Run For the Cure

Or in my case, Walk for the Cure!

I'm participating in support of my friend Beth Heras who is battling breast cancer for the second time. She is now in Stage 4 so prognosis is grim but hopes are high. If you'd like to support me please go here to make a donation to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

I have (in typical Alison fashion) left this to the last minute! Life around here tends to swirl at such a pace it's easy to get swept along and forget to do things you've resolved to do. It's terrible and I'm not trying to make excuses. Supporting Beth and all the women who are fighting, will fight and especially those that have fought bravely and lost is important to me. The older I get the more my own mortality plays a role in my every day decisions. Not to say I dwell on it, but I'd like to be there for my kids when they are "all grown up". Beth is my age - younger actually - and her children are ages with mine so the parallels are unavoidable. The thought of leaving Marley, Paige and Christine right now freaks the living daylights out of me! They are so young! I have so much more that I want to teach them, share with them, experience with them. I can only imagine what Beth is going through!! If the little money I can raise can help find a cure that can save her or other young Moms like her, then it will be a job well done. Late or not!

I also want to sell some cards I've made with a stamp set Stampin' Up! released in the summer to raise money for Breast Cancer Research.  Here are some pictures of them. Once I figure out how to do this (paypal? etsy store? eBay?) I'll let you know. If you're interested, please leave me a comment.

Thanks. Think Pink!!

A MotherLOAD Layout!

I have been a bit disappointed in myself for not playing along with the actual LayOut A Day portion of the MotherLOAD class that I'm currently enrolled in. Life has been ... well, hectic this month, to say the least! School started up again, Paige had that 2 week painful graduated entry to get through, my Stampin' Up! business is hogging all my family scrapping time ... you see? Hectic.

But yesterday I made a commitment to myself to do something creative everyday. Whether that be a Stampin' Up! sample for a workshop or swap, or (hopefully) a scrapbook layout for our family albums, I just need to create! I miss it! I need it!!! So, last night at 10:00PM I headed into my craft room, put on the latest Mind Aware Teleseminar replay, pulled out my notebook with those lists of LOAD prompts, grabbed a snack bag and got busy. Within an hour I came up with this.

I tell ya', Lain Ehman is a genius! Those snack bags were such an awesome idea! It had the journalling tags, the felt flowers, the brads and the buttons in it which didn't seem like a lot at the time I made them up, but boy did they ever make my life easier last night!

Here's a close up of the title block.

And another close up of the journalling block. The letter stickers and this little birdie plus the word stickers are Bella Blvd (as is the patterned paper).

Now, I make no promises to start creating a layout a day following Lain's prompts (a month behind schedule?) but this was fun and I will definitely do it again soon! 

Ouch!

For those of you who aren't my Facebook friends (and why aren't you?! Alison Campbell Day - send me a friend request today!), this is what our van looked like Saturday morning.

I was enjoying a quiet house after a multiple interrupted night (by LC and Marley), that had left me cranky and just wanting some peace and quiet, while Greg took the girls to their swimming lessons. 

Then the phone rang.

"Hi Hon. The van got smashed."

uh .... pardon me?!

"A truck ran the red light at Hwy 17 (and Ladner Trunk Road) and ran into us."

"The girls are fine, just pretty shaken up."

"Jana (a passing angel!) is taking them over to the pool so Marley can get to her lesson while I deal with the police."

Okay, be right there!!

Amazing how your day can change in the blink of an eye. This time we were lucky. No one was hurt. There were multiple witnesses to the fact that this guy ran a red light - quite late as it turned out - and he took full ownership of his mistake at the scene. It could have been so much worse.

So, the lesson we can learn from this? Hug your kids every time you leave the house or they leave the house. Tell them you love them. And then do the same for your spouse!

Long Overdue Back to School Post

School has been back in session for almost 2 weeks now and I STILL haven't posted Back To School pictures yet. What is wrong with me?! Just busy, that's all! Juggling the gradual entry schedule, figuring out what activities we've signed the girls up for and when they are (missed LC's first gymnastics class - doh!), starting a new blog which will be dedicated to my Stampin' Up! projects (check it out here), working on some projects for Jonina and also trying to appease Greg's wish for me to get  "real job" by dropping off some resumes at local businesses. As you can see, life has continued at light speed around here!

So .... some updates on the many goings on so far this month.

Heading off for the first day of school!

Paige started Kindergarten this year and today is the last day of her Gradual Entry schedule. It has been a painful experience! The first week they attended class for a 45 minute Open House on Tuesday, 45 minutes again on Wednesday and then a whole hour and half on Thursday and Friday! Not sure why they don't think these 5 year olds can handle longer since most of them have been in some sort of day care situation previously or have at least attended preschool! This week has been slightly better (although not by much!). Monday she stayed until 10:20 again, Tuesday it was 11:20 which meant she finally got to eat snack at school, Wednesday she stayed until 12:30 and ate snack AND lunch (a red letter day for sure!!) and then yesterday and today she is dismissed at 1:30. 

Here's Paige on her first day of Kindergarten (the Open House day!) 

Practicing how to line up in the morning.

LC thought she'd practice too. It's never too early, right?

Paige's best friend Sarah is in her class this year (insert choir of angels here!)

Playing with Sarah (and LC ... sort of) at the Kindergarten Open House.

LC making herself at home in Paige's classroom.

Not to be out done, it was also Marley's first day of Grade 2.

She spent the first day with her teacher from last year, Mrs Lumsdon.

After school (Marley was dismissed at 12) I took the girls to McDonald's to celebrate.

Not the healthiest lunch, I know, but it happens very rarely now and I felt that the first day of Kindergarten deserved to be celebrated properly. Paige has been so excited to start school since the day she turned 5. It was hard for her to only go for brief periods each day last week. This week has been much better. I think she finally feels like a part of the school. Eating snack, going out at recess and staying for lunch really helps with that. 

She did say today "we have to go to school again?!?!" 

Ah, yes. Welcome to your new reality, Paige! School is every day for the rest of your life!!! 

Mwah, ha, ha, ha!!! 

Sorry, was that out loud?!

But getting back to the story ... last Wednesday Marley found out who her new teacher is and where her new classroom is. 

Here's her desk.

And her new teacher, Mrs Baker.

We were very happy to find out she'd be in Mrs Baker's class as we have heard really good things about her. As added bonuses, several of Marley's friends are in this class (including her BFF (her words not mine! *sigh*) Amanda) and Paige's Kindergarten classroom is just across the hall. 

Well, that's it. The girls are settling in nicely. Oh, I forgot to mention, Paige is in a K/1 split class and our neighbour across the street is in the Grade 1 part of her class. We are happy she has so many friends already in that class as that eases her anxiety about the newness of it all. Plus, she is with Mrs Brind, Marley's old Kindergarten teacher, which is another familiar face. I think this year is going to be awesome for both girls!

Last days of summer

A picture heavy post to show what we've been up to this long, last weekend of summer.

On Sunday we picked up Aunt Moira and went to the water park at Queen's Park.

Isn't she adorable? The fact that she got into my MAC blush and painted our bathroom with it on Friday (the continuing saga of Hurricane Christine) is all forgotten when I see pictures like this!

Marley had fun throwing water at LC. Surprisingly, she liked it too!

Another cute one of LC - with a rainbow in the background no less!

Ice creams.

Sadie, having a quiet moment in the trees. 

After some fun on the playground, we said goodbye to Aunt Moira and went over to Andrew's for a bbq and some fun in their pool.

Or, in LC's case, the water table. She was plunked into the pool and promptly screamed the neighbourhood down so ... water table it was!

Marley and Matthew had a sword fight with the pool noodles. I did the proper parenting thing and snapped some pictures while others warned them about getting out of hand and "it's only fun til someone gets hurt". :)

And today ... Labour day ... last day before the first day of school ...

we took a family outing to Lynn Canyon. 

Starting with lunch 'cus it took us that long to get organized and out the house this morning so fueling the little walkers was necessary before we tackled the bridge.

Here's Greg and Marley (Paige is hidden behind Marley) on the bridge. It was a lot more sway-y (yes, I'm making up words today!) than I remembered. But we all made it safely and none of the girls freaked out even a little bit! Yay!

The crew. 

Greg took the camera for a bit so I could actually be in some shots! Amazing. Me in the pictures!!

There was no way I was taking LC over those rocks to hang out with Greg and the older girls by the creek so we stayed back until Greg could come back and carry her. I wasn't far behind and took back my camera for a bit. 

I think I've shown pictures of LC throwing rocks into water before so you shouldn't be surprised that she loved this part of the trip. We had a hard time convincing her to keep going up the trail!

Sometimes the rocks were pretty big! 

But don't worry, no one got hurt!!

"Did you see that big splash, Mommy?"

Isn't he handsome?

My models. Even Paige is starting to ham it up for the camera now!

Sheesh!

Well, Kindergarten and Grade 2 start tomorrow. Eek! I think I may be as excited as the girls.

Hope you all had a good summer.

Welcome, September. Welcome, fall routines. 

Project 12 - August 2011 and last 2 BIF pages

Just a couple of scrapbook projects to share with you tonight. I'm trying to do so many things right now that my personal scrapbooking has fallen by the wayside. The layout a day portion of the MotherLOAD marathon started on September 1st and I have completed ... let's see ... oh yeah, 0 out of 3 layouts so far. Maybe I can go 0 for 26!!

But today I did manage to do my August layout for Project 12 and upload the pictures I took earlier of my last two pages for the Big Idea Festival over at Big Picture Classes. So, here goes ...

August 2011

I tried to keep as true to the sketch as I could (it's a challenge for me when you're only allowed to use 3 pictures!) I also stared at it for a long time trying to decide if I needed to add anything to the white space on the bottom of the page but eventually chose to leave it as it was. I couldn't think of what it needed so decided it needed nothing. Oh, and here's the sketch we were given.

And finally the close ups. 

The left hand side.

The right hand side.

The journalling and title block. Everything on this layout was kept as simple as possible, including the journalling. Just a quick recap of the month's highlights.

Okay, now the last two pages of my Words to Live By book for the Big Idea Festival (for the previous pages see this post and this post.)

Embrace - I talk about what I want to remember to embrace.

It's opposite my Moment page so I kept the colours consistent and since there is already a picture of Greg and I in an embrace, I didn't feel the need for a picture here.

Play - I have probably thousands of pictures of the girls playing but I took this page in a different direction. I took all the scraps from the previously made pages of the book and played with them to create this. The journalling talks about how this scrapping obsession of mine is my way to play. Something I am realizing is really important to do every day - play with your kids, play with your toys (whatever they are - computer, bits of paper, Wii, etc) and play outside.

Okay, that's all I have for you tonight. Marley is off at a Giant's game with a friend so we are trying to find ways to make the other two feel like they're not missing out on anything. So far that is taking the form of watching a little Chopped on Food Network and Star Wars III on SpikeHD - Greg has control of the remote, can you tell? :)

School goes back in 2 days ... we're ready. Are you?