Bowling and the first signs of Spring.

So we can see that the first signs of spring our about, as the daffs are starting to come up and the buds are beginning to form on the trees.  It was especially apparent when Owen & I took a quick walk with Milo on Friday while Darren and Morgan took a bike ride to the Library.  (Owen was feeling a little under the weather with a head cold and didn't want to ride) but it was such a lovely day that we decided we should take a little constitutional to clear everyones head, not to mention that Milo just loves to be out.  (Which is pretty evident!) 

What was more important though was that Darren was home for the weekend and the kids are just ecstatic about that.  I know they really miss him, and i

t will quite hard on everyone when he leaves again tomorrow morning.  Still we're off to see the musical "Wicked" so hopefully that will distract them.  In the interim, we got to go bowling today at Grand Central Bowling downtown. Here's a great shot of Morgan's reaction to getting a strike.

Here's a quote that sums up my kids perfectly.

"Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the arranger desires." - Marcelene Cox

'aint that the truth!

Is it really March already?

Jeez, so much for my blogging, I only posted once during the whole month of February!  I don't think I really had any excuses really either.  Still with Darren away and me being a single parent again, life just gets away from me, and I don't have a ton of time to blog today because I still need to dust (start the house cleaning - tres boring info, I know) before heading back to the school to work in Owen's classroom and then going to buy the boy a new pair of baseball cleats as the tryouts are this evening and he now wears a size 6 shoe.  I was hoping Morgan would be able to wear his old shoes seeing as she is a size 4 but his cleats from last year are 1/2 a size to big!  I swear that boy has grown another 2 inches overnight.  I can't rest my arm on his head anymore, but I can rest my chin.  Anyway enough about that!  I'm sure this is all very interesting to those hundreds of people (Yeah right!) who read and comment and can't get enough of my drivel.  So on that note,  I shall sign off and go clean.  YEAH!

Decompressing after the Talent Show

You know if maybe almost a week since we finished the Talent Show but it's amazing how long it has taken to decompress.  Of course, life is never just calm and relaxed what with Darren being in Aspen for the next couple months and the life of a single parent is never slow that's for sure.  But I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that Jim & I with the help of Blake, managed to pull off the Talent Show and from what I'm hearing quite successfully too!  It's weird though, because it was a little like planning your own wedding insofar that it was a total blur and I don't really remember the experience that well.  I'm looking forward to seeing the DVD.  What I do remember were the things that went wrong, like when Morgan forgot her words but then managed to pick up and finish the song.  (Apparently she came off stage in tears because she felt she'd messed it up - and I was completely unaware of this until Nancy told me the following day).  I do remember Owen and I sitting down at 10 o'clock that night eating a microwaved cheese & ham sandwich (tasted way better than it sounds! - Morgan was at a sleepover).

Now the big question is whether or not to take it on again next year.  I'm still very much on the fence about it and it would really depend on whether or not Jim and Blake would be on board with it.  That being said, this is Blake's last year at the school and he has no reason whatsoever to do the Talent Show again this coming year so it will take a lot of persuading... and truthfully if he's not on board I really don't think I'd want to do it again... 

Anyway aside from that my plans now are to get a flyer up and running to start up Stop-n-crop again up here and start offering scrapbook classes again.  But today is a day of returns and errands and then it's back to my crazy ol' life.

The big CUPCAKE adventure!

Last day of January, and I can truly say that I'm happy to see it end.  Not the best month for me in any year, but this year big time sucko!.. That being said, I haven't completely been sitting on my laurels, aside from being fully immersed in the Duniway Talent show, I have been putting my creative juices to work and have tried to perfect or at least improve my cupcake making and in particular the frosting... Now you may say "Really! That's what you've been doing in your spare time!"  and my response is that when your almost 10 year old son suggests that you should open a frosting store  because (and I'm quoting here) "Mom, you make the best frosting ever!", I don't consider that a waste of either my time or talent! LOL!  Not that I am going to rush out and open a frosting store anytime in my future, because lets face it it cupcakes would get very old very fast if I did.  But I am enjoying the experiementation of the process!  This week, Gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting.  A couple weeks ago it was raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting.  And considering cupcakes cost on average $3 a pop in stores I'm happy to make them myself.  (Thank god for Jazzercise and the kids who actually eat the cupcakes - and Darren who offsets the not so healthy food with healthy dinners and such!)  

Of course I didn't stop there.  I also created some chocolate covered

 pretzels yesterday too while Owen & Morgan had a bunch of friends over.)  I had wanted to create them as Valentines for the kids to give out at school, only to find out there is a rule about homemade treats at school as in, they aren't allowed.  Oh pooh!  Oh well kids got to take some home to their siblings after I had the fun of making them.    So there you have it!  What have you been up to?

Just another day in January......

Not that I have anything particularly interesting to write.  Woke up this morning to snow - again.. weird.  Last year it was constantly raining, this year SNOW!  Not that I'm complaining, I like the snow, it makes everything seem so crisp and clean, of course that is until it starts to melt.  I'm just glad that we aren't going to have a repeat of what happened before Christmas with the schools closing.  This is most definitely temporary.  Especially as it is already starting to melt.  

But that is not the reason for me to be blogging today.  I'm just trying to catch you all up on life. Darren's movie was pushed to later in the year and he is busy trying to get a start up company going with some partners.  I'm not going to go into any great detail as of now, mainly because I have no idea quite what it is he's doing.  Needless to say its something to do with the Movie Business.  It is a little scary have absolutely NO income right now - but he assures me that we will be okay.  Of course we have severely tightened our belts.  I had to actually think twice before I bought myself a new pair of socks yesterday, and the library is seeing an awful lot of me as of late.  I love the library!!  I know I'm not the only one in this boat what with the current state of the economy, but it doesn't make it any less scary!  

So my time is being spent working on putting together this year's Talent show at Duniway.  We are into week 3 of rehearsals.  It will all be over in another 2 weeks.  Show night is February 13th, and it takes up the majority of my time.  (Thank goodness the auction projects are both complete and turned in.)  What with rehearsals 4 days a week.  It's been interesting and there had definitely been a huge learning curve and I'm enjoying it somewhat.  All I can say is thank goodness for my Co-chair/organizer Jim van Hook, one of the dads at the school and Blake Sakamoto who has run the sound system for the past years during Talent Show.  There is absolutely no way we could have pulled this off with them.  But I will be somewhat relieved when it is all over.    

Here's the front of one of the programs that I created for Show 1.

So that's what has been going on in my life... how about you?

Belated "Happy" New Year

Yeah, I know I've gone dark for a few weeks and since the Christmas break it's just been non-stop what with trying to finish this auction project for the school and doing the 4th Grade one which has been somewhat of a scramble... and the start of Talent Show rehearsals that I, and my co-chair Jim (Thank god for Jim), are running this year I feel as if I have been running on full speed a head without any breaks or should I say brakes!  And none of it seems to be slowing down either.  Of course once the auction projects are out of my hair I will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.  For those who are not aware, Darren built a couple of benches (one for each class) and then I took photos of all the 2nd graders and transfered their images onto tile - with the 4th grade lot I had them draw a self portrait and those images will be transfered onto tile too.  I ran into all kinds of problems with the images though, the medium melted the image then the image chipped off the tile.  A project I've done before but has caused me no end of headaches.  All I can say is that never again.  Anyway have to run got a million details to get to plus art class for Morgan today, a trip to the library to return a book and pick up two more and a rehearsal to run..... phew.  Anyway here's Owen's self portrait that he did.