I am visiting with my grandaughter and her two little girls in Northern Alberta and having a great time. Sure will miss these girls when I go home!

Its hard to believe that it is almost 4 months since I have posted anything. Life has been incredibly busy. In November we had to put my mom in a private care home. On October 31st Wilf and I took her to the hospital with a very swollen and bruised shoulder. The doctor told us that all the bones in her shoulder were so brittle that most of them were fractured and suggested surgery to put a metal plate in her shoulder. Both her and I decided this was not an option. She will be 100 in April. So my daughter-in-law Gaye started hunting for nursing homes. Mom finally agreed that she couldn't take care of herself any longer. Within 2 days Gaye had found a wonderful place and we moved her in on the 4th of November. That month is a blurr for me as we had our eldest son, his daughter and her youngest daugther arrive the day mom went in and they stayed for 4 days. Off came all the sheets and the next weekend my youngest brother, my sister-in-law, their daughter and their grandson arrived to see mom and to help me clean out her apartment. They were here for 4 days. Off came the sheets and the next week my sister-in-law (same one) and their youngest daughter came to help more and visit mom. That same weekend our middle son and his wife were off to the Virgin Islands for a cruise she had earned from work, and I stayed with their 3 boys. 16, 13 and 10. They were wonderful. Very helpful and very responsible. I really enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know them a little better (as you only can if you live with them). But I was also taking care of mom, Wilf and our house as well. On into December and then it was shopping for a few gifts (didn't buy for our family, as we are taking them to Disneyworld in Feb-19 of us will be going. 3 couldn't make it). Then the baking, the decorating and still the visits to mom. She is settling a little better, but doesn't like to have lost her independence. I hosted Christmas eve dinner for 14 of us and then hosted Christmas day dinner for Wilfs family. Boxing day we left for Grande Prairie and spent a week with our eldest son and his family. We had a great time. The 4 little great grandaughters are such a delight. Next week I go back up there (flying this time) (we drove boxing day-11 hours) to spend a week with my grandaughter and her 2 girls as her husband is away on a training course for his new job. I am looking forward to girl time with Amy and the girls. So thats what my life has had in store for me. Hopefully I will get some good pics and be able to post some. While we were away, my hard drive calfed and I had to get a new computer. I am just loving it.

Talked to my eldest granddaughter this morning and she told me the story about her 4 year old and her pre-school. She said "Miss Lisa" (the teacher) I really, really like school, theres just one thing wrong. I'm not in charge." I laughed so hard. You would have to meet this little girl to understand. She is very funny and very much likes to be in control. What a girl.

My niece and her little daughter were for a few days and we had a great time. My great niece is sooooo smart. She is 5 years old and reading at about a grade 4 level. She has a huge vocabulary. Made paper dolls with her on the Cricut. She couldn't wait to get to Saskatoon so she could make paper dolls. Told everyone she met at home that she was going to Saskatoon for that exact purpose.
Wilf took the train a week ago and travelled to Vancouver. He has always wanted to do that and finally got the oppotrtunity to do so. He also went to Victoria for a couple of days and visited with our friends there. Wasn't enough time to see everyone we know there, but had a great time. He will be home this morning. I forgot to send the camera with him so there won't be any pics to scrap there.
We spent two weekends ago helping our eldest grandson get his house ready for sale. His mom and dad and girlfriend were there as well. We spent a lot of hours, but the place looked awesome when we were done. We had such a nice time, not a lot of liesure time but it was great anyway. Lots of laughs.
Last weekend a friend and I went to Athabasca to help celebrate another friends 6oth bd. It was a really nice gathering. Got to see lots of her family whom I hadn't seen in quite a while.
Life has been extremly busy this summer, but thats good because the weather up till a few days ago has been the pits, so it has helped pass the summer in a most delightful way.

Haven't blogged for a while again. Made an album for our son and daughter-in-law for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary but forgot to take pictures of it. Did 20 pages in 4 days, but it turned out really nice.
Yesterday a friend and I worked on her albums she is doing for Christmas presents. We made 2 canvas layouts for her kids anniversaries as well. They turned out great. We started at 1 PM and worked straight through till 11 PM with only about a 15 minute break for supper. We managed to do 7 layouts as well. Some really cute ones.
I plan on spending my day today doing some pages of our family and if anything turns out very well I will take pics and post them.

Sorry I haven't published anything in the last while. Our grandaughter and her two little girls came and spent 10 days with us. I drove home with her for a few days and then flew home. While there I visited our eldest son and his wife and also had time to spend with our two other little great-grandaughters. That was an awesome two weeks with family. I enjoyed every moment. Wish they all lived closer so I could spend more time with them, but am thankful for the time I do get to spend with them. When I returned home I spent a hectic day (11 hours in the office) trying to wrap up a lot of details concerning the sale of our survey business. Wilf will continue to work for the new company for the next 3 years for sure and longer if he and the company so desire. I, on the other hand will be done as soon as we can get everything in order. I have been spending a lot of time in the office trying to get all the details caught up.
The long weekend was spent at Turtle Lake at our son and daughter-in-laws cabin with various members of our family. The weather was not particularily nice but we had a great time being together anyway.
I took loads of pictures with my new camera of various outings with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and hope to be able to find some time to scrapbook some of the photos.
I am also looking forward to my niece and her little girl spending the better part of the week with me the week of July 26th and also an Alaskan Cruise with my cousin in August.
The summer appears to be shaping up to be a busy one and I am excited to be a participant in all of it.

The first two LO's I lifted from Paper Trails. Deb had done a layout and I just loved it, so I stole some of her ideas to do this wedding layout of our middle son and his wife who are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary on June 22. The next two are of our 2nd oldest great grandaughter, taken at her cousins 5th birthday party. Grandma had bought all 4 of her little grandaughters beautiful dresses and they had a blast at a photo shoot that grandma had set up in their basement. I love how she goes from a sad looking little girl, to a smirk and then to a beautiful smile. I am loving the look of the layered photos as well. Again a lot of the ideas I use come from the site Such a Pretty Mess by Gabrielle Pollacco. She does the most beautiful work of anything I have seen since I started scrapbooking nearly 16 years ago. The flowers on the little girl layout are punched from 3 punches I have on two of the background papers and then inked and dampened with water. Then I scrunch them all up, straighten them out a little and then let them dry. They stay in the shape you arrange them if you put the brads in very gently and try not to disturb how they have dried. I have also figured out how to cut the mats I used here on the cricut. You have to have A Childs Year cartridge. I think they add a lot to the lo. The butterflies are stamped with a stamp from Micheals on the same paper as I used for the largest mat (patterned background paper) and then stickled with stardust stickles. The butterfly on the wedding LO is from Dollarama, as are the mirrored butterflies and the dragonfly is from Paper Trails.