my blog

brought to you by the letter k.

My computer is a piece of junk. This isn’t new information of course. Now to sweeten the deal even more, now I can’t upload any of the new pictures I’m taking, and since I’ve committed to blogging at least twice a year now, I’m forced to share boring old pictures (gasp) until we save enough pennies to buy a new computer.

Remember back in September when my kids had their first day of school? Didn’t you know all the cool kids save those pictures until January.

Just doesn’t quite have the same impact 6 months later huh.

Well, how about a fun project to keep you inspired. Remember how I talked about Mrs. King being my favorite teacher of all time. Well I wanted to show you the gift I made her for just being awesome.

I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy to put together. But she loved it, and she is worth all the time in the world. The whole thing cost me $1.25. $1 for the frame and .25 cents for the crayons. Not too shabby huh.

art walk.

We live in a pretty awesome location in our town. We are walking distance to a lot of really great places. The library, schools, parks, the water and some funky downtown stores that are just bursting with character and charm.

This year we headed down to art walk, they block off a whole street and local artists come to display and sell their art. There wasn’t a whole lot of interest in the art stuff from the kids, but I packed along some bread to take to the water (which is a stones throw away) to feed the ducks.

{Lily log rolling down the hill}

Grey was so adorable, he loved feeding the ducks. He would grab a chunk of bread and call out “here ducky, ducky” and throw it to them.

We stopped to get some slurpies on the way home.

But the best surprise of the whole day was waiting for me when I got home… a chocolate basket from my sister in Australia, for my 30th birthday! (Out in the hot sun I might add… who leaves a chocolate basket outside on a hot summer day?!)

Thanks Amanda! It was SOOO yummy!!

hunter’s 9th birthday

Finally, finally HOORAY!! Our computer has been giving us such grief lately, and when it decides to have a temper tantrum it just shuts off, and won’t turn back on until it’s ready. Weird I know. So it’s been very difficult to edit pictures and do blog posts with such a temperamental piece of equipment. But so far so good, it’s been kind to me this morning and I managed to finally get Hunter’s birthday pictures edited and ready to blog about.

His theme was Super Mario and I had a blast making the details for this. From the table décor to the cake I must say it’s been one of my favorites to date! (but don’t I always say that…)

                              dark mint chocolate Mario mustaches

             paper boxes with bricks I printed from the internet and glued to the sides.

                                golden coins for Mario to gather

My piranha plant. He’s got red hot tamales in his mouth like the fire balls he shoots. I made this all by myself, and was very proud of how it turned out.

                            little boo ghosts floating around the ceiling.

I made these adorable perler bead characters from the Mario game. They took hours to make, but I really loved the way they looked.

                             we drank 7-up, like Mario having 7 lives

   I cut green AstroTurf to use as placemats, like the green grass in the Mario game.

                        I baked 143 baby cupcakes for Hunter’s cake.

                                        and made an 8-bit Mario

                        someone liked the blue ones best!

Hunter's best friend Ammon and his family came over to help us celebrate.

 

We can hardly believe our oldest is 9, how fast the time is going. Before we know it, this one will be 9 too!

hunter- halloween {2010}

I am so torn today, because I want to blog, but my babies are sleeping, and I really need to spend some quality time with my kitchen while I have the chance to actually open the dishwasher without Grey sitting on it and pulling out random dishes.

Decisions, decisions.

So, how about a bit of both. I’ll start with Hunter and try to get the other kids posted once I’m done my chores. It might even motivate me to move faster.

This year Hunter was a Grim Reaper. I picked the costume, and he didn’t seem to happy with it, but I’m not sure he really cared anyways. I guess next year I’ll give him creative license and see if he shows some more enthusiasm.

Don’t you just love the adult teeth stage of kids. ;) He was doing all sorts of crazy things with his tongue.

 

first day of school. {2010}

Well, another summer is under our belt, another year and grade older too. This morning we sent the two oldest off on their first day of school, and trust me, all of us were more than happy to see them on their way.

This year Hunter is starting Grade 3, and his teacher is Mr. Brown.

We had some issues taking his pictures in the backyard. He kept squinting saying the sun was too bright, so I kept getting shots like this…

So we moved to the front deck to do his pictures.

This year Ava is starting Grade 2, with Mrs. Finch.

Sigh, she is so grown up.

 

And because this is so much fun… First day 2009 and First day 2010.

 

What a difference 1 year makes.

Lily starts her school class tomorrow, and it’s her 5th birthday!! So I’ll have more to share later! xoxo!

turning 8; part 3

Read part 1 here.

Read part 2 here.

So the last part of Hunter’s birthday was the most special, his baptism. We kept it very, very low key and only invited 2 families to come and witness. But it ended up exploding into a large gathering of people (still not sure where they all came from) and I was panicking that my small plates of cookies wouldn’t stretch far enough. But not to worry, it turned out just fine in the end.

Okay, so first we showed up at the Church, and found out that the font hadn’t even been filled yet. It was 1/2 hour until his baptism. I was freaking out (again) But Darren cranked the water full blast and with a bit of a late start we managed to get it filled in just over 45 minutes, which is really fast timing.

I brought to the Church with me a picture frame of Hunter’s 8th birthday photo shoot. (His scriptures were a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Coates and was given to him that night)

And my willow tree statue to decorate a table at the front of the room.

I created the program in Photoshop and just printed them at home.

I cannot for the life of me find a copy of the saved program on my computer to show you what it looked like. :(

Hunter and Darren changed into their white clothes, and Hunter was bouncing around the halls. It was a very exciting time.

After the baptism and program, we had some cookies and lemonade with our family and friends. A perfect way to end the night.

It was a busy, busy day, and of course now that’s it’s over, I would do things way differently if I could go back and do it over. The best thing to remember was that Hunter chose to be baptized and there was such a special spirit present that day.

turning 8; part 2

(check out part 1 first)

So on with Hunter’s birthday party.

Because we wanted to keep his baptism celebration separate from his birthday celebration, we decided to do his birthday gifts first thing in the morning.

I love watching Hunter open gifts, because he is always so full of emotion and excitement for his new presents. His face says it all in these pictures.

Did you ever see someone so excited about a Captain Underpants book?

Umm… excuse me, down in front.

Who…? Me?

 

We didn’t do his cake until the next day. (too much going on that night) and this is where I would insert an adorable picture of his cake, if I hadn’t have left my camera at the Church after his baptism. Sad.

I did however snap a couple pics of it with my Mom and Dad’s camera, but they have taken it back to Alberta with them, and I will probably never see a copy of the pictures. LOL!

It was a fun day celebrating his birth, and he clearly LOVED all of his presents.

*Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Workman for the birthday cards! Hunter was thrilled to death!!

turning 8; part 1

My biggest boy turned 8 this past month, and it was a very exciting birthday indeed. In our Church, you get baptized when you turn 8, so it was a very special birthday for Hunter.

We decided to do his baptism on his actual birthday, and about a week before I took Hunter out to do a special photo shoot.

Now let me tell you, my boy, as handsome as he is, is not very photogenic, and I worked very hard for these few pictures of him.

I really wanted family far away to feel like they were apart of this special day, even though we knew they wouldn’t be able to attend, and since I love a challenge I decided that I was going to make invitations the week before his baptism. (yes, call me crazy)

I ended up designing them like a flip book of pictures, filled with the baptism information. The final dimensions were somewhere around 6”x9”.

Here’s the finished invite.

Then you would flip over the first section.

I added “I’m trying to be like Jesus” to the side of the picture in Photoshop, before I had the pictures printed.

Then you opened it up to the last section which had all the information about the baptism printed on vellum.

With a picture of Hunter in the background.

Once I had the final design down, I whipped these up in a couple hours (with help from Darren of course) Designing and figuring out sizes etc. was a nightmare and caused me a few tears along the way, but I’m glad I did it. We got them mailed out the next day and hopefully everyone has gotten it by now. ☺

I’m going to try to get the rest of his birthday stuff up today, but I have a cranky baby that is teething and needs some momma love. Be back soon! ♥

back to school.

I'm free!!

Jiggy-jig!

Today was the first day that Hunter, Ava and Lily all went to school, full day. And I couldn't be more excited. Sure, I've still got Grey to deal with, but he can't make much of a mess hanging out in his bumbo/swing/ultra-saucer/crib.

Hunter and Ava started last week, and Lily started today, but I wanted to wait to post all three of them together.

Hunter started 2nd grade with Mrs. Finch. And so far so good. Last year he had quite an adjustment to sitting in a seat and working all day, so this year he knew what to expect and it seems like we're off to a great start.

I think I was more excited about his brand new lace shoes than he was. (mostly I'm excited that we won't have to buy ugly diego/spiderman/transformer light up shoes, finally onto the cool shoes)

Ava is starting grade one. Can you believe it! She has been ready for a very long time. Her teacher is Mrs. Rogers (Hunter's teacher from last year) and I doubt we will ever have any problems with Ava going to school. She is a very good girl, and will do anything you ask her to do. She is also very quiet, so I'm sure her teacher is enjoying the more timid sibling of Hunter.

Her outfit I think was the best part of her first day of school. It was SO Ava. Just like Hannah Montana. I picked up the top and skirt in Strathmore (thanks Mom) when I was visiting, and then I found these adorable rock-star zip capri pants to go underneath.

And of course complete with Hannah Montana backpack.

 

Walking to school. (we're basically standing outside our house, and their school is at the end of the street near that van in the background. Only about 1/2 block)

They do a staggered entry into Kindergarten. So Lily has been there for an hour or two, a couple days last week, but today was her official first full day (they go all day here 3 days a week)

Lily's teacher is Mrs. King, who taught both Hunter and Ava. She is an amazing teacher, I just love her to bits. So I am feeling very confident about sending my sweet little 4 year old to school everyday.

Speaking of being four, this little miss had a birthday yesterday, and I made my very first rolled fondant cake. I have 253 pictures to sift through, but here's a couple teasers, to keep you going 'till then.