a new era

begins for my 'baby' today. And I'm still in denial about it!

My first born starts his first day of high school this morning ( Grade 7 in Quebec= high school) and I think I'm more nervous about it than he is. We're very lucky that the school he's attending is the next street over from us, so I don't have to worry about him travelling on a city bus alone, or taking the train into the city like some of his friends will be doing. The thought of that makes me shudder, being the hovering type that I am. I know a mom who is a probably a wreck tonight b/c her son will be taking the train downtown everyday, and my sympathies are with her. I'd be a total basket case in her place. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't really given my kids a lot of 'freedom' to roam on their own up until now. I don't know if I'll ever stop being such a mother hen- does it ever go away? Anyway, if Bobby is anxious about school, he hasn't let on too much... the only thing that I've noticed in the past week or so is that he's hugging me more than usual, and calling me 'Mommy', which he only does when he's feeling insecure, lol. I'm sure he's going to LOVE being a big wig highschooler, but it's still back to being a little fish in a big sea all over again. And my little guy starts Grade 4 today, a slightly bigger fish in his smaller sea, so he's happy. I'll be looking forward to 3:30 today for a full report.


I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you for your kind words about my ring in my post a few weeks back. I appreciated the sympathy and your comments dearly ! I'd love to be able to report that I found the diamond, but unfortunately, no such luck- I'm still wearing a diamond-less ring on my finger that looks quite ridiculous, but I haven't got the heart to go get the ring cut off just yet. I'm unable to get it off with soap or cream, so it's staying put for a while. I'm still holding out hope that I might find it.



Here's a layout I did this weekend about my eldest. I was so happy to get a photo of him laughing the other day- a rare occurance, b/c for some insane reason, he's decided he hates his smile and never shows his teeth when I take his photo. Crazy pre-teen hang-ups. :( Call me biased, but I think he's absolutely gorgeous.

Are you loving the star and striped papers on this one? I'm a stripe fanatic, and I totally swooned & squealed when I saw this paper, no lie. My friend Ursula can attest to my insanity. ;p It's part of the new American Crafts collection- this particular line is called 'Junior', and it is utterly fantastic. If you've been hankering for a great BOY line, then you'll want every piece of this, believe me. You can't see it here, but the stars are glazed ( as are many of the other papers) and the quality is fabulous. I'm in love. :) You'll probably be seeing this paper on all of my layouts for the next 6 months or so...









have a fantastic Monday everyone. :)

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End of summer excitement

This weekend we'll be busy with lots of this:








It's baseball playoff time, and both our boys will be playing several games over the course of the weekend. And if that weren't enough fun, I've got a very special friend and her family visiting us for the weekend, so we'll be busy in between games doing the tourist thing downtown, and sampling some fine Montreal cuisine like poutine and smoked meat sandwiches. ;)
I feel a diet will definitely be in my future next week...

Have a great weekend, and I will be back with an update soon!

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Late to the party...

...but I made it in before midnight for my very talented friend Mary's 30th( oh how I wish!) birthday surprise. I was happy that my name was at the end of the line so I didn't break the chain. ;p
I know that you're a dog person Mary, so I hope you won't mind that I used a pic of my drooling canine for your bday card, hehehe!
Sorry for the rotten pic.. I hadn't taken a photo of this before I left for work this morning, but I promise it looks better irl. :) Hope you had a wonderful day, my dear young thing!

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signs.

Sometime last Friday, the diamond in my engagement ring fell out. Needless to say, when I realized it later that evening, I was devastated. I panicked, and called Bob (who was out with friends) sobbing like an idiot. I can't begin to tell you how AWFUL it felt to lose something that has so much meaning to me, even if it's just a little chunk of rock. Yes, I know it's replaceable. In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal, but it hurt all the same. I've combed the house, and so far haven't found it- I kinda have doubts that I ever will. I was all over the place that day, doing errands, cleaning the basement, at my Dad's, on a bike ride through the woods with my kids.. you get the picture. It could have fallen out at any of these places, and I honestly don't remember the last time I actually noticed it was still intact.

Anyway, the point of my little story is this.. That same day, I was in the basement cleaning, and came upon the photo in the layout above. It had somehow fallen out of the plastic box, and God knows how long it had been on the floor, face down and kinda stuck. It's the only copy I have of this photo, and the first thing that came into my mind when I looked at it was that I needed to scrap it ASAP, even in it's sorry state. And then, reminiscing and daydreaming while sitting there, I had the thought that I wasn't yet engaged when it was taken. Weird.

That thought right there, I'm pretty sure, should have been a sign for me to look at my ring at that exact moment. And I didn't.

Next time around, I'm going to try and be aware of those little signs we often ignore, no matter how subtle they are...

eta: If you looked at this post a few hours ago, ( and shame on you for not leaving me a comment! ;p) you probably noticed that I changed my layout a tad- I added that red bracket border, b/c I felt there was something missing. I'm much happier with it now. :)

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A Friday layout

Don't hate me, but this week I got to play with the new American Crafts papers. Oh my.

They're AMAZING this time around. I got absolutely giddy when I saw them.

My boss came home from CHA with a big pile, and I begged her to let me take it home to make some store samples. Right now, I'm working on a few Christmas ones, but here's one I made ( about my friend Linda) yesterday with the 'Blue Skies' line, which I'm totally in love with. I mixed this up with some new Thickers and rub-ons from the Christmas line since she didn't have the matching stuff, but I think this goes just fine, don't you? That's the beauty of AC, it pretty much looks good with anything. :)

Have a fabulous weekend, all!

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A Monday challenge..

I posted a challenge over on the WCS Flickr discussion board on the weekend to dig into your stash of rub-ons. If you're like me, then you probably have a tonne of unopened ones sitting around and drying up in the package, am I right?
So start rooting through your stuff, and get a quick page scrapped! Post your layouts in the Flickr gallery, or else link me up here. Can't wait to see what you do!
Here's mine... I am happy to report that I used almost an entire package of these adorable Fancy Pants rub-ons on this page, and nothing else. ( and uh..yes, it's the same photo from the layout below.;p I had printed off 2, one with text, and ended up not using it).

Happy Monday!

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