Operation DD scraproom edition

Well, I'm finally getting back to doing the operation DD! Last weekend I worked on my "scraproom". Our house is mostly open plan and this area is on the main floor, but while being nice and accessible, was always a mess of works in progress. Not very nice for doing showings for selling our house :)

That window faces our trampoline so it's nice to keep tabs on the kidlets while letting the creative juices flow:)

Also part of our library/den area,

And fairly organized, notice my labelled photo albums, also called storage albums in library of memories talk :) The bins on the left hold my embellishments organized by colour.

Have you been organizing lately? Tomorrow I'll show pictures of my "new" scraproom :)

Finding Photo Freedom

I am so excited for June 2nd! Why, You ask? Because that is the first day of the online class I just signed up for called Finding Photo Freedom. It was written and made by a woman named Stacy Julian and I just love her! I actually took her class last year when it was called Library of Memories and I was so happy I did because it totally changed the way I scrapbook and also how often. This past year I've done the most scrapbooking I've ever done and I credit it to taking Stacy's class. I love how organized my pictures have been since then and I can't wait to see how Stacy changed things up a bit for this years class. If you are curious about Stacy or her class, you can check her out by clicking on her blog link on the right under"My Blog List" or, for her class, click on the button on the right "Finding Photo Freedom".
Now I'm off to check out what I have to do for pre-class work, should be fun!
Sam

Fun at the Fair!

Spring just wouldn't be spring without the fair coming to town :) On Friday evening we all went with Grandpa and Grandma Bev to check it out and try out some of the rides. The kids, of course, had a blast and one of their favorite rides were these spinning berries;

The kids all decided to have their own car on the train (it wasn't very busy yet) and Grandpa's favorite was the bumper cars although we didn't get a picture of that. I might have screamed a little bit on a ride called the octopus, but just a little ;) (I tend to scream on almost all rides)

Gabe was so cute waving wildly to us every time he went around!

I can't believe how grown up our girls are getting, sigh.

We had nice weather all weekend (finally!) so on Saturday I kicked the kids outside and they played out there literally ALL DAY. It was wonderful! Sunday was really nice too and we spent the day tilling our garden (well Pat did, I picked out rocks,yippee!) and helping my mom build her deck and having a bonfire, which of course meant roasting weenies and marshmallows.

All in all it was an excellent weekend and I can't wait for summer and camping!

Sam

@#$%^$%&^ internet service!

Whew! Got that out of my system! I have to apologise for not writing on here for nearly a month. I cannot believe it has been that long already! We've been having problems again with our Internet and it has really affected the amount of blogging I've been wanting to do. That and this month seemed really fast and busy :)

To sum up our month, we had my dads birthday, my birthday (30th!! yikes), Easter and a memorial for my uncle who passed away in January on the same weekend, soccer started for Nyla, getting the garden ready, finishing our kitchen reno (which is taking way longer than I had hoped), and of course all the other day to day cycle of things.
Hopefully, hopefully we have this Internet thing figured out and I will be writing to you again shortly :)
Have a good weekend!
Sam
P.S Did you watch the royal nuptials this morning? I didn't but I've got it recorded :)   

Can you tell I have two older sisters?

Look at those pretty little fingers :) Poor Gabe, with two older sisters, he doesn't stand a chance! But, I guess I shouldn't say poor him because he loves having his nails painted, and if its pink, all the better! 

Lately his favorite things to do are, play with this tiny micro machine train set (it used to be my husbands when he was a kid) and play "I spy" with one or all of us. I asked him to smile for a picture and this is what I got :)

And then he asked me to take another one of his "beaver smile" So here it is...

Notice the big white teeth :)  Oh, and the cute pink toenails ( because your toes have to match your fingers doncha know?!)

Last night the girls had their end of term (for Nyla, end of season) gymnastics session in which parents and siblings can come onto the floor at the end and participate and watch up close. Then at the end they do a little presentation and receive a certificate. So here's my little gymnasts ( and Gabe too of course)

Nyla looks so serious and nervous...

                            And Cady, so proud...

They had to run and jump on the red mat onto this block that I think was taller than I am!

Cady has no fear of course. And then they decided to just hang around :)

Cady practiced her cartwheels on the tumble track (a long trampoline)

 which looked like so much fun that someone else had to get in on the action!

And of course what two do, the other has to as well...

All in all a good day :)

Before Pictures of our Kitchen

I mentioned a little while ago that we are do a mini kitchen reno, so I thought I would post the "before" pictures. We live in a log house built in the late 70's early 80's and I don't think anything has been updated since then. Our plan is to paint the walls (all the green in the pictures) and the cupboards, get new counter tops (the original is a really nasty white lino that is so stained and cracked and coming apart) and new hardware for the cupboards, all on a really limited budget.

This is also on my list for Operation DD as I'm cleaning and organizing as I go:)

So without further ado here is the old kitchen ( looking very messy and disorganized because that's the way "before" pictures are supposed to look right?)

I don't mind the colour green but this was just too "minty" for me and dark and gloomy as well.

Hmmm looks like we just finished breakfast :) See what I mean about dark and gloomy? And there is even a huge french door just to the right in the picture (not shown)! But alas, this room is in the northern corner so doesn't see much sunshine except for early in the morning in summer.

Sorry for the white glare out the windows, we still have quite a bit of snow :)

The ugly hardware everywhere. Yuck could we be more ugly 70's.

And the gross counter top. This edge always catches on sweaters and nice shirts, ruining them, so I have no problem saying buh-bye.

So how about you? Any mini renos this spring? Or are you sticking to a good old fashioned spring cleaning?

Have a good day!

Update: you can check out some "after" pictures  HERE.

Spring Break!

Last week and this week are spring break for my girls (I still can't believe they get TWO weeks, we only got one when we were kids but anyhoo) so what have they been doing? Going skiing of course! I'm serious, they went skiing today and last week for a couple days. Personally, I am sick and tired of the white stuff, but who am I to judge :)

We did do something different than usual though, last friday the kids and I went to one of my favorite places on earth ( and luckily it is only an hour and a half away) we went to a little village where my dad and his girlfriend have a cottage and had a lovely weekend with no tv, video games, computer, phone or any link to "civilization" It was great!! The kids played and played and played so well together and I did some scrapbooking and some reading and just generally relaxed. On the Sunday, the weather was just glorious and the kids and I walked around the village

Gorgeous isn't it? And then there are a few cute pics of my munchkins making some goofy faces :)

Are you on spring break too? Well hopefully you are enjoying some lovely spring-like weather too!

P.S Sorry I haven't posted much this month, our internet service has been a real pain in the you know what and half the time we don't get any service :)

An update

Hi everyone!
I am so sorry it has been so long since I've posted! We've been busy busy busy around here. This past weekend we were working on our kitchen, installing new counter tops. Let me tell you, they look awesome! I am sooooo happy with our progress so far and it looks to much brighter in there. Last week I was painting away, the walls and cupboards and this week I need to finish painting the cupboard doors and putting the new hardware on. I'll be putting up before and after pictures soon, I promise.

Today was the first day of spring break for my girls and it was okay, just a quiet day at home. I had a hard time keeping my patience as there was a ton of bickering, so we'll see how tomorrow goes. It's hard to believe it is spring break when there is still at least six inches of snow on the ground! Hope everyone is doing well at your house :)

Sam

Special Movie Night and a Pizza Recipe

  Ahhhhhhhh..... It's Friday. I love Fridays, but then again, who doesn't? Around here, Friday nights are called "special movie night" and that of course means a movie, but what makes it special is that all of us are home together and we all sit down and watch a family movie together. Sometimes it is a movie we rent from our local movie store...

( Doncha just love the paint job they did?) Anyways the picture about is our local movie rental store( no blockbusters here :) . We live just outside a tiny town of about 10000 people and it is really cute and artsy.

But back to our evening, we watch a movie and I always make pizza for supper. Sometimes I make simple margarita pizzas (doesn't that sound more interesting than just cheese, it's what the family I lived with in Switzerland a long time ago called plain cheese pizzas :) Sometimes I go fancy with a more greek style (red onion, feta cheese, spinach, kalamata olives, grape tomatoes) and of course the kids always have either plain, pepperoni or ham & pineapple ( although if I make the Greek one, Cady and Gabe like to steal the olives!)
I make it from scratch 99% of the time because I have the best crust recipe ever, tasty and easy! So without further ado here is my special pizza crust recipe!

Pizza Dough   (makes one 12 inch crust, I usually double it for my family of five)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp fermipan yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Oil pizza pan (I use EV olive oil) and preheat oven to 400 degrees C / 200 degrees F.
Put 1 cup of the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water in a large bowl. Beat well with a wooden spoon.
Add last cup of flour, mix till it forms a ball.
Let rest 15 minutes
Spread oil on top of dough and spread in pan to sides. Add toppings (I usually use tomato paste and oregano as my sauce)
Place on rack in middle of oven  and cook for approx 20 minutes.
Enjoy!

These are some calzones I made a few weeks ago, and they were quite good, basically you make the dough and separate it into about four small lumps, then press into a circle, add toppings and fold one side over, squeezing the edges together. Yummalicious!




What do you do on a Friday night? Does your family have a weekly tradition? Please leave a comment below (I think I fixed it) I'd love to hear from you!

Have a good weekend!

Sam

Operation DD Part 4

       If you've been following my blog the last couple of weeks, you may have been keeping tabs on my spring cleaning efforts dubbed "Operation DD" and I assure you that I haven't stopped or given up, I'm still plugging away! Last week I worked on Gabe's room and took some before pictures which I'll share with you below, but I was experiencing some camera troubles and the darn thing did not want to take any after pictures! So I will try and take some this week if my camera has finished it's conniption :) The other room I have started on and am thrilled about is the kitchen! I am finally painting it! I've been wanting to paint it since the day we moved in three and a half years ago! Oh and we got some new counter tops and knobs to make it all nice and spiffy for anyone who wants to buy it :)








Okay I'm just noticing how bad those pictures look of what a disaster his room was, but I guess that's what you're supposed to do right? Make it look super bad so the afters look super good?  Anyways, his room wasn't too bad actually, I just had to purge some toys and tidy up and vacuum (I might have moved a thing or two around too :) I'll try and post the "after" pictures tomorrow.
Have a good day!