To Jerianne

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
I won't openly share which one, but we all know it is more than me!!! Ha Ha Ha.
I hope it is a great one, you are a beloved and dear friend of mine and I wish the best for you today and always!!
Love you!


Forever my Belize river running companion!!

Ode to Mr. Snowman

It is no secret that I dread the day that the first snowfall sticks to the ground and the cold air is here to stay! However, I have decided that having children helps you see the brighter side of life. Abby and Liv were overjoyed when they looked out the window of my mother's house on Saturday evening only to see huge snowflakes falling ever so gently and peacefully to the ground. After a short time it was piling up and the excitement in their faces only grew as they realized that there was going to be enough to make a snowman! I told them they would have to wait until after church the next day and that it might have melted by then, but we would see. So first thing Sunday morning they were looking out the window only to discover that there was tons more than they had at bed time and I almost couldn't get them to go to church. We don't get done until 2:00pm and the snow had mostly melted, all but a strip in the backyard that was shadowed by the fence. Abby bundled herself up and ran out the door! Much to my surprise, when I looked out a while later she had created some pretty big snowballs and was ready to stack and decorate(as only my girls would like to do!!). I have to say she did a pretty good job for a first timer and the whole activity was topped off by Abby, Liv and Paul sitting at the back door looking out at that wonderful Snowman creation, Paul telling Abby that sadly it was going to melt, and all three of them breaking into song: Once there was a Snowman, Snowman, Snowman, once there was a Snowman...... What a beautiful tribute to a wonderful childhood friend. Until next time Mr. Snowman, until next time!!!!

Just for Audrey

and anyone else who is interested! Audrey posted awhile back that she looked forward to my Friday inspiration postings, so as not to let her down, here are the ones from the other day that blogger wouldn't let me upload. Enjoy!!

I am still working on Liv's but I will post it when I am done, who new one could come up with three different layouts with pretty much the same shots!!!

I am off to shop at Costco with my mother, we always have a good time, and I ALWAYS end up spending too much!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Pie, we made Pie!

I know that my brother's are probably not going to read this, but this title is an inside joke between me and them. I believe it is a reference to a Simpson's episode(I believe it is the random answer that grandpa give to someone), or something of that nature, but we laugh every time one of us says it!! However, today we really did!! I had been talking about making one for sometime now. Our sad little tree in the back yard actually produced quite a few apples, much to my surprise. They have been out there begging to be picked for several weeks and today the girls and I decided to go for it!


They had a great time helping me pick the perfect ones to make into a pie. A couple of days ago I received my latest issue of Martha Stewart's EverdayFood in the mail and it had a most appealing recipe for Apple Crumb pie, this is of course the one that I decided to try for my debut as a pie maker. Don't get me wrong, I have made pies before. One of Paul's favorite stories to tell is of our wedding reception and my dad in his little speech about me saying "Bree can make a good pie"! I have just never done one from complete scratch, with fresh apples that needed to be cored, skinned and sliced and tossed in lemon juice. I now have a new appreciation to all my grandmother's and great grandmother's who in the past and over many years have done this great labour of love for their families! It took me forever, ok, it just felt like it! Jerianne, I really could have used your little contraption that makes easy work of that!!! However, I was able to complete the task and the smell of baking apples, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and pastry has filled my house and the look of great anticipation from my girls as they watched that pie brown and bubble in the oven has made me understand why people bake pies!!!


Doesn't it look delicious!! I will saver every last bite and make sure to indulge even further by putting a scoop of ice cream on top - Jerianne, are we walking tonight!!!!!!

Oh the drama!

Why is it that just when life starts to settle down, things pick up a rhythm and everything just seems to be moving perfectly in the right direction does my life ALWAYS get hit with a snag! Abby came home from preschool on Monday with a note from her teacher that the city was not going to renew her licence and she was going to have to shut down at the end of the month! Now I do feel terrible for her teacher, Abby just loves her and she does such a great job, but now what am I going to do!!! Not only was she the best price around but she was just a couple of houses down and so convenient!! So I had to start immediately on the scout for a new preschool, in the middle of the year with 12 other parents also on hot pursuit!!! Most of the schools that I heard back from were naturally full, the others were mostly too pricey for us, and the ones that would be reasonable only had openings in the afternoon which totally sucks. So after complaining to my dear friend Jerianne, she mentioned that she new that a mother was going to pull her student out of her daughters class at the end of the month, so I called the teacher and sure enough, she had one opening on her Tues. Thurs. morning class. This is only two days a week, but it is pretty close to my neighborhood and its in the morning, which is good, and it will only be $5 more a month. So, after this long story, we have a meet and greet with her new teacher this afternoon and she will start at the new school on Nov. 1st. I do feel really bad for Abby though, she is such a tender heart and change is so hard, just when she was starting to really love her teacher and make some great friends in her class everything has to change. At least she will have her dear friend Shea in her new class to ease the transition!! Oh the drama!!!

Blogger won't let me upload my latest layouts, so you will just have to wait for those!!!!

Hope everyone has a great day, and wish us all luck at the teacher meeting this afternoon!!!

It's raining, It's pouring.....

I don't think the old man is snoring, but man, it has been raining all day! I love the smell of rain and I know that tomorrow the skies are going to be a stunning shade of blue, so I will not speak badly about the wet weather here! We had a great time last night with the Conroy's and Niederhauser's, as we always do. I haven't seen Michelle for so long it was great to catch up on everything and gossip about the old neighborhood.(By the way, the girls were ecstatic about the princess poster, they hung it by the kid TV and have been staring at it all day!) I have to thank Amber and her sister Megan once again for being so sweet to watch the girls for us, they have been talking about playing pet shops with you and being able to sleep with the music boxes playing all day today!!! You guys are the best!!!

Yesterday Paul decided that it was time for Abby to loose the training wheels on her bike, so he took them off and wouldn't you know it, she just took off, not even falling once!!! I came home last night from picking up the pizza for the crew and there she was, cruising down the street all by herself!! I was so proud of her and she was just beaming with joy. This is a really bad picture, I am going to have to take some more, but you get the idea!!


I haven't done much today, but that is fine by me, I just needed a day to lay around and veg!! We are heading up to my brother Kelly's place tomorrow for Eden's baby blessing. That should be a good time, just not looking forward to the hour drive and trying to get there by 11:00am, everyone knows how slow I move in the morning!!!! Wish us luck!!!

Here is the layout that I entered over at the Digidare. This weeks challenge was to use "white space" have only two pictures and a one word title. Simplicity was the theme. This is what I came up with. It was really fun to do, I don't do simple very well, it was hard to scale back!!! They had a million entries this week, it is such a popular scrapping style. The winner's really were great layouts.


Have a great Sunday everyone!!

Much Refreshed!

Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement and concern for me during this oh so fun teething time. You will all be happy to know that I was finally able to get a good night sleep last night and felt much refreshed this morning (I can't say the same for Paul who ended up working through the night on some problem with work). It was really a good thing that I was able to sleep because I met Shamae and her kids as well as Jerianne and her children up the canyon at 10 o'clock this morning for another photo shoot and a picnic lunch. Now if we had been smarter we would have realized that it is the middle of October and therefore the sun was not going to be warm and shinning that early in the Canyon!!! It was freezing, so I wasn't able to get very many more shots of my girls because they were all cold and wouldn't take their jackets off (well the one's that Shamae lent me because I also didn't bring any for my girls!). I was actually more along for the ride, to get the girls out of the house and have a picnic since I had some great pictures from my previous venture. I hope Shamae and Jerianne were able to get some cute shots, the scenery was breathtaking and all of their children looked so cute. Here are some pics from our morning.


Thanks for the fun morning you guys!!

This evening Paul has another tournament Baseball game and then I am hoping to go walking with Jerianne (I have missed you lately!) So hopefully that all goes well. I must go now and clean my house since Amber and her sister are coming over tomorrow night to watch the girls for us while we have our monthly "Neighbor night out" with the old school crew.

Love to all and I will be back soon with more adventures!!