What does Power Mean to YOU?

For me it means: Water, showering, flushing the toilet, light, cooking, TV, computer, heat, telephone, open garage door, daycare, work. All of which we went without for two days. The storm hit on Tuesday night and took out electricity for 20,000 people, us being one of them, as well as my in-laws, all our neighbours and the kids daycare. But on the flip side, what the power going out means is: time with the kids, candle lit breakfast, naps, early bedtime, building fires and going out for dinner. I just can't imagine what it would have been like during the ice storm. Eric's parents were without power for 3 weeks! that would have been impossible with the kids, I wonder what we would have done?

The morning after.
A week ago it looked like this.

Abby LOVED the snow. We got to
test out her new snowsuit.

Gillian HATED it!!
It was really more frustration from
not being able to walk!

"Didn't winter just end in June?"

It's crazy outside right now! The wind is howling, it's cold and it's snowing like mad! I just can't believe this is happening already. I know it will all melt over the next few days, but to have a big snowstorm already is just nuts. I'm not ready. As a friend said tonight, "Didn't winter just end in June?" I think it was more like July, but whatever, it wasn't that long ago! They are calling for 10 - 15 cm of snow, and it's going to make the morning commute hellish tomorrow, oh, that is assuming that I can make it to the end on my road....

So just to recap last winter. It started with a little snowfall:

Which some of us loved!!

And others didn't

And ended with this:
Ugh. No comment.

So, I guess I must just say deal with it Christine, get those winter tires on your car and start waxing the skis! It's going to be a long one.

Weekend Recap # 4

I have to do another "recap" post, because I haven't posted in a while. Friday was a work day, nothing too interesting happened, just the usual work, but we did get to go out for Thai at lunch - which is always yummy! We also had to have some of our nicest trees cut in preparation for the septic tank and new well installation that will hopefully happen over the next few weeks. It was quite sad coming home and seeing that our big pine was no longer standing. I hate cutting trees. But we had to do it, and so it was done. Eric had hockey, and I really just felt like flaking in front of the TV. But what really happened was that I fell asleep after putting Abby to bed. I was more tired than I thought so I passed out for almost two hours, work up to have a tea and watch Gray's Anatomy, then went back to bed. I was planning on getting ready for out chili party, but didn't!

Saturday was packed full of to dos, because we were hosting a big Hike and Chili party. Unfortunately the forecast didn't cooperate and it poured rain all day forcing us to cancel the hike. But of course, the chili dinner was still on. I went to gymnastics in the morning with Abby, then got started preparing the food. We were pretty organized and had everything ready by 4:00 giving us some time to dance with the girls in the living room (they were dressed up in their pricess dresses, so we pretended to be at the Cinderella ball. Daddy being the prince of course!)

Drizella attacks Cinderella for stealing away the Prince

After that everyone started piling in - we had 14 adults and 8 kids - which is a lot for us. At one point it was like a bomb had gone off in the playroom! Hopefully fun was had by all, we certainly had fun. It had been a while since we invited so many people over!

Today we are just cleaning up, doing laundry and Eric is outside busting his butt getting the property ready for the work. I have a feeling he'll be very sore tonight, so I should pull out the Ibuprofen now! And tomorrow it's back to work!

See all you bloggy lurkers later!

Getting Artsy!

I have been seeing many layouts at DD where the artist uses paintbrush stokes to create a clipping mask. Clipping masks really revolutionized my digital scrapping and I've never turned back (ie: trying to resize a photo so that it fits properly in a frame). So I saw this layout by Carol: Harry and Me which I thought was so cool and this layout by bjwtville (sorry I don't know your real name!!) Listen Up which was equally cool in her use of creating a clipping mask with Dripped Stains. Being so inspired I had to try it and I came up with this:

It was a fun one to put together. Now I just have to figure out how to "paint" in Photoshop, so it will actually look like natural brush strokes. If anyone knows how do this, please leave me a comment!

My dad saw an add for the Henry's Show in Ottawa. I'm going to try and go, maybe even on the Friday. I'm sure I'll be able to test drive a bunch of cameras and really figure out what would be best! I'm excited. I hope Dad wants to go with me..

Is it already Wed?

The week is flying by! I'm very busy at work and at home, with hockey and dentist appointments, I really need to work part time to fit everything in and keep sane at the same time! I am trying to get more organized so that life isn't so hectic and that includes actually using my slow cooker! I have used it in the past, but I really need to start using it more since coming home to a nice hot mean is fantastic! Last night I prepared a Chicken with Mustard BBQ Sauce and it was quite good. More importantly the girls ate it! I hope to prepare something tomorrow night for Friday.

I've also volunteered to run the beginners spinning class at work. I haven't been certified yet, but considering I've been doing it for 8 years, I think I can handle it. It's going to be low impact and easy for people to be able to try it out and start off easy. There only other option is to jump into a very intensive class which will simply scare them off, or injure them. So I have to find some suitable music and layout the first few classes.

Only two more work days to go, yipee! Off to bed!

Busy but fun weekend.

This is really just a boring update of our weekend! Nothing too deep or insightful here, just a recap with a few pics to illustrate!

I returned from a good trip to Toronto on Friday. It was quick and I was walking around a lot, but overall good. The conference trade show was interesting, however having to talk to sales reps all day can be very tiring.. it's hard to cut through the sales crap (no offense Richard, you of course never talk crap - you keep it real!). On Saturday night I met up with Richard, Deirdre and Evan (my cousins) for dinner at Sushi Queen. It was very yummy and I ate too much! Afterward I went back to their place to chat, which was nice because I never visit them enough so there is a lot to catch up on! What was really fun was that I got to play with his $8000.00 camera!! Wow, cool. I had dreams about the wicked fast shutter speed that night! 15 RAW files/3 sec or something ridiculous (Richard can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but whatever it's lightening fast!) Too bad they are so pricey!

I returned to Ottawa Friday night to three beautiful smiling faces (Eric was smiling because I could now relieve him and he promptly took off for hockey!!). Saturday morning was Abby's second gymnastics class. We switched to the earlier time, which was full initially, but all the traumatized kids dropped out, leaving space for us!! Yeah, separation anxiety!! It is not only at a better time, but it's also at the same time as her buddy Savanna. So I got to hang out with Phyllis (our daycare provider and her foster Mom) which was fun.

Sunday was packed full of visits, first Eric's cousin Chris, Beth and their kids William and Sophie came for a visit. They also live in Toronto and we rarely see them! William and Abby had a ball raking and jumping into the leaves! Again the pile was taller than either of them, and for a while we couldn't even find William because he was completely buried by the leaves!

Putting the kids to work raking up the leaves.

Suddenly William disappeared!

Gillian looks on in amusement.

Leaf jumping!

After Chris and Beth took off, we got ready to host dinner for our friends Den and Alexei and their children Harrison and Sophie. It was their condo we stayed at in Maine back in July, so it was a very belated thank you dinner for them! We had a yummy roast beef with mashed potatoes and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.

After they took off, we basically crashed! Burnt from a fun but busy few days!

Thanks for the photo Beth

When Beth came over for dinner last weekend, she brought her Cannon Rebel XSi for me to try. It was definitely a beautiful camera, and took some beautiful shots. Well she did, not me! But she was kind enough to leave me the RAW files to play with, and this is what I did:

Beth sure took a stunning photo of Gillian, and it was fun to play with it. Isn't she cute? :) Boy I can't wait to get my hands on a new SLR (hint, hint - b'day coming up!). Now don't get me wrong, I really like my Canon S5IS, but the XSi's depth of field is so much greater than mine, there is virtually no noise (the above photo was taken at ISO 800!! I can't believe it), and it's much faster. So I've been researching what to get and there is no question that I will get one, it's just when!! And you thought I took lots of photos before... just wait!

I also put this simple layout together tonight:

The premise of the page is that Gillian give lots of hugs! As soon as you pick her up she will grab your face and smooch in for a hug. If you ask her for a kiss, she'll plan on too, but it's the hugs she does without asking. It's just so cute!

I'm off to Toronto for the CSTD Trade show... I'm hoping to gets lots of good info for work and I'll visit my cousin Richard while I'm there. Be back Friday night!

A cool post I saw...

I saw this on a photography blog I like to read: 14 Principles for Living Well. The audience it the author's own children, but it got me thinking this was a cool idea to do for the girls. Maybe create a little book with each page as on Principle. Another one for the "List".

Post-sickness Attention Deficit Disorder

So the theory goes like this: Kid gets sick, gets too much attention, gets medicine, then gets better. The the PS-ADD sets in, where kids still expects lots of attention, and medicine. This results in excessive whining and bad behaviour (colouring on walls, putting stickers on every surface of the house and stealing siblings toys.) There is no known cure or treatment....

All I can say is WOW!

I think last night's sunset was the pinnacle moment in this years fall colours... The leaves were falling like crazy and they all seemed to change in one day. I don't think it would get any better than this: (yes, touched up a little, but only a little!!)

From the deck.

Abby was being a good model!

Now comes the snow....

Beautiful Thanksgiving Weekend

We had our friend Beth and Chris over for supper last night, along with their kids. We ate Raclette, and had Apple Crisp for dessert (this is my favourite crisp recipe). All was yummy and we were all pretty stuffed after (except for Amelia :) mixing ain't her thing, and everything I made for the kids was "mixed" up!! I feel bad, hopefully she got an apple when she got home!) . As Beth mentioned on her blog - hopefully one day we'll be able to hang out together longer when the kids are able to stay up past 7:00 pm! Abby was up until 8:15 or so, which is really late for her. Needless to say she slept in this morning.

Today was a beautiful day! There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was warm and dry, so we spent a good part of our day outside. We did some raking, and almost lost Gillian in the pile:

Took some photos
And did some swinging


We were thinking of going for a walk in the woods, but naps got in the way, so we just hung out here. Which was fine, we were all a bit tired and really had no agenda today. Tomorrow we'll have our big Thanksgiving feast at Eric's parents place, which should be nice!

Befores and Afters

I was chatting with my friend Beth tonight about white balance and fixing it up in Photoshop. I had taken a bunch of photos today with the wrong white balance setting on my camera. Unfortunately I don't have the option of shooting in RAW format, so I was stuck with fixing them up in JPG format. here are the before and afters:



And then this one:




Not too bad, but I would love to see what I could do with RAW files!

Stories in Hand.

I may do this:

I'll sign up and see what it's all about, it's free so why not eh?. (may help my blog posts!!)

A layout I love...

I did this today and I'm so happy with how it turned out!


I did it for Tara and Kayleigh's Creative Inspiration Blog Wednesday challenge.

And then I did this one yesterday:

I love this picture because it's Gillian puckering up for a kiss, but it's her way of communicating to me to kiss the baby. She usually makes the smacking noise before you make contact with her, it's priceless!

I've really got my mojo going! It's fun!

At home again...

So I'm still at home, sick still and the girls are with me. They were not well enough to go to daycare, and even yesterday they probably shouldn't have been there. So we are just hanging out. We played in the morning, then did some painting, had lunch and now they are napping. It's fun to spend the day with them, I do miss it. As they get older it gets easier to do things together. Gillian has still got a pretty short attention span, but Abby is now becoming quite independent, that I can get Abby set up with the paints, then help Gillian with stuff.





This afternoon we will go for a little walk because the sun has come out and it's rather warm outside. Perfect for them to get fresh air and not freeze! When we get back I think I'll make these:

And then sweet and sour chicken for dinner. Hope we're all feeling better tomorrow!

Fall, Fall and Another Fall Layout!

Can you tell I LOVE this time of year!!
After Gillian woke up yesterday, we had a nice visit with my parents who returned home from France this weekend. After they left I went for a short walk with Gillian, who was is pretty good spirits after the morning's events. She was a little quiet, but generally in a good mood! It was a beautiful day so I couldn't resist going for a walk.



I also completed this layout yesterday:


It's so beautiful, I keep trying to capture the colours of the leaves, rather unsuccessfully!! I need a wide angle lens. Pumpkin shots are from the weekend.



These ones I just took moments ago:




I must say, looking back at the photos, I'm a little embarassed at home much PINK there is when my kids are photographed... (note to self - buy LESS pink!)

Nothing ever goes according to plan.

We had Gillian's extractions this morning, and as the title shows, nothing every goes to plan. Before we went, we had the option of sedating her or not, and we had decided to do the sedation to at least try to relax her and give her some amnesia. Well, that was the part that didn't go to plan. She has been suffering from a runny nose all week, and I was worried that that would cause a problem. As it turns out, it did. The Dentist did a careful assessment of her, and while she didn't have fluid in her lungs, he didn't feel comfortable giving her the medication as it would increase the risk of respiratory problems. So the choice was again our, do we go forward without the meds, or reschedule and try it again. Since we were already there, we weren't 100% comfortable with sedation in the first place (she is only 16 months), we decided to go ahead with just a dose of Advil and freezing.

It was a little nerve racking because it meant that she would be totally awake and aware of the whole procedure, which is what I was more nervous about than anything. We had Eric, his mom and I in the room, and they strapped her onto this spinal board with wrist restraints, then restrained her even further with large wide velcro straps going across her chest and legs. When we lay her down and started doing up the velcro, she didn't cry at all, but rather just stared up with big frantic eyes wondering what in the hell we were doing to her.

She didn't start crying until the freezing started. First they sprayed her gum's with a numbing fluid, like oragel, then got the needle and started injecting. At this point she decided this really wasn't for her and that the fun was over - "Get me out of here!!!". The freezing took longer than I thought, since they had to freeze in three different places. Then we had to wait a few minutes while it "sunk in" - at which point she tried to make the great escape, wiggling her legs out and trying to sit up to no avail! Then the knife came out, he make little incisions around the tooth, then basically just pulled them out. He had a little bit of trouble getting a grip on it because it was still pretty small, but once he did they came out easily. He them packed them up with a packing gel, cleaned her up, then unstrapped her and gave her to me. She settled down quite quickly in my arms - and within 5 min was pointing at a picture of a dog saying "DA! Da!". The whole thing took about 20 min, with some crying, but overall she was a strong little girl (especially since she almost escaped the straight jacket!!). She was in good spirits quickly. Mind you when the nurse approached her to wipe her mouth up a little, she screamed bloody murder! Same with Grandma, she didn't really want to trust anyone but Eric and I after that - not surprisingly!

I must say it was quite traumatizing, especially for Eric and I - we both cried. But I'm glad we had it done, and also glad we didn't have to give her the sedation, as it can't be good for her, and she survived without it. Now I can't say she will be a happy camper the next time we go to the dentist... she may just take one look at him and freak!

She is napping now, and when she wakes, I'll pump her up with Advil and give her a nice lunch. Probably take her for a walk around the neighbourhood and cuddle! Now we just wait and see if those front teeth can push themselves down and straighten out. She should have lots of space in there now!

Big day tomorrow...

It's Gillian's extraction day tomorrow. The appointment is at 9 am, but we have to be there for 8 am to give her the "magic juice" which will attempt to put her to sleep. The Dr said it works 50% of the time, as their metabolism is so high that it simply burns it off before it can totally put them to sleep. And considering she won't be able to eat anything before 5 am, she will probably burn through it quite fast. Once she is groggy enough, they will wrap her up in a papoose, so she can't move, then freeze her and pull out the two teeth. (yikes I'm getting dizzy just thinking of it). The hope is that she won't remember a thing in a few days, like she had amnesia. That would be great, because if she doesn't forget, I don't want to have to be the parent who has to bring her back to the dentist for a regular check up...

I finally did another page, it's been ages! Here it is, I used the photos from the weekend of the girls in the leaves:


I hope I can sleep tonight! I'll report on the procedure tomorrow... stay tuned!

GWG and the Weekend

Our United Way Hockey Hockey tournament ended on a perfect note - we WON!! Our team was really good, and despite the fact that we were all playing together for the first time we played really well together. We communicated well, changed well (which is important when you have 7 forwards, one too many for even lines) and obviously scored!! I played forward, which I don't usually do, and I loved it. I like to switch it up from time to time, I find it keeps me sharp in the position I play. It also gives me the opportunity to shoot on the net more, and score - which I did for the game winner in our final!! So all in all it was a fun time and I look forward to it next year!

The weekend has been good. Friday night was quiet. I watched a little TV and finished the final book in the Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn. After Twilight, the first book in the series, this was my second favourite of the 4. I'm a little sad to be finished the series, because they were a really fun and easy read! I think I may re-read Twilight, since I have nothing else to read right now, except for The Pillars of the Earth. But I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into that one. If anyone has any suggestions for some really good books, post a comment for me, I usually go on people's suggestions for books!

We've been spending time outside because it's so beautiful this time of year! It's crisp - 13 degrees, so the hats and mitts have come out for good. It's been fun trying to rake the leaves because this happens:



The girls run though the leaves, and then sit down in the middle of them! It brings back so many fun memories of being a kid during the fall! This is a VERY small pile of leaves, by the time all the leaves have fallen, we've done a good 4 rounds of raking. Maybe I should just wait until they are all down and do one big one? I'm just so thankful that we live on the edge of a ravine and I can just rake them down the hill, and don't have to pack them up into bags.

Sunday was a little bit of the same. Eric participated in the Run for the Cure. Did a 5km in the morning then came back home for lunch. I stayed here, because Gillian is sick, I didn't want to drag her all the way into town and stand in the cold for a few hours. So we played in the house for a while, then moved outside for more fun in the leaves and on the swing.

(Would have been a perfect shot if it had been in focus!!)

Abby and Gillian giggle at eachother
from inside and outside!

Tonight I'm making a Steak and Guiness stew (Jamie Oliver) with mashed potatoes and salad. I would also like to make an apple crisp for dessert, if I have time (they are pretty quick so I probably will!!)

That's all for this weekend. Upcoming next week: Gillian's extractions (Tuesday), and my parents are back from France (Sunday)!