Catching Up

WOW! Has it really been that long since I've blogged last?? May 3rd? Hmmmm.... I guess I've been busy.

So what do you need to catch up on...? Let's see...

Well, our weeks are getting busier with our moms & tots group. Twice a week we drive 25 minutes away to get together with a bunch of other little kiddos. Once for gym time and another for "classroom" time (crafts, songs, toys, etc.). Emily is really starting to love it - especially gym time. And they have these activity backpacks that you can sign out - all themed and filled with books, puzzles, games, crafts and sometimes even a video. Emily is very excited about them and this past week we tackled 2 (Zoo & The Hungry Little Caterpillar). Not a very easy thing to do as they can take up a fair bit of time. But we had one major craft day this past week and did a bunch of good-sized crafts - painting, markers, pipe cleaners, glue, googly eyes - it's ALL good! :)

Mother's Day has also come and gone. It was a lovely day (I was in a bit of a mood, however). But I was treated to a very lovely gift - A NEW CAMERA!! :) I was (and still am) very excited and have begun to experiment with it a little and read up on my manual. It's going to be great to use, but I think there's a bit of a learning curve with it. I still have to download all the software to my computer so for now, I'm still primarily using my old point-and-shoot camera.

I've also been crazy busy with paperwork lately. The onset of nicer weather means that we're heading into our busy season with work, which translates into more paperwork for me. We've just hired another full-time girl (she used to be part-time) so I'm hoping to shift some of my paperwork to one of our other long-time employees at the end of this month. It's just becoming very difficult to stay on top of it all when Emily is requiring more of my attention and we're spending greater amounts of time outdoors.

Speaking of the great outdoors, yesterday Emily and I went to a local greenhouse and picked up a few flats of flowers. This year she has her very own planter to care for (and pick flowers from). She was super excited about the flowers (flow-ees, as Emily calls them) yesterday and it was all she could talk about all evening. Even when I put her to bed yesterday, she was still talking about them. I told her to dream about the new flowers and I think she did! Last night she was talking in her sleep a little and said a very excited "NEW!", lol. This morning, we planted up her pot as well as a couple of mine. It's still a little early, so I don't want to get too carried away, but it's supposed to be hot for at least the next week or so. Hopefully I won't have to cover them up too much at night.

Today is such a beautiful day outside - sunny with the odd little cloud, calm, and hardly any bugs (which for our house is HIGHLY unusual, but likely due to how dry we are). Adam cut the lawn this morning. The first cut of the season - all very exciting! For lunch, I did up a little picnic of wee-sized sandwiches, strawberries and grapes, spread out our picnic blanket on the lawn in the shade of one of our many spruce trees and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch outside. It's been a great day so far!! :)

Now with everyone (Emily & Adam) down for their afternoon naps, I figured I'd take a few moments to blog before diving into the mountain of paperwork before me.

I have managed to get a few more scrapbooking layouts done since the last time I posted. I must have had a creative rush because I really haven't spent a lot of time scrapping, yet I managed to accomplish something. I had a bit of a pause while creating as I ran out of gems for my one layout and had to wait to buy some more from my lovely local scrapbook heaven, BLACK INK PAPERIE. I bought up the entire stock of clear gems to make sure I didn't run out again (at least for awhile). Almost 150 gemstones later, my layout was sufficiently "blinged out", lol. I have only a few more days to scrapbook before I have to pack it all back into the closet and clean up our guest room, as we have family coming to visit over May Long Weekend. With spending more and more time outside, my scrapbooking slows down quite a bit until it gets cooler out again.

That's it for now. Until next time....

Buck Lake Blogger