Withdraw

I have been going through blogger withdraw. The 10 days off I have had over Easter has turned out to be very busy and not so relaxing. I just told Jim that I need sometime off.. He didn't quite see the humor in it..

I had a good time with Dad and Wendel visiting. The quick trip home to Melfort was a wirl wind on one day turn around time. 9 1/2 hours to get there and a quick plane trip home.

Stacey and Tanya picked dad and I up at the airport and we went out to a Japan style resturant for supper it was so great ' I was hoping to get a book done and a new one start this week. I just opened the cover of a new book last night. ( not finishing my current book)

I hear this book is a must read and it has been on my night stand for a month now so I thought I better get it started. So far ... the first 26 pages are a easy read. I will keep you posted.

Well back to work tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it. Stacey and I went to a "fashion focus" hair show on Sunday. It was really good.. It will be good to get back to work with the new motivation a hair show gives you and to start promotions for Mothers day.

I took some photos of the kids over Easter. I haven't had the opportunity to edit them all but here is a sampling.. this is Destiny's new Easter outfit. She wanted black so that it would match her new headband.. You know the ones with the long tie in the back.. She (and all her friends) like to wear them with the ties hanging down.. I hate it.. I keep telling her she looks like Goofy with the long ears hanging down.. Anyway she let me tie it up in the back for the photo and her belt for her pants even matchs the material in the head band.

The background really needs some work.. I guess I will have to break down and by something a little more professional.

Hayze and Lilly.. Could they be any cuter... ?' Nice to have a picture of Hayze with a toothy smile.. he usely doesn't show those big teeth off... He did have a trip to the orthodontist at the beginning of the holidays.. He found out that he didn't have to have any teeth pulled.. He lit up like a candle when he got that news.. He is going to get a spacer put in and hopefully his jaw will grow a little.
Lilly and papa's boot.

Papa got in on the action. Love the hats.

Well it was back at it come this morning. Lunches, yelling to get up, brushyour teeth.... you know the drill.. but the kids had a great time at school today.. I think they both loved getting back to the routine of it.

Well I feel better. I got all of that out. I have missed a lot of in between stuff but really nothing to exciting.

Oh.. just wait. Iwanted to share with you a picture of Taylor and Shawna. the winners of the Easter chocolate They said they really enjoyed it.. good to see you Taylor. You are growing so much.. Hope everthing in Manitoba is good..
have a great day..

We Tried..

and failed miserably. I am self proclaimed "not a baker" however I do like to do things with the kids and get them involved in the spirit of the occasion. Soooooooooo I thought that I would try these adorable little truffles and adapt them to the Easter theme. They are easy to make according to Bakerella and she has adapted them to different occasions ... I just don't think I was cut out for the challenge. It goes something like this. You use a whole box of oero's ( i used the golden variety) chop them up really fine and add a block of cream cheese and work very well together.The mix than looks like this. very easy to work with and tastes yummy.. We shape ours into eggs and put them is the freezer so that we could get them to set so we could dip them in choc. We choose the white kind.. this is were it all went south. I don't think we should have used the "bakers" style choc. we were suppose to use the kind to make chocolates out of. I couldn't find it here. Anyway our choc. was very thick and hard to apply.

Hayze left us right about here, stating he did not like doing this kind of eggs. So Destiny and I kept with it and then decided to use some more dark choc. on the ones that didn't cover well.. I then lost Destiny who got tired of the sweet mess. so I continued on and decorated the white chocolate eggs and they ended up like this.

Everyone has really enjoyed them but I think I will stick to the regular ball shape and find the right type of choc. to dip in. If you have any other ideas please share. do however check out Bakerella and see all the cute ideas that this site has. I stumbled on to it when I was checking someone else blog out.

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Our new puppy.. LILLY I weakened, actually caved into a new puppy.. An indoor dog none the less.. I said I am sure every good farm yard needs a good indoor dog.. Oh but when you see this little cute ookie muckie face you will understand why I had to bring her home. She is 8 weeks old and was born Jan 23,2007.. (another January baby)She has been very good and everyone is in love with her.. Even grandpa..

We had just given her a bath and she was using dad to dry off. Dad loved it.

Wendel of coarse loves her.. He loves dogs in general. He keeps calling her lucy and teasing the kids. look how comfy lily is in his arms.. (at home for 2 days, 1 night)

Destiny has a hard time putty down Lilly.. she loves her so much.. .. We have all enjoyed her and I haven't had to pick up much poo yet.. I think if we stay diligent in training it will be just fine.
Have a great Easter tomorrow.. Hope the Easter bunny finds you all...

Some you win, some you lose and some you just get a great story out of.

Well this is the cutest story ever. Have I mentioned that I am very proud of
Destiny for her abilities in school. She has come so very far in 3 short years.

she recently graduated out of the reading program and is working along side her class in her reading. I no she is feeling a new since of freedom from it too. Along with reading comes spelling and writing notes, which I love. She even proof read something I was typing on the computer the other day. She was so proud of herself for finding a "I" were she told me it should be "I am". Smart girl...

Anyway..... this is the note she left for the tooth fairy the other night. Why might she have to write a letter to the tooth fairy you might ask. Well....... Saturday night our friend Michelle pulled out Destiny's tooth, when we got home Destiny ever so excitedly put it in a glass of water by her bed and waited for the fairy to arrive. Apparently she was to busy that night helping the leper con and Easter bunny get ready for there events that she didn't make it out to our house.

So........ she thought she better leave a note.

love the little stars and the fancy pen. she put a lot of thought into her note and her directions to her room. The fairy left 8 quarters for her that night.

She was so excited when she woke up.. She thought she better keep the note so she could use it next time.

Sunday Traditions

Well Sunday Supper at our house is obviously not a big deal for our 9 year old.... who told his friends mom "we never have Sunday supper" I apparently haven't made it a big enough deal that we are home and have supper as a family. That is what we do, that is what we did as a kids and think it is a wonderful tradition.... And I think it is really important as a family to sit down together and have supper together... before we rush off to our weeks worth of activity. I must say I was a little sad that Hayze didn't understand that Sunday was our family time and he would have much rather went to his friends house.. simply just brushing us ( his family ) off.. Oh, how am I ever going to deal with the teenage years?
I thought i would take some pictures of the kids at the table enjoying their ice cream.. Just so I have the memories of this time in our story were supper was still something I could control.
note the kids eating with the ribbon from the current day of riding beside their plates.
Well I will have to continue to try and make memories with my kids.. Some of my favorites come from my Sunday nights with my family and watching Sunday night Disney.
You know, some of my kids best memories will probably come from things that I won't even remember doing or are what I think are not that significant..So we will just keep at it, and have fun as we journey together.

Please share with us some of your favorite memories as a child or traditions that you are caring on.

quick update

Well the count down is over for the open house at Bangles. We are celebrating 15 fabulous years and the open house is tomorrow. Everything is done except the final clean. Our suppliers have generously supplied tons of product baskets and we are doing some free mini services.. I am excited to see the turn out.

We have Destiny's ringette wind-up party tonight. I am going to take a salad for the pot luck. Destiny is looking forward to the event.
Jim and I have been invited to a Bar B Q at Brad and Karlas and we have to go on a scavenger hunt tomorrow after the open house with some girls from work. We have a busy day tomorrow. Sunday brings rodeo.
I will put pictures up of all our events when it is all over.

Have a great weekend, I must go.. Jim just called to ask me to blanket "little one".
It is suppose to snow and she is shaved remember.. she get's cold now.

So much !!

Good Evening everyone, Well it is Monday night and the contest is closed for the Easter treats. I want to thank everyone for commenting. I know now how to get you to comment on my blog. Just add sugar..
Well it brings us great joy to say that Shawna won the draw and we will be sending a Purdy's Easter egg full on little Easter eggs.. I am sure that the three of you will enjoy that. Will you send me a picture when you receive it. I am sure Taylor would love to pose for another picture.

We did so much this weekend that I couldn't wait to share with you what has taken place. Let me just start by saying that Hayzes hockey team finished up the forth game of his Calgary hockey tournament tonight.... and they took home the gold...
that's right the "champs" as it says on their trophies. We are very proud of the whole team. They have come a long way together.

With the Sunday game being early we were able to do some stuff around the yard yesterday. I think jim was delighted (he really didn't use that word) to catch up on somethings at home. The kids dressed up to help they looked so cute all dressed in their work gear. Hayze said he works at "big H" ranch and Destiny "Heron Drilling"

It was the horses day to get spoiled. Pedicures all around and a hair cut.
Hayze applying "cuticle oil" after his dad trimmed his hoofs
Jim Trimming

Now the hair cut.. these pictures don't do the animal justice. She looks so nice now that the hair is gone. How much hair are we talking? a foot deep on half of the barn floor. I bet she is feeling good.. I know she looks like she tucked right up..(a real race horse) Destiny is going to have to really hold on now. She is looking pretty aerodynamic.look at the length of hair that is hanging on her belly.. that was her whole body.
All Done.

One last thing that I want to tell you about. I finally got to go shopping on Friday with the girls. That was right after my second trip to town to the pass port office.. that I have to go back to due to a crazy mistake. anyway... I picked up a couple of great things that I wanted to share with you.this face was smells so clean. Not flowery or fruity but as all Aveda product smells. essential oil like.. Jim is going to love it and i can use it to.. My other great purchase was this is the "lettuce" room spray and hand wash. What a great sent for the home. a little flowery but not to much. I love the marketing and display of this store. the little details and the variety of product is amazing. Definitely in my top 3 stores to shop at.love the little ribbon detail.
So as you can see I had a great time shopping with the girls.. plus I also bought myself a new white gold chain. My chain for my cross broke about a year ago and I replaced it on Friday.

Something you should do. If you haven't got your rings professionally cleaned in a while. treat yourself. It is amazing how beautiful they can look again. And it is usually free.

Have a good day.

Easter Surprise

Good Morning Everyone. And yes I mean everyone. I get calls and messages, emails and people telling me they read our blog ..... but no one comments..

I have decided to send out a Easter surprise to someone that comments on our blog.
Rules are. You comment on this post, we will but your name in a draw and we will send you a easter surprise if your name is drawn out of the hat.

Contest closes Monday so comment soon. Read the blog and click on the word "comment" on the bottom..
I love to read you feed back, and get new ideas for posts.So remember to be entered in the draw for a suprise you need to comment at the end of the post....I am sure the suprise will be yummy..

Fun New Things..

I love new things, nice things, nice things being done.. I love having nice things being done for me, and doing nice things for people.
Where am I going with this? Well I have a couple of nice thing to share with you.

First - My new gift... a pineapple slicer. Karla you made my evening last night. We tried out the new gift you bought me and we all enjoyed it. We drank the juice and ate the pineapple.. It was so good.

And because I wanted to take pictures of every step of using my new toy... When I went to look at my pictures tonight I noticed this picture. Jim wanted to feel involved so he took this picture. Look at the pose.. He is a natural. I love it.. I had to giggle. ( I know he is mocking me, so I have to include it.)


The second nice thing, well surprise really because I forgot I booked it, was my cupboards being cleaned today. They are so shiny.. and organized not bad.. ( If you remember, I like the inside organized) I told Jamie that she would have to use a Polaroid prior to removing everything, she didn't think that was to funny..hehe..
I love the feeling of knowing there is no dust inside my cupboards, and no finger prints on the out side.
No finger prints
No Dust
No Crumbs.

I loved coming home tonight to a new feeling Kitchen and bathroom.
I loved being looked after today. And think a personal assistant would be perfect.
Any takers?

Stay on top of everything

Well it is that time of year again when things are winding down and we are getting ready for spring. I have been wondering why I am feeling that I am going forward in a very busy crazy pace? Well come mid April I should have a breather.. That sounds so far away. What is going on you may ask? Well I am planning a dance ( along with the team) for the ladies hockey, that is April 19. Bangles just celebrated 15 yrs of business and we thought that we should have an open house on the 15 of March.
(two weeks to plan) Hockey tournament in Calgary this weekend. Wind up parties for the kids sports, rodeo finals coming April. Then.....ahhhhhhh. a break and Disney Land.

With all that venting out of the way I feel that I need to share some pictures of the beautiful Valentines gifts I got from my daughter.
have a look at the detail in the tissue paper on the vase. She was so proud of your project... and she should be. it is gorgeous "Did you know the flowers aren't real mom?" she explained to me when she gave it to me.
This is the back of the card that she did. The large "S" in her name has become her trade mark in her name. She has a habit I can't break.. I like it now.!

Well with Valentines hear and gone (forever ago) I thought I better get ready for Easter. (we aren't Irish so I miss that one) I don't go really crazy but I thought a few things would be nice for the bunny to find us.
I bought this new wreath this year. It is my favorite. Full of beautiful eggs. It sparkles in the sunlight. We have it hanging on our front door. Aren't these eggs so nice.



We also got a new bunny this year. I love him too... he is so playful looking. Just cheers me up when I look at him.

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Yesterday was another great day at the "future cowgirl and cowboy rodeo asc."
The kids did well and had a lot of fun. They both came home with 3 first place ribbons and a couple of tired horses.




They only have 2 more rodeos before the finals. Then the summer begins for them.. I think we will take them to the little britches in High River in May for their first rodeo.