Catching Up On Family Events

I won't even attempt to try and catch up with everything all in one post but I need to make a start so here goes ...

When last I wrote it was early March and we'd just celebrated Marley's birthday party and Marley and Paige had their 15 minutes of fame as escorts for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Feel free to refresh your memory here.

The day after enjoying the highs of walking out onto the pitch in front of thousands of Whitecaps fans, Marley, Paige and Greg had a soccer adventure of a very different sort. End of Season Fun Day! In good Lower Mainland fashion, it was a cold and cloudy day!!

Lining up for pre-Fun Day instructions.

Greg had coached both teams without any conflicts all season but having to split his time between both teams on the same field was a bit more tricky. He enlisted the help of his assistant coach for Marley's team and spent the day with Paige's team. 

All sorts of fun things were planned including a Flash Mob dance routine. Even Greg got into it!

And then it was time to get to playing some soccer. 

Or, in Christine's case - time to have some fun with her "soccer boyfriend", otherwise known as the younger brother of one of Marley's team mates. Christine manages to have a boyfriend in just about every aspect of her life. Not sure it bodes well for her teen years!!

I had to put in some volunteering time in the tattoo tent so I got Christine a hot chocolate and a hot dog to keep her happy. Actually, she was pretty happy helping put the tattoos on and playing with the sponges we used to apply them.

I did get to watch Paige play for a bit too. She's quite the aggressive soccer player now!

"Take a picture of me, Mommy!"

How could I refuse?

Once all the games, tattoos, bouncy obstacle course and hot dogs were all done, it was time to hand out participation medals. Greg handed them out to Paige's Aqua Thunders first and then had to run over to hand them out to ...

... Marley's Wizards team. Ah, the trials and tribulations of double coaching! 

One of the parents on Paige's team bought bags of candy for all the players too. Sigh. More sugar highs!!

A few days later it was time for another sport wrap up night. This time it was the Basketball Awards Night. Marley started playing with the Steve Nash Youth Basketball program last year and this year Greg helped out as an assistant coach. Not that he knows a ton about basketball, but coaching comes naturally to him!

Marley sitting with her BFF, waiting for things to get started.

The Grade 2/3's accepting their participation medals.

Marley and Amanda comparing medals. (That's Greg handing out the medals on the left.

And one final picture showing Greg and another coach, Taka Katsube - the father of another friend and classmate of Marley's.

Okay, I think that's enough for this post. Plus my laptop battery is about to die so I'd better call it a night. I promise I'll be back with more. I just won't promise when! Until then, thanks for stopping by. 

Don't forget about my new website where you'll find all my latest crafty endeavours (well, okay, I might be a bit behind over there too!) come and check me out at http://alisondaydesigns.com/.

Whoops - Family Friday Update on Saturday

Well I'm not doing to well with my Family FRIDAY Updates, am I? Oh well, since it's a day late you all get a bonus story!

Last Friday we were all gearing up for Marley's 9th birthday party. It went off without a hitch! Greg went in the pool with Paige and Christine while Marley and her friends played games with the play leader. I was on the other side of the glass from the water action so only got a few pictures of Greg and the younger girls but not Marley's group.

While they played in the water I got the party room set up.

Cupcake cake. When I saw these owl cupcake holders and owl toothpick decorations at Pier1 I snapped them up. Marley loved them! Score one for Mommy's staff discount!

When we were in Mexico the girls had each bought a pinata from the pinata craft person we visited on our Investour. Unfortunately we were unaware that Canada considers them dangerous goods so they were confiscated when we tried to carry them on board the plane home. Marley had been really looking forward to having a pinata and I briefly toyed with the idea of making one but it became too hard. So this 3-D owl I purchased at Michael's (when I was shopping for party favours and craft items) took it's place. Now it adorns her room I think. 

Once they were changed they descended upon me and made a paper plate owl while we were waiting for the pizza to show up.

Olivia and Marley Owls. New breeds!

I hadn't really planned any games/activities beyond the owl craft so the girls made up their own fun.

There was a dog pile on Marley ...

... some Simon Says, Go, go, go, Stop, and "Night at the Museum" (a game of their own making).

And then the cupcakes came out!

And presents were opened. Marley had asked that this be a toonie party - guests were asked to bring a toonie for Marley and one for O.W.L so of course they brought other things too! One of the favourites was this stuffed owl. Marley has quite the menagerie now! This one brings the total to 6!

After all that excitement we enjoyed a relaxing Sunday. We'd had a ton of rain leading up to the weekend so the grass fields had been closed which led to the cancellation of Paige's game. Marley's had been rescheduled to the turf field at Holly but the team they were supposed to play against couldn't make the early time slot (8:00am) so it was cancelled too. What a rare Sunday! No games, no work shifts for me, oh and the irony of it all? It was gorgeous and sunny ALL DAY!! Go figure!

So let's fast forward to today. (In case you didn't figure it out, this is the bonus part I was talking about.)

MARLEY AND PAIGE WERE ON NATIONAL TV!!!!

Their soccer club was given the opportunity to act as player escorts at tonight's Vancouver Whitecaps game.  I had to work so Greg had the honour of going with them to BC Place. Kickoff was at 4:30 but they had to be there at 1:30 to practice and what not. Here are some photos from the day.

Since Greg had to leave the girls at BC Place, he and Christine got to have a little Daddy/Daughter bonding time. This one is outside the Stadium.

Waiting for the Seabus over to Granville Island.

Then he hooked up with the girls again for the pregame festivities at Terry Fox Plaza. 

They were given these uniforms to wear for the game. Had to give them back though. Ah well.

Paige looks like she had fun.

They got to clock how fast their shots on goal were.

Christine got to have a little face painting - she's always excited to get her face painted!

And then the main event!

That's Marley holding Whitecaps Captain Kenny Miller's hand. Know it's a bit far away. Really need a zoom lens!!

Paige was holding the hand of one of the players on the opposing team. 

Lining up for the national anthems.

And running off the field so the game can get started.

And last but not least, they all got to sit and watch the game. Greg rolled in at 8:00PM with Happy Meals all around. Sigh. Tomorrow is going to be rough! Spring Forward and Soccer jamboree too!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with my winner from THIS POST - you've got a few more hours to get your comments in if you want to win my prize of a stamp set and ribbon/brad bundle.

Thanks everyone!

Family Friday Update

Here we are again. It's Friday so that means it's time to catch up in the goings on of the Day Family.

Not too much to report this week really ... oh, wait, what's that? I was published? Shucks. It's just a little eBook! (Insert shy grin and twisting of foot here!) But in all seriousness, it's true. Two of my layouts were published in an eBook that recently went on sale to the general public - you can read all about it here. An awesome lady by the name of Lain Ehmann runs the sites layoutaday.com and Scraphappy.org. Scrap Happy is the social site for devoted fans of her LOAD challenges, started because we wanted some way to keep in touch in between LOADs. For those of you who now think I've started talking a different language, LOAD is an acronym for LayOut A Day (a layout is what we call our scrap book pages). She asked her Scrap Happy members for help last summer and we heeded her call. I never imagined it would be sold outside our little circle as we originally thought of it as a "Church Ladies Cook Book" of sorts. Anyway, it's pretty exciting to think that there are people out there paying for something that has my work in it. And hopefully liking my work too!

Other items of note, it got really cold (for here) and we even had some snow at the beginning of the week. It's gone now but it continues to be dry, clear, sunny and cold. Very unusual for January but I'll take it! Marley and Paige's soccer Academy was cancelled on Monday night due to (I assume) snow on the turf field in Tsawwassen and the cold temperatures. On Tuesday I had my 6 month check up at the Colposcopy Clinic at VGH. Purely routine after the removal of the "naughty" cells from my cervix last summer. Yep, I've now delved into the realm of TMI! (Too Much Information!!)

On a lighter note, Christine's preschool had a field trip to the local leisure centre on Wednesday to go ice skating. 

She's been once before (Christmas of 2011) and refused to even TRY to stand on the ice so I was a bit worried about how much trouble this was going to be. But she did really well! Standing on her skates was a bit dicey at first but she eventually got the hang of it ... sort of. Initial attempts to move around the ice required the aide of  a bar.

Here's a short video showing her at the beginning of the field trip. As you can see, she has trouble keeping her feet underneath her!

As she got used to things, she tried other devices to stay standing like this chair.

But ultimately went back to the bar. Only this time she didn't lean on it as much. You can see in this video that she is mostly upright and looking more comfortable out there. I on the other hand almost fell in the shooting of this ... but that's a story for another time. :)

So that's it. Oh, one other thing that happened on Wednesday (it was a particularly busy day) was that I attended a talk at the girls' school on helping children navigate anxiety. I've talked before about our struggles and concerns over Paige's apparent anxious personality. I'd hoped to gain some insights into how we can more effectively help her. Not sure if I got those as we do try to do a lot of what the speaker suggested, but she did give out some websites to check out so we'll see what will come of it.

We've got the usual activities this weekend - swimming lessons for Christine followed by Jazz for Marley tomorrow, then soccer games on Sunday with a birthday party thrown into the middle for good measure. Christine and I are showing some symptoms of an upset tummy right now which hopefully passes quickly as I have 3 work shifts this weekend also. Hope you've all had a good week and have some fun planned for the weekend. Thanks for stopping by and I'll "see" you next Friday!

Let's Get Sketchy Reveal Day

It's Monday. The first Monday of December in fact! Can you believe that?! I am already behind on my December Daily (working all weekend tends to do that to a gal) but I did manage to get my layout done for Let's Get Sketchy. This week Team A was working with this sketch.

Yummy, right? Here's what I did with it.

These pictures are from last year (some of my loyal followers may recognize them for Day 7 of my DD last year.) They were also taken with my crappy camera phone but I am embracing them for the story they tell. A story which in another year and a bit won't be repeated! Little Christine is growing so fast that these Mommy Dates will just be another memory once she starts Kindergarten. Sigh. As excited as I'll be for that day (don't get me wrong, the happy dance WILL come out!) I'll also likely be one of those Moms tearing up as I watch her skip into class! Until then I think I may need to have more dates like this!!

Here are some close ups of the details.

The little silver dots are Liquid Pearls. I forget to use it a lot and then when I do I wonder why because the results are so pleasing! Go figure!

Be sure to pop over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog (if you haven't already) to see what the rest of Team A has come up with today. We always appreciate some love left ... just sayin'!

Have a great week everyone!

Hallowe'en Mini Album for Practical Scrappers

I posted a lot of pictures of this Hallowe'en Mini over at Practical Scrappers - I hope you are following us over there! We've got our spook on lately - did you see Kerri's wreath from yesterday? ROCKING!!! Check it out here.

As I said in my other post, I got the original idea for this mini from a self-paced workshop called The Boo! Book over at Big Picture Classes. This was over 2 years ago and the instructions and materials have sat untouched in my stash since then! Yikes, eh? As a part of my One Little Word (there's another project that hasn't had it's proper attention!) I have been focusing on my Scrapbooking this year. I've done a pile of layouts that I am really proud of! So many memories and stories put down on paper which makes me so happy!! Well, now there are a few more memories in the can!!

Without further ado, here is my All Hallows Eve Memories mini.

The letter stickers are Jenny Bowlin (from 2 years ago!!), the washi tape is new (Teresa Collins) and the buttons are from my stash.

The metal frame was in my stash and I wasn't sure how I was going to use it. I really like the added vintage feel it gives to this album. The orange letter tiles are new Studio Calico.

Okay, now to the inside spreads. I used Jenni Bowlin large Bingo cards (also 2 years old) and backed them with patterned paper (old MME - Spider's Web).

2004 

"Marley's 1st Hallowe'en. Greg took her "trick or treating" to a few neighbours in the townhouse complex on 57th. Marley used an old black handbag as a loot bag. We ate her candy!"

Wasn't she just the cutest little lady bug you've ever seen? Hard to remember her that small!

2005 

"We made the Ladybug costume fit for another year, got a real loot bag, put up some decorations and generally got "into" Hallowe'en a but more. Marley may look nervous (on the left) but she quickly got the hang of things!"

2006 

I was attempting to give the impression of a full moon with the circle of card stock and all the gems. 

"We added Paige to the fun this year. She also made a cute ladybug! Marley decided to be a cowgirl with her pink (Mark's Work Wearhouse) cowboy hat! Marley was very into the treat getting this year. Paige not so much!"

2007 

More old Jenni Bowlin products - this time the black buttons. 

Below I took a piece of black card stock and ripped one edge before attaching the tag to it. The orange arrow is a Studio Calico sticky note that I doodled on.

"The Princess and the Ladybug - First year in our new house. We had over a hundred kids come by and Marley got her first "real" taste of what a trick-or-treating haul can be!"

2008 

I also got the mini Hallowe'en Bingo cards! I was keen!! The black tile letters are Jenni Bowlin mini chalkboard alphas - also 2 years old. Not sure why I'm telling all this but hey, I'm a sharer! Similar products are still available if you are keen to make something like this for your own family memories!

I took the girls to The Great Big Boo this year so these pictures were taken just before we went into the show. They were not taken on Hallowe'en night but are the cutest shots of my kids in their costumes from that year!

2009 

A Panda, a Fairy and Hannah Montana!

"This year Christine (a.k.a LC) joined the Trick or Treating fun. The Ladybug costume had been donated so LC got to be a Panda Bear. Griffin's birthday is Oct 28 so we had a pre-trick or treating party for him. Going out with the cousins made the experience super fun for all!"

2010 

Another pre-trick or treating birthday party for Griffin. Greg's sister and their cousin both lived in neighbourhoods that were not super family friendly so coming to our candy rich subdivision was a good deal for them. They've since moved to better neighbourhoods so we don't do these parties any more. Kind of miss them!

"This year we had a Chicken, a Princess and Hannah Montana came back again. So cute!"

2011

"The Good Fairy. Kitty Cat. Wicked Witch."

I didn't do any journalling but did include pictures from a new activity the girls got to do last year. Friends nearby had a fire pit going with marshmallows and sparklers. It made for a late night (and a school night to boot!) but the girls are already asking if we are going to do it again this year!

Well there you have it. My new Hallowe'en mini. I've got plenty more Bingo cards and papers etc so I can add to it over the next few years. I finished it off with some ribbon strands - not something I normally do but I quite like it on this!

Thanks for coming by today. Hope you are enjoying your weekend. I've got more scrapping plans for the rest of this weekend - hope I can get to them!