My Poor Blog

My poor blog is suffering from my business.  We've been busy at this house with Canning, Photo shoots,  School, Craft nights,  Craft sales,  R.S. The list goes on and on.  Anyway  it's been busy but I'm determined to keep up the blog a bit better. 

So like i said we've been canning like crazy,  We did peaches this year all by ourselves,  Every Jar sealed and it was awesome working with Brad,  We got 41 quarts done.  We (Brad) also did Pickles which he did out of cucumbers he grew in the garden.  He also went over to his mom's and Bottled 42 quarts of Salsa.  Yummmy!

I've been crazy busy doing pictures for people,  I really do love doing it but I've been really busy doing it along with a craft sale i did a week ago and craft day coming up,  along with my R.S. calling I've been crammed.

But in the midst of all our business, I made time for a trip.  I've been so excited to go and Brad's such a good sport about letting me go and taking care of the kiddies.

So my big trip was all the way to Kallispell with our quilt group.  I feel pretty special to be let into this elite group of quilters.  A few of us including Mom decided to head down late afternoon Thursday and catch the train in east glacier.  I was telling Alisynn that we were catching the train,  She asked why..... I said Because we can.

Anyway we did that And Karen Picked us up in Whitefish. So when Karen invited us to go she said we were going to a cabin,  we figured we would be roughing it a bit,  not so much.  We arrived at beautiful House.  The only think wrong with it......................It was full of dead Heads!  I would hate to arrive there with all the lights off.  This house was  a home of a hunter that had been Lot's of places and killed Lot's of animals and stuffed Lot's of there heads.  It was interesting but made me even less sold on the whole hunting thing.  Not my thing,  Also glass eye's and hairy faces staring at me..... not my idea of decor but to each there own eh!  We met the owners and they were wonderful people,  They were so kind to let us stay.

This is some of the house............................

Don't Touch!!

Karen Was warned by her husband........"don't let the ladies touch any Animals" Karen told him " we don't touch that stuff just fabric" but you can't imagine how hard it was to not touch them.

So the whole joke was........DON'T TOUCH.

Anyway this is us not touching anything

This was the little guest house that some of the ladies stayed at.

So the whole reason we came to kallispel is for the quilt show.  We got up Friday morning and waited for the rest of the group to come and then we took off to the show,  All 10 of us.  We found Lot's of inspiration.  These were my favorites..................

We had so much fun,  It was kinda crazy at a fabric store with 10 other quilting ladies and then to make it extra crazy we were followed everywhere by a huge bus full of quilters.  Wow!

Here we are discussing what we purchased

And finally. Our haul... We stuffed everything in, This years consensus was that next year we take a extra vehicle.

Long story short we had so much fun. 

Wowza what a week.

We had quite the week last week!  And not in a good way.  Blaze started Preschool!!!  That was a good thing,  he loves it and loves being able to walk with the big kids home from school.

On our way home from Preschool on Monday (it was orientation)  I forgot to do a full stop at the stop sign.  Ooop who knew the police were in town.  Not  me.  Anyway long story short i got pulled over and got a ticket for a traffic violation (it was a $100 less then the ticket for stop sign)  I was happy with my $170 ticket considering i was driving without my licence,  I could only find the expired registration and Blaze was sitting on the floor in the very back of thee van,  well he was till i very calmly told him to hop on the seat and buckle up as fast as he could.  But he still was not in a car seat.  Anyway.

Knox got potty trained!  I'm happy about!  And he's also off his bottle,  We are no longer consider ourselves lazy parents (ok we still do but not as much).

Brad's car broke down.  We know it's kinda on it's last pistons but we are hoping it would last a bit long.... maybe it will. 

Long story short,  what was a expensive month already,  turned out to be doubly expensive.  But what do ya do right!

 

In the mean time we are working double hard to pay everything off.  I've had so many people ask me to do pictures,  i've got a craft show coming up that i'm hoping to make a bit at,  and i'm making 80 cupcakes for a wards new beginnings so,  we are slowly making up the money that we are spending on tickets and car stuff.  Blahhh!

Back To School!!!! Yippie!

So it's back to school today!!  I'm so excited i hardly slept last night.  Just kidding I slept but I'm still so excited!

We were running a big of  a gong show last night so we ended up getting to bed a bit later,  But that did not inhibit the kids ability to set the alarm for 6:45.  Yikes they were up before me!  Brody was so nervous he could not even eat breakfast.  So they were ready by the door by 7:20. 

Knox wanted a book bag like the big kids so he borrowed Paris old book bag.  Blaze actually does not go back to school till next week i think but he put on his back pack for looks.

Brody did awesome!  He walked right into his class and sat by Ethan and was fine,   Paris,  Like last year,  took a few minutes to get comfortable.  It did help that she had the same teacher as last year.

A side note,  We"ve been having a bit of a power struggle with Brody and  his hair.  He does not want anyone to cut it.  It sticks to his head and it's been driving his father Crazy.  So finally I had it with the nasty hair.  I sat down with him and asked him what was up with the hair.  I said what are you wanting it to look like??  finally with little tears in his eyes (he's our sensitive boy)  He said " Mom i just want it to look like  (i can't remember the name) from his '86 interview with Don Cherry!"      AHHHHHH  he wants hockey hair!

So funny, so we practiced and got it just the way he wanted it, (i said no Mullets) We put a few Highlights in  and there you go,  Brody's version of '86 hockey hair.  Don't ask me why he watches old hockey interviews ( i would say he got that from his cousin).  Anyway here is his hair now!!

HAPPY BACK TO SCHOOL EVERYONE!

Week of work

Ok not really a week of work,  But Brad got his big summer vacation this past week,  he took 2 days off!  I know it sucks but he got Thursday and Friday which if followed by a Saturday so it was like he got 3 days off!

Anyway we used those three day's wisely. 

Thursday he got the shelves in my craft room built,  then he spent the rest of the day installing the new DVD player in the van.  (I've got to say we've lived 7  months without one,  But I'm sure glad to have one back!)  Meanwhile i spent the day working on the little boy's bathroom. 

This is the before pictures  (i know they are bad but i was to lazy to change lens to get a whole shot but you get the idea)

I Painted, Fixed there shower curtain, painted the stool. Soon after that i was off taking pictures so i didn't get it finished.  So today was the day to finish this project!

I used old wood from another Pallet to make the towel bar.  So i was pretty proud of myself,  I got all the hooks attached and the whole thing attached to the wall by my self.  Anyway  This was  a great project.

Here is the after... (excuse the boy in his undies but on any given day that's how you would find him.)

Here is the breakdown of the cost for my gee whiz file.

Paint we had leftover from the hallways-free

Shower curtain-

Frog one was on sale at Target for $8

I purchased 2 brown shower curtains from walmart for $12 each

I had the argyle fabric already (a yard)

shower curtain hooks came with the house (they are so cute)

TOTAL FOR CURTAIN $32

and it took me 2 hours to sew!

Towel Bar

the Pallet was free

The hooks came with the house- Free

I used my handy Dandy Silhouette and cut out the stencil for the frog's and the words - Free

TOTAL FOR TOWEL BAR- FREEEEEEEE

Oh except i purchased 2 towels on clearance for $5 per towel so

10 but free sounds better

Little frog stool-

I got this at a garage sale for $1

I printed off another stencil from the handy dandy silhouette for free

Total for frog stool -$1

Frog Rug was $12

So the grand total for the makeover wasssss..................

$55

Awesome!!!

Check out my handy Hubby!!

Brad's so awesome, He puts up with my crafty mess all the time, he let's me horde weird things (like Pallets). Our Neighbours were getting rid of all there pallets so Brad being the awesome person he is went over and hauled them across the gravel to our house for my crafty project. He was totally embarrassed but he new it would make me happy!!

We used some of the pallets for this project.  For FREEEEEEEE

Anyway Back to the point of this post. Under Mom's stairs she has a toy box and stuff and she wanted to figure something to do cute with it. So Between Her and Lara they found an idea out in the Blog world (not sure were it is) on how to make a cute door for the play area! So Mom was working on how she was going to accomplish this and Brad stepped in and said just let me do it. So Mom happily agreed. So today was the day we were going to work on it together, but we had a change of Plans and the kids had to be picked up today so i did that while Brad made Mom's door.

I've got to say i was a bit nervous cause i kinda like things painted and done a certain way,  Since mom Let us take over,  i wanted to do somthing kinda rustic, and Brad's not the same way as me. Anyway I was totally excited when i came home and saw it! It is awesome! So we loaded it up and took it to mom's and put it up for her.

It turned out so cute, and Mom's totally excited to paint and decorate the inside now!!

Ok this is the before........

Then the after....notice the crazy guy in the window

Brad did such a good job that I'm thinking that's what i want to do for under the stairs at our house now! Maybe that can be Brad's next weekend Project!

Holy Crap..........

I've gone on a blog Highetis....  Well not on purpose,  But I've been crazy busy his summer with all sort of fun stuff.  So here is a quick catch up.....

The end of July consisted of .............. first if went and did a girls wedding photos, It was so much work and I'm still working on editing but they are turning out great and if you want to see some you can look HERE

After that Mom, Missy and myself took off to Educations Day's in Idaho.  We had so much fun there and back.  We laughed tonnes and went and learned how to be extra better people and more patient with the kids (that lasted 5 min),  But the biggest thing I've learned is to quit multitask (as much as i could).  I'm going to take a more relaxed pace at life and de-clutter my life literally and metaphorically.  So far I've been way less stressed about life,  we'll see how long i can keep it up.

Meanwhile i got called to be the RS secretary.  I think it will be a great job to do.  And also while i was gone It was Paris Birthday.  Brad did a great job,  he invited the grandparents over and made a money cake,  and had a hot dog roast.  Paris had a super time and got Lot's of neat gifts.  I was sad to miss it. 
We got home Sat. from Idaho and Sunday was Paris Baptism.  Brad outdid him self and with Lara's help he got everything ready for Sunday so i just had to come home and ice the cupcakes.  It was awesome!
Paris had a very special day and Brody was quite emotional after Paris confirmation.  It was good to see him love his sister so much,  and be so happy for her.









Then came Paris Friends Birthday Party.  I've got to say I'm not big on kids birthday party's but i promised Paris we would do one.  I only let her invite 5 friends  And her two cousins that were her.  Looking back now we missed a couple girls that i didn't even think about till now but I guess we'll invite them next year.  Anyway Paris wanted a Baking party,  so in the spirit of keeping it simple i made up little simple simple aprons and Bakers hats (they really only took me a morning to do up and maybe a hour in the afternoon to finish up.  I got a jar of sprinkles that they got to take home with the apron and hat.  We dipped cake ball cupcakes and colored boxes for them to take home and cupcakes and we were done.  Paris had a great time and loved it all so it was well worth the work.













Right after Paris party we took off camping for the weekend.  We went back out to enchant and got the last spot and had a great time.  Blaze found a friend at the park while we were there and he came running back to our campsite to ask if he could go to his new Friends "website" We were both like what!  Oh you mean Campsite. 





his was Knox being mad, Because he was not able to go in the boat with the kids! Grrrr.


Finally he got a turn in the boat.


After we got back from Camping i took off to a Photography course  up in Calgary with my friend Coralee.  It was done by Blue Lily.  They were awesome awesome and i learned tonnes.



Random pictures i Know but they were the only thing around to take pictures to practice what we learned. They were awsome!
After that we took advantage of a kid free day and did a bit of shopping.  I got a few cute top's that i was excited about.

So Thursday Blaze had his first "Friends" birthday party.  He loved it,  We planned most things to be outside in water,  it was not the nicest day but we still played outside and as soon as the parents started picking up kids there was a huge downpour.  We were so glad it happened after.  Blaze had so much fun.
















So Friday Brad add I booked a babysitter and out we went for My birthday,  We ate a excellent meal at the Keg, and went out  to the show.   And Brad Totally surprised me for my birthday with a brand new Lens for my camera!!  What I'm pretty sure that's the first time he was able to surprise me for a long time.  I'm so excited about it!  

I was so happy when all the birthday celebrations were over.  One bad thing about being so bored in Oct/Nov. We've got so  many Summer birthdays. hehe.

I also neglected to mention that we had Grandma over for her birthday party as well in august. 



Grandma was appropriately excited about Paris present


Paris insists (because she loves getting money for her birthday) that she gives money for other peoples birthday. Grandma was happy with her Loonie


So I think that's totally caught up, Oh but i did forget to mention my Computer totally Crashed!!!  I was about to put all the wedding pictures on disks and all of the sudden it totally died.  I was completely freaking out (i had not backed anything up)  I also had just taken pics of a family of 10 and had not backed those up either.  Needless to say i was a complete wreak by the time the computer got back.  But He was able to save everything!!!

Long story short.  It's been a busy busy summer and I'm glad to see it coming to a end!!  School Bells are ringing in my head already!!!  Yippie!!