Teddy Bears' Picnic vs Toy Story. My Magical Childhood

Do you know the Teddy Bear Picnic song?
After watching Toy Story 3 for about the 9 millionth time, I had to share.
Toy Story makes me feel guilty about where all my childhood "friend" are now.
When I was a kid, We used to have a record of the Teddy Bear Picnic Song.
My parents convinced me that it was true. That Teddy Bears came to life at night, or when you weren't around and played and had picnics (Much like all of Andy's Toys in Toy Story, but long before the movie ever existed)
One afternoon, I came into to my room and "CAUGHT" them.
My parents had set out a blanket, places all of my stuffed toys out, as well as my tea set.
It was so convincing there was even cookie crumbs on the plates.
I was utterly convinced that my toys came to life.
Which is probably why, even after Toy Story has been put on repeat for days. It's one of the movies I still don't mind.
I believe that toys can have a secret life.
I have proof that mine did.
I asked my Dad if there was a picture in any of the albums of the Teddy Bear tea party. I so wanted to show you, why my childhood was magical. But alas. It happened in the days before toy story, and the days before digital camera. So there isn't picture proof of every little event. The Teddy Bear Tea party only still exists in my memories.

Girly stairs

For the last few months my Stairwell display has stayed the same. Either because I'm too lazy to change it, Or because I Love having all my Girly pieces somewhere on display that little hands can't get too. One or the other I'm not sure which.

But, I hoping to get some Christmas decorating finally done this weekend. So it's about to change, and I realized I hadn't posted any pics of how it's looking now.

Sharks and penguins and sting rays, oh my

 West Edmonton Mall, had a customer appreciation day at their sea cavern this week. = free admission.

 I took both boys, and we were there in time to see the shark feeding

Greg is getting so big, and trying so hard to do and see everything  Nathan is interested in.

WE got to stick our hands in the tide pools, where we could touch starfish. Nathan wasn't a fan, since they are both slimy and kind of rough feeling at the same time.

  We also got to pet sting rays in another pool, although Nate couldn't get them to swim close enough and couldn't reach to the bottom. I did however actually touch one, which apparently amazed a few people when I told them : )

By far, the highlight for Nathan was the penguins.

I think he would have watched them for hours, if I'd let him.

It was a fun afternoon. But even better when you don't have to pay admission to show the boys something new.

Cold days, fun afternoons

Our "new" schedule means that Greg is in babysitting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Nathan goes to school Tuesday and Thursday mornings and joins Greg at babysitting on Wednesdays. This gives me a day and a half to complete all my work and half a day alone with each of the boys.

Today (Tuesday, Nov. 23) was brutal temperatures, record setting temperatures actually a lot of Alberta was some of the coldest places on earth today. I know our thermometer was reading -33 at one point this morning and it doesn't factor windchill.
The highways were so bad first thing this morning that Daddy couldn't make it to work. So he worked online part of the day, and came to town with Nate and I in the afternoon. After I finished what was left of my work assignments, and we got some water, the 3 of us had a great time doing some Christmas shopping. Checking out all of the holiday decorations, and ornaments. Trying on silly hats.Drink Christmas cokes And getting Nathan to pick out a gift for his brother, specifically for him.

One of the radio stations was broadcasting from a local store so we stopped in to enter our names for a trip to Vegas ( wouldn't that be heaven to go anywhere warm right now!!!!) They were also having a crack the vault contest, where you can enter 7 numbers into their  "vault machine" and if you crack it the prize is a million dollars. How Sweet would that be???? Needless to say, we  didn't manage to crack the vault. But Nathan was thrilled with the hot chocolate, getting a sticker and a rice crispy square.
Wouldn't it be nice to be 4 and have those things be cooler than a million bucks?.

Overall we had a great afternoon out. Of course that ended pretty quick when we came home and discovered a goat half dead with hypothermia. I don't write much about the acreage here any more. Mostly because  I maintain another blog devoted to the comings and goings of animals and the work were doing on a separate blog Acreage Dreams. You can see the post about our poor goat buddy here if your interested.

adorable background idea.

How cute  is this idea?
I sent my MIL an e-mail with the picture of Nathan's Santa letter
She wants to use it as the background for her annual Christmas letter.
Instead of buying a holiday letterhead. She plans on taking the picture and she said fading. I assume reduce the opacity. Having it printed and then color photocopying 20 or so copies to print her letter on top of.
If it works out I think it will be such a cute background for a letter. I almost wish I'd thought of it first.
But I suppose as the parent it would be kind of tacky to send out your kids wish list to everyone you know?!?!?

Today was a day of kindness

I have an insanely busy week in front of me. ( well, coming from my old life of having no routines and no defined schedules. This work/school/babysitting thing is hard to adjust too)

Anyways, in order to fit everything in since I have about twice the amount of work I was expecting this week, I went and did my in store studies for most of today.

Since I have no winter boots that I'd wear to town I wore a pair of old high heeled boots. Now My arches and back are killing me. Again, I will point out I used to live in high heels, heck once I moved in them. But now-a-days I'm all about flip flops, sneakers, or rubber boots. So heels was a pretty bad choice.


having said all this...I HAD A SUPER AWESOME DAY!!!!
It was one of those days you count your blessing. People seemed to be going out of their way to try and make my day.

* The Lady at the 7-11 gave me my coffee free
* Another lady stopped me in the store
"Excuse me,"
"Yes?"
"I just have to tell you that you have gorgeous hair"
"Ummm...well, thank you. I'm a little surprised it's not even done today"
"Well, it's so pretty, I just had to tell you"
"Thank-you"
(and it's true, I thought my hair looked horrible today I had it up in a loose bun/knot on the back of my head. People usually only tell me how nice my hair is when it's down and curled under control)
* I got home and my kids were thrilled to see me.
* Greg, although he was suppose to be in bed, spent 1/2 an hour doing a dance and talking to me from his crib. He had quite a story to tell me and I just smiled and thought, these are the moments I wish would last forever.

I don't know, all in all it just felt like a very good day. Where you have to stop and count your blessing. See how people really truly, can be good and nice and make your day in such small simple ways.

Things that made me laugh while driving

There were several instances over the summer, and the last few months where I came across someones car, and just started laughing. These are the few a actually caught up to and got a picture of.

Seriously thinking of repainting my minivan to have a snazzy paint job like this.

(Although Chris says its actually suppose to be the Scooby Do van)

Here Lizard, Lizard. I think its hilarious some one turned their car into a lizard- dragon- reptile mobile.

On a Smart car. A Licence plate that reads "NOTDUMB" -Brilliant if you ask me!

And really this sign speaks for itself.

The only picture I missed that I'm still kicking myself over,

I saw an older Hurst driving down the road. Someone had obviously bought it second hand and pimped it right out.

the back window read

" A Tisket a Tasket, No Body in the Casket."

and then it had one of those gory, bloody Halloween arms dragging out the backdoor.

I just died laughing. But at 80km/h it was impossible to get a picture : (

A MOM letter

Do You ever read an article and sit there the whole time nodding your head in agreement?

That's what I did when I read this posted on a friends facebook page.

I just couldn't help thinking. "she put words to exactly what I can't explain to some friends and family"

I know I drive a few of my friends nuts that I can't have lengthy phone conversations anymore. During the day I'm too busy keeping little feet from climbing counters when they know Mom's distracted on the phone. And at Night I just need some silence. No more questions. Please. No more explaining anything for awhile.

But anyone without kids doesn't seem to get how much...

well the article expresses it better than I can.

Is it too early?

Is it to early to decorate for Christmas?
The temperature has dropped it's -14 C today and going down to a low of -23 tonight. With the snow blowing everywhere it's miserable outside. I either feel like channeling my inner bear and hibernating until it's nice again or decorating for Christmas and embracing the only thing I love about winter.
So really is it too early?
Do I have to wait until December 1st?
My Dad and Chris seem to think that's the rule.

Shoe L-O-V-E

A friend of my Dad's sent me this link to Gizmodo awhile ago, recalling my love of shoes.

And I have to tell you I'm wildly in love with these...
I wish I could claim these designs as my own.

Blurring the line between shoes that belong on feet and shoes that belong in some weird contemporary art museum, Kobi Levi's "Chewing Gum"

My plan still is to get at least one pair In Altered Couture magazine. They have an entire shoe section that makes me nut every time I flip through the magazine. I will send them something. I've even set a goal to complete this by September next year. (there I've written, now I'm bound by some weird blogland oath right????)

Pirate pop update

The Pirate pops were a hit at the preschool. At least half the boys asked Nathan for a second one. And probably close to half the moms asked questions about how they were made.

I ended up staying for all of Preschool today, one of the "room helper" moms got her days mixed up and didn't show for her appointed day. This worked out well since I owed a day of volunteering from Nathan being sick a few weeks ago. Now I'm caught back up on my days and got to see the kids eat the pirate pops that I slaved over last night!
BTW- "draw the faces on with edible marker"...uhhh yeah. That works for about 2faces before the marker is so gummed up you have to go over the lines 20-30 times to even make a mark. If I do these again I've be doing some research into finding a better ink/dye/icing/something to draw with.
AND....No matter how cute the pictures look I swear they have been photoshoped. There is NO WAY the candy coating comes out that smooth no matter what I did.

But I threw some photos up on facebook, and got rave reviews from friends and family, so that was a little bit of balm on the wound.

Tonight I don't get to do anything as fun and creative, instead I'm swearing at the computer. I took a part time job last month, which involves a lot of computer downloading and printing documents. Needless to say I've spent about 45 minutes on the phone tonight with my boss. Another hour or so trying to unzip and e-mail files not to mention the printer mess that I made Chris just deal with for me~
Tell me once this is all set up it will get easier?
Or at least I'll develop a callus on my forehead so all the banging my head again the screen doesn't hurt as much~

A twist on cupcakes for preschool.

Another few hours in the kitchen tonight *sigh*

We came out with about 23 Pirate Pops. More than enough for the preschool class tomorrow.

They are not as cute as in the book. But they are pretty cute. And it's a bunch of 4 year olds eating them.

All the Matey's together.

(although Chris may get a kick in the head. I didn't have any white confetti sprinkles so I used white and yellow stars on the bandanas. Chris kept referring to them as wizards of the Caribbean. and now its stuck in my head.)

Seems like I spent half the weekend in the kitchen

 The boys have had a very exciting weekend. Nathan's 4th Birthday is tomorrow, and Grandpa Zoom came for the weekend to celebrate. The boys get spoiled with so much attention from Grandpa you can't blame them for being totally insane whenever he around.

 I spent my day working on this....

I'd promised Nathan a Buzzlightyear cake. So I went out and got Wilton Cake pan. And spent the better part of the afternoon trying to get the icing looking like the picture.

It certainly wasn't identical. But it was good enough for a 4 year old. And considering it was my first real attempt using decorating tips. I think it came out not half bad.

We roasted one of our chickens for dinner and everyone had a very good filling meal.

Of course we had to move on to presents. The Birthday Boy got spoiled as usual!

We had quite the Toy Story theme going on too. Since he got a talking Woody doll from us, The Jessie Doll from his brother, and the Toy Story 3 movie from Grandpa. As well as lots of new clothes and army toys from his Uncle.

Now the next big adventure...tomorrow I plan on taking a run at Cakepops. If you've never seen them they are adorable. So cute I actually shelled out full price for the book a few weeks ago. I have big dreams of making the pirate pops for Nathans preschool class for Tuesday. Lets hope they at least have the resemblance like the buzz lightyear cake. Or I'll be making a mad dash into town for bakery cupcakes that day.

Dear Santa

We "wrote" our first letter to Santa tonight. Since Nathan will be turning 4 on Monday, his writing skills aren't exactly at the point where he can pen an entire letter. So we filled in a lot of the words with pictures.

I think it's super cute. I does however have a Ransom note feel to it.!

Halloween Mania part 2

Nathan has been pestering me since the start of October (actually it may have started as early as September).To Carve a Pumpkin. So as much as the kids have been sick, and I didn't get any Halloween decorations up. I knew I wasn't going to get away without at least carving a pumpkin.

Nathan wanted a "MAD" face, so "We" drew it together. As in I ended up drawing the shapes in the end, because he couldn't get them looking the way he wanted. But he was giving me directions the whole time. I also made him scoop a good amount of pumpkin guts. And even let him do some of the carving when we got to the straight lines.

But most impressive to me was that I finally got the dog pumpkin done I talked about last year..I was pretty happy with how it turned out. When I sent a pic to my brother he was in L-O-V-E!!! It does look quite similar to his new bulldog puppy. (Although the pattern is for a Pug-shhhh. Everyone will see what they want to in art right?)

Halloween Mania Part 1

 We had quite the Halloween this year. It was Greg's first.

Grandma and Grandpa found him a little Dolphin costume.



 

Nathan was Spider Man

So I referred to them all night as Spider Man and Shark Boy. It just sounded a little cooler than your brother the dolphin

In true brother form the fights are already brewing over candy shares. Since Nathan seems to be coming down with the croup Greg had last week (SCARY-when Greg had it) We didn't hit up to many houses. 6 to be exact. And I couldn't believe what a haul they got from just 6 houses. Man, Halloween has changed since I was a kid. - and this is the part where I launch into the story about up hill both ways to school in 10 feet of snow?!?!? I know. I'm starting to sound old. But seriously, We never got that much candy at Halloween.