Happy New Year

Tobaggan Fun

Rhino took the Princesses and a friend to the lake to try out the new sleds.  Our weather has been so nice that the hill was really just packed ice but they didn't seem to mind much.  Some awesome air was caught by all!  I think the sleds worked well!!

 Love the faces!

I am sure we will get more snow this winter so the sleds will be well loved!

Christmas Recap

Wow another Christmas gone!  Here is our tree I love our tree and it is the one thing I miss most when our decorations are down.  I love the amount of light it gives off.  This year the tree came down on December 27th.  As did the other decorations.

Tree 2011

Princess Belle excited over her gift card from Bubba!

Gift card already spent

Miss Cinderella LOVES husky dogs this will be as close as she ever comes to owning one!

So Happy!

Even Belle loves the husky!  She realizes she may have some competition now.

Taking a break

While I was preparing dinner the Princesses had a photo session.

The end of the day smiles

This just because I couldn't resist..I think this is just too cute.  I am going to have to resist but how cute would that pattern be in a scrapbook layout?!?!.

We had a great Christmas and the Princesses loved every minute of it.  Unfortunately we all have had a bit of some type of chest infection but we seem to be getting better.  Poor Princess Belle even had a trip to urgent care on Christmas morning as she was under the weather with bronchitis.  I hope to never have to go again on Christmas Day but how lucky are we that we can go!

Not what I expected!!

While on pinterest the other night I saw this neat idea.  It came from this blog.  I thought it looked so nice and so simple.  I had a bag of candy from the dollar store left over.  Please don't judge me the candy was for a school gingerbread activity. So it wasn't going to be consumed anyways.

Here is what hers looked like.  So nice and look at the shape.  Bonus her oven is cleaner and also look at her cookie sheet it isn't all black like mine.

I laid out all the candy and used parchment paper - wouldn't want to have a sticky mess.  Not that I have ever had that happen.

Mine looks more like an amoeba shape!  So I took a knife and tried to make it more square.  I probably should have stopped there. 

I got the genius idea to break the candy up and put it in cookie cutter shapes.  It will keep its shape then.

I think I may have put it in the oven for a minute too long.  The candy is kind of frothy and bubbly.  No worries it will just cool down and go flat. It did with a few bubbles.

Ummm...the candy is now stuck to the cookie cutters.  Maybe I should have sprayed the cookie cutters.  I tried to be gentle and it just wasn't budging.  Every last one broke!!  So much for that project!

I love looking at all the neat stuff on pinterest and find I am wasting way too much time there.  But I love all the different stuff out there and to see the possibilities. 

Scary Santa

Before you scroll down please brace yourself and make sure all young children have left the room!  Otherwise your children may be traumatized for life.

It is a rite of passage to go see Santa for most kids.  Usually parents dress the kids up, wait in a long line and walk away with a Santa photo. Traditions that make us smile and remember way back when.

Rhino's Mom after seeing this mall Santa should have marched right on out!  Do not wait in the line and never ever have a photo taken with this Santa.  This Santa looks like he probably had a little too much Christmas cheer and you can see those shifty/beady eyes are up to no good.  But Rhino doesn't look that scared and even has a half smile on his face.  He even comes with me to take our kids to see Santa.  That is because he knows they now have extensive criminal background checks!  Rhino never lets the opportunity go to talk about this awful Santa though!

We have always taken the girls to see Santa at the mall...we only missed one year.  We love Santa and this one especially.  He was always so kind and you could tell he had a bit of Santa magic in him.


2003

 This year we took the kids and we always wonder if "Our Santa" will be there.  This year I was crushed he wasn't there.  I was sad and wondered if he had made the trip to Santa heaven.  I did find out that he has just retired so that made me happy!

This Santa was just ok.  Miss Cinderella got on his leg and he moved and she almost fell off and then he quickly dismissed them.  This will probably be the last year for a Santa mall picture.

Ah the memories...of the Santa photo. If you look closely someone has a list for Santa in her hand!


2011



Who's on the naughty or nice list?!

I had such a great start on Christmas shopping thanks to a trip to Kalispell Montana in November.  I thought I was about done!  Actually in reality only my toes were done. While power shopping in Montana I noticed that my toenails were sore.  A few days later I was beyond sore and was in pain.  I now have some lovely color on my nails in the form of bruising.  It must have been the shoes I was wearing.  I did not drop anything or do anything to warrant this.  The good thing is now they just look ugly.  I need to put some nail polish on to cover this up! I will put that on the list of things to do.

Naughty List

 Thanks to October Moon who convinced me that we must do personalized soap containers my neighbour gifts were taken care of!  Thank you again for the great idea and the motivation to do it.  We also made caramel chocolate covered pretzels again this year.  Those are also a big hit. The pretzels are a bit time consuming to make and now that we have made a minor change to the recipe next years batch will be a breeze. Wink wink!
 

Nice List

I have a few friends whom I wanted to make a "little something" for as they only do digital scrapbooking now.

Nice List

I saw these necklaces a long time ago in a catalogue from a big brand name company and knew that I wanted to make them.  I looked on line and of course found instructions how to do them.  It was fairly easy but time consuming.  I think the first one took over 2 hours.  I did get faster at it which was a good thing otherwise there would only be one.  I was really pleased at the way they turned out.  One lovely little girl got hers tonight and she was thrilled!


Very Nice List

And of course you need to make the matching bracelet to complete the set.  Very nice indeed.

Nice List

 The gifts are almost all handed out to those who made the nice list and with that I think I am done!!!  Just need to do those toenails.

Made me laugh

Gee I wonder if I know anyone with "those pants" I wonder why Rhino wasn't there!

Shortbread Cookie Recipe

My favorite shortbread recipe comes from my Great Grandmother who was raised in France.  You only need 3 ingredients - yes only three!  Any recipe from France is probably rich and grand but this is from my family so it makes it even more special.

You need 1 cup berry sugar which is very fine granulated sugar, 1 pound butter and 4 cups flour.  The secret I am sure to the success of the recipe is in the butter!  Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar and mix well. Gradually add in the flour.  Bake in modern oven at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes.  I love the modern oven line!  When you roll the dough out it will be crumbly and you can't really handle it a lot.  My favorite shape for this cookie is a simple circle.  The result to me is heaven on earth!

Its been....

13 months and 17 days and we are done Phase 1 of orthodontic treatment!  No more payments for 2 months - hey at this point I will take what I can get!!

Before:

After:

For some reason this whole post has me singing this song...

The tradition continues (year 15!!!)

Again this year we got a wreath from Nova Scotia just like last year!  This year Princess Belle had the pleasure of putting on the bow and pine cones. 

Again a huge thank you to Auntie K and Uncle C!!  We always look so forward to this!  Our season wouldn't be complete without this.

Merry and Broke

Years ago I bought this sign Merry and Bright and I love it but somehow along the way it got broken! I was so sad as it was one of the favorites that I have accumulated.   You have to look really close to see where it is broke!

There it is!  Once it is all pushed together you never notice it...thank goodness.

All the Christmas lights are on even though the strand on the top of the roof somehow has magically stopped working!  It happened right after our hurricane winds and of course now we have snow so it will just have to stay.  The tree is up, presents are bought and cards are in the mail...so I am actually very Merry!  The girls have their last activity day after school and it will be a fun one. All I can say is time goes so fast!

Happy Birthday Rhino!

Happy Birthday Rhino!!!  The day was spent taking some pictures.  We had lots of fun and laughs and why is it that you always have a million out takes?!?!

Just when you think there is no hope of getting a good shot it FINALLY happens!

Tip of the Day

Do not wash your cell phone...just saying!  It never works again even if you put it in a bowl of rice and seal it up for 6 months and stand on your head for the whole time.  Just saying...you know. But the upside is that my bestie can text me more!

Category 1 Hurricane Winds

Yesterday was pretty crazy around here...wind warnings and flying debris.  For the first time in my life I heard the emergency alert system tell us to stay away from windows! Our downtown core was closed to traffic and transit because of flying debris and broken glass.  Wind gusts were recorded  at 149 km/h on top of a building in the downtown core.  Category 1 hurricane force winds are classified by sustained winds at approximately 120 km/h.

Rhino went out to get a branch that had broken off of our tree and he thought the neighbours tree was going to go and sure enough it did.

Another neighbour behind us had his eaves trough come right off the house.  You should have heard the sound it made as it was whipping around.  We also watched another neighbours shingles just rip off and blow away.  Scary stuff.  Luckily, we only lost a few tree branches.

Kitchen Chair

While on vacation in Spokane this summer  I spotted a thrift store, imagine that!  It was mainly a lot of junk and it was all stored outside. Most of it should have just gone straight to the dump. I have no idea what happens when it rains or snows there.  I guess everything just gets wet.

I had always wanted a little chair for the kitchen.  So when I saw this one I knew it had hope.  The bonus was that it was incredibly cheap...you can really buy a chair for $1.00!

The chair was in rough shape indeed!  But remember it was only $1.00!  I brought it back to our campsite and Rhino could only laugh about why I had picked this up.  I am surprised he didn't make me leave it!

The seat in all it's glory

Got some mold!



Are you feeling gross yet?! I am.



I cleaned all the disgusting black mold off with bleach.  Initially I thought I would just make another bottom for it.  But those little clips that hold the seat onto the frame would have been hard to redo.  I put another foam pad on it and then used leftover fabric from the kitchen drapes for the seat cover.

Rhino helped with the seat recovering.  I wanted to learn how to do this before I help a friend out on her kitchen chairs.  I figured it would be much better to make a mistake on this!

And now the chair is now actually being used!  Not bad for a $1.00 find.