Ottawa Book

I spent a little bit of time making a little mini album for Saskatoon yesterday. It was just a quick, fast little book that I've got ready to add pictures and a few embellishments to when the little one arrives. I'll take some pictures of it and show you later.

The good thing about Saskatoon being late is I'm getting lots done.... I'm not getting any weeding done, but most other things are getting done. I just can't seem to make myself pull weeds. Not that bored, yet.

A few more pictures of the Ottawa book. I like looking at this little mini album. It's nice to remember such a fun weekend away with just the two (and a half) of us.











Saskatoon Watch - Day 7:

Not too much to report again. No baby. We have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Should have some more news after that.

Not too much to report. We went to the dog park again yesterday to try and add a few more steps to my day... I rolled some loose change this morning... How sad is that? Today, I'll clean the house and maybe get some scrapbooking in. Should be good.

Since I'm not too exciting, here are a few things other people are doing that I thought were interesting:

Taylor Swift won a MTV music video award for her video and Kanye West stormed the stage, stole the mike from her and said that Beyonce should have won.... Classy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rIg2xzeZiM

When Beyonce won an award, she called Taylor back out and let her make her acceptance speech. Much better.

Federer's phenomenal shot in the U.S. Open. Seriously. Phenomenal shot. And what a time to hit it?! Horse shoes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rIg2xzeZiM

And it's out... Caster Semenya (the South African runner involved in the gender scandal) is a hermaphrodite... Really? It took weeks to determine whether she is a female (should be a pretty quick test) and they're announcing this like it's a surprise.

And... back to some scrapbooking. Here are some more shots of the Ottawa book:







Saskatoon Watch - Day 6

Still no action...

We went to the Farmer's Market yesterday and got some of the yummy bagels and ceam cheese one of the vendors makes there. I took the new wheels out to run some errands and Brad went for a bike ride. Nice, relaxing Saturday in Edmonton.

Otherwise, not much to report. Brad had his first hockey game last night, and they won in the shootout.

Here are a few pictures of the cover and first few pages of my Ottawa mini-album:









Saskatoon Watch - Day 5:

I spent the day out and about yesterday, on my feet all day walking and no baby...

Cookies, Plums and Saskatoon

A few of you asked for my Chewy Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookie Recipe, so I thought I'd post it here. Hope you like it as much as I did!

The Quick Instructions:

Beat 2/3 cup melted butter with 2 cups lightly packed brown sugar, 2 eggs, 2 Tbsp. hot water, and 2 Tbsp. vanilla; mix well.

Stir in 2 2/3 cups of flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, and 1/4 tsp. salt.

Stir in 1 cup of white chocolate chips, 1 cup of milk chocolate chips, and 1 cup of coarsely chopped hazelnuts.

Drop from a spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

I fished a few out of the cookie jar to show you what the finished product looks like. Unfortunately, there's not many left, and these have been at the bottom of the cookie jar so they're a bit scrushed, but they still taste good.



I substituted some of the chips for these swirl chips that I had on hand. If you're wondering where to get them, they're some of the Decadent chips from Superstore.

Some pictures of a few of our plums:



How did I not know these were plums? Well, I never looked real close, and they were teeny and red like crab apples at first.... plus, the tree bloomed like a crab apple tree. Oh well, they taste good.

Saskatoon Watch - Day 4:

I'm considering climbing over our back fence to jump on the neighbour's trampoline.... Maybe I can jump this baby out.

More updates

Another Europe layout. This is of Rhodos Island in Greece. We loved walking through the Old Town, there. Very impressive.



And a few close ups:





Saskatoon Watch - Day 3:

Still lots of walking... She's sticking her bum out of my belly as much as possible, lately. At the last doctor's appointment, the doctor laughed because he could see her hips, she was sticking her bum so far out. I think she's striking the cat pose, bum in the air and arms and legs keeping her from coming out...

Baking and Europe layouts

I've had some spare time in the evenings, so I baked some cookies and brownies for the freezer. Our house is very full of yummy-ness at the moment.

The cookies turned out exceptionally well, actually, if I do say so myself. They're chewy, chocolate chip hazelnut cookies, and I used white chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips. Mmmmmm.... if anyone wants the recipe, let me know.

I didn't scrapbook at all yesterday, but luckily, I still have a few Europe layouts to show. I haven't shown you any of the Ottawa book, yet, either... Maybe later this week.

Here's another Europe layout. This one of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.



I had some fun with my cricut on this one, cutting out all kinds of shapes to add to the layout.







Saskatoon Watch - Day 2:

Nothing to report. Saskatoon is still hangin' in there. I'm working on walking the baby out. Bailey is getting lots of walks, so he's happy.

Layouts, Company and a Scrap Date

A few more layouts from the Europe album:

A night spent in Plitvice Lakes National Park where we almost had to camp out in the wilderness because we couldn't find a room. Luckily, after walking forever, we found a woman in the neighbouring town who had a room, but no heat. Hmmmmm... an adventure.



And some of my favourite stamps. Every chane I get to use them:





A Blue Mosque layout:







Our company was Brad's dad, who showed up and helped us build some shelves in the garage and helped us clean out under the deck and create a little storage space there. Nice to get that done before the baby arrives.

Yesterday, I met a friend for a scrap date and had a fantastic time! So nice to spend a day scrapbooking with a fellow crafter. Hopefully, we can keep meeting up after Saskatoon arrives...

Saskatoon Watch - Day One:

Since the due date is tomorrow, and we still don't have a cute, bouncy baby, I'm starting Saskatoon Watch, a quick update on what's going on with Baby Malacko.

The doctor told us today that nothing had changed... sigh... next appointment is Tuesday where we talk about inducing.

Surprises, tips and more scrapbooking

Surprise:

A few weeks ago, I discovered that the apple tree in my backyard that hasn't been producing any apples had an excuse... It's a plum tree! Huh....surprise! I was wondering why my apples were so sparse and tiny. Well, because they're not apples. The plums taste good, though. Apparently, I'm not a horticulturist.

Tip:

A tip for all those mothers-to-be out there. My doctor suggested taking Materna prenatal vitamins, so I went out and bought some. While waiting for a friend at Cosco the other day, I checked out the Health Balance Maternity vitamins to compare the content. They're exactly the same, only the Health Balance vitamins are $10 cheaper for a bottle of 100! What a rip off. I've all ready bought three bottles of Materna, so I've wasted $30 that I could've spent elsewhere.

More Scrapbooking:

An Amphitheatre in Ephesus, Turkey:



This title used up one letter set, but I also used negative pieces of the alphabet sheet for the letters I was running out of. This is a good way to get more mileage out of your alphas. I always run out of e's long before I run out of anything else.



Santorini, my favourite stop in Greece:



I hand stitched these circles onto the layout and rolled and distressed the edges to make them stand out, then I arched the title along the circle and added a few rub-ons to add some more movement.



These are a few swirls and flowers I handcut from another patterned paper. I don't love the paper, but I really like the flowers. In this picture, I added a rub-on for a centre.



This one, I used a sticker for a centre.

Funny Stories and I'm done!!!

Guess what? I'm done scrapbooking our Europe pictures!! 77 layouts, hundreds of photos, and nearly 11 months later.... the pictures are in 3 scrapbooks (aside from the ones that I chose not to scrapbook, which are in my little travel photo box). One thing checked off my list!

I'm actually making some good headway on a mini album of our weekend in Ottawa, too. I sat and scrapbooked yesterday afternoon and just about got it done. Hopefully, I'll finish it today.

Here are a few Europe layouts (sorry for all the flare in these pictures, I should take these during the day in natural light, but I always seem to think of it at night).

The Changing of The Guard, in Athens, Greece:



And a close up of the title and some more of Tim Holtz's grungeboard hinges:



The Champs Elysees in Paris:



And a great little Tattered Angels Glimmer Glass fleur-de-lis:



Last night, we had some company and Brad got to test his parenting skills. My friend came over with her two little boys and Brad had a blast entertaining them so we could visit. It's so nice to catch up.

Now, for my funny stories.

If you're a dog lover, you'll appreciate these, because they're both about my crazy dog, Bailey.

The first happened awhile ago. We were out for a walk and he is always really attracted to our neighbours lawn because they have a lot of lawn ornaments. He headed for a nice lawn gnome, lifted his leg, and then looked up only to see a statue of Jesus looking down on him. He paused, put his leg down and walked away, leaving the gnome untouched! Not in front of Jesus....

The second happened yesterday. There are two little pugs next door that drive him crazy and they were out in the backyard. It was pouring rain, but he wanted out so bad, so I opened the door and he came screeching across the kitchen and got two steps out the door when he put on the brakes and looked back at me, like, "you never told me it was raining!" Then he turned back to the task at hand, ran off the deck and to a low spot in the lawn that the pugs like to stick their nose under to taunt him, lifted his leg and peed and then came straight back to the house. Job well done.

Doctor's Appointment

I had another doctor's appointment yesterday and made it in pretty quickly, actually. They were a little worried because my belly hasn't grown in the past three weeks, but we did an ultrasound to check on Saskatoon and she's doing well. She appears to be 7 pounds, 1 ounce, which is a good weight for a week before the due date. Apparently, this is why my belly is so tight and hard, she's running out of room in there.

Also, the ultrasound tech said everything looks good, still looks like we're having a girl, but that we might be a week behind where we thought we were.... Hmmmmmm, hope not. Nice to see Saskatoon is still doing good and seems to be a healthy weight, but these late ultrasounds are impossible to see. She kept pointing things out to me, but the baby is so packed in there, it's hard to make much out.

Brad's slo-pitch team lost last night, which means they're out of the playoffs and his year is over. They played really well though. Went into the playoffs in last place (8th) and came back to lose to the number one ranked team in the semi-finals. Not too shabby. They were the comeback team, everybody loved them, especially the beer vendors at the ball park :)

I've been scrapbooking a little, but have spent my first two days of maternity leave running to doctor's appointments, banking, picking up the new car, going to ball games, visiting friends, and unfortunately, wrapping up more work stuff. Today, I'm going to sit and scrapbook as much as possible. No interuptions until Brad gets home from work! Yay!

I'm almost done my Europe album! Can you believe it? One or two pages left.... yippee! Plus, I've done a bit more in my pregnancy journal. Here's a sneak peak at a few of the pages:

Weekend Recap

While we did have a nice, relaxing weekend, watching movies, scrapbooking, biking, and just enjoying the downtime together, we weren't exactly doing nothing... We had a few things we wanted to get done before the baby arrives, so we tackled some big jobs and got a little step closer to ready.

We took in all the recycling, made a few freezer meals, froze some baking, cleaned up the garage, the kitchen, the freezer, the utensil drawer, the window sills and anything else that was standing still. All those fall cleaning things that can get overlooked.

We also bought a new car! That's right. We're having a baby, apparently now we need lots more room... So, we bought a 2007 Honda Pilot and traded in the CRV. A bittersweet day, because the CRV was a great vehicle, still is, actually, but we travel too much and the kilometres were really starting to add up.

Anyway, here's the new vehicle:



Actually, that's not our exact car... I haven't taken a picture of ours yet, but that's the colour and year and such. Here's a larger image of a silver Pilot (ours is white like above).



Just need to install the car seat and we're ready to go!

Here are a few more Europe layouts. In Santorini, we rode a donkey up the cobblestone path that winds up the island from the port to the villages. This is an experience! If you're at all afraid of heights, it will make you uncomfortable to ride on the back of an animal that knows the faster he gets to the top, the faster he gets to relax. On one side, you have jagged rocks and tourists, on the other, you have a steep drop to the switchback below.



And a closer look at one of my favourite ways to attach ribbons. No need to keep them in straight strips, mix it up for a unique look.



These are pictures of the Egyptian Spice Market and the Grande Bazaar in Istanbul. I kept it pretty simple because the pictures are so colourful. Here, I used ribbons as a straight border.



I found a great way to attach ribbon as well. This Scor-Tape was in our goodie bag at Scrapbook, Eh!



I like it. need to find out where I can get more...