Art Gallery

I found this idea in Family Fun Magazine awhile ago and am just getting around to doing it.

It is art gallery for the kids artwork. I put in down in the "Kid zone" where the walls were pretty bare.(except in my craft corner where there is a multitude of stuff hung randomly around)

These are just some frames painted after removing the backs and glass. Then just stick them on the wall with some clips which makes it easy to rotate the artwork. I got the frames at the dollar store so the whole project was cheap. I added the photos of the "featured artists" for fun. Just one way to encourage the kids to be creative and to let them know that what they create is important.

Hurry up Spring

This weekend we got a taste of spring with temps in the 50s. We enjoyed a nice visit with mom and dad at their house. It was nice to sit out on the deck with no coat. The girls enjoyed playing outside in the yard and Toby enjoyed following them around. Today was another beautiful day and the girls were outside for 2 hours straight. We have to enjoy it while it lasts because it is supposed to snow again tomorrow. I am getting tired of this pattern of it warming up, we get significant melting and then it snows and we get it all back again! Hurry up Spring!

Cool Collage

I got this really cool free download where you can make a collage of your photos. You can even make them into different shapes! Also if you have photoshop you can save the image as a PSD file and you can move the pictures around to your liking! You can check it out here: www.vincentcheung.ca/shapecollage

This is a collage of our trip to Maryland:

More Craftiness

So I went from being totally uninspired to totally inspired by everything! That's a good thing because I am a happy camper when I can do lots of creating. So being in a crafty mood usually means a trip to Michael's. I usually go with one idea in mind and have 50 more while I am at the store and another 50 on the car ride home. And though I would like to do my part and stimulate the ecomomy by buying out half the store, it just ain't happening.

I did bring Kenzie with me because of the timing of Kindergarten, and the store being 40 minutes away. So Kenzie of course wanted to be crafty too and we found some cute chipboard shaped books in the dollar section for her and Becca to use and we found these cute cut-outs made out of wood. And then we found some chalkboard paint in Hot Pink! So we picked out some shapes to make little chalkboards to hang in the girls rooms. I also picked up a wood pencil holder. This is what we came up with:

We removed the twine from the heart to make it easier to paint and then we decided to use ribbon to finish the outside edge and to hang it. Kenzie was undecided about wether or not she wanted to use the beads or not, so we left them off for now. I think they would be cute too.

I painted the pencil holder with the chalkboard paint too, then just added some ribbon. So quick, easy, fun and useful. The paint was a little pricey-6.99 for 8oz. but you could do many projects with the one jar and there was about five different colors to choose from. (I discovered even more colors online at http://www.plaid.com/)

Now I was originally looking for the Martha Stewart Butterfly paper punches which I did find.

And I am working on another 3D picture with butterflies this time, It is almost done but I realized I do not have a frame that is deep enough for it so I just might have to make another trip to Michaels in the near future!

Inspired

After several days of wanting to create something and being totally uninspired I finally got my inspiration back thanks to Ali Edwards(www.aliedwards.typepad.com) and another blog I linked from Ali's site called LollyChops(www.lollychops.com). There was a cute little 3D art thing done with different size butterfly punches. I wanted to try it but don't have any butterfly punches, though I did briefly think about braving the snow to go find some. But living in the middle of nowhere who knows how far I would have had to go so I decided it was better to stay home and use different size heart punches. The different size punches made me think sprinkled with love which made me think cupcakes. I don't know why but I think it works! So here is my take on the idea:

The hearts were punched out of a magazine picture of cherry blossoms and the rest is just cardstock. These pictures don't really do it justice but I really like the way it came out and am looking forward to making more.

Got Snow?

In case you don't have any snow and you forgot what it looked like I'd like to share what we woke up to yesterday morning. Now newly fallen snow is pretty. At least it is pretty until you
have to spend hours moving it out of the way just so you can leave the house. I estimate we
prpbably got at least 16+ inches. It was blowing around a bit so it was hard to tell. Anyway enjoy the pictures and be grateful it's not you!

Poor birds had a little trouble getting to the feeder. I still haven't got the snow out of the way

to get to the feeders yet. I usually snowblow a path but with all the drifting of snow it won't go through, which means I'll be shoveling it. Hopefully the birds will be patient with me today.

Mr. Snowman

We have a two hour delay for the second day in a row. No Kindergarten for Kenzie and Becca woke up with a fever so it will be a quiet day round here.

But yesterday the girls and I had fun making a snowman after Becca got home from school. The girls wanted to name him but couldn't agree on a name. Kenzie wanted Joe. Becca wanted Diego Santiago Carquez, quite an imaginative name for a snowman in the middle of New England.

After trying to get them to compromise with Jose, I remained neutral and will call him Mr. Snowman.

Mr. Snowman is a great photography subject. He doesn't move around, or complain when I want to fool around with camera settings. Actually I didn't really want to fool around with setting but I had changed the exposure compensation when I was taking pictures inside and forgot to change it back and it took me a little while to realize it, hence my first pictures were coming out too dark. Always good to check your settings before you start taking pictures!

Close-up.

Here Mr. Snowman watches the kids playing in the distance.

Here is a facial shot, He's starting to crack a little smile here I think.

Yes, a definite smile!

And before you think I am totally cracking up, Kenzie was the one who said he looked bored and replaced his mouth with a smile. But yeah, I am definitely ready for Spring.

Sweet

I do not know what happened to the past week but it just flew by even though it was not anymore busy than usual and I know that if my mother had not been out of town for the past several days she probably would have sent me an email about why I haven't updated this blog!

I did manage to keep up on my project 365 though!

One thing I did do last week was make cupcakes for Dom to take to work. I made the coconut cream filled ones and according to him they got rave reviews so I thought I would share the recipe. I used a regular boxed cake mix, but I do always doctor them up. I always use milk instead of water and I always add a box of pudding mix even if the mix claims to already have pudding added. These two things never fail to make a super moist cake. Now the cream filling is super easy too. It is the same ingredients as buttercream frosting with coconut extract instead of vanilla.

1/4 Cup unsalted butter softened

1/4 Cup shortening

2 Cups confectioners sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

1 Tablespoon coconut extract

Mix all ingredients together with electric mixer.

Now to fill the cupcakes you need a pastry bag and a long cake tip. I used Wilton #230.

Insert the tip into the top of the cupcake and fill with cream until the top starts to bulge. Then frost the cupcakes. I actually doubled the filling recipe and frosted the cupcakes with it,

But you could frost with regular buttercream or chocolate.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope that everyone had a Sweet Valentine's Day!

Mission Accomplished

I finished painting the kitchen and I realized as I was doing it that it is never just as simple as buying the paint and painting . You have to remove the things from the wall and fill in holes. It's like the in book If you give a mouse a cookie he's going to want a glass of milk to go with it and if you give him glass of milk etc...
If you give a Cyndi a can of paint she's going to want to paint the kitchen and if she wants to paint the kitchen she is going to have to move the big hutch away from the wall. And if she is going to move the hutch away from the wall she's going to need help because the hutch weighs about as much as a baby elephant. And if she is going to need help she is going to have to ask her husband to help her. Once the hutch is moved she will discover a multitude of dust bunnies and then she will have to pull out the vacuum to vacuum them up and once the vacuum is out she'll realize the whole house needs to be vacuumed but she'll say "screw that I just want to paint the kitchen!"
So yes, the kitchen got painted and the dust bunnies behind the hutch and refrigerator got vacuumed up but no, the rest of house did not.

How NOT to have a mini photo shoot with 2 kids and a dog

I wanted to get a couple pictures of the girls to make valentines cards for relatives. Nothing special just a couple of shots with some cute lollipops I got at Walmart. I did get several good pictures but you won' t see those until Valentine's day so as not to spoil the suprise for anyone. But the out takes are quite amusing especially when Boomer decided that he wanted to join in.

Kenzie always the comedian.

Becca doing her best Calvin and Hobbes face. Also known as the "this tastes funny" face.

This is where Boomer wormed his way into the picture because he could smell food. This one would have been pretty good if he was looking up. He is of course sniffing around for food.

At least he's looking at the camera or maybe Kenzie's lollipop.

Definitely looking at the lollipop which isn't even in the frame anymore.

Boy does that lollipop look good. You know where this is headed, right?

Yummy!

Shameless Plug

Becca is participating in a fund raiser for the american heart association. She will be jumping rope. If you would like to help her out and donate please visit her webpage. You can donate right online by following the link below. Thanks!

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=284638&lis=1&kntae284638=E0299F2EE1BE4A21B7E586B7B9FE3994&supId=246369430

Extra Playtime

I dropped the girls off at school today, hit the grocery store and got back home in time to get a phone call telling me they were closing the school at 10:00am because the boiler wasn't working and several pipes had burst, flooding several classrooms. So the girls had a short day of school.

The weather here was in the upper 40's which felt warm. The girls played outside for hours and I joined them for awhile with only a sweatshirt on. Becca had no desire to have her picture taken but Kenzie was willing. Sorta.

Feathered Friends

We had some unexpected feathered friends show up at the feeder this morning and they decided to spend the day. There were 11 turkeys at one point feeding on the ground around our birdfeeder. When they were full they moved off into the woods a little bit and rested around a hemlock tree, some in the branches some on the ground. It is very cold and windy here today and the branches of the tree offered some shelter from the cold and wind. Periodically they would come back up to the feeder and eat the seeds that the other birds had knocked onto the ground. Then they would go back to the tree. It was kinda fun to watch them.
Poor Boomer, being a bird dog, was not really happy. Especially since I kept him on a leash to go outside so he wouldn't scare the turkeys away.
Unfortunately the sun was at a horrible angle and there was a glare trying to take pictures throught the window.(The window is also incredible dirty from dog and cat noses as well as kid prints!) But These pictures came out okay.

A Walk in the Woods

Over the weekend we took a little walk out into the woods. It had been awhile since we had walked down to the river, since before the ice storm in fact, and we were curious as to wether there were any down trees or anything that would need to be removed from the trail.

As is often the case when Dom and I suggest a walk to the river the girls put up resistence, once we get them out there we ususally meet with resisitance getting them back. This time was no different at least for Becca. It took a ton of coaxing to get her out there and then she didn't want to come back. And as for Kenzie she really is not a big fan of the cold but in short bursts she does okay. It is a given that she is the first one that wants to come in. But she and Boomer kept us amused in the meantime.

Here Kenzie practices her balancing.

And down she goes, narrowly missing getting run over by Boomer.

Undeterred she continues to climb on the downed tree and gets stuck.


Still stuck. Please notice that is her sisters leg in the lower left and she is offering no assistance just giggling at her. Wonder where she gets that, not that I was standing there giggling and taking pictures. Daddy ultimately came to the rescue.

Becca was very busy gathering sticks and leaves for some great imaginary adventure.

Dom the snow Ninja.

Boomer playing his favorite winter game, steal the mitten.

And here is the famous "I'm freezing" face.

Project 365

I am starting a daily challenge called project 365, inspired by my cousin and other various scrapbookers. The project basically consists of taking a photo a day for a whole year starting on my birthday. This will be a cool reflection of a whole year of our lives. I expect it will be fun though probably challenging at times to find something to photograph especially during the long winter months, but I think it will be a good reminder that even the little things are worth photographing. It will also be good photography practice.
I have decided to blog this project seperately. I will post one picture for each day and probably a few sentences to go along with the photo. This blog will continue as usual.

The new blog is called Signs of Life and you can check it out by clicking on the link to the right.

Another Year Older

Today is my 38th birthday and just for fun I thought I would share a baby picture. I think I might have been around a year old in this picture but I don't really know. Maybe mom remembers.

I need to wish a Happy Birthday to my Birthday buddy Lisa too!

Saying Goodbye

A few days ago we said goodbye to our dear Copper. He was a great dog and I believe he lived a happy thirteen years with us. I wish I could write some wonderfully eloquent tribute to him but the words are too hard coming right now so I'll use a poem.
We'll miss you Copper!

The Rainbow Bridge

inspired by a Norse legend

By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill,
Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.
Where the friends of man and woman do run,
When their time on earth is over and done.
For here, between this world and the next,
Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.
On this golden land, they wait and they play,
Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.
No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,
For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.
Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,
Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.
They romp through the grass, without even a care,
Until one day they start, and sniff at the air.
All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,
Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.
For just at that instant, their eyes have met;
Together again, both person and pet.
So they run to each other, these friends from long past,
The time of their parting is over at last.
The sadness they felt while they were apart,
Has turned into joy once more in each heart.
They embrace with a love that will last forever,
And then, side-by-side, they cross over… together.

Steve and Diane Bodofsky

Simplify

Simplify is my word for 2009. I got the idea from a scrapbooking related blog I often visit. I like the idea of having a word to concentrate on rather than making a list of resolutions because honestly, I'm not going to keep the resolutions.

I did quite a bit of thinking to decide on the word. For me, simplify means decluttering and organizing my home. It also means concentrating more on relationships with family and friends and concentrating less on consumerism. For a more detailed explanation of this idea and a whole list of words visit http://aliedwards.typepad.com/ , you'll have to scroll down a bit to find the post.

I'll try to update what I am doing to simplify in future posts.