The Blessings of Home

A Rare Thing

It is very rare indeed that Darrel and I are in a photograph together. For our Relief Society March 17th party my friend Kristi and I took photos of the sisters and the couples in our ward. We were supposed to photograph the sisters the month before but it didn't work out so we decided to roll it into this party night as people would be all spiffed up. And how many couples are like Darrel and I -where the only photos you have of the two of you are self-taken by the husband with his arm straight out. Not exactly high quality. Anyway, it was tons of fun, and I am really happy to have this one of the two of us. Love it!

Top O' The Morning To You

Eric came home with this little hat from pre-school. His sister quickly adopted it as her own.

Cool Things

One of the best things about living in this day and age is the proliferation of information out there. It can also be the worst...but today I'm jazzed about all the awesome stuff I can find out there. Like this blog post from a crafty Mom who makes lego men with her little men. I'm soooo going to try this!

http://www.gracelaced.com/2011/02/24/raising-boys-who-love-to-craft/

Unfortunately the lego man tray that she links to at the lego store isn't available in Canada. But I have a feeling a certain EBay shopping husband of mine will be able to fine one online that will ship to Canada. Yay. I can already envision an afternoon of painting lego people in the backyard.

Bedtime Fun

Julie is quite the playful little one year old. The other night she was climbing onto Darrel's back and then flopping off of him onto the bed. She repeated this again and again, when Jack tried to get in on the action she got pretty peeved and let him know that this was HER idea and HER back to be used as a launch pad. But, he was forgiven and given kisses.

She is learning so many new words right now. Today she was in Home Depot with me and we walked down the painting and decorating isle she saw Dora vinyl stick ons for the wall and said, "Dora". Another new phrase we heard today was "thank you Julie" Eric said this to her and she just repeated it perfectly right after him. I'm pretty sure that is the first time I've heard her say her own name. Usually she just refers to herself as baby. On Thursday I had to return something to the city and while we were driving down a busy street I suddenly heard her say, "puppy, woof woof". Seriously, so cute. What a charmer this girl is.

House Painting

We hired someone to paint a bunch of rooms in our house this week. A first for us: hiring out something, and man, was it worth it. In two days Heather painted the childrens' bedrooms, the orange wall in our living room and the back entry way. She was quick, efficient, clean, and it was not us doing the work! We (well I) chose a colour called "millet". Basically a beige with yellow undertones. It's warm, without being too dark, and a nice neutral for selling the house. The back entry looks a lot larger painted this lighter colour. Which of course it does. I knew when I picked that terra cotta brown colour 3 years ago that it was dark, but at the time it was a fun choice. No regrets, but I'm supper happy with this now. I'll post more pics of the other rooms soon.

Auntie Vonne Comes to Town

Lavonne had a conference here in Edmonton (held at MacEwan no less!) Darrel picked her up and brought her out to our place for supper on Friday night. As you can see it didn't take Julie very long to get over any shyness with Auntie 'Vonne! On Saturday Lavonne and I got to hang out together in the city: shopping and a movie. It was too bad that Darrel couldn't come too -we couldn't find a sitter, (and lately the three kids have been a lot to handle on outings like that). But that did leave Lavonne and I free to shop for clothes and go to Bath & Body Works to our hearts' content. In fact Lavonne made the ultimate score, going back to look at a winter coat she was debating about and then seeing another one that was perfect and for less money!

The boys were a smidge disappointed that Auntie couldn't sleep overnight, and since then we've had lots of talks about going to SK this summer to see everyone. It was so nice to see family and Lavonne is easy to be around. I have always admired her calm manner with her children, she doesn't get louder when they are acting up, she tends to talk quieter and slower. A good example for me, who tends to talk louder and louder. It was also a really nice break to cut out of Saturday bathroom renos early! Thanks for letting me go play Darrel!

Literacy Backpacks

Starting in February Kindergarteners at our school get to bring home a new literacy backpack every week. Last week Jack had the D backpack with mostly a dinosaur theme going on. There was a dinosaur sorting game, a dinosaur detectives game, dinosaur books of course, and these 3D dinosaur puzzles. A huge hit with both boys! I love that there are games and things for us to do together and new toys and books in the house. Lots of fun.

I took this pic of Julie because she was wearing the cutest little shirt ever that she inherited from her cousin -so adorable that little plaid cowgirl.

I'm also having so much fun playing with my new photoshop actions. You may notice lots of different styles of edits on the blog over the next little while. These were given a tone that gives them a slightly brown vintage-y look. Tell me what you like or don't like, I'm curious. I think it looks cool but I don't know if I would ever edit photos for clients this way.

Julie's First Halloween

Julie's First Halloween, originally uploaded by Kirsten in Canada.

I was looking through photos the last week of LOAD and came across this one that I never scrapped. Julie was/is such a cute baby. What a dear.