The lost month?

May seems to have been the lost month! I have a bare minimum amount of pics and most of them are not of Maelie! Maelie, when you get older and you read this blog, please know that you did not disappear from the planet in May! I guess I just forgot how to operate my camera! :)

We went to visit Grand maman for Mother's Day. As always, Maelie had a great time! She is pretty darn good at driving the ATV. I am always scared on it, so I let Grand Maman go !

The chickens are still happy and well. Maelie went to collect the eggs.

I love the hair do!

We also visited Grand papa and Lucie during our time there. Grand papa just got an I pad mini. He was trying to get me to help, but that is like the blind leading the blind. So we put Maelie to work. She got it working! :) Technology is going a little bit fast for us older generations!

A little pic before we leave... :)

Fast forward to the end of May, one day we went out to Lou's for a poutine with Sonia and Naomie. The girls don't see each other as often because they have both been quite busy with their social lives! We are all still happy to see each other though!

On that same day... May 22nd, Maelie was in the pool! It was rather chilly, but she braved it and put me to shame! I don't go in below 84 degrees now, I am such a wimp. Or I am just spoiled with air conditioning. I think it was 65 degrees that first time!!

 

 

Also in the works this month has been my garden! I have no green thumb but I go with the flow, and things DO grow!! :) I started off my peas and beans from scratch indoors in jiffy pots. I also started herbs : basil , cilantro, thyme, dill. All from scratch which always surprises me when it works!!

 

 

 

This year I made it a little bigger. I added those bricks to the ends. I can plant herbs in the holes as well! I don't have much space due to the pool and trampoline, but I work with what I have!

On the creative front, I worked on a bunch of cards this month as well. I made a whole pile of them and took them to work to sell so that I could raise extra funds for the grad! Since our grad budget is pretty low, I had to find a way to make extra! The idea for the top one came from Pinterest.

 

 

I also made this one specifically for a colleague who had a heart attack. I saw a model on Pinterest, and this is my adapted version :)

 



 

 

I made a bunch more, but sometimes I forget to take pictures!

 

So that was it for our month of May. June revolves around graduation!! 

Easter weekend

 

Easter weekend was rather busy! Jacinthe and her kids came for a visit, and Myriam stayed overnight with us. We don't see them as often now that they moved 5 hours away! Maelie and Myriam spent time jumping and performing just like old days!

 

 

 Action shots on the trampoline are always fun!

Unfortunately, at suppertime, Maelie ended up cutting herself while cutting a piece of baguette! It didn't *seem* so bad other than having blood all over the place, but her finger went completely numb. I am no expert in cut fingers - so we stopped by the pharmacy to see what the pharmacist had to say. She suggested we get it checked by a doctor just in case...  So off to CHEO we went.

 

Maelie ended up with 3 stitches on her finger! Of course she had to take selfies and send them to her friends!

 

 

Thankfully they froze her finger even more than it already was, so Maelie didn't feel a thing, and watched the procedure attentively!

 

 

Easter morning a few treats awaited the girls!

 

We headed off to our friends house for brunch... the Easter bunny had come by hiding some eggs! One child in the bunch is still a believer, so the others were happy to hunt down eggs left by the Easter bunny!

Maelie was fascinated with their budgie bird. He seemed to find his reflection in Maelie's nail!

Of course, she absolutely would love to have a bird now!

Here are a few treats that I made this year. These cute 4 oz cups are so adorable! Just the perfect size for a few treats!

Cute little box with bunny and grass.

Same little box, but turned into a purse. Little jumping bunnies with grass... just so cute! and springish!

I had made this little lamb for work. I raffled her off :)

Happy Easter 2014!!

Bake Sale!

Maelie's class held a bake sale at school at the Easter bunny breakfast event. Families from the school came for a breakfast with activities and an Easter egg hunt, so we set up in the gym in hopes of raising money for field trip funds!

It also just happened to coincide with a visit from Grand maman! Grand-maman + Bake sale = LOVE She arrived with stuff for the sale and spent Friday making more stuff! I worked on chocolate bunny suckers and cupcakes while she did the rest! Maelie was one proud little girl!

These are the little flower cupcakes I made. I've been dying to use the colored beads for so long!

A hit all around the worlds... rice crispie squares!

Oh, I also had some peeps that I dipped in white chocolate and then in sprinkles.

This is not as flattering a picture as I was hoping to get but these owls were a hit!! of course, the 2 huge chocolate eyes were attractive...

My mom also made a 4 story cake. The inside was 4 different colors made with jello! It was sold in one piece!

Grand maman also had made these deep fried nests! They are gorgeous! She filled them with colored coconut, and then a few eggies. This would be a great edible decoration at the Easter table!

The kids raised 302$!! That was awesome. Nothing reminds me more of my childhood than bake sales! :) Thanks again Mom!!

NJ/Sens!

 

For Bill's bday, we had given him tickets to go see New Jersey vs Sens. Maelie forgot about it by the time April rolled around, so we wrapped up the tickets and had her open them on her bday! LOL She was surprised! :)

 

Bill and Maelie went to the game and had a great time! These are special daddy/daughter moments that she will hopefully remember forever!!

Happy 12th Birthday !!!

Maelie is officially 12!! It all started a few days ahead...  we decided to celebrate on the Sunday since Bill was not working. We went out to eat at a buffet place that Maelie enjoys a lot... and then she got a present opening session!

 

She also was quite lucky to receive some cards and money from afar!! Needless to say, money and gift cards are the number 1 present at this age!!

 

Which one do I start with???? Maelie had  blast and was quite spoiled. Now she is ready to go on a shopping spree.

On Monday we went out with Naomie and Sonia for a bday supper. The restaurant brought her a huge piece of delicious cake since it was her bday... her comment to me afterwards? Mom I wish they just brought my normal kids meal ice cream.... hehe needless to say, Sonia and I enjoyed the cake !!

She was so excited! Maelie is like me. Birthdays just make her happy!! I love that!

On her actual birthday morning, I took out the DQ ice cream cake! Yum yum yum! Who doesn't love ice cream cake for breakfast on their birthday?

Maelie was happy as can be!!

TA-DA!!! I am 12!!!

Maelie is growing up into a wonderful girl. She definitely is showing clear signs of teenage years to come, but she is kind hearted, hard working, motivated, loving, generous, smart and beautiful! I could not ask for a better daughter!! she makes all of my days brighter! I love you baby!!

Debate - new for this year!

This year at school, instead of having the English speeches, they changed it to Debates. First the kids debated in their classes, and then they were voted into teams of 4. 2 grade 5 and 2 grade 6. They debated in front of the school. I was not gonna miss that of course!!

Maelie and her team did well. She was well prepared for all the topics.

The team won gold in the gym and then moved on to the School Board debates! This was exciting! They had to prepare for some topics, but they also were going to have surprise topics on the spot. So on debate day, we headed out of town to another school for a while day of debating! It was quite exciting :)

They were hard at work preparing for the debates... it was fun to see! I know we debated when I was younger but I forget how it was as a child.

It was VERY close all day! Our school was ahead for quite a while. We ended up in 3rd place. 1st and 2nd place were debating (for gold and silver). We debated with the 4th place for bronze. Thankfully, we won!! Hurray!! 3rd out of 19 schools is really good! Maelie's side for the final debate, with no time to research anywhere, was that scientific testing on animals SHOULD be allowed. This is a very hard topic to debate with no access to research facts and statistics. It could have gone either way!

I was extremely proud of Maelie! I love that she is involved in so many things :)

Ah! Speech time again!

Once again! Speech time at Maelie's school! Maelie worked hard for weeks on her speech. Once she got going there was no stopping her! Initially, she had written enough to make her speech over 6 minutes! So we had to cut some parts out :) She read it to me over and over and over! This is one project that is both a student and parent homework! Yes the student has to memorize, but the parent has to listen and make suggestions along the way! I think I heard her speech over 200 times!! but I wouldn't change it for the world!

Maelie did a great performance at school. The speech was in French and you would easily believe French was her first language. She won 2nd place, and I was extremely proud of her! Even if she hadn't won anything, I would have been more than proud. She has a great, expressive stage presence!

On another note, I discovered why I don't post on my blog as often anymore. I notice that every time we change Windows, things change, all the programs change... and I discovered that when you change my usual way of doing things, I don't always adapt easily. So I end up disliking the uploading of photos and then the viewing, editing and loading of the pictures! UGH!  I wish that nothing changed with the programs ! once it works.... don't change it!!

So I will try and post more. Maelie actually is the one who commented on me not posting much. I did tell her though that the fact that she doesn't want her picture taken, or that she says "this better not go on your blog" affects my decisions too!! I will try and post more often, for the simple fact that she enjoys reading the blog when she gets older. I wouldn't want her to miss out on this season of her life simply because I hate windows 8! LOL