A Snow Day Birthday

Our first snow day of the school year couldn't have fallen on a more perfect day -- Gaby's 10th birthday!

The autodialled call from the school superintendent came in around 5:45 a.m. They weren't messing around! No late arrival for Gaby's special day. This was a full blown snow day.

I snuck into the kids' rooms to shut off their alarms. Nick, being the light sleeper that he is, heard me, but easily went back to sleep when he heard the news.

Of course I forgot to shut off our alarms, which are set for both kids' get up times! No biggie. It's always nice to shut off the alarm knowing you can go back to bed.

We all got up in time for Gaby to open her gifts before Marc had to leave for work.

It was nice to have the time for a leisurely pancake breakfast. Chocolate chip for Nick and half-baked for Gab. (don't ask!!)

A bit of indoor fun on the wii.

Check out this adorable cupcake floral arrangement that Gaby received from Pier, Nate, Hailey and Kai. Isn't it just the cutest?

But even those beautiful flowers and a family dinner at PF Chang the evening of Gab's birthday couldn't compete with spending the afternoon sledding and playing with her BFF Claire. Gaby thought that was the best part of her Snow Day birthday!



Happy Birthday Gaby Girl!!

Evidence that time flies. From this:

To this:

In ten short, fast, wonderful years. Happy 10th Birthday Gaby!! Double digits now.

Your presence continues to be life changing. I'm so lucky to be your Mom!! Looking forward to a wonderful celebration of you, today, and everyday. You rock Gaby Girl! Love you lots!

One more cuz I just love love love this face!

(sorry about the black and white -- I had scanned them this way a few years back, for a page, I believe)



Wrapping Up My 52 Lists!

Happy to say they are done, bound, and in their new home, a basket that holds a few mini albums and my 52Q from 2009.

Love this little glimpse of each list.

That's one fat stack of lists! I tried different ways of binding them together. While working on the lists last year, I used binder rings to keep them together, but didn't care for that as the pile of lists grew. I used rope through the two holes I had punched in each, first looping the rope in a fashion similar to the binder rings. Not crazy about that. Then I tried tying the ends together, top and bottom, on the front and back of the stack. Didn't like how it covered some of my art. So I finally just knotted the ends of both the top and bottom ropes, tight against the pages. I like that best for now.

With my 52 lists done, and the Christmas boxes packed up and waiting to be stowed in the crawl space for another year, I can work at wrapping up my December Daily, which I kept up with til December 19th.  And I'm really looking forward to putting more time into Julie's Art Journal Every Day  Julie came up with this great idea/challenge, and there are already over 300 people on board!  Of course there's a flickr group for this one too -- check it out. I also strongly recommend Julie's blog. She posts frequent inspiring posts filled with great photos, tutorials, ideas, everything. Love everything she does!!



52 Lists for 2010 - List 52

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We did and are enjoying a White Christmas Week here in Winnipeg. The only complaint I have is the super duper slooooowww internet, which is one of the reasons I'm posting this so late. I should have written the post before we left, rather than planning on doing it here. Crossing my fingers and hoping I'll be able to share this, the last list for 2010!

Gessoed a piece of Christmas advertising from Bath and Body Works, wrote the title with a soft charcoal pencil, then went over it with wet brush to intensify the colour. Thanks to Donna D for that one. I did the stripes in water colours, then went over it with shimmery water colours that I used on the back side. I like the shimmer on the back, but not as crazy about it on the front.

My list, both past and present. I like this side better, with the shimmery water colours. Inspiration to paint from Julie FFB -- thanks Julie!!

Speaking of Julie, she's starting "Art Journal Every Day" in the new year and invites everyone to play along. I'll post the link soon. Any downloads are taking me forever right now -- should check into an upgrade for the internet here.

Happy New Year everyone!

52 Lists for 2010 - List 51

This is just about it! The second last list for this year -- that went pretty fast, ya know!

My favourite Christmas memories.

Used more cool Starbucks Christmas stuff. Did little else here: MM journaling tag and stars, Asher's chocolate sticker, Hershey's kiss tag, and tied it up with some SU tinsel.

I used some 7 Gypsies tape on this side to hold down the pieces that were folded over. And left space for more memories, as they come to me!

52 Lists for 2010 - List 50

                                                           My list of favourite movies.



The base is a piece of cardboard embossed with a TH woodgrain die. The bird and heart are both made using SU punches, and both are cut from Starbucks coffe sleeves. The bird punch wouldn't go through the sleeve as is, so I took the layers apart before punching. Lots of inking ot bring out detail and definition, the ADORE ticket is also TH, the bitty letters MM. The little paper tag strip is from a Hershey's candy cane kiss.

I wrote my list on a MM journaling page. I realize I don't have very sophisticated taste when it comes to movies -- these are the movies I would, and have, watched more than once!

52 Lists for 2010 - List 49

Every week I think this is gonna be the week that I post more than lists here. I still have a chance this week, but you'll notice that this post follows last week's list post. I just cannot seem to get it together. Its been 2 weeks since I finished radiation, and I truly thought that I would then get into more regular and frequent posts. Not so. Not yet. I hope soon though, cuz I've been having fun getting ready for Christmas, enjoying Emily and Nicole's online felting class, Jasmine's monthly photo challenge here, and am in the midst of my 3rd December Daily. Check out this year's flickr group

For now, this week's list:

 American cities I've visited.

I found some paper I had been saving -- freebies included in some of the Stampington publications -- and used it as the base. The skyline is a TH stamp, the compass is a rub on from MME, the journaling bit from BG and the letters are stamped onto tape. I found it wouldn't dry fast enough, so I covered the letters with another piece of tape! And I used a Fiskars punch for the edge.

I ran out of room cuz I started my list too big! I tried to narrow it down to cities that I had actually visited. It takes us 3 days one way to drive to see our family in Canada, and we pass through a lot of cities. So I tried to stick with cities I have actually visited at one time or another. The list was longer than I had anticipated. Obviously!

This could be done with a different country or continent, and I just might have to try that.