On blogging....

Been missing my little blog lately! I've had a million post ideas going through my head, but when it comes down to it, honestly, I forget them!! ;) Ok, so I'm suffering from major mommy brain, but really, can I not just remember something fun to blog about each day? I think that I over think a post, making it too complicated and long that I then put it off, procrastinate on blogging! Anyway, no more of that, I have a fun little laptop now so blogging will be a little easier. I will start back at work soon (booo), so I'll have some free time to jot down a few ideas. But at least for now, I'm enjoying the summer, the weather has been amazing and it's a good time to be alive! Bye for now!

Christine

The Weekend Update!

I think last weekend was the most popular weekend for going to the sugar shacks around here. You know how boxing day is the most popular day for shopping and Dec 23rd is the busiest day for flying. Well around here some weekend in March is time to sugar shack! Just check out Beth's blog, she went... :)

We went to Domaine L'ange Guardien just north west of Gatineau, and while the grounds are nothing to write home about (or photograph for that matter) the food and atmosphere is GREAT! It's an all you can eat breakfast with everything from french pea soup to pancakes to sugar pie (just in case you didn't get enough sugar with all the syrup and taffy, they have to throw in classic Quebec sugar pie!!).

On Saturday we had our own little sugar shack operation going on at our place. We (Eric) tapped about 6 trees and after two weeks we had enough to boil off. Saturday morning, Eric got up early, set up the fire and boiled for most of the day. His set-up isn't the most efficient, but it's sure is rustic and traditional, giving our homemade maple syrup a unique smoky flavour to it. Very good! Girls loved it, and spent most of the day outside!

Scrapped!!

I finally did a couple of pages!! Woo hoo!!! Back on the bandwagon... hopefully :) Got a lot of material anyway 7 months of photos for Madison...Yes, she is 7 months already. Boo hoo!

Pink and the will of a toddler!

I have 3 children and they are all girls. The oldest went through her Pink phase, and has kind of grown out of it (now it's the "flower" phase - anything with the greatest number of flowers on it the better). Now my 2 year old is well into her Pink phase, and dressing herself! It's beyond cute watching her choose her clothes, watching her dress and seeing how proud she is with the results at the end. Yesterday was no exception! Here she is in all her Pink glory!

Last post Jan 11th... ? WHAT?

I've been seriously neglecting this blog. Don't worry it isn't dead I am still here and it's often on my mind, but while I was swamped with life (loads and loads of laundry, one after the other and the other.....) and my other "job" (photography) I decided to just let this one "rest". I also felt like I didn't have much to say here. I have LOADS of photos to post, but it just felt all overwhelming to think of going through them and choosing ones! Sad. But the lack of something to write has been a pain. I think it has been the weather or something, but I've been super low on energy and creativity lately so I kept putting off updating my poor old blog! :)

So to sum up the past month or so, I'll start with Madison:

- She is now 6 months
- She weighs a whopping 19 lbs 6 oz
- She has two teeth on the bottom
- She is just starting to sit up
- She is the most even tempered child we have, and it's just wonderful!!!
- She has reddish hair and a very light complexion
- She is now bottle fed, I just didn't have enough milk for her and the blocked ducts were just getting me down!
- She likes to eat, but not a lot.
- She sucks two fingers (index and middle) and falls asleep on her own
- I think she is friggin' cute!! ♡ ♡ ♡
- and growing too fast!

Her sisters LOVE her!!

Gillian:
- she is now 2 1/2
- just like Abby, she is very agile, and athletic. We put skates on her and she was practically skating on her own after two tries!
- her smile lights up the room
- She isn't speaking as well as she should be for her age, so I'm going to look into speech therapy
- She LOVES to get dressed, and does it multiple times in the day so there are little socks all over the place because she changes them about 4 times a day!
- Is pretty much toilet trained during the day - haven't even tried at night!
- She still wakes up early - 5:00 am early, but is better at just lying quietly in our bed

walking down the tracks in Chelsea


My little Picasso!





The sulking princess


Gilly and her friend Paige


I wonder where she learned this???




At Winterlude 2010

And finally a little update on Abigail:

- she is now 4 1/2
- She will start school in September, and is pretty excited about it, especially taking a school bus
- She learned how to skate this year
- She loves to talk
- She loves her baby sister Madison, won't leave her alone really... !
- She whines - A LOT, but then when she chooses to be nice, she is beyond nice!
- She can make her bed neater than I can, I'm not sure how she does it... maybe she can teach me!
- She LOVES to wear dresses, the flowery the better!
- She loves to wear jewelery and have her nails painted

Her first "real" haircut!


Loves to paint!






Here she is saying what I say to them when I try to take a photo - it was priceless!


Gillian getting right into it!


Fell asleep watching the Olympics!


Can't get enough of Madison!

So that is my quick update, thing happen so fast and the girls change so much from day to day it's hard to keep track!! Hope to update more often, but we'll see - no promises. Bye for now!

Some shots from Christmas break...

I haven't posted much from Christmas, as I was very disappointed with my photos from Christmas day. And I'm ashamed, embarrassed, and devastated because I didn't even take a photo of Madison on Christmas day!! Her first Christmas, and I didn't even take a photo!! Clearly there was something wrong with me. Thankfully my parents and mother-in-law took some, but really what was wrong with me!! Anyway, here are some shot I did get over the holidays:

Christmas Eve skating on the pond


Christmas Eve Sliding!





A beautiful Gillian lying on the floor - I love this one!


Beautiful little Madison! It's her smile the cutest!



The Gingerbread house thief!

And then one from today I just had to post: Bender - the forgotten child! :)

Team Photo

So we didn't exactly "clean UP!" but if you give us a handicap of 15 then we would have still lost one game and tied another. But most importantly, we had fun. I think a few of the guys were a little frustrated to say the least, but they weren't sure how to play against 11 and 17 year olds. Do they go all out, or back off a little, thus allowing they to skate around them like pilons? I played all out, but really that meant I was playing like a bad 11 year old, so it didn't have too much impact!

Hope we get to play next year!