Copied Challenge

Good Morning everyone. Well I have to do some work this morning but fortunately my accounting program needed an update and I had time to do some blog reading while it is working away on the laptop.. ( I am on our family computer)

Any way, I was looking at this blog that I found after looking at Amy's blog.. (you can click on the side to see hers)I seen a simple challenge that she had been invited to do.. So I thought I would try it.. She was asked to go to her picture files, Click on the 4Th file, opened and click on the 4Th picture I was a little nervous, I have a ton of crappy pictures on my computer that, one day I will take the time to sort out.

But today... I got "cute"

Destiny's Grade two indoor shoes. Such a big reminder of how my kids are growing.

Halloween

We attended Sacred Heart Academy Halloween Dance last night. The kids loved running around and dancing with all there school buddies. It was from 6-8 and we arrived at 7pm .. how perfect was that. Getting ready sometimes is half the fun, and a hour with all that screaming is enough . Stacey and I worked until 6pm last night so Jim brought all of our kids to Bangles after hockey practise and they all got ready there and then we ordered take out and left to the dance from the shop.

Getting Ready

Captain "James Sparrow"

Some Rapper.. dude.!

This is the best type of costume for Hayze. He hates dressing up and is totally uncomfortable with it and with in minutes the costume is off.. Even last year, he was a "Burnco employee" and the hard helmet and coveralls were off with in minutes of arriving at the dance because he wasn't comfortable with how he looked.

Dad and his kids.. He is so proud.

"Bella".. Well my little Vampire anyway..

I had to get the shadow. isn't this a great punk outfit..

Kadin and Jayse were both Cards.

Leaving for school this morning.

we did it all over again..

And we will do it again when they get off the bus tonight, back into town to trick or treat and then to some friends places.

Our girl and her horse.

Was looking at one of my Favorite websites tonight and of course

one thing led to another and I was editing another photo..

thanks to the Pioner woman for her "actions" that I downloaded to use with my Photoshop.

Good Night..

P.S. if you have stopped by, please leave a quick comment so I no you were here.

The rest of the pictures

Better late than never. More of the pictures I promised from the kids in the park this fall.

I thought I would use this post to catch up on sharing some photos and happenings that I was hoping to blog about in the past. As we all know time to quickly gets away from us and we don't get half of what we want done, let alone the "fun" stuff.

Ok.. now my computer is not allowing me to upload any more pictures so I will just answer a couple of questions that have been asked.

1. Why so many cow pictures.? ( click on the bull on the side to see thanksgiving pictures)

a: because that's what we do when we go home. We spend an afternoon out on the Saskatchewan prairie looking at cows and enjoying the scenery. I guess that has become a tradition.

2. What kind of camera do I use?

Keep in mind I am amateur with a lot of try, my equipment is with me were ever I go. ( the word out is that I am a little poparotsey) and I love my hobby of "pictures".. taking, editing, scrapping, displaying, making video's all of it .. I love it.

a: Canon Rebel XTi, Lens: Canon Zoom Lens EF 75-300mm This camera also comes with a lens: Canon EFS 18-55mm. I also have a Kodak Easy share 10x zoom which gives me 38-380 mm (equiv.) I love it too, it is more of the one I can through in my purse..

3. Hysterectomy?

a: I know I just kind of threw that in there on my last post. I am having surgery Nov 24 and will be in the hospital for about 4-5 days. Why? A long list of girl related crap.. I (and my family) are looking forward to this all being behind us. Any info that anyone has would be greatly appreciated and any extra hands to help get my kids to the rink will be helpful during the weeks following. (just thought I would throw that in there)

I guess it is going to let me add more pictures now.

The harvest of fresh tomatoes at my dads

this is just 1/20 of what he had under every bed and under blankets.

I had thought I would learn how to can them, but simply ran out of time,

as I always do when I go home.

I did make some fresh Salsa

I used fresh tomatoes

white onion

one small hot pepper

a green pepper

cilantro
I don't like it hot so that was it..

I made some Brochette too..

I used fresh tomatoes

garlic, and more garlic

the whites of green onion

olive oil

cilantro

feta cheese

I served it on broiled sour dough bread and garnished with the greens of the green onion.

goodness!

Last picture to share with you. This is my cousins daughter Arlee. Isn't she as cute as a bug. I love this picture of her. It was taken at Uncle Norman and Auntie Phyllis 60th anv.

Bangles Fun

Well I was trying to take pictures of the shop yesterday so that I could ad some to our web page. I am not happy with the quality of the pictures and don't think that I am getting the right "feel" to them. I will have to do some research on lighting for dark spaces.
I did however get some staff photo's that I know they are just dieing for me to share with everyone.

Another great day at work..

A couple of inspirations

Well I have so many pictures that I wanted to edit and post.. I simply have not got around to it yet. It you click on the picture of the bull on the side you will see some unedited/uncut photos of my Thanksgiving weekend.

I bought a new monitor yesterday and I have got that set up. This is very exciting. Once I get it collaborated with my computer my pictures should look a little better. Ya... I get really excited about computer stuff and paper stuff.. so... today was a great day. I made up the new sales tracking book for the shop and Lisa (stylist) has a book binder that she brought in. Wow.. my lucky day. I was so excited when the book was done I could do nothing but gaze at it.. Lame, I know. I have so much stationary and note pads that I now use them as props in my studio/office. I guess there is worse things to be addicted to.. Thanks Lisa for the use of your binder.

Old Monitor and messy desk.

New Monitor and decluttered, dusted and organized desk.

How often do you dust were the cords are? Don't look, but I bet next time you do, you too will find a dead moth or two.

Seeings though I didn't have much to share, I wanted to share some links that some other bloggers have shared that I thought were really neat O..


Tanya Recommends: Quick Snaps
Saxx Performance

Amy Recommends: Gourmet Mom On the Go

I have recently found out that I will require a complete hysterectomy next month. Marlene recommended this site to me hystersister

Well that is all the info for tonight.
Have a look at these sites, there is definitely information from a lot of different topics.

Comment soon.

RANDOM.ORG - Die Roller

RANDOM.ORG - Die Roller

Draw Winner

Well I rolled the dice to get the number of the person that won the book.. I rolled an ten..
congrats to Michelle B.... I thought that being there was less then 12 comments dice would be a fun way to do it. If you would like to try it yourself, try the link above.. Random.org is where I got the dice from.
Michelle I will get the book to you ASAP.. The only request I have is that you make and share some cookies.
Thanks to everyone for the great feedback and comments..

Fall desserts that people liked are: Apple Crisp, any thing mixed with apples and Cinnamon, pumpkin muffins, fresh baked bread, choc. chip cheese cake, and pumpkin cheese cake.

I would love some of these recipes. please share them with me so I can try them too...
send them to this email. twink@myipplus.net
Thanks again to everyone for playing my little game.. I love the comments.

Cookie Craft

Well, what can I say? Every year at about this time I get inspired by the colors outside and the holidays ahead.. If you can call Halloween a holiday.. and of course you can't forget Thanksgiving. I love to decorate with fall leaves, candles, scarecrows and pumpkins. This year I was inspired by Bakeralla to try baking cookies. She had purchased a new book called "Cookie Craft" and promised it was the easiest book to follow for baking decorated cookies. So of course I got on line and ordered it, and in three days there it was. And she was right, it is a great book to follow and get inspired by.

Now it was my turn to try my had at all these beautiful cookies, now keep in mind as you follow my process through the cookie wonderment of my kitchen.... I am no baker.. I enjoyed the process to these cookies ....(because they were crafty)... but I am no baker..

So after heading into Strathmore yesterday morning to get all (barely any, this is Strathmore) of my required ingredients and tools that I would need for my day of cookie concocting, I get started at about 12 noon. the process looked like this...

mixed my cookie dough with my mix master according the the 1 of 3 recipes in the book. Turned out tasty.
Learned a trick to cutting perfect sugar cookies.. roll it flat between wax paper then chill for 20 minutes. It worked like a charm.

Cooled completely on wire rack... Also my first time working with parchment paper.. Other than in grade 10 commercial cooking class.
Mixed two consistencies of icing, one for piping and one for flooding. This was my first time really working and succeeding with Royal icing. (excuse the picture.)

Letting the master pieces to dry.

and the finished leaf batch. they are very fun.. Not as picture perfect as the book but I am very proud of my first attempt at decorating cookies.

Now this is my pumpkins.. I think that they would have been cute... except..

The icing color turned out to look like the cheese that you get on nachos at the skating rink. Yuck.! the kids like them so what the heck..

a couple of tricks that she suggests in the book and that are very important.. when working with this icing the liquid is very important. My first batch of icing I used the "gel" coloring and the second batch I used the "food coloring". The food coloring is much more runny and made my icing way to runny and I had to add more icing sugar and play a round with it a lot... If you can find gel coloring.. the mixture is perfect.

Well, I loved the book so... much that I bought one to give away too.. All you have to do is comment on the bottom of the post with your favorite thing to bake this time of year is.

I will pick a name out of a hat next Friday Oct 17.. get your name and post in before than for your chance to win the book "Cookie Craft"

Happy baking