Just in the nick of time

I finished this layout for the Design Experiment. Feels good to get a layout done and again, wouldn't have thought of it without the help of the challenges.

Today was very busy! First was to get out the door by 10:15am to go to church. After church I dropped off the family, except the baby, and headed to the grocery store. Danika was hungry time we got home, so while I fed her, Den brought in all the groceries...which was a great help. Then after he was done unloading all the groceries, he took Jacie and Travis swimming. Danika is sleeping now and Kael is playing by himself, so I am just eating my lunch (at 4:23pm)...so my supper now. Geesh! Where does the time go!

Danika sleeps well and eats well. We had her baby doctor appointment on Wednesday and she weighed 8lbs, 5 ozs so she lost 9 ounces and gained back 4 of them. The doctor wants to see her this Wednesday to see if she gained back all the weight she lost. For those who don't know babies typically lose weight for the first few days after being born until the milk supply comes in (for those who exclusively nurse). Danika fell in the acceptable range and there is no worries. Now that my milk has come in full force she will have no problem gaining weight now! Last night she slept from 8:30pm-2am!! That was awesome, as I slept from 9pm-2am! That made me feel human again!


Also, we had three suppers delivered to us last week from 3 different ladies from our church! How nice was that. It is nice to be thought of and we really appreciated it. Also, my neighbour, and friend, has really helped out with driving my daughter to and from school last week-I usually drive mornings and she picks up after school. It is so awesome to have people help out and again it is very appreciated.

It's a girl

Danika Rayne was born Friday Nov 21st, at 2:11am. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 10 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. We were eating supper late Thursday night when my water broke (just after 9pm). Thankfully I have a great neighbour and friend who immediately came over and sent us to the hospital. Almost 5 hours later Danika arrived. I had a roomate in my post-partem room, so needless to say I wanted to get the heck out of there...so after my parents arrived from Saskatchewan early Friday evening I got discharged from the hospital (about 17 hours after I arrived). I was so glad to get home!

This picture was taken last night. She is a good eater and thankfully a good sleeper. She is, so far, an easy going baby that doesn't mind noise!

Thankfully I finished this layout Thursday afternoon for the OLW challenge. I just posted it today. Back to babies, diapers, and kids! Love it! :)

Roads are bad

to travel on so I kept Travis home from preschool (as I take him to a different town then where we live) and I had to cancel my baby doctor appointment. Dennis called me and said the highways were really icy and that he had to put the truck in 4x4 to stop sliding all over. That was enough for me to stay home!

I worked on this layout yesterday for the Design Experiment challenge and also entered it into Letters to Scrap By challenge - I am not sure if that is okay to do, but it fit both challenges, so why not?!

Well back to the house duties...I need to get something out for supper and clean the whole basement today...then I can relax at quiet time with my mind at ease that I got my chores done!

Sunday card making day

was a good time. I got together with the gals and we made cards from 11am to almost 5pm. We all brought some sort of food and ate and stamped away. It was a nice break for me away and good to see everyone.

The weather here has took a turn for the worse...we woke up on Sunday to snow and it snowed for most of the morning. The highways were in okay shape and was glad to make it home safe...as I came home in the dark. I don't like driving on the highway at night.

Anyone having a hard time finding Christmas decorations? I went out today to Canadian Tire and Walmart with no luck finding LED Christmas lights (in the larger bulb) and lawn decorations. It is very frustrating to come home with nothing...seems like a waste of time. I will keep checking around.

This is the gift card. The Merry Christmas was too big as I found out after I stamped it, but oh well. Live and learn! Other than that I like it.

Maybe today, after quiet time, I will start on another scrapbook layout for another challenge...

Having a bad day today and

yesterday...ever have those?? UGH! Nothing seems to be going right with me and the kids for the past 2 days...it is like aliens abducted them and replaced them with no ears for listening and no thinking skills. I hope they return to normal soon!

I did this layout for The Design Experiment challenge. I used most of the product from the Smitten collection from Created with Paper...except the rub-ons, buttons, flowers and heart chipboard.

Dennis is home today and he is doing his "honey do list" around the house which is awesome!! It is nice to have him around too instead of working all the time.

Baby is head down...

which is great news. I had my u/s yesterday and the tech said baby is measuring 38 weeks (I am 37 weeks right now), baby estimated weight is 7 pounds, 11 ounces and there is lots of fluid around him/her. All great news. I have my baby doctor appointment tomorrow and I am looking forward to that.

I did this layout today for the OLW (One Little Word) challenge-the word they picked was Listen. It took me forever to come up with what the heck I was going to write about. I almost gave up...thankfully I stuck with it! It is really overcast today, so I couldn't get good light to take this picture...hopefully it isn't too grainy.

Oh more good news from yesterday...my layout was picked (from random draw) on the Letters to Scrap By challenge. I think my jaw hit the floor when I read I was the winner!! Yeehaw!

Dennis is working, as usual, so it is just me and the tribe. I am trying to get out and get milk, but they are playing so nicely and it is getting close to Kael's nap time, so maybe after quiet time we can get out...

The kids asked me what Remembrance Day was about, so I explained and we took a few minutes to think about how lucky we are and what today is all about. It is nice to talk to them about things and I try to answer their questions as honestly as possible, on any subject they come to me about. I think it is important that they get the real answers from us and our values as much as possible (to their age level). I want to have that open and honest relationship with them and hope they feel like they can come to us anytime they want/need to. Jacie came up to me the last day of grade 1 and asked me if I knew what the F word was...I was like yes can you spell it for me and she did and to my horror it was the real F word. I asked her where she heard it and she said school (She goes to K-grade 8). That is the drawbacks to older kids around younger kids. I was very calm and said to her that is was a bad word and that we should never say it and thanked her for coming to me and telling me what she heard. Last week she asked me if I knew what "the bird" was...I think I am going to home school the kids!!

Date night was a

success! I managed to get a babysitter that lives right across the street and the kids absolutely loved her. I had her come an hour before we left and let her and the kids play before we headed out. We went to a Italian restaurant right here in our small town, so there was no big city rat race or hustle and bustle. The food is real (not packaged) and was prepared by a real gourmet chef! It was YUM-O and my kind of place! I had the veal scallopini Lemone with brushetta to start and Dennis had the pork tenderloin medallions with tiger prawn shrimp to start-both came with fresh linguine alfredo pasta! I am going to try to get the babysitter once a month! It was a great time.

This layout was for a challenge at Gettin Sketchy that I started and finished today. This is my first ever 'sketch' challenge and I really enjoyed it. I used a pin (which is hard to see) through the lace and the blue ribbon and crinkled brown card stock paper behind the chipboard hearts.

Tonight I am making pork cutlets for supper with pasta and corn. I am so hungry already...so I am going to start it right after I am done posting. The homemade cream of veg soup I made the other night started out as a potato leek soup but while I was sauteing the leeks in olive oil I added carrot, celery, broccoli, potatoes, 2 cartons of chicken broth, a bay leaf, dried thyme, salt and pepper and let it simmer gently until the carrots were tender. Took out the bay leaf and then I got out my hand held blender and pureed most of it (I

left some chunks it in though). Then I added some milk and Voila! I would thicken it with cornstarch next time though. Oh when I put it into our bowls I added a mound of grated cheese on top! YUM-O! Serve with bread, fresh buns, crackers, etc.

I always love to know what people are eating and I am famous for asking "what's for lunch/supper?" Feel free to let me know!

Happy Birthday to me...

Well I turned the big 34 today. I am going to try to line up a babysitter for tomorrow night, so Den and I can enjoy a sit down supper and maybe even a movie. Yum-O!

I did my first challenge for Design Experiment on what makes me laugh. This one was easy for me, as all 3 kids make me laugh in their own way, but since I had these funny faces of Travis, I thought it was perfect for their challenge.

I just put Kael to bed and I am exhausted. I snore so bad now that I wake myself up at night, plus with all the bathroom trips I am getting no real deep sleep. Thankfully the snoring and the heart burn disappear after baby comes out.

Well I am going to search for another challenge to do...after my nap that is!!

Seeing Circles

I did a layout for a Scrap Schemes challenge where the inspiration was a piece of wall art that had straight lines up that branched off into circles (looks like flowers with stems, but instead of flowers it was circles). This is what I came up with. I have never done anything like this before and it took me about 5 hours from start to finish (over the course of 2 days, that is!)

Again, I love these challenges as it really gets me scrapping and doing things I would have never thought of!

Halloween was a blast with the kids. I was out for over 2.5 hours waddling around the blocks. I am super sore today, as I over did it, but I couldn't say no lets go back home. It was a beautiful night and Jacie was pumped to keep going. I LOVE these time with kids and making great memories for them. Jacie was a dragon, Travis was a firefighter and Kael was a bear.