One week left!

Christmas is quickly approaching...and although I am mostly ready, I still feel as though I've forgotten something huge or missed someone in the gift giving area. I still have to pick up a turkey - so I guess that's a pretty big thing I should do soon.
I went to bed feeling sick yesterday and didn't have a great sleep - kept waking up feeling achy and with a sore throat. Not at my best today, that's for sure -let's hope it goes away overnight!

A few pics to leave you with:

We made some fruit candies/gummies to give out. You don't want to see what happened after I left them on the stove and turned on the oven. Oops. Annika was not impressed with me.

Daddy and his girl

Ceniza had some surgery on her ear...poor little thing.. This panty hose over the head didn't work.

Annika adding snowlady eyelashes

Making the snowlady

Wrapping paper wars - such fun!

Hope you're not too stressed in these last few days before Christmas!
Penny

Dayhome is picked!!

Hooray!! The title says it all. I am so relieved to have found a home that is a good match for my kidlets. It's a bit more of a drive (it's not in our neighbourhood), but it's close enough...around 10-15 minutes drive. That's not bad considering that I drove Annika to/fr Sherwood Park for a year and a half! I took the kids over to the dayhome this evening and I felt like it was a good place. Warm and inviting, with a big Christmas tree and lots of toys, this home will be the home away from home for my babies.

Speaking of Christmas...wow...only 3 weeks left!! Eeek! Everyone done shopping? I'm not. But I think I'll be able to pull it off somehow. I also need to do baking and get a turkey for our Christmas dinner!

I went to the mall last week and decided to take the kids to see Santa. Here's some pics:

We arrived at the North Pole and there wasn't too much of a line, thank goodness

Love

This picture kills me. I laugh out loud every time I see it.

We also went to the Festival of Trees this weekend...had a nice time wandering around just taking in the festivities. I whipped up an advent calendar using scrapbook paper (pennant style) and that's what was the special treat for Dec 1 - a visit to the festival. Yesterday's activity was to bake Christmas cookies with a friend, and today's was to enjoy a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Yum. So we did all three things!

Hope you all had a great weekend! Enjoy your week...
Penny

Catch up

Again, time is getting away on me. We've had lots of activities on the go. I always find that the last couple months of the year are the busiest and seem to fly by more than any other months. I have good intentions of having all my shopping done early, but not sure if that's going to actually happen. I will still try! We're doing more homemade gifts this year instead of purchasing gifts. They're more personal and a lot of fun to make. We'll see how that goes.

Kids are doing well...I'm trying to find child care for them (and boy is that ever challenging). I'm hoping and praying something suitable will turn up soon. I've met with a couple dayhome providers but wasn't thrilled. Maybe I'm just trying to find another provider just like Annika's before...it's not going to be easy. 

Ethan is 10 months old and is soooo active! He is standing by himself for brief periods, and is always on the go. He's also still a little Mama's boy. I love this little guy. He's just a charmer (like his daddy) and I'm just so happy staying at home with my kids these days. Of course there are days when I want to just curl up in a ball and put in some earplugs (haha) but overall I enjoy my time at home. 

Yum. I love eating

Annika is doing so well. She loves helping Mommy, especially in the kitchen. We like to bake together and she even helps me make supper. She is great at setting the table and she loads some dishes in the dishwasher. What a big girl I have! She's the apple of daddy's eye, that's for sure. We sure have been blessed with the best children.

Here are a bunch of pictures that will show a bit of what we've been doing.

My girl went to the dentist this week for her first visit!

Look at those teeth! Gorgeous! She did so well.

With her BFF!

We baked Blueberry Bran muffins...healthy and delicious!

Yum

I like them too

The video is so you can see the groovy dance moves my son has...haha!! Chip off the old block, that one is.

Well the Christmas season is approaching quickly. Our tree is up (it was up last Wednesday, haha!) and I'm getting excited to do some baking and crafting. Let's hope it happens. Hope you are all having a fabulous Friday...enjoy the weekend!

Penny

Remembrance Day

Just a quick note...I'm very thankful and so blessed to be a Canadian. I love living in this beautiful country and am so thankful for the many sacrifices that were made to ensure our freedom. My Grandfather served in the war - he was a strong, wise, brave man and I'm so proud to have someone like my Grandpa to tell my children about.

All you Canadians, let's take a moment and remember those who fought for us and who continue to serve our country.

Penny

Snow days

Although we did go out to take Annika to her swimming lessons today, we didn't go anywhere else- I like days like that. Tomorrow I have a few things to do but other than that I'm going to try to stick close to home. I'm planning on making cioppino (seafood stew) to go with the yummy fresh loaves of french bread I baked this afternoon! Mmmm...I'm drooling just thinking of it. I also made a pot of potato ham soup today but I think I'll save that for an evening this week when I don't feel like or have time for cooking.

Hope this video works! Let me know if it doesn't.

Have a good night.
Penny

Poor little blog

I've had posts drafted with current, relevant updates and then life takes ahold of me and I have to leave the posts. When I come back to them, they're outdated and I scrap them only to start over again! So, here is take 12...let's see if I somehow get this posted.

I'll make it quick - then I'm more likely to make it through. Here are a couple pics from Halloween.

Trick or treating at mall

Little parrot stuffing his beak

She photobombed little Snow White's special moment! lol

Arrrrrrgh, ahoy matey!

Now, I have lots to write about, just little time to do so. I will get better though. I'll post some pretty cards I've been making, and all the crafting we've been doing at home!

Have a good one!
Penny

Happy Thanksgiving

Gosh it's been too long! I keep thinking about my poor little blog...it's been so neglected! We've just been go go go lately. And the cold went from Annika to Ethan and then they both relapsed and got a very bad cough and Ethan especially was hit with a nasty cold. He's just starting to come around now.

The kids and I were in Canmore Wed-Thurs with my friend Heather. It was a quick getaway to take advantage of her vacation time. It was too short, but still nice to get away!

I'll do a quick photo dump of a couple pics. I'm off to get ready to have friends over this evening for Scott's bday! Not sure if we'll have many, but quality over quantity, right?! Oh, one more quick story. When we were in Canmore we went to this chocolate shop (yum). Annika found some chocolate tools that she wanted to get Daddy for his bday. So we got it and said it'd be a nice birthday surprise. When we got home Scott asked if we got him anything (typical scott, lol!) and Annika responded with excitement, "Oh yes Daddy, we got you delicious chocolate tools - it's a surprise!!!" Tee hee...love her.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Here's my girl getting some baking done...

budding chef

 I want to share a series of pics taken by Annika. She's got quite the eye...haha!!

Knee and elbow

This one actually turned out!

I had to laugh when she showed me this one...she said "look mom, it's grass!!" haha

tree framed by cute little fingers

Penny

Sniffles and a busy week

We've started off our fall with a bang - a nasty little cold (poor Annika) and lots of activities planned. Yesterday Annika started her first gymnastics class! She had a great time running, learning to walk on the balance beam, doing somersaults, and just enjoying herself. Unfortunately her cold was starting to hit her so we came home after and she snuggled up on the couch.

She's the top little one on the two balance beams

Here she is ready to bounce her way across the giant trampoline path

Balancing her way across the beam

It was fun watching her - I hope she continues to enjoy this. I wouldn't mind having her in gymnastics for as long as she likes it!

We have swimming lessons starting on Saturday afternoon. Here's hoping she'll be feeling better by then. We're going to lay low and see how it goes for the rest of the week.

Here's a little troublemaker in our household.

In the corner for bad behaviour. Just kidding!! ;)

You don't mind if I take all these down, do you Mom?

I don't think we need this movie, Mom.

It's funny - Annika used to love doing the same thing when she was little. It's funny watching them pull all the movies out!

We went to Costco last week to pick up some things we needed and Annika was tickled pink when I put both of them in the shopping cart.

And finally, Annika has been "helping" me lots lately. She loves making supper with me or baking, and I love it too! It's fun watching her learn new things. She's such a big girl. So the other day she helped me sort out our post in notes - see finished clean-up below:

Haha! Hope you're having a good week all!
Penny

Family Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our recent photo shoot with my friend's photography company, Get What You Pay For Photography. Stop by their website and check them out, if you're looking for getting some pictures done. I highly recommend their work. They are a lot of fun to work with, have great ideas for shots (good, because I certainly don't) and they're so professional. I'll share a few with you here and you can judge for yourselves! :)

Hope you enjoyed the peek at our photos!

Penny

My favourite season

It's autumn already - my favourite season. Beautiful trees with changing leaves, brisk air, delicious baking. Yum! Unfortunately it also means that my time at home with my beautiful babies is quickly coming to an end. *Sob* I'm so sad to go back to work...I love being at home with my precious ones. But that's life.

My birthday was just a week ago (and actually today is my mom's bday - I told Annika she's having a wonderful birthday up in heaven!) and I have to share another card that my family made for me. This one is so cute and clever...I love it! My hubby did a fantastic job with this one!

He also took me for a fabulous supper and he hit it out of the park this time. We went to the restaurant Sage in the River Cree and man, was it scrumptious! His friend knows the head chef and he hooked us up with an evening of special treatment. I felt soooo pampered. It was marvelous. We had a 5 course meal, and I'll share the pictures that I remembered to take. I forgot for most courses until it was either all gone or mostly gone...lol!
We started with an oyster...presentation was super cool. It was smoked and had creme fraiche. I didn't get a picture. Then we had a delicious salad of corn, lobster, halibut, and seared scallops. Oh man, it was to die for. (Hence, no pictures!)
Next up were the mains. We started with chicken and mashed potatoes and carrots....soooo good.

It was followed by "steak and eggs" which had a little quails egg on the yummy steak and a mushroom risotto. Num.

Then came the lamb. It was tandoori style and was super good.

I'm not very good at food blogging, am I? LOL! I kept eating everything without taking the pictures! Only remembered in time with the chicken! And you can forget any pictures of the dessert, which is a shame because boy was it good. We had crusted chocolate mousse and creme brulee. Heaven.

Anyways...hope you're all having a good Monday. I'm going to enjoy some time with my girl doing more of this:

Tea parties are wonderful. 

Ta ta for now.

Penny