Look Who's Here!

My Mom arrived this weekend to visit for a month. It's fantastic to have her here, particularly for the kids who always have something they want to show Grannie, read to her or tell her about.

Mom had fun visiting with Nan and Ray, and with Justin and Rosa, who dropped by during the weekend to visit. The kids' weekend involved a lot of dressing up, play-doh sculptures and splashing in the sprinkler outside, while Grannie watched and cheered them on. It was a fun filled few days.

More Fun with Friends

Here are a few more pics from our visit last week with Chloe and Renee.

All of our kids are completely taken with Renee, and Evan couldn't wait to hold her. He is so caring with babies and it is a joy to watch. I recall how gentle he was with his sisters when they were babies, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he enjoys holding little ones so much.

These three gals always have a blast together. Our girls love playing dress up anytime, particularly in princess garb, but doing it with Chloe makes it double the fun. Evan even joined in, donning his pirate costume. Too bad it was so dark and rainy, which isn't the greatest for photos.

It's amazing to watch Renee grow so quickly from visit to visit, and we can't wait for the next one.

Christmas in July

A scrapbooker's world is sometimes completely time-warped. Even though I'm currently photographing my kids in the beautiful sunshine of summer, the pages I've been creating lately are of last fall and Christmas! Not many scrappers I know are "caught up", and we all scrap older photos, yet it just feels odd to be preparing winter pages in the heat of summer, and vice verse.

But, memories preserved are completely worth it, and so I continue - even if I feel odd sipping a Super Big Gulp, rather than hot chocolate, while organizing and scrapping Christmas photos!

All of this winter photo organizing has left me a tiny bit pensive, though. This past Christmas was our first without Stephen's grandmother, our children's beloved Babcha. We would have celebrated her 87th birthday this week if she was still with us.

On Christmas Day we set our holiday table with her beautiful China - the wonderfully welcome gift to she gave us on our wedding day. We prepared fragrant, ethnic holiday dishes that originated with her and her ancestors, for our family feast. Yet we set no place at the Christmas table for her. There was definitely a missing element to our gathering. It certainly added a taste of bittersweet to our holiday celebrations.

I now think I know what I am journaling about when I scrap this photo.

A Crop at the Castle

It was a very busy weekend at our house with a lot of dress up fun, and even a touch of scrapbooking. This is what Alicia wore for most of the weekend. She dressed as Tinkerbell last Halloween, but her costume is much more suitable to summer than to cold weather. She has been having a ton of fun lately "flying" around the house in it.
I've created a new tradition in our house of late, and it works wonders with the girls, although not quite as well with their brother.

I tried moving one of our dining room chairs into the corner by the front living room window, where we have a lot of natural light coming through in the afternoon. This chair is now affectionately referred to as the "Princess' Throne". The girls are now very happy to sit in their castle throne and look out the window at their kingdom, while I shoot away with my camera.

Getting this method to work, however, does require the use of either a pretty costume or a tiara!


Vanessa was also very happy to pose with her latest page. Although Evan didn't participate this weekend, all of the kids love to scrap, and every few weekends we try to squeeze in a little scrapping time. Alicia's page turned out nicely, too, but she just wasn't in the posing mood with it.

The girls are getting a bit more autonomous in their scrapping now, and quite a bit more decisive about their pages. Vanessa wanted very little help with this page, although I did cut out the large flowers for her and align the stickers for her title.

I actually scrapped too this weekend, and it sure feels good to get some pages done. I sure love weekends!

A Crop-tastic Time!

I had a wonderful time last weekend at the Summer Crop at The Scrapping Nook. We scrapped, we laughed, we ate, we visited, we talked about scrapping (and about licking - but that's another story)!

Pictured here (left to right) are: Vicki, Karen (Merc), Karen T, Lee Anne, Heather V, Janice, Patti, Elia, Jen B, and me. It's too bad that my retreat roomie, Angela, along with a few others, had to leave before the picture was taken. Angela played a big part in organizing the day, so hats off to her!

A crop at The Nook is always a blast, and I can't wait until the next one.

Sweetest Little Baby Face

Could this face be any sweeter?

This adorable little tot is Renee, the beautiful daughter of our friends Marcela and Chris. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with this sweetheart last night, and the kids absolutely adore her. Her big sister Chloe is equally as sweet and equally revered - by our girls in particular. The evening exploded into a fun costume party with a plethora of princesses and one scurvy pirate.

I have a few more pics to add later, but this is my favourite. And with a subject so pretty, can you blame me?

A peek at my Aperture Assignment

I've started the first assignment for my ScrapAbility Photography 201 class.

This class is geared to those of us who want to finally take our cameras off of Auto, and explore the manual settings. So far, so good, although I would have to admit that compared to how quickly I am used to shooting in Auto, it is definitely slower going. I guess a learning curve is expected, though!

Here is (a small part of) my ribbon collection, shot at f4.5. I shot these at a variety of aperture settings, and I think I might be getting the hang of it. This is my favourite pic of the group. More to come!

The Next Chapter for Scrapalicious

It's an exciting time for the wonderful scrapbooking store based in Mississauga, Ontario - Scrapalicious.ca. The unveiling of ShopScrapalicious.com, the new online version of Scrapalicious, just happened this week, and it's such a fantastic thing. If you are not close enough to drop by the store in person, you just have to check it out. Click here!

I'm so excited for Lancia, Mike and the entire crew at Scrapalicious as they embark on this exciting new venture. Congratulations!

If There's a Pot of Gold...

...at the end of the rainbow, then someone living in this neighbourhood must have a huge cauldron of wealth right in their backyard.

Doesn't this rainbow look close enough to touch?

This is the view we had when we came out of a birthday party a few nights back. It had just stopped raining as the kids were heading out the door and they were all in absolute awe of this rainbow. It was 8:30 at night but the sky was completely illuminated.

Natural beauty like this is sure multiplied when it is shared with a group of curious and fascinated children!

Sweeter than His Ice Cream Cake!

Isn't he sweet!

Our girls were invited to this little guy's 4th birthday party and I took some photos for the family. I think this one is my favourite. Look at those eyes the size of saucers. Isn't he the sweetest? I could just eat him up! We all had a fantastic time.

Scrapalicious June/July DT Kit Creations

Well, here they are - four layouts from my Scrapalicious.ca June/July Design Team kit. I really enjoyed working with the beautiful scalloped and die-cut papers from the Narratives' Honeydew collection by Creative Imaginations. These papers are so lovely to look at whole, that - I didn't realize it until I was done - I didn't cut a single piece of the patterned paper! It was just too beautiful to take a cutter to. I loved the phrase sticker sheets as well, they were so much fun! So, here they are.

First, I layered a Hambly transparency over this page and added a big title using BG, Pressed Petals and K & Co. alphas together with a Prima flower. Prism cs, EK letter stickers, AL stamp and a smidge of Daisy D's pp round it out.
The pic is of my bff, Cathryn, who is one of the most colourful personalities you could ever meet! It was totally cool to scrap her.
Here's my dude who just turned 7. I think he's too cute for words, but then again, I may be a bit biased!
The lime green was such fun to scrap with, and I added some AC Thickers for the title in lime also (white E for Evan). Arrows are more AC, mini letters are more EK, a MAMBI chipboard circle and some misc ribbon pull it all together. Journaling around the ouside lists all of his loves at this age.
Mmmmmm, this photo makes me long for a vacation. This was the view from a room a few years ago on our Mexican holiday.

I had fun digging out the old crimping tool for this one! Check out the crimped aqua cs! Prism cs, HS letters and more EK stickers, CI big brads in the corners, AL buttons, Li'l Davis flocked chipboard and the cute little boat is by Fancy Pants.
Finally, these are pics that my girls have been after me to scrap for a while now! They just love their gymnastics class. And their antics are so cute!

Chipboard brackets and stars are Fancy Pants, more AC Thickers and Pressed Petals alphas, HS paint, and EK letter stickers.

All of these should be in the Scrapalicious Icing Crew DT gallery shortly. Check it out! And thanks for looking!

When You're Young at Heart...

...it shows, regardless of how many birthdays you have.

It's my brother Chris' birthday, and I think he is still as young at heart as he was 10 years ago. Maybe younger! This photo is quite typical of his playful spirit. Taken a few years ago when he was visiting us from out west, he had just finished a quite lengthy game of frisbee with Evan, when they both jumped on the swings. It was certainly a fun afternoon for all!

An accomplished musician, singer, actor, and even a bit of a dancer, Chris is quite the talented guy. In fact, I think he received a disproportionate number of talent genes in the on-stage department in our family (seeing as when it comes to singing, I received no talent genes!)

That said, I guess it's a good thing that I'm typing - and not singing - Happy Birthday Chris. Have a wonderful weekend!

Don't You Just Love Summer?

Seeing as this is only my fifth month as a blogger, I haven't yet spent a winter looking for topics to post about. I'd venture a guess, though, that it is much easier to find cool things to post about in the warmth of summertime. Take something simple like a backyard pool - what a blast!
The kids have simple fun in our pool every weekend, and I haven't yet tired of the photo ops it offers. It seems every weekend this summer has been another adventure, a huge opportunity for family togetherness and fun. So prepare yourself now - my winter posts may not be nearly as exciting!
We spent Saturday afternoon at a local butterfly conservatory, which the kids talked about for the rest of the weekend. They all loved the beautiful and colourful butterflies, and raced after them, pointing out the most colourful ones, wanting me to capture them in pictures.
They also stared for a long time at the hatchery. I think they were waiting impatiently for a butterfly to emerge! It made for a wonderful afternoon. I did capture a few interesting shots, but found the most beautiful butterflies a bit elusive. Oh well - I think we'll be back!

I'm So Excited...

...and I just can't hide it!

I recently received the news that I was selected to be the Guest Designer for the month of August 2007 at The Scrapping Nook. I'm thrilled to be joining their fantastic team for the month. It will be great fun! You can check out the great gals on their current DT here.

Way back in 2005, I googled the word "scrapbooking", and my entire life changed. My passion for this wonderful hobby exploded, I found like-minded crafters online, and I went to my first crop. And guess where it took place? At The Nook. I did my first heat embossing and set my first eyelet at their crop table. And I met the fantastic group of gals pictured here. I'm headed to another Nook crop in a few weeks, and many of the same gals will be present.

Situated between St Catharine's and Niagara Falls, if you haven't been to The Nook, you have to go! Say "Hi" to Patti and Elia and the staff for me - they are truly some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Or visit them online here.

Thanks so much to The Scrapping Nook for this fantastic opportunity!

Our Canada Day rocked!...and rolled!

Hey, Mr. DJ put a record on,
I wanna dance with my baby!

Music...
Makes the people...
Come together...
Yeah!

I believe that we have the world's youngest Madonna worshipper living in our home! While most kids her age spend time watching Strawberry Shortcake videos, Alicia's favourite DVD is Madonna live in concert from London at the Live8 concert a few years back. She knows a lot of the lyrics and the dance moves too.

Here she is, Canada Day morning, in her Canada t-shirt, ready to celebrate.

Isn't she the sweetest rocker ever?!

After spending the afternoon at a local park enjoying a magic show, some rides, games, prizes and good food, we took a long walk through the neighbourhood while Evan rollerbladed along side of us. He's certainly getting great use out of the rollerblades he got for his birthday. I almost couldn't keep up!

In addition to relaxing in the yard, singing O Canada! (in both English and French) and lighting a few sparklers before bedtime, we also spent some time with family over the weekend, did a bit of shopping, and went to a local splash pad.

And after everyone else was in bed, I stayed up late (later than any human being should, according to my sweet hubby) and scrapbooked into the wee hours of the morning.

Have I mentioned that I love long weekends?

I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful holiday as well, and wish those to the south celebrating their holiday today all the best.

Cheers!

Sneaking a Peek

It's time to celebrate!

Not only are we celebrating Canada Day today, which - in our house - is an all day celebration, but I'm also happy for another great reason.

I scrapped this weekend. Wahoo! It feels so good.

So, here is a tiny peek at what I have created so far with my Scrapalicious June/July Design Team kit.

There will be more to come, but until then, enjoy! And Happy Canada Day!