Quick update on my mom

She is home from the hospital and feeling fine. Thank you to all who prayed. It was pretty scary for a while and hard to be away from her. I'm very thankful for the excellent medical care she received and how helpful the staff was to me (over the phone, noless).Pin It

Please pray for my mom

My mom caught a bad virus that lead to severe dehydration then infection and kidney malfunction. She's currently in the hospital and will be there for a few days (in Victoria, BC). Please pray that she will recover completely. She is 81. It is hard to be away from her during this. I spoke to one of the doctors this morning and she advised no visitors right now since the virus (Norwalk) is so contagious.Pin It

Our family's first pet!

Say hello to the new member of the family! He doesn't have a name yet. We're working on it and we are open to suggestions. He is a baby guinea pig and (on advice from the pet store) is still in his bonding/adjusting time so we don't take him out of his cage much. I think he is still afraid of the boys and their noise. :)
Here is A reading him a book that features mice. I've put a bunch of books featuring guinea pigs on hold at the library.

I haven't had a pet since I was 10 so this is quite momentous for me, too!Pin It

I'm sure many of my American friends haven't seen these classic videos

Thinking about Canadians and Americans this week.

This is classic Canadian comedy at the expense of Americans. Circa the year 2000, Comic Rick Mercer went south and was able to get Americans both "man on the street" and Harvard professors, etc. to say the most outrageous things. The smartest person was a little boy who realized his mom was being hoodwinked. More info here.





Part 3 of 4, Part 4 of 4.

(I'm dodging the flying tomatoes today!)Pin It

Links time - a bit of a winter theme, homeschooling

Lazy blogger? Yes. :)

Fantastic healthy banana muffins. You could even replace a bit of the whole wheat flour for regular, if you like. I ground up the pecans myself (well, hubby did).

Some fun winter lesson plans (for kindergarten). Scroll down to find the snowman name graph that we did. I think it works better with children who have shorter names. ;)

Snowflake patterns - super easy. Just play with the size when you do print preview, if you want to make it bigger and not waste half a sheet of paper.
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5

More paper snowflake patterns - a bit tricky.

20 Ways to entertain your kids in the winter. I don't believe in "entertaining" my children but this was a good list.

Feeling burned out from homeschooling? I admit that I'm feeling a bit that way, but I just started! :) I enjoyed this encouraging article.Pin It

This got my kids up and dancing

Recommended CD.
We found it at our library.



It was fun to teach them how to do "The Twist" and it was good exercise, too.Pin It

Mosaic Meme

I found this fun idea for a meme on Carrie's blog.

Here's how it works.
1. Type your answers to each of the questions below into the Flickr search engine (www.flickr.com)
2. Pick an image from the first page only.
3. Copy and Paste the URLs for each image into Mosaic Maker (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php)
4. Save your mosaic to your computer and upload it into your own post.
5. Don’t forget to credit the photographers!

QUESTIONS:
1. What is your first name? (Sheila)
2. What is your favorite food? (BBQ Salmon)
3. What high school did you go to? (Sir Winston Churchill)
4. What is your favorite color? (pink)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (James McAvoy but I also like George Clooney and Hugh Grant!)
6. What is your favorite drink? (cinnamon dolce latte)
7. What is your dream vacation? (Santorini, Greece)
8. What is your favorite dessert? (pumpkin cheesecake, so hard to choose)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (nature or travel photographer)
10. What do you love most in life? (my family)
11. What is one word to describe you? (thinker)
12. What is your flickr name? I had to fudge this a bit. My flickr name didn't come up with anything so I put in the name of my blog.
Photo Credits:
1. blossom heart... (for my friend Sheila), 2. Salmon on the Barbie!, 3. Success is never final. Failure is never fatal., 4. vintage tea set with cupcake, 5. OUT965669, 6. Cinnamon Dolce Creme Latte - 3, 7. Santorini - Σαντορίνη, 8. Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust, 9. photog in the flowers, 10. bless from above, 11. thinking up a storm, 12. Rainy Arbor Path

I wish I could get the photos bigger but that's probably a Blogger issue. (rolling eyes)Pin It

Christmas photos and a bit of a recap

A about to decorate the tree.Our higgledy piggledy tree.
We made a gingerbread house this year for the first time. I found a kit at Target.

The icing tasted terrible and so did the gingerbread. Maybe next year I'll make it from scratch, that is, if we want to actually eat it! :)
My oldest was misbehaving so he isn't in this "family photo."
(Christmas Morning) Oh that they would always get along this well.C and his new mailbox. It says on it "OPEN QUIETLY! Please don't wake the mail." He likes that.

Warning, scary no-makeup photos of me coming.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.


Christmas dinner - notice the mismatched placemats. The Martha in me cringes.We try to do Christmas crackers every year. It is an English tradition that I learned from my husband's family. Each cracker contains a paper crown.

My parents were able to visit us for a few days. Travel in the winter is difficult since they live on Vancouver Island plus my parents are both over 70. They came in the middle of Seattle's "Snopocalypse." We were very thankful to have them with us for Christmas. Last year they weren't able to come.

Well, the photos aren't fantastic but I guess that doesn't matter too much.
I read so many blogs that have gorgeous photos that it is hard not to be jealous and feel inadequate when I look at my own attempts.Pin It

Happy 2009!

Pessimistic

OptimisticPin It