Wow - What a night!

Back in December, when we celebrated our 5th anniversary, I told you what Steve got for me... Randy Travis tickets.... wellllllll - tonight was the night! Such an awesome date. At 5pm Steve's parents came over to babysit, and my parents were catching the 5pm ferry to be here by 8, and take over the babysitting.

We left and hit Starbucks (we almost never go to Starbucks - we are Timmy's fans, but we had a GC through Airmiles, so it was free :)



Next stop.... the Old Spaghetti Factory. What a fun place that is too - everything is included. You get soup or salad, main course, spumoni ice cream, and coffee or tea, all for the same price you would get only an entree in another restaurant. It must have been date night for at least half of the lower mainland, because parking was a premium at every place we stopped.


And then.... RANDY TRAVIS! Apart from the lame intro the JRFM girl gave him, the concert was flawless. RT has the most unique voice in Country Music. I could seriously listen to him all day long. And I have told someone that even if he was singing the ABC's, I would be loving it! So, now you know my favourite singer (well, fave Male... Reba takes the lead for female - and if any of you read blogger profiles, these facts are actually in there as well!)


We had pretty great seats... 3rd row. I have an amazing husband. He doesn't mind RT, but it's not like he's a major fan or anything. He knew 2 songs... I knew them all.




Highlights: the entire audience belting out "King of the Road," and when Randy sang "3 Wooden Crosses" and "Raise Him Up."


You know the feeling you get when a car pulls up beside you with major bass? Well, RT can do that with his voice. Simply amazing. If you weren't there... you missed out, and I hope you can catch him in the near future!


On our way out of the Theatre (this is not a typo... we spell it like this in Canada :) we saw some pretty cool sights that I had to take pictures of.... click on the first picture to check out Steve's Elvis lip curl!

Survivor Canada??

Update of of the morning... I was just logging onto Hotmail when I caught Jeff Probst on the MSN news headlines... Survivor might come to Canada! But - not with Canadians... Apparently the producers have been tossing around the idea of filming a series of Survivor in Canada to mix things up a bit with a cold climate. However, unfortunately for all us wanabee Survivor contestants... you have to be an American citizen, because Mark Burnett does not own the rights to Survivor, he just owns the rights to film an American version of the show, and therefore, all contestants must be US citizens. Well, that dashes my Survivor hopes. But I would still welcome a Canadian location of the show. Can't wait to see what they do!

Read the entire story here.

Self-Portrait

Scott gave me permission to share his best drawing to date... a self-portrait. Right down to the ears and pockets on his jeans. He has not drawn a picture quite like this before. He also very carefully coloured in his shirt and jeans. If I had known he was going to make such a masterpiece I would have given him real cardstock and not just the back of this month's Stampin' Up! flyer!

School

At first glance these might look like all the tools of the trade to make a greeting card... but these tools can be used for other things too! The other day, I announced to the boys that it was time for school. Todd ran for his shoes, and Scott just looked puzzled... I said, "Oh no, this is not a school that we go somewhere for. It is right here at the table - Preschool by mommy, come and sit with me. We are going to learn how to print our names, and make puppets." Todd lasted about 2.5 minutes (if that) and Scott diligently sat and wrote the letters in his name all over the page over and over again. Todd came back to the table once in awhile when I would dig out stickers, but mostly he was not interested.


Not interested that is, until... I said that any boy that finishes his puppet gets a snack! And at our preschool on this particular day it was homemade cookies (don't worry, it was the same batch I talked about the other day... I haven't made a habit of baking!!!) and milk. So Todd was all over that and he sat down and finished his puppet. Take a look at the creativity of my 3 and 4 year olds!

Notice where the ears are located on Todd's puppet... and the eyes are a little googly, but he really didn't care - he was done and that meant food! Todd picked blue paper for his kitty (like Pilchard on Bob the Builder) and Scott chose the more traditional grey cat!!!

My Watermark finally works!!

A couple months ago Cindy started a watermark business, and I bought a watermark from her that I loved right away. But I was not able to get the silly thing to work on my images. So finally after leaving it for so long I thought I would see if I could get it to work again. Since I wasn't able to make it work, I called the pro! Cindy came over today and found my problem right away. There was another program that we had downloaded at one point, that has now expired, and for some reason this was blocking the watermark program from working... once that problem program was uninstalled, the watermark worked like a charm!

Thanks for your help Cindy! I am so happy that I can finally use this on my images.

This card is from awhile back, and is a repost, but I just wanted to try a card with a watermark...

Latest Reads

So, tell me what you're reading right now... I am working my way through "Bringing Up Boys" by Dobson. And it is great so far. Also for Ladies Bible Study we are going through "Battlefield of the Mind" by J. Meyer.

I am looking for a good novel to curl up with, so if you have a suggestion, please leave it in the comment section! Thanks! I have the whole Bourne series (Bourne Identity, etc) on loan from my sis, but I haven't started them yet... kinda feel like if I start one I have to commit to all four of them. I am waiting for a week without kids, or a time when I have a clear calendar... but then again, maybe I should just dig in!!

I would love to know any good reads you'd recommend. Thanks!

Spring Bouquet

Last night I got a gift of Spring from my dh (dear husband :) What a nice surprise! Hope you are all enjoying your Spring... doesn't feel like it yet because of the liquid sunshine we are getting in buckets, but the flowers definitely helped to brighten my day!

Art

Art is the desire of a man to express himself,

to record the reactions of

his personality to the world he lives in.
- Amy Lowell

Round and Round we go

This month Stampin' Up! had a contest for demonstrators called "Round and Round We Go." And you had to create projects showcasing circles.... Here's what I entered. I will let you know if I win! Not too long ago my big sis Louise won and she got to pick 3 stamp sets of any value from the catalogue... gotta love free stamps!!!!

Timeless Friendships

I am sure that most of you know exactly what I mean by "timeless friendships..." Time doesn't get in the way. If you see the person all the time or only every few years, it doesn't matter - the conversation just picks up from where you have left off. Sure, there are the emails in between, and blogs to read to stay on top of what's going on in each others' lives, but the distance in miles does not cause a distance between you.

Anyway, before I get too sappy, I have several friends like this, and two of them are Karis and Karen. Karen and I live in the same city, but we still only see each other about 3-4 times a year. Karis moved away a few years ago, and every so often Karen and I will take a roadtrip down to see her in the States. The last time we went to visit her was July 19th, 2005 (exactly one year before Elise was born). So it has been a year and a half, but it seems like just a few weeks.

Karen and I had a bit of a wait at the border, (didn't factor in Spring Break traffic) so we got some good catch-up time as well. And then when the 3 of us were together (And Karis' baby Jase got in on the girls' day too!!) we had such a hoot shopping at the Seattle outlet mall, eating fudge (hey, how did that woman sucker us into getting 3 pieces of larger than life fudge? And how did you end up paying for the lot of it, Karis? Treats are on me next time), and of course - Jelly Bellies from Costco (watch out traffic.... Karis doesn't like the popcorn flavour, and Karen's not too fond of coffee, so those ones are comin' out the window!)

Thanks girls for a super fun day! Hopefully we can make this get together happen more often. But if not, I know we'll be able to pick up where we left off, and have a great time together. (If you want to read a fun take on the day, check out Karen's blog for more pics and the point form version!)


While I was down in the States, I thought it would be a good idea to get my entry in the mail for the SU! Artisan Contest. I debated forever on whether or not to even enter... so much stuff that you work on that you will never see again (unless you win, and then it will be in the SU! magazine). For this contest you had to make 3 scrapbook pages, 2 3-D items, and 5 cards. So I finished these on Monday morning (in the wee hours) and got the box mailed from WA state (saved me a bundle on postage, too! And they said it would get there by Friday... bonus! It would much longer if I mailed it from Canada... Destination Utah)
Here's Elise in the cute little outfit I bought her yesterday from the Children's Place outlet store. That is the only thing I bought yesterday. Some of the kids' clothes were so cheap. Like these tights were 49cents, and this cute shirt and skirt were $3.99 each. There were the coolest pants for Elise there too, and I had them in my pile to buy, but they got the thumbs down from both Karen and Karis... they said they were a bit ugly - crazy colours. So even though they were only a $1.99, I put them back on the rack.

First Time For Everything!

Tonight we took the kids to the great park by our house. After a few errands, we took them to McDonald's for some quality playtime!

Some firsts.... we got the boys a Happy Meal to share, but the toy was for Elise!! (my little pony)...

Elise got held by Ronald...

Steve went down the slide headfirst with Todd several times (headrush!)

and (drumroll, please....) I played in the playground with the kids too! The boys were very excited about that. Me? It was fun, but boy did that playground smell like pee. I think it was just that the air was a bit rank at such a high altitude, but ya just gotta wonder what really goes on up there by the rafters.



Here are the playtime rules...

And just so you know I wouldn't break the rules, here's a close up!!!

My Crazy Kids

My baby girl is gonna be tough. She has to be with two big brothers.... they do love her, though, and last night at dinner Scott asked for 2 more babies. We'll see about that, but I doubt it!


A couple days ago we asked Scotty to go upstairs and get out of his pj's and get dressed... he came down looking like this - it's a wonder he didn't fall down the stairs!!!

Goodbye 3 - hello 4 !!!

Scott said goodbye to being 3 today. He is a big 4 year old now! He got to go out and look at shrubs with daddy, then to DQ for a treat... the Manager even came out to say happy birthday to him. He picked out a Lightning McQueen birthday cake (Steve was going for the much smaller icecream logs, and then Scotty spotted the LM cake... there was no turning back!) After DQ, they picked up some KFC to bring home to eat and we all feasted on fried chicken and french fries, then topped it off with ice cream cake... hmmmm, that's a statement of health.... so glad the birthdays are done for another year! We should have gone out and gotten the icecream cake yesterday because we had Steve's brother and family over for dinner last night and their daughter just celebrated a birthday too. So last night we had the 3 kids' birthday party. Oh well, last night we had cupcakes and BBQ ribs.

Flowers for Mom

Today is my mom's birthday, and this is the card I sent her. I know she already has it, so it is safe to post! Scott wanted to give it to Grammie, so I took a pic of him holding the card too! Happy Birthday mom!

It's a big day!

Happy Birthday Louise!
Here's a blast from the past for everyone to enjoy!
Have a great day!
Love Sarah

Louise at around 8 years old
Louise as a beautiful bride in '99

Another blog to browse

Just a quick note to say I have added Allison's blog to my list of stamping inspiration. Allison is the ultimate source for what's happening in blogdom. She has daily updates on blog candy giveaways, and some really cool links that she shares. I have found lots of great treasures on her blog. Check it out!

Happy 8th Anniversary!

Just a quick "Happy Anniversary" to my big sister Louise and her dh Miles. Have another great year you two!

One of a kind card

Well, my dad is into card making now.... but he's boycotted the stamping industry. Nonetheless, this is a masterpiece and shows great creativity! Thanks Dad, the kids love their card.

Scrap Map and Pages

Last night was the first night of my new scrapbooking club. There are 8 people and so we will go for 8 months. Before we scrapped, we talked about colour. You may know this already, but the colour wheel is based on 3 colours called Primary colours. They are red, blue and yellow. We often associate these colours with children because they are so bright and energetic. But these are the colours that all other colours are made from. Secondary colours are made by adding 2 primary colours together, and Tertiary colours are made by mixing a Primary and a Secondary colour together. Here's a basic outline of the different Colour Schemes you can use in scrapbooking, and any other place you need to combine colours. (please click on the pictures to enlarge them)


Here is the page layout that we did.... First you see the paper placement. The background was Tempting Turquoise and the other colours were Cool Caribbean and Brocade Blue. Then there were bits of patterned paper as well.


The second map shows the photo placement. You can choose to use all these spaces for pictures, or you can put journaling in one or two of them as well.




We used a Monochromatic colour scheme in hues of blue. The pictures are from the surprise 120th party we had for my inlaws in 2005 when they both turned 60.


I have punched a bunch of circles to coordinate with our "Circle of Friendship" theme. And a quick tip is - when you have extra photos that you want to show, but don't necessarily want to use the whole photo, you can punch out the image and use it as an accent on your page.


Here's the layout together and in my scrapbook. To make the large circle in the middle, I traced a paint can and cut the circle out. To make the circles on the lower left I used a Coluzzle cutting system.