A good read

When I found this book by Ken Follett at Chapters the other day - I was sooo excited. I read "The Pillars of the Earth" years and years ago and now there is a second book. I bought it immediatly and it is just as good. I love it when I have a good book to read.

Paulas's Birthday Skating Party

Paula had her Birthday Skating Party today - she loves to figure skate - and ever since she is taking lessons, she is really good at it too. Her Birthday is on Wednesday, January 30th but we celebrated with her friends a few days early.

Finally another layout

I managed to take the time to scrapbook for almost a whole day - and produced one little layout LOL. It was good to be creative again.

My new laptop

This is it - my brand spanking new laptop. Love the 17" screen - totally rocks. Gotta get used to the new keypad and Vista program tho. I am busy organizing and re-installing software - lots of work but also fun.

Christmas in January

Well, it took a long long looooooOOOOoooooong time - but it finally arrived. Our christmas parcel from my family in Germany. It has been sent off on November 30th 2007 and it arrived now at the end of January. We were really worried that it might have been lost (or stolen) but we were lucky and it arrived safe and sound.

The kids were uber excited! They got a lot of fun stuff and money. Liam even put on his Santa hat that didn't make it in the christmas box and we had fun celebrating our 2nd christmas LOL.

Liam got a bunch of german soccer stuff (Euro Cup 2008) and was - of course in heaven. He then decided to spread all his new (and old) sporting goods on the living room floor, and as you can see he was in his glory - too funny.

Remember Memory?

I used to play it for hours - either with a friend or by myself. Such a fantastic and simple game.

The boys were bored the other day and when I suggested a round of Memory - they were up for it. They decided to use all the cards - which at first I thought was a bad idea (knowing their attention span and all LOL) - but they did it and they had a lot of fun. I heard a lot of giggling and laughter and they made it through all the cards - not only once, but three times.

Makes me Happy

This is my favorite cup EVER! Our babysitter of many years gave it to me for Christmas 2006 (filled with a bunch of homemade cookies) and it is my favorite cup for my coffee in the morning. It has the perfect shape and I love the happy and cheery littel message on it.

Thank you Erica

I received this beautiful thank you card from Erica - totally made my day :) Isn't it so pretty?

Sorry for posting so late Erica, but I have it sitting on my window sill every since I revceived it.

Stickles

It's a good thing :)

January 19, 2008

This is my new jewelry lady. I wanted one of these for a long time already and Rob gave this one to me for christmas. I love her :)

Playing catch up

Okay, here are the pictures of the last 7 days - I just don't manage to upload every day. I guess it would have been more realistic to do this "a picture a week" LOL. But, I am trying :)

And thanks to Cyndi - I found out that I posted the picture on Day 11 before LOL - DUH big time.
I can't believe I did that!

Anyhow, here is a new batch :)

January 18, 2007

Well, it's a picture - a picture of a layout that I posted on the POTP Blog today.


January 17, 2008

This picture is not new - it has been taken last year in spring when my parents from Germany came to visit us. I just thought about them lots today and really miss them, sucks to not have them close by :(


January 16, 2008

This picture is not new either - it has been taken last year at Thanksgiving. It shows my dd Paula and my SIL. I just came across it again the other day and the resemblance of the 2 of them just blows me away - holy crap!! I know it's not the best picture - but man - it's basically the same face. Those "Bell" genes are strong genes for sure. Paula just looks nothing like me at all!!


This is how I look:

See - no resemblance WHATSOEVER!!

January 15, 2008

Neverending laundry - it's crazy - it's just NEVER EVER ending. And, see the 2 large piles in the back there - the ones that are tipping over already? That's all Liams stuff! He undresses, throws everything on the floor and when I ask him to bring me his laundry, he scoops it all up and brings it to me - if it's dirty or not. Drives me nuts LOL And guess what - there is almost no underwear in his pile!!! A boys life I guess LOL.

January 14, 2008

I love walking in the living room and finding both my kids snuggled up with their blankies reading their books. This is not something that happens too often, I usually have to remind them, force them threaten them to go and read. They argue, fight, cry and all that stuff, and in the end they don't want to put their books down - little goofheads!

January 13, 2008

My kids do get along most of the time - but they don't really play together. Their interests are just really different - Liam loves all kinds of sports and shooting Nerfs at people and Paula loves to talk a lot and hang around us, or sit and colour. So, I thought I better capture this rare moment of playing together - I love when they do that.

January 12, 2008

You'll be seeing a lot of pictures of these 2 little adorable girls - Paula and her BFF Cassie. They cannot do without each other and are always up to have their picture taken. I love it.

Day 11

Well, I am slacking already with my photo a day LOL, but the last few days have been busy and I had no energy to do anything but do what had to be done and then go to bed.

Anywho............I took this picture a couple of days ago and it shows that we always have a lot of kids at our house LOL. My children are very social and we don't mind having their friends over. There is hardly ever a weekend where there is not at least one sleepover or numerous playdates.
The only problem is that the noise level is sometimes more than I can handle and I wish I had a down/upstairs for the kids. And those boys are so much louder than the girls LOL. There is endless hockey and soccer games happening in my hallway - but oh well, I know one day they will be out and about and I 'might' miss the hussle and bussle (no idea on how to spell that LOL).

On another note, I am so glad it is friday and the weekend is here. The first week back at work seemed to drag on forever and not every day was a good day - but I have calmed down and I am back in the routine. Just gotta make sure I make time for the 'important' things in life and be more involved in the kids' school life and so on. Some decisions and compromises need to be made and then I'll go from there.

Happy weekend everyone :)

Day 7

Well, this has been a shitty day all around - so I went and got myself a bottle of beer.

Nothing like using alcohol to get over a shitty day - huh? That's real classy, isn't it LOL?

But... like ...whatever!!

A Picture a Day

After reading about a "Picture a Day" on POTP, I decided to give this a try as well. Seems like a great idea to document those little things of our daily life.
So, here it goes - January 1 - January 6, 2008.

January 6, 2008

I am finally in the mood again to scrapbook - and that now that my 2 weeks of vacation are over - sigh!

January 5, 2008

Well, this is Paula's room - and I miss her. She is such a little social butterfly - always out and about, being with her friends. She has been gone for the last 2 nights - she sure loves her sleepovers.

January 4, 2008:

This picture shows just one of the many days that our house is full of friends. Seems like there is always someone over - the kids love it tho and we don't mind.

January 3, 2008

There is a big group of ducks that live in a little pond right in front of the hotel, and they are just the cutest thing.

January 2, 2008:

This is us on driving around in Victoria looking for a Tim Hortons - and we found one - yay :)

Love how The Empress Hotel is all lit up - so pretty.

January 1, 2008:

Rob's christmas gift to me was a 2 night, 3 days stay at the beautiful Grand Pacific Hotel in Victoria -

it was fabulous to get away for a few days. This picture is taken from our balcony on the 6th floor overlooking the Inner Harbour.

2008 - A new Beginning

Well, I am still here and I promise to try my very best to be a better blogger in 2008. Apparently there is still people out there that come to check what I am up to - so, here I am.

Christmas was a beautiful time yet again at our house, everyone got spoiled, we spent some major quality time as a family and enjoyed being lazy.

Tomorrow is back to school/work and we all have to adjust to a routine again.

I had a not so good time at work just before christmas and it made me realize that I am spreading myself a bit too thin. I can't be full time and still make time for kids and family. Work is getting to the point that the responsibility and pressure is getting to much for me and it was stressing me out quite a bit. So, after thinking and talking to Rob, we decided that I need to talk to my bosses and tell them that I have to cut back - will see how that goes. I am not even sure if I will be keeping my job or if they then decide to rather let me go. But, either way, I have to look out and see that first things come first.

Here are a few pics of our christmas family