Merry Christmas to All!

I hope you are having a Merry Christmas, or have had a Merry Christmas, depending on your tradition and your timing of reading this post.  We celebrated Christmas tonight with the kids and their grandparents.  A few days before Christmas, it always feel overwhelming at what is left to prepare, but it always comes together in the end.

I made my own Christmas centerpiece this year for the table, and was pleased by the result.  (Unfortunately, Blogger seems determined to upload this photo rotated, even though it shows up in every other app correctly!!) :

The variegated cedar and variegated holly are from my garden, as are the few branches of our silver-tipped sequoia.  The red berries were from a bush overhanding a back lane (behind a commercial building) just a few blocks away.  The container was from a centerpiece I received from a friend a year or two ago, which I kept & reused.  I would have liked a red candle, but I had only white ones, so I used that.  I've learned not to stress about such little details anymore.

I also updated my neglected front planter for Christmas, but am too lazy to get the other camera and upload a photo.  Another time.

I finally got outside yesterday to wrap up my glass path lights, so they will hopefully survive another winter, and my son came out & had some fun playing with snow while I puttered away.

My poor little fairy house, which has been through a number of winters now, may not make it through this one.  It has lost most of its roofing materials, and is leaning now (Okay, Blogger is being really annoying tonight, with these rotated photos!).

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and all the best for the New Year!

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival 2012

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival 2012

It has been many years (6 years, actually - see 2006 post) since we last went to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in La Conner, WA.  So this Saturday, we rounded up the family and visited again.  It didn't disappoint.  However, this year we didn't pick the large commercialized Tulip Town or Roozengaarde fields, but instead a quieter field, but one with beautifully contrasting swaths of yellow and red.

Here are some more photos that don't do justice to the beautiful colours there:

I loved this muddy ol' truck in the field.  A small group of Mexican workers were gathering armfuls of tulips (presumably the old blooms, although I couldn't see how they were different than any of the other blooms around us) and tossing them onto the truck.  I think it made for a neat photo.

Of course, the real aim of any such visit it to catch some nice photos of the family, especially the kids.  We got our share of our teenage daughter looking grumpy and squinting into the sun, and my son goofing around.  But then there were a couple of gems which made the photographic attempts worthwhile.

It's funny, looking back on these few happy and relaxed photos of the kids, that all of them were in the daffodil field, where we spontaneously pulled over to the side of the road, on our way while driving around to decide on a tulip field.  Once we were actually in the tulip field, it seems all the kids wanted to do was leave.  Reminder to self: Plan for an impromptu photo session prior to the real photo session again next time.

Girls Birthday Party and Arrival of Snow

My daughter had her birthday party with 7 of her friends last night in our house.  It was fun.  I made her 24 rat-themed cupcakes, and they were a big hit with her friends, who also enjoyed playing with her 4 rats.  There was only cupcake left this morning, which my daughter will have for lunch.  She's off to a handbell festival today.  (Click any photo for a better look, then ESC to return from the photo viewer.)

The parties are getting easier for me every year.  I didn't need to think of ideas to keep her friends entertained.  Between the rats, multiple rounds of eating, fashion shows (using hats and fishing nets and other items we didn't manage to clear away from the rec room), dancing, more dancing, .... they were very disappointed when their parents started arriving 3 hours later.   My daughter has a great group of friends.  She's an impressive girl too.  She spent MANY hours in the week prior to the party, purchasing songs on iTunes and fighting multiple rounds of uncooperative technology, to finally get a playlist on her MP3 playing on the sound system within the house, so the girls could dance in the rec room in the basement.

She managed to also dig up her laser light for the dance party, so I tried a few photos of the girls in the dark, on a long shutter speed.  I think this one turned out pretty good.  My daughter is the one in the front with pink hair.

Late last night, after all the girls had gone home safely, it started to snow.   We awoke to a pretty good blanket of snow in the morning, so I snapped a few photos of the back yard, from the 2nd floor balcony :

...and from the main floor deck :

The front yard, from the porch :

It looks pretty.  Good thing I don't need to drive in it, at least not today.

Another Fursona

My son doesn't think this is him, but his fursona is a wolf, and he is an avid soccer player.

My daughter's birthday party with her friends is tomorrow night, so we'll see if the girls will try this "fursona" out for themselves.  Tonight I made some cupcakes which I'll decorate tomorrow so it will be a surprise.  I hope to share some photos once they're done.

My Fursona, or rather Scalesona

My daughter will turn 13 in another week, and she's at the wonderful age that she has all sorts of neat ideas to share with me.  So today (instead of cleaning the house, which I was also trying, but not very successful) we were exploring how to create a fursona.  She may ask her friends create them at her birthday, as a fun activity.

Fursona: A Furry Version Of Yourself


Scalesona: A Scaly Version Of Yourself

Feathersona: A Feathered Version Of Yourself

You could either pick a type of animal which you like, or associate with in personality.  Or you can take the quiz to find out what type of animal you are.  When she took the quiz, she turned out to be a small animal, such as a raccoon, or bunny or bat.  She chose the raccoon for her fursona :
 
 

 
I took the quiz, and found out that I am a winged creature, such as a dragon, owl or bat.  I chose the dragon, in this case as a scalesona :
 

I tried to personalize it as best I could - the dragon has my big belly, my green eyes, and shares my love of boots.
 
If you find this amusing, and take up the challenge, please let us know or send us a link to your fursona.  It would be fun to compare our results.

Taking Time to Take Photos

Time flies by so quickly, sometimes the only way to make it stop, for a moment, is to take some photos to remember it by.  My daughter just started Grade 7 (oh my, how did that happen?), and one of her school projects is to make a poster all about her.

She has no shortage of interests and activities and topics to cover.  Her pet rats, her interests in music (flute currently) and photography, her belly dancing, her toys, her faith (she will display her new parallel NIV / The Message bible which I gave her as a first day of school gift), her new ATV (wow, she has her very own one, and has already put 200 km on it).  Not even mentioning her previous experiences in singing, piano, guitar, TaeKwonDo, her hamster, and math awards.  (I guess you can tell, I'm very proud of her.)

First of all, she decorated her poster board, with black paint, fluorescent spray paint, and splattering of neon and glow-in-the-dark colours:

Now she will add photos of her rats, Sammy :

...Jenny :

...Bear :

...and Archie :

And some photos of her riding her new ATV the week before school started :

She will also add some photographs she made this summer which were pretty funky, giving a fresh perspective to some very ordinary objects :

When you look at that second photo, do you see the lock protruding out, or recessed in?  It is a bit of an optical illusion.

Yes, time is surely flying by, ever more quickly, but for just a moment today, it stopped and allowed us to reflect on what is fun and meaningful to us.

PS. Sunday Sept 18 : It didn't seem right that we didn't get a photo of Jenny in the tissue box, so we tried again today, and got a cute photo of her in the box :

Fun with Fabric Paints

My daughter's friends at school all have food nicknames this year.  My daughter's a cookie. One tough cookie.

One of her friends is a cupcake.  An evil cupcake.

Another friend is a brownie.  A super brownie.

I designed (drawing on some ideas I found on the internet - or outright borrowing the first one from David and Goliath - I hope they forgive me, in exchange for a link to their site, where they have some really cute T-shirts) and created all three shirts tonight, with puffy (dimensional) fabric paint I bought at Michaels. 

They may take a couple of days to dry, and then the threesome can wear their shirts to school.  It will be a fun surprise for her friends.  Oh, and the whites of the eyes are made with glow-in-the-dark paint, so that will be an extra surprise for them.

Birthday Season and Stick Bugs

Today was my son's birthday party with his friends from school, and the end of "birthday season" in our house.  I have discovered the joy of making cakes instead of buying them, so today I had fun decorating his, except that I couldn't find my icing decorating set, so instead ended up improvising with a plastic bug cut on the end, and holding one of the icing tips I did find against it, but it was a real messy job, with icing spilling out on all sides onto my hands.  You wouldn't know it, though, by looking at the cake.  I think it turned out pretty good, don't you?:

My only mistake was that I indicated that we would be done by 7:30 or 8pm, and some parents arrived at 7:30pm, and we were not done.  My husband only arrived about 7:15pm from dropping off my daughter at the church, and I had waited for him to return before opening gifts and serving cake, since I wanted his help with a few photos.  So it was a bit of a rush finishing up, with parents arriving.

In the midst of the chaos, Gary from Cinemazoo arrived (from another birthday party he was entertaining at) to buy a few of my stick bugs for his collection of bugs and creatures which he shares with kids of all ages for educational and entertainment purposes.  I was very impressed with him.  Gary is a true nature enthusiast, and a very patient and kind person.  He graciously gave me some eggs of a leaf insect, which I will be thrilled to add to my stick bug "collection".  He also took the trouble to go back to his van and bring in some huge hissing cockroaches, which I enjoyed holding (the birthday kids all backed away and couldn't be convinced), and this giant stick bug which he preserved (wow, I would have liked to hold it while it was still alive!):

I think it would be a really cool birthday feature, to have Cinemazoo bring in their weird and wonderful creatures, and share them with the kids.   Tonight, one of the little sisters of one of the boys shrieked when she first saw my stick bugs, but after explaining to her that it was a "nice" gentle bug, I convinced her to hold one, and within a few minutes, she had convinced her mom that she wanted to take one home with her, which she did.  I was thrilled to see her transformed from her initial terror, to proudly clutching the little box with her new bug "pet".  What a night!

Stream of Dreams Mural

In September, the kids and I painted wooden fish for a Stream of Dreams mural, during the World Rivers Day celebration in Burnaby, BC.

We were told to watch for our fish to be displayed on a fence in the park in the near future.  But we didn't return to the Fraser Foreshore Park.  At least, not until this weekend, when we went for a walk on the beautiful clear Sunday afternoon, and discovered our fish, in a Stream of Dreams mural.  We were happy to find our fish swimming happily in the stream:

For more photos of this particular mural, see this page, or to learn more about the Stream of Dreams, see their website.

Happy Hallowe'en

I hope you all had a safe and fun Hallowe'en.  The kids, now 11 and 9, decided not to go out trick-or-treating this year.  So they opened the door and gave out candies to the few (much less than previous years, even though it was a clear evening - perhaps since the forecast was for rain).

We carved a pumpkin as a family, and my son also carved one at school.  Enjoy!

The puppet of my daughter, which we never quite finished, became our greeter on the porch this evening.

My Little Soccer Player

My son is David becoming a very good soccer player.  That's what everyone is telling me.  That's why I let David kick balls (not the soccer ball, though!) around inside the house, even though I don't really appreciate that.

Today turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day and I stayed to watch David play soccer, rather than retreat with my daughter to the library nearby.  Here are some photos I was able to snap this afternoon with my daughter's digital camera:

Don't we live in a beautiful part of the world?  I love the backdrop of the North Shore mountains from our soccer field in North Burnaby, BC.