Happy Birthday Olivia!

This really should have been Monday's post, considering it was her birthday, but I got distracted. We were actually quite busy all afternoon and evening.

My little girl is 3 years old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. She's turning into a such a girl. I still think of her as a baby most days, but it's just not true any more, and it makes me want to cry.

We had her birthday party on Sunday with several kids around the same age attending. Before, we've always had family parties with only one or two friends her age attending, but this year only the grandparents were invited for family, the rest were her friends and their mothers. Including Olivia there were 8 children at the party (not counting the two babies that didn't really participate, Rachel and another baby just 2 months old.)

Here are a few pictures from the day, including the Max cake that I made.(from the Nick Jr. cartoon Max & Ruby) I've included the picture I worked from so those of you who don't know what Max is supposed to look like can see that too. ( Just realized as I uploaded this picture that I forgot to add max's Whiskers to the cake. I realize that's probably what was bothering me all this time about how it looked.)

Here's Olivia waiting for me to relight her candle so she can blow it out. As soon as I reached the table as we were singing Happy Birthday, Jenna jumped up and blew out her candle before I even had the cake on the table. *lol* I had to relight so Olivia could blow it out.

Here's a picture of Rachel and Grammy.

More pictures to come later. Real life calls...

Fairy Celebration first update

I've got 5 hours completed on Fairy Celebration and I thought I might start updating at 5 hour increments instead of 10. I stitch fairly slow most days, so, for me posting 5 hours of work would be about the same number of days as posting 10 hours for most other people.

Anyway, here's my 5 hour picture.

SBQ - Which Way

Today's SBQ (Stitcher's Blog Question) is

Q. Which way do you stitch, i.e. do you stitch /// followed by \\\ ontop, or the other way around \\\ followed by ///? Are you left- orright-handed and do you think that this affects the way that you stitch?

A. I stitch /// on the bottom and \\\ on the top. I'm right handed, but I'm not sure if this really makes a difference in how I stitch or not. I think it has more to do with always working left to right, (like reading) and then back again. This just naturally follows doing /// when going to the right and \\\ when going back to the left.

Here's a link to the original site: http://blondelibrarian.net/stitching/archives/2006/10/which-way/

Decorating fun!

This afternoon Jason decided he wanted a carot cake with cream cheese frosting, so, like any good husband, he made it himself *grin* (Pssst....Don't let him see this or he'll never do anything like that again. *lol* )

When he went outside to play with Olivia I decided to try and get it frosted before the baby decided to stop being quiet. I got the base coat on and then went out and called Olivia in and asked her if she wanted to help me decorate the cake. Of course the answer was a huge "YES"!

She picked the colour blue for the decorating and I got started putting the coloured frosting in the piping bag. Most of the work you see is her work. I took over a few times when she got distracted licking the frosting from her fingers, but here is what we ended up with.

Doesn't that look yummy. lol

Mommy Brain

Mommy Brain

Copyright © 1998 by Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz

If you’ve left the crayons to melt in the car,

And forgotten just where the car keys are,

There’s a perfectly good way to explain:

You see, you’ve come down with “Mommy Brain”.

When you’re not sure where the past eight hours went,

Or whether the phone bill check’s been sent,

If you’ve left the laundry drying in the rain,

It’s just — you guessed it — Mommy Brain.

If you find yourself chatting for hours on end

About diaper prices with your cyber friends,

You’ve just caught a particularly virulent strain

Of that affliction known as Mommy Brain.

If you’ve left your bags at the grocery store,

Or completely forgot what you went there for,

If you called the cat by your baby’s name,

You can bet that Mommy Brain’s to blame.

If you know the words to “Goodnight Moon” by heart,

If you study your sleeping babe like a work of art,

If you’re always surprised by how time is flying,

And the thought of that first birthday starts you crying...

It’s unavoidable girls, and I feel your pain.

For I, too, suffer from --- Mommy Brain.

And yet, my Mommy Heart is sure:

I hope they never find a cure!

Fairy Celebration

I've got a new project I'll be starting in the next few days. It's a free pattern from Passione Ricamo. You can go directly to the free pattern area here.

The pattern is called Fairy Celebration and it was designed for Fairy Day (June 24) this year. Isn't it gorgeous! I absolutely LOVE it!! It was stitched on 28 ct "Castle View" Lugana fabric from Silkweaver.

I'm currently just waiting for my fabric to arrive so I can start it. I ordered my very first piece of Silkweaver fabric for this project. It's also a 28 ct Lugana, but it's called Starquest. It's not exactly the same as the fabric used in the sample, but has a bit of purple in with the blue. Just my style. (click on the fabric swatch to go to the Silkweaver site. It will open a new window.)

Waiting at 51 hours. The drapes are finished!!!

I know it's been a while since I've posted an update on my "Waiting" cross-stitch, but I took a break from stitching for a few weeks. I do that quite often in fact. That's the main reason I take so long to actually finish anything. My Mr. Bear X-stitch took me somewhere in the vicinity of 4 years to complete. Often I'll leave off stitching for several months at a time.

But anyway, enough about that. Here's my progress picture. I took it at 51 hours instead of 50 hours. I was so close to finishing the drapes that I didn't want to stop long enough to take the picture because I was scared that I'd get lazy and not pick it back up again. *lol* So, the drapes are finally finished and I FINALLY get to move on to more interesting areas to stitch! Woohoo!!

Notice the colour of the fabric and floss. I recently got a cheap lamp for my Cross stitch area that I put a "true light" lightbulb in. If you look back at the old posts with pictures of this project you can see the difference the light makes in the colours. I never realized how much difference it made until I saw the pictures side by side.

(Click on the "Waiting" label at the bottom of this post to see all the posts about this project.)

3 new projects finished!

Last night I did a few sewing projects I've had in mind for a few weeks now. Well, only one that I actually had in mind, the others were just because I had extra material left. :)

The original project was the small bag. It was originally intended to hold Olivia's dance shoes for her dance class, but I made it a bit larger so it could be used as an overnight bag when she goes on a sleepover. I also decided to make a small pillowcase with the leftovers. (I bought lots of material in case I messed it up too badly to fix. *lol* I'm not much of a sewer, I prefer Cross-stitching instead!) The pillow is actually only half the size of a regular one. I had an old pillow that's had lots of use and was about as thin as a piece of paper. *lol* So I folded it in half to make it an ok thickness and made the case to fit around that. It's her new "sleepover" pillow and it matches her bag. She was so excited this morning when she got up and saw them. Here's a quick peek.

I also ended up making one more project before bed. My Aunt Care and my cousins Ocean and Jesse were visiting from PEI this weekend for my grandfather's 75th birthday party and Ocean asked me to make her a little bag for her iPod, so I used some of the leftovers to make a tiny version of Olivia's bag. Isn't it cute!!!

Who said anything about SLEEP??

Olivia had her very first sleepover on Tuesday night. My cousin Janice's husband Joey is home for 2 weeks after living in a work camp in Alberta for several months now, so I told Janice that if they wanted a night alone I'd be willing to take one of the kids for the night. The obvious answer was a resounding YES and we decided it would be Jenna since she and Olivia are the same age and it would be the first "sleepover" for both of them.

I should say that I know what sleepovers are usually like, having been on many during my pre-teen and teenage years, but I figured that a sleepover for (nearly) 3 year olds would end much earlier than a sleepover for a pre-teen. Boy was I wrong!! It was after 11:00 before those girlies went to sleep!. I must have gone up at least 2 dozen times between 8 and 11, and finally at the end of it I said the magic words. "NO MORE TALKING, or I'm going to SPANK you." Of course Olivia just looked at me and grinned. She either didn't believe me or didn't care (lol) but Jenna's eyes got big and she just looked at me like she wasn't really sure if I'd follow through or not.

After that I heard Olivia try to start a conversation a few times via the baby monitor that we still keep in her room, but after Olivia started talking Jenna would say "SHHHH... I can't talk to you!!!" It was so cute... They stopped making noise and fell asleep sometime within the next 15 minutes after that happened.

Here are a few picutres from that night.

Jenna and Olivia playing on the air matress before "bed time"

Olivia and Jenna smiling for the camera.

Playing hide and seek in their sleeping bags.
Above, Jenna is hiding. Below Olivia is.

First Tooth!

Because I've been so long since posting before the last one, I had a few things I wanted to post about, but I just didn't have time to post them all the other day. So I'll try to get two posts in today so I can get "caught up" so to speak.

Rachel finally got her first tooth! (and now her second)
We went to the Care 'n' Share (a drop in playgroup here in town) a week ago last Wednesday (that's Sept 27th for those of you counting) and one of the other Moms noticed that she was almost ready to pop her first tooth. I watched it closely, and the next day (Thursday the 28th) it broke through!! I was happy and sad all at once. I was excited for the milestone that we passed, but at the same time I know that Rachel is most likely our last baby and that was the last time I'd see that beautiful 'gummy' smile that babies have before they get teeth.

I remember I was so depressed when Olivia got her first tooth because I was convinced that there was no way that her smile would be as cute once there were teeth in there. I was wrong, but I was still quite sad about it.

Here's a picture of Rachel with her first tooth. You can't see it very clearly becuase it's still pretty small in there, but it's a little line of white on her bottom gum near the center. I don't have any pictures with both bottom teeth yet. I'll have to take one soon. Maybe later on today and I can post it this weekend...

Dance Class

Olivia started dance class last week. The class she's taking is for 3-5 year olds (She's going to be 3 this month!) and they do a half hour of tap dance each Monday evening.

The first night she just ran in circles the whole time, yelling "Daddy, Daddy, I'm Dancing!!"

Boy did she have fun!!!



Here are a few pictures:

Here are a bunch of the girls in Dance class. Olivia is the one standing up, not paying attention to the teacher. *lol* That's my girl!

Here's Olivia wandering around while she was supposed to be dancing... We didn't get her tap shoes until the next day, there were none in town and we had to get a family friend to pick them up when she made a trip to Halifax the next day.

Here's Olivia posing for the camera after we got home that night. What a cutie pie!

Little Faeries

I recently stumbled on a number of "Fairy Photography Sites". And no, these aren't a bunch of whackos saying they're photographing "real" fairies. They're photography sites that use photoshop etc to retouch the photos to look like fairies, but realistic looking ones, not cartoonish looking...

I was telling my cousin Janice about this the other day and saying that one site had a thing where you could send in your own picture and she'd photoshop it for $150 (australian) to look like a fairy... Mind you, she's GOOD. They're awesome pics and if I had the money I'd definitely send a few pics of the kids in to get them done... We were talking about not having any good pics that would work for this and she was going through her stash of digital photos on her pc to proove this point when I saw it. A PERFECT picture of her daughter Josie at the beach. We also found a few really nice ones of her younger daughter Jenna that would work as well...

I got her to send them to me and I played around for a few days using Paint Shop Pro. (Since I don't currently have, nor do I know how to use, Photoshop) Here are the results. Whaddya think?

I'm not crazy about the wings I used for Jenna. They're tilted wrong for her stance, but they're the best ones I can find for her. I tried the ones I used for Josie on Jenna too, but they seem even worse to me than the ones I have on her...


Here are a few of the Fairy Photography sites that I found for those of you who are interested:

*Fairy Photography by Margaret Dean http://www.fairyphotographs.com/ -- Amazing artist. She's the one I was talking about above. This is her commercial site.

*Fairy Portraits by Margaret Dean http://www.fairyportraits.com.au/index.htm -- This is the site where you can see about sending in your pic to be photoshopped. Has before and after pictures

*Tales of Faerie by Collette http://www.talesoffaerie.com/ -- Good site, she's located in Ontario

*Stonefence Photography http://stonefencephotography.com/ -- Not bad pics, but Instead of the general thumbnails that you click on to see a bigger image, there's a thing that is supposed to look like a book with pages turning, each page is a different picture. And unfortunately the pages of the "book" are the wrong size for the pics... so they all looked stretched and a bit distorted...

*J. Corsentino's Time of the Faeries http://www.timeofthefaeries.com/ - Good site. Lots of great pics.

Hope you Enjoy as much as I do...

What a wonderful world

I've discovered a wonderful new program the other day thanks to my cousin Janice. It's called PhotoStory and it's by Microsoft. I downloaded it for free at www.microsoft.com/photostory , but make sure you have a legal version of windows before trying this. You have to let Microsoft confirm your version is legal before they'll let you download this.

Anyway, it's basically like a stripped down version of Powerpoint in that you put pictures, music and transitions for your pics in the presentation. You can't do all the fancy stuff that you can with PowerPoint, but since it's meant more for photographs instead of office presentations it works just fine... and for a free program it's GREAT!

The first one has a bunch of pictures of Olivia and Rachel done to What a Wonderful World by Louie Armstrong. They're done in chronological order, so it's kind of showing Olivia growing from baby to big sister, and HER new baby Rachel!

The second is just of Olivia and though some of the pictures are repeated, some are new.The song with this one is Sweet Child o' Mine by Sheryl Crow. Although some purists don't like her version of the song, I think it fits kids pictures MUCH better than the Guns 'n' Roses original version.

Click on the images below (it'll open a new window) to see their PhotoStories!

Olivia and Rachel's Story(What a Wonderful World - Louie Armstrong)

Olivia's Story(Sweet Child o Mine - Sheryl Crow)

Rachel's Portraits

I got Rachel's Portraits done last month for her "3 Month Birthday". And yes, before you ask, I am obsessive that way. With Olivia I got them done every month for the first 6 months, then every two months between 6 months and a year, then again at 15 and 18 months and again at 2 years... so in her first 2 years she's had her portraits done 12 times! Jason made me promise I wouldn't go as crazy this time, so I got them done at 4 weeks, then again at 3 months. I'll do them again at 6, 9 and 12 months and again at 18 months and 2 years. So only 7 times in two years... I've cut them down from 12 to 7 and I honestly don't think I could do less than that. I would have cut the 18 month pictures out, but that's going to be her Christmas pictures. I LOVE getting their pictures done. Once they hit 2 years we'll only be going three times a year. Once for Olivia's birthday in October. Once for Rachel's birthday in April and once for Christmas Pictures, so that won't be too bad.

But, until that day, I'll enjoy my every three month schedule! I'm posting 3 of the 4 shots we got... the girl who took the pictures was VERY new and VERY slow... She claimed she worked at Walmart portrait studio before she started at the Sears studio, but I doubt she worked there very long before they fired her. Not only did she not have a clue as to posing, etc. (she wanted to just sit her on a baby chair they have and do a full length, 3/4, and close up shot as 3 of the 6 poses you get... I had to come up with the three poses we ended up doing.) but she ended up screwing up my order as well. She ordered 2 of the poses in the wrong sizes. Oner 8x10 was in the wrong pose and I always order a sheet of 3 1/2 x 5 in EACH pose so that I have one of each shot plus it leaves me 3 of each shot to give away. The cheapest way for me by far, and instead of ordering the last shot in 3 1/2 x5, she ordered it in 5x7. So, I had to return those and wait for the 8x10 and the 4th shot to come back in the proper size.

So, for those of you interested in seeing them, here they are!

This was actually one of the last pics taken. She was quite cranky the whole time and had fallen asleep. I didn't want to wake her up, so the last two pictures taken (one which isn't here yet) were of her sleeping.

Here she is before she fell asleep. Posing with the teddy bears!

This is the one I got in 8x10 (teddy bear pic), but it was the one below that I ordered.

Go ahead, go ga-ga over me!

Ben & Alma

My Grandfather's 75th Birthday is coming up shortly and we've been discussing putting a pic of him in the local paper. So, I've been scanning and fixing up a few older pictures. I've decided to post some of these on my blog.


Here is a picture of my Grandfather taken in 1950 (he would have been around 19 years old at the time)

Here is a picture of my Grandmother. There was no date on the back of the picture, but I'm guessing she's probably around 7 or 8.

I've also been playing with these pictures and have managed to colourize them (my grandparents only) Here is the finished version. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

10x10

I'm a stumbler. No that doesn't mean that I have a few too many drinks and end up staggering around all uncoordinated like... It means that I stumble via "Stumble Upon". It's a great site. You download a little toolbar that goes at the top of your browser and you put your likes and dislikes in when you sign up. You then stumble around the web via a small button on the toolbar that says, interestingly enough "stumble"... and as you stumble around the web you refine your likes and dislikes by rating each page with a like it or don't like it. The site learns your likes and dislikes and you see LOTS of great things that you wouldn't normally find on the web...

Anyway. One of the neat things I stumbled upon today was a great site called 10x10

From the site:

10x10™ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10x10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10x10 takes note and remembers.

Each hour is presented as a picture postcard window, composed of 100 different frames, each of which holds the image of a single moment in time. Clicking on a single frame allows us to peer a bit deeper into the story that lies behind the image. In this way, we can dart in and out of the news, understanding both the individual stories and the ways in which they relate to each other.

10x10 runs with no human intervention, autonomously observing what a handful of leading international news sources are saying and showing. 10x10 makes no comment on news media bias, or lack thereof. It has no politics, nor any secret agenda; it simply shows what it finds.

With no human editors and no regulation, 10x10 is open and free, raw and fresh, and consequently a unique way of following world events. In 10x10, we respond instinctively to patterns in the grid, visual indicators of relevance. When we see a frequently repeated image, we know it’s important. When we see a picture of a movie star next to a picture of dead bodies, we understand the extremes that exist in our world. Scanning a grid of pictures can be more intuitive than reading headlines, for it lets the news come to life, and everything feels a bit less distant, a bit closer to heart, and maybe, if we're lucky, gives us pause to think.

I just found it today but it seems really interesting and I'll definitely be going back soon. Check it out!

Olivia at the Fair

Here are a few pics we took of Olivia on one of the rides at the fair on Saturday. The batteries in the camera died after this ride, so there aren't a lot.

Olivia on the airplane ride.

Looks like she's concentrating pretty hard trying to keep that plaine in the air! *lol*

My Beautiful Baby

I had some news for all of you on Saturday but didn't post because I didn't have any pictures to go with them. The batteries in my camera died while we were at the fair on Saturday and I didn't get them recharged until today.

It's official. I have a "Beautiful Baby". Well, we always knew that I did, but Rachel came home with her own trophy after Saturday's Beautiful Baby contest, so now it's official!

There aren't a lot of pictures from the event, and they're quite fuzzy because of the very low light in the rink, but this is the best we've got, so it's all you're going to see. *grin*

Rachel and I beside another Mom and baby boy (in yellow) in the contest.

I don't know their names, maybe Kayla can post the info in the comments section,

I know she's friends with the mother.

Lynn Clark (1st Princess 2006) presenting Rachel with her trophy.

I was going to post some more pictures of Olivia on the rides, but Blogger is giving me troubles uploading the pics... so hopefully tomorrow I'll post more.

Children's Parade today

Well, it's the last day of the Summer Festival here and this morning was the Children's Parade at the Marina. You dress your kid up and put him or her on a bike or wagon or something like that and they go up and down the Marina road once or twice while judges watch them and decide which ones are best.

I don't envy the judges, there were LOTS of adorable kids with very cute costumes and decorated bikes/wagons... but of course, my kids were one of the best ones *lol* not TOO much "Mama Pride" showing through, is there?

Olivia and Rachel won for "Most Humorous" for the age group 2-5 years (Rachel wasn't officially an entrant, Olivia was entered and was pulling her in a wagon) They were Papa's "Cow" Girls and were dressed up as little cowgirls with a wagonload of stuffed cows on a bed of hay... Rachel was also a cowgirl and was laying on some blankets on the hay as well... I kept hearing everyone in the crowd whispering as we went by. "Its a real baby!" they kept saying. "How cute!"

Here are a few pictures from this morning.

Olivia, "Papa's Little Cowgirl"

Rachel sleeping in her soft bed of hay.

A close up of Rachel sleeping.

Olivia pulling Rachel in the wagon during the "parade".

Olivia getting her trophy from Angelina. (One of the judges)

Notice me in the background pointing for Olivia to look at the camera... Take a look at my cute new haircut!

Mini-Me

I know I haven't posted in a while, and although I'd like to say life's been too hectic, I have to admit that I'm merely too darn lazy! Not much of a surprise to those that know me well. *lol* However the other day I started a project of scanning a bunch of old pictures I'm currently in possession of, and I came across one that shocked me. It's a picture of me being held by my great-grandmother. Nothing very shocking in itself. What surprised me was how much I look like Rachel!

I couldn't get over it. I'm one of those people who usually don't see likenesses between babies and parents... well instead of letting me tell you, let me show you.

Me with my Great-Grandmother, Eva. I'm not sure how old I am in this picture but I recognize this dress as being the one I wore when I won the beautiful baby contest at the Fall Fair that year... I'm assuming then that this was taken in early September. That would have made me 5 months old.

Rachel in Mid July this year. She was just shy of 3 months old.

I don't know, maybe I'm seeing things that just aren't there, but to me the likeness is almost eerie. What do you think?