Playa Del Carmen

is where Den and I went by ourselves for 10 days. My parents looked after the kids while we were away. We stayed at The Royal all inclusive resort. This by far has been the best all inclusive we have ever been to. The staff were incredible, kind, and polite. The place was spotless inside and out and the food was great! I gained a whopping 8 pounds to prove it! HA

This is where we spent the first 4 days of our holiday...at the beach drinking. My fav's were the banana mama's and the peach combers. Den's fav's were the mango tangos and rye and coke. We liked the beach cause the breeze off of the ocean...we tried to lounge at the pool, but I couldn't take it...it was too hot. Once we got back to the ocean it was much better. The beach was great, there was no vendors, no people bugging you and it was patrolled all day by security and there was a lifeguard on duty as well. They whistled at people who took drinks into the ocean...that is not allowed. We never got whistled cause the drinks never lasted long enough to take in the ocean! HA

We went on a snorkeling tour on Thursday, which was so lame, but we met a couple from Calgary on it and hung out with them that evening. We walked 5th Ave to a small pub right beside Senior Frogs that made the BEST pina coladas ever and everything was 2 for 1! Then we headed over to Senior Frogs (where I am in this picture) and had a drink there, danced and just hung out. It was fun.

Friday and Saturday we rented this cute car and went to Chichen-itza which is now a 7th wonder of the world. It was over a 3 hour drive to get there, but boy was it worth

it. We had an excellent tour guide named Rafael, who was Mayan and his family was from the area.

Here is the pyramid (which you can't climb anymore) but who cares, it was amazing. They are finding more and more ruins there and I am so glad we made the effort to go.

Saturday we drove to Coba to see more ruins. It was so hot there and no breeze. We were dripping in sweat and once we were done we went back to the resort and headed straight for the bar downed a few blended drinks and headed straight for the ocean.

Sunday we took the 11am ferry to Cozumel and rented a jeep and toured the island by ourselves. This was my favourite day. We got a map and headed out. On the way we stopped at various places to watch the huge waves. After a bit I was dying for some taco's and a pina colada, so we stopped at a place and had a great lunch -we split it as I was too cheap knowing we get all the food we want at our resort-and off we went again. The next place we stopped was where we rented a snorkel set for $5 each and snorkeled and wow was it awesome there. Way better than that lame-o tour we went on. We snorkeled for about an hour and headed back to the car rental joint and took the jeep back. We were a little early so we went for more pina coladas-Den had Sol-and waited for the guy to come back. We did some shopping there where I got a dress for Danika, and 2 masks-one for Travis and one for his friend Ryan. Then we took the 6pm ferry back to Playa and got ready for supper.

This is how we came to our room the very last night and they did the rose petals when we arrived and one more time in between. I told them we were celebrating our 11th anniversary and each night they had a turn down service included in our package. It was so nice. They did up some animals during our stay as well. I can't recommend this hotel enough!! The best part about it was knowing Den and I still have fun together and the love we have for each other is still strong.

The past few weeks

have been busy. We had Den's mom fly in for a quick visit, which was great to have her, but the little kids were sick and to top it off our main sink wasn't draining and was backed up. So I felt bad for his mom as the kids were grumpy and Den was busy for almost 2 days trying to fix it. Thankfully he did get it fixed without calling a plumber, but it sure ate up the time Doreen was here. When she comes back in June (for my Whitefish trip) I hope it goes a lot better! :)
Two weeks ago we went to Black Rock, just north of Cochrane and spent the afternoon there. Dennis wanted to go for a quick ride and while he was gone the kids and I played at the river. Nothing beats rocks, sand and water! We packed a cooler full of buns, pop, milk, turkey luncheon meat, wieners, etc. Thankfully we had the turkey, as we weren't sure if we were allowed to have an open fire to roast weenies, so we didn't. We sure were craving it though! Here is Dennis taking off for his ride. He ended up going for just under an hour. He sure liked that I snapped a picture of him.

When we left to come back home Travis, Danika and Kael all fell asleep in the back of the truck. Amazing how fresh air can wear the kids out! :)

Kael now climbs in and out of his crib and being that Danika is in the same room as him, he likes to load up her crib with books, toys and whatever else is around. She is so easy going that she just is like s-weet. I had to get this picture as it is funny, but can't let him know that or he will be constantly doing it.

Here are a few layouts that I have completed. I have been out of my scrap room for over a week and probably won't get back into it for the rest of April. My parents are set to roll in on Wednesday from Arizona. They have been gone for almost 6 months! Time sure flies. They are busy closing up their place there and heading here to see the kids and of course look after them while Den and I go away for 9 days to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico! I can't believe we leave a week on Sat! Yippeee!

Happy Anniversary

to us. We celebrated our 11 year anniversary on March 12th and Dennis gave me the best card ever and on top of that he got me a necklace with a cross on it. I have been wanting one of those for so long. He really shocked me as usually it is just a card (which is totally fine by me). I didn't get him anything...oops. I booked a sitter though and on Sat night we went to the Keg for supper. It was so nice to go and have a hot meal and a few drinks by ourselves. The waitress was going to sit us away from the fire and Den spoke up and said could we have the table right in front of the fire...he was reading my mind!! After supper we met our friends for a movie - The Green Zone. It is full of action and was a good movie. I would give it 8/10. I love going to the movies and it was good to be there with friends.

I have been slacking in the scrapbooking/art department lately as I have been busy around the house. Even though you can't tell as with 4 kids, nothing stays put for long. But at least I know what I am doing and that is all that matters. This layout is of Travis and Jacie when they went to the Calgary Stampede with my parents. I love Travis' face as he was not sure about those crows. Mom had told me about it, but when I saw the picture I knew exactly what he was feeling.

This layout is of Jacie when we were living in the first rental house and I just love it. She is just doing her thing (can't remember what she was doing) and she has no idea I am behind her taking this picture. I love these kind of pictures. This rental house was nasty too. The only thing that saved us was it had a great backyard and because it was spring/summer while we lived there we spent it all outside. I shudder when I think of this rental!

Here is my little girl looking out the window in our house. She is growing up so fast...and then there is trouble (Kael).

He is so full of life this one. He got into my ink pads and markers and had a great time covering up with them. I was busy doing something else when he came down the stairs and showed me his hands. He was so proud. I put him in the tub right away and it all came off except the marker on the forehead. That lasted a few days! :)

You can see we are in the process of patching up our walls (in the picture with Kael). I will get to that story another time!

The sun was out

last week and we enjoyed every ounce of it. Kael was never so happy, as he loves being outside, and he was just thrilled. I set up the lounge chairs on the driveway and watched the kids play. The neighbours would come out as well and our kids would play together while we had some adult time. I already have a slight sunglasses tan...even after I put sunscreen on. Go figure. Then Monday came and it is cool out again, but while the sun was here I took advantage of it.

This layout was done from the Sketches blog. I added cardboard to it to give it some texture. Dennis buried the kids in snow while he was snow blowing the drive way...If you look close behind Travis you can see the neighbours driveway and how much snow we had. The kids loved that!

This is an art journal page that I did for myself, so I didn't put it in the kids art journal book. Instead I made it on a 12x12 page. I look forward to the prompts on the blog A Year in the Life of an Art Journal. It is good to get out the thoughts and feelings I have and it is a healthy way to do it.

Last Tuesday I started a group exercise class. Tuesday is Xtreme kicks, Wednesday is a circuit of weights, Thursday is spinning and weights and Friday is Xtreme kicks again. Last week I went Tues, Wed, and Thursday. I loathe spinning, but did try it...I think I lasted 2 minutes and went back to weights for the rest of the class. Let me tell you it took me Friday, Sat, Sun, and Monday to recover. It took all my strength on Friday and Saturday to roll over in bed, to do the stairs in the house, to squat down to go to the bathroom, etc. Sun was a bit better and Monday I was pretty much back to normal. This week I am only going Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Spinning sucks! For those that can actually do it, I tip my hat off to you!

Surprise!

Last Saturday Dennis and I met up with our friends to surprise Rochelle for her 40th birthday. We all met at the bowling alley and waited for her arrival. It was great to truly surprise someone. She had no idea and I love that! After bowling we went out for supper. We had a great time and it was fun to have the babysitter come and have a night out with our friends.

This layout was inspired from a persons page on the Sketches blog. I love looking at someones page, get ideas and add my own touches to it. This is Travis when he was almost 2 years old. I love looking back at Jacie and Travis and see them at Danika and Kael's age right now. It's kinda surreal!
This is another art journal page that is the book for the kids. I am so thrilled to be doing this and get down on paper what I think is important. I hope they like it. I just painted this, used stickers for the titles and modge podged the journaling and then once that dried went over some of the words with a golden yellow paint.
Last night I went out with the girls for supper and then a movie-Valentines Day, as it was Pam's birthday. The movie was good and so happy to say we have broken the bad movie streak. Woohoo! It is a gorgeous +6'C out right now and look forward to getting outside a little bit later to enjoy the rest of the afternoon!

February is a great

month for getting together with my family, friends and having fun. I got Dennis to call over to my aunt and uncle's house and we invited ourselves over, as my grandma and aunts were in town. I haven't seen them since my dad's 60th birthday party in Sept, and it was great to see them again. We had a blast. It was so much fun. They even fed us a great supper of ribs, baby potatoes, and baked beans! YUM.
My grandma can talk about anything and she loves to tell stories. There is nothing off limits! Next time though, we will have to plan it better as I never got to see my one aunt and uncle and my cousin. They all got together the night before, but because that was a 'school night' we couldn't go because we couldn't get a sitter. Here is Dennis with my two uncles. There is truly nothing better than being close with your family and extended family.

This layout I did was just for fun. I used the papers, transparency and the cut flower from a kit from Created with Paper. The chipboard letters and the rest of the embellies is from random stuff I already have. I like the 'my work is done here' tag as it is true of babies, but NOT true with all the work we have ahead of ourselves. lol

Here is my second Art Journal page. This Art Journal book will be passed down to the children one day. This book is made just for them and I hope they use it to enforce our faith, values, and beliefs. I hope it helps them when they are struggling or if they just want to feel close to me when I can not be there in person. I hope they appreciate it and most of all that they use it throughout their lives. This prompt was from A year in the Life of an Art Journal http://oneyearartjournal.blogspot.com/ .

Stranded at home

as my husband took my van key to work with him for the second day in a row! He used the key to open my van to take out a cupboard door that I picked up for him (yesterday) and then he forgot to bring it in with him. It is in the front seat of his truck. :( BOO! So here I sit, when I could be at Walmart with Carrie. Double BOO!

I was inspired to do this layout once again from Pencil Lines Blog, but of course added my own ideas to it...The big flying bird represents the grandparents and the little ones represent Jacie and Travis. This one is simple but I really like the way it turned out. I hope my parents like it. Full of Wonder was inspired from a persons layout on OLW (One Little Word) Blog. This blog is no longer active, but they left up the blog to inspire, which I am thankful.

Here is my first ever Art Journal page. I have been wanting to start this for a long time now. I may need to do two, as I want to pass one along to the kids as kind of a life lesson guide which will reinforce our values, and I hope they will use as a 'go to' to look to for guidance, strength, etc. The other one will be for me and my struggles, what I have learned, life lessons, etc...just a good place to go and create in a different area. Here is the blog where this idea came from http://oneyearartjournal.blogspot.com/. The word they used was 'Hope' which was picked by my cousin as she is guesting there. How awesome is that! Great job Glenda!

Ps. Dennis changed the lightbulb in Kael's room the night I went to Costco (which was the same day I posted about it)...I guess trying to put the kids in their jammies, diapers, etc is a little tough when it is pitch dark out and don't have a light to do it with! HAHA.