to paper soon or I am bound to forget!

Credits: Christmas is Coming by Inspired Mommie Designs, Peel and Stick alpha and Red Card Alpha by Misty Cato, template by Karah Fredricks., font is Traveling Typewriter

Journaling reads:
A few days before Christmas, Danielle and I made this gingerbread house. It was a lot of fun, but next time I think I will assemble the house the night before. For some reason, five-year-olds have no patience for instructions that read “wait two hours before assembling the next section...”


Credits: Christmas is Coming by Inspired Mommie Designs, font is Pea Chrissi

Journaling reads:
Danielle was so excited to see the Santa parade for the first time. She didn’t evem seem to mind the cold. We oohed and awwed over all of the floats as they went by and Danielle kept asking when we would finally get to see santa. Of course he was the last float. As it went by, his voice called out over the crowd “Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to Amanda and Brendon and Christine and Donald and Elizabeth and...”

When he was out of earshot. Danielle turned to me and I expected to see her little face glowing with joy. Instead she cried “Mommy, why didn’t Santa say Merry Christmas to me? He said it to Daddy!”

My poor little girl. I tried to explain that he couldn’t call everyone’s name, but you were only 4 years old. It is so hard to understand at that age. Even though he didn’t call your name, you were not forgotten. Not for one moment.

There is a new scrapbook related product out there that sounds like a great idea. Log Your Memory is selling a journaling prompt notebook (ebook or printed) to record your everyday life in 2010. I am seriously considering buying it. I could use my lunches and bus ride to/from work to get caught up once I go back to work. Hmmm...

Well, that's all for today! Have a wonderful Monday!
Jen

Nov 12 Update

It has been another busy week in our house! Just when I thought I was getting over this cold, it got worse. :( And now Danielle and Sara have it too. :( I am hoping that we'll all be able to get over it ASAP and be healthy for the rest of the year. Fingers crossed!!

Other events this week - we had our first Grade 1 portfolio night at Danielle's school. It went very well. She had lots of projects and school work to show us in her binder. It is neat to see how kids learn math, language arts, and science through colouring, cutting, gluing, etc. I can definitely see the changes in her reading and writing skills since Kindergarten. We are so proud of her!

The weather has been nice here all week, so Sara and I took Keisha for a walk by the pond a few blocks from our house. There are still lots of geese here in the city. You can get an idea by the picture here:


we took advantage of the day off (Remembrance Day was yesterday) and went to the park. It was +12c here, which is really unusual for this time of the year. The girls enjoyed the play ground and some close up views of the Canada Geese that are still sticking around. They are so used to people at this park that we had to go around them on the walking path because they didn't look like they were going to move!

Some good news for me when I opened my emails this morning - I was picked for layout of the day at Digitals for my page "My Snow Princess" (see post from last week). It was a great surprise! I have another page done this week too:

Credits:
All I want for Christmas by Monica Larsen at ScrapScandiStyle.org

I also have a Christmas card on the go with this fantastic kit. I was hoping to get a picture of Danielle and Sara in their Santa hats so that I could finish it off, but with them both having colds, their noses are all red. Hopefully they will be much improved by this weekend and I can get the card done and ordered. It would be nice to get them out early for a change!

Anyway, that is all for today! Take care!
Jen


This week's update

Has it been a week since I posted already??!! Time really flies!

What is new this week? Halloween was really good this year. Danielle did get another costume - a witch one - and there was no upset feelings over it. My dear husband even complimented her on her costume! It looked very good on her. Orange and black seem to be a good colour combination for her.

Danielle had a very busy Halloween. She was up super early because she was so excited. She wore her costume all morning. We carved the pumpkin right after breakfast.


Then it was off to a birthday party for a school friend. They were outdoors all day at Six Pines Farm. Then they came back and had cake and ice cream (so I didn't have to make supper - yay!!) We dashed home to feed Sara and have a little down time, then it was off Trick or Treating. We tried to deliver goodies to our neighbours, but only one house was home before 7pm. We then drove to our usual area and visited Uncle Randy, Aunt Lindsy, and Grandma & GrandDad's houses. Brendon took her to a few houses on Grandma's street and we were done by 8:15pm. Good thing, too! Danielle's bag of candy was overflowing!!

After a quick cup of tea, we set off for home. Danielle crashed in the car, but Sara stayed awake (amazingly!) We poured the girls into bed and then crashed ourselves for the night.

Other happenings this week... Sara had her 6 month checkup at the doctor's and got 3 shots. She then slept for most of the day, not that I blame her!

Speaking of sleep, she is starting to learn how to go to sleep on her own. It is going surprisingly well with a minimum of crying. In fact, she sometimes doesn't cry at all! I am pleasantly surprised. I must admit I expected it to be worse than it has been because Danielle cried a lot when we started doing this. I don't know if it is because Sara is a bit younger than Danielle was, or if it is because she is more bottle fed, but whatever the reason it is a good thing!!

I have been busy scrapbooking whenever I get the time to. Here are some of the pages that I have done lately. Please excuse that the credits are not linked up yet. The Pretty Scrappy store has been down most of the week. And some of the kits by Monica Larsen have yet to be released.

Harvest Scarecrows and Quote It: Autumn by Inspired Mommie Designs:


Magical Winter Dream by Monica Larsen:


All I Want for Christmas by Monica Larsen:


That's all for now! Have a wonderful day!