Colle, papier, ciseaux

Bonne année!! Happy New Year!!

Je sais que 2012 est déjà commencé depuis quelques jours mais je voulais tout de même vous offrir tous mes meilleurs voeux pour une nouvelle année des plus agréables pour tous!  J'espère qu'elle sera remplie bien sûr de santé, mais également de temps précieux avec ceux que vous aimez.

Les vacances des fêtes sont presque terminées pour les parents, bien que les filles demeurent encore en congé pour le reste de la semaine, les chanceuses.  J'aurais bien pris quelques jours supplémentaires - surtout que j'ai passé la majorité du congé de Noël sur le carreau - mais travail oblige.

Compte tenu que les parents n'étaient pas très en forme durant les fêtes, nous avons été plutôt tranquilles, passant beaucoup de temps à relaxer, flâner en pyjamas et à regarder des films en famille. Ce qui n'est quand même pas trop mal.  J'achète toujours quelques films pour le temps des fêtes et cette année il s'agissait de la trilogie des Back to the Future.  Les filles ne connaissaient pas ces classiques et nous avons eu beaucoup de plaisir à les découvrir en famille.

Nous avons également profité des fêtes pour voir la famille et célébrer avec eux.  J'ai également eu l'occasion de voir ma bonne amie Barb pour quelques minutes lorsque j'ai effectué un petit arrêt chez elle en route pour chez mon frérôt.  C'était très agréable de la retrouver même pour si peu de temps. =)

Nous avons également poursuivi cette année la tradition des constructions de pain d'épices, bien que j'étais sous l'impression que les filles passeraient leur tour cette année.  La seule "tradition" que nous n'avons pas suivie cette année c'est la fabrication du premier bonhomme de neige de l'hiver, faute de neige...

Je vous laisse avec quelques petites photos de notre congé des fêtes.  À bientôt!

Une petite coupe de cheveux après le spectacle de MixMania 2 au Dix30.

Le chariot du Père Noël.

En beauté pour le Nouvel An.

En bonne compagnie le lendemain du jour de l'An.

I'm back... and Merry Christmas to you too!!!

Désolé de vous avoir abandonnés tout l'automne... :(  J'ai eu un automne extrêmement occupé avec beaucoup d'activités familiales qui nous tiennent occupés ainsi que beaucoup beaucoup d'activités professionnelles qui m'ont tenues très loin du clavier d'ordinateur pour autre chose que le bureau.

J'espère que 2012 me permettra de renouer avec la tradition de "blogeuse" un peu plus.

Nous avons célébré Noël en famille encore cette année bien qu'un peu plus calme qu'à l'habitude.  On prend également ça très calme encore aujourd'hui et les prochains jours.

I'm very happy that we finally got to get a white Christmas after all. I could have done without the drop in the temperature, but I guess that if I want snow, I have to compromise a little...

I hope that everyone is enjoying their Christmas time and taking things easy too.  Best wishes to all my friends out there! :)

Je vous laisse avec la traditionnelle photo familiale du jour de Noël...

Thanks for stopping by, if anyone does, and take care! LOL 

Où est passé le temps?

 
Avec la rentrée qui vient à nouveau de s'accomplir avec séance de photos le premier jour à l'appui, je suis encore une fois estomaquée de voir à quel point les années passent vite.

Il y quelques années à peine, Laetitia faisait ses premiers pas dans le monde des grands en quittant la garderie pour se diriger à l'école. Maintenant, à la fin de cette année scolaire, elle franchira une fois de plus une nouvelle étape en se dirigeant vers le secondaire. Lequel? Rien n'est décidé pour l'instant. Nous irons probablement faire quelques visites durant le mois et Laetitia regarde pour poursuivre dans le programme international, ce qui requiert qu'elle subisse des examens d'entrée sous peu. Et ce sera au tour de Morgane l'année suivante d'avoir à prendre une décision.

C'est plutôt facile d'avoir un petit regard vers l'arrière en ce début d'année scolaire et je suis allée retracer les photos de rentrée des filles depuis leurs débuts. 

Here's a little trip down memory lane:

Rentrée 2005

 

Rentrée 2006

 

Rentrée 2007

 

Rentrée 2008

 

Rentrée 2009

 

Rentrée 2010

 
 
et cette année:

 

 

 

 

Combien de temps encore me laisseront-elles faire vous pensez? ;)

Bonne fête Morgane!

We have celebrated yet another September birthday this weekend. Morgane turned 10 today and we organized a birthday camp-out with 3 of her best friends.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very promising but we got a little respite the first couple of hours the guest were there so they were able to enjoy the outdoor facilities available exclusively for them at Camp Morgane.

We had set up two tents outside, one for eating and one for sleeping. And as anyone familiar with camping knows, when you arrive, you have to register and the gate keeper gives you a site drawing and a list of rules to abide by. :)  The campers also got a bag with some camping essentials like a head-light, a collapsible stool, a refillable bottle and some warm socks, just in case it got nippy during the evening and a kit of glow-in-the dark jewelry. Hey... girls are girls! LOL

 
 
 

 

The girls and I had prepared a few warning signs to put outside but because of the forecast, we kept them inside. I had fun trying out a couple of ideas gathered on Pinterest the previous weeks, like glow-in-the-dark sticks broken in jars for light.

 

 

While it was nice out, they munch on some chips and talked, listen to music and  came up with their own set of in-line dances.  (You can see that Laetitia is no where in sight for this one. I think she had enough dancing for the day as she had a show in Longueuil in the morning with Les Mutins de Longueuil at Festival des Vieux-Métiers or it might be a case of preteen hormones LOL)  Morgane also opened her gifts while there was still light.  We had a bbq and some log birthday cake, to keep in the camping theme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, despite the rain, the campers still slept in the tent before eating breakfast and heading to the salon this morning to have their nails done again this year. Looks like it was a big winner last year and the girls wanted to repeat the experience.

 

 

 

 

Laetitia had to keep her manicure very low key since she has another show this week and she's not supposed to wear nail polish ... ;)

The girls had a great time overall and the only glitch with the rain pouring down after supper was that the outdoor cinema became an indoor thing and we had to forgo marshmallow roasting and the smores... The only one that wasn't very sad about the marshmallows being rained down was Laetitia, who loves the fluffy thing but can't eat them anymore because of her braces.

Already time for school and work tomorrow. It's been another busy weekend over here. Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week! :)

 

First week back to work is finally over!

It's always difficult to get your head back in gear after a month of vacation time. I think I have to rewire my brain the first few days back at the office each year. But now the first week is over and went relatively well so I can go on from there. :)

It was a relatively busy first week back as Laetitia had a couple of appointments at the orthodontist in order to get her braces installed on Thursday.  It's a good thing that she wanted to have braces on and wanted them right now because as soon as she had them installed, she started thinking it wasn't what she had bargained for... Poor her. Her first meal was a disaster. Then, last night, as she was trying to floss, her retainer poped out and came undone... She was a basket case and I didn't know exactly what we should do and if we should touch it. Finally, Patrick tried to put it back into place as much as he could so she could go through the weekend.  She has an emergency appointment back at the orthodontist on Monday so she can get it fixed properly.

 

This is going to be her new smile for the next two years or so...

Then Morgane had her first "star" sighting when she spotted two members of the MixMania 2 group while being at La Ronde on Friday. Both girls are crazy about them and I can't stand them! LOL  And that's rare because the girls and I pretty much enjoy the same music most of the time.

She was bold enough to go and ask for a picture of them with her and then, after checking with me to see if I agreed, got her t-shirt autographed for posterity! LOL  I was really happy for her and very happy to oblige with the autographs on the shirt since it's not everyday that you can meet your idols in person.

That, and I also thought of how frustrated with my mom I would have been if she hadn't agreed to let me do something like this when I was Morgane's age! LOL Hey, what's a t-shirt in those circumstances! ;)

 

 

We will probably do some back to school shopping over the weekend. It has to be done sometimes... And, unfortunately for everyone concerned, there isn't much time left before they need to put their backpacks on and head for a new school year.

I hope that everyone enjoy their weekend! :)

 

 

Looks like the party's over...

 

and we are not going anywhere anymore... Ever since we've been back from our last little camping trip, the cats have hijacked our luggage! LOL  Looks like they are saying that we are not going anywhere without bringing them with us. ;D

Anyway, it's alright since we have to go back to work tomorrow... *sigh*  We took our vacation early this year because of a little mishap at Pat's work (he forgot to put down his vacation before deadline, so he ended up choosing last instead of first... oops) but everything worked out beautifully and we had great weather overall. :)  We might even do it again next year because by doing so, we still have a few weekends to enjoy before the girls go back to school and we won't have to do all the back-t0-school stuff during our vacation.

We took a few mini-trips to different places which ended up being very fun.  Most of our time was spent near the Ontario border or in Ontario, as we took a 3-day pontoon trip up to Ottawa, then went back to Ontario's Sandbanks and Kingston for 5 days and then went for another 3-day trip around Montebello.

We went camping again and the girls spent most of their camping vacation in their own tent. They loved the experience but by the end, Morgane decided that she was missing being in the same tent as we were so she came back. LOL  We also rented a small trailer (http://www.remorquetrekker.com/) to put most of our camping gear. It was a great idea. I think that we'll be looking into buying a used one for next year.

Laetitia is on the verge of starting a new stage in her life since she is going to have her braces fitted on Thursday morning... We are going tomorrow so they can put spacers in to fit her other gear to enlarge and shape her palate.  Good thing that she is more than enthusiastic about the whole thing. LOL

Well, I'll come back soon to post a couple of pictures of our adventures.  Until then, I hope that everyone is enjoying their summer and their vacation. :D

 

 

Time flies when you are having fun

and taking life easy!!  We're almost at the end of our second week of vacation. So far, we have had awesome weather to enjoy even a tad on the too hot side - even if I'm not really complaining - especially today with the humidex factor up to 40 degrees.

The girls have taken things really slowly, doing some tv watching, some computer playing, a bit of swimming, even some reading, especially Laetitia. She has finally found a series of books that she got enthralled in. While we went on a little three-day pontoon cruise, she could be found most of the time quietly reading at the back of the boat. She actually went through two whole tomes.  Good thing we were docked in Gatineau and found a bookstore about 10 minutes from the marina. I was able to buy her tome 2 and 3.

So far we have done a lot of different things. Like I said, we were gone for a three-day pontoon cruise with our friends Luc & Yannick. We went up to Gatineau on the first day and slept at a marina there and then went for a day-trip up to Ottawa and Lac Lemy and came back to Gatineau to sleep again. Then it was back home on the last day. The only long part of our journey was when we had to spend three hours in the locks at Carillon. There was a line-up to get in and you have to wait for both your side and the other side to be done to be able to enter afterwards. It seems that Carillon is the highest lock in Canada, so it takes about 30 minutes to enter and get the water either up or down depending on the side you are going. We also had to tow another pontoon in distress after losing their helix (?) on their motor up to the locks, which took us a bit longer than we had expected.  But we got back to shore just in time before the big thunderstorm hit us.

 
 
 
 

We even had some show of sisterly love when we had to go through some bigger waves made by the power boats going by us...

 

So far, we have also went to La Ronde on two different occasions to do a few rides and mostly to see the fireworks. Last night was the US entry on the Wizard of Oz theme. Not as grand as the italian one we had saw the previous week but a great show nonetheless.  There were a few special fireworks exploding as hearts, spirals and squares to mimick the yellow brick road, the heart of the Tin Man and the heart of the Scarecrow.  The final burst was to the tune of Somewhere over the rainbow. Here it is:

 

The girls have camped outside for two nights now and they are enjoying themselves a lot. Gotta love wifi! LOL   We have also seen the last Harry Potter on Monday. We all enjoyed it a lot. I think I'm going to reread the series pretty soon 'cause I'm sad that it's all over.

We probably have a lot more on our agenda for the two other coming weeks, but we haven't made up our minds completely yet.  I just wish that we'll have as beautiful weather as we've had these past two weeks.  One can hope can she? LOL  That would be the icing on the cake since we are taking our vacation earlier than we usually do because of a little vacation mix-up...

That about wraps it up for now. Thanks for stopping by!  And I hope that many of you are also able to enjoy the terrific weather we've been having. :)

 

And we have a winner...

For the first time since the girls have been attending International School, they decided to organize two weeks of day camp to help out parents with the most difficult weeks of the summer i.e. the first and last ones.

A few weeks before the end of school, the people in charge of organizing it asked a few students to come up with a design for the t-shirt that the kids attending the day-camp would get to wear.  And guess whose design they chose? Laetitia's. :)  She was pretty proud of herself and so were we. 

Here's what it looks like:

 

 

And it's even signed...

 

 

Pretty neat hein?  The first week of day-camp went very well and the girls had fun preparing and acting for a super-hero short film.  We have watched the video a couple of times and it's both fun and well made. Morgane plays the wife of the main super-hero character as well as super-hero herself (super-hero name Tonnerre) and Laetitia was a super-vileness named Avenira.

We are still enjoying our vacation time very much. Can't believe that there is almost a week gone already... Let's just hope that the nice weather continues. :)

 

 

Summer is really here!!!

 It's nice, hot and sunny outside and we are on vacation!  Yeah!!!

The girls have already put their vacation time to good work spending a weekend away with their grand-parents to the water slides and doing some zip lining through the woods in Bromont. Morgane was tall enough this year to do the adult course.  And I'm very proud of Laetitia who braved her uneasiness with heights and made it through.  :)  All and all, they had a wonderful time and while they were away, I could nurse my cold without too much remorse! LOL

Here's some pictures that they took while there:

 
 
 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that the nice weather continues for a while so we can enjoy it to the max. :)

School is out!

Yup, we've already reached the end of the school year. Not that anyone is unhappy about it but I just feel like the months have flown by at warp speed... Maybe not on nights that there was too much to fit in but on a general basis. LOL

Since I haven't been scrapbooking much - or should I say at all - for more than a year now, these days I look at anything crafty with a feeling of having to accomplish a huge daunting task. =/  My craftiness these days is usually spent on helping the girls on one of their many projects, cutting paper, giving my opinion on a choice of paper and such, helping make posters for school presentations, finding images or pictures to add to those.  Plus, I usually try to make cards for my close family.

I've been spending some time checking out this site: Pinterest. For those who wouldn't know what it is, it's the new cool place where people store images of ideas for crafts, fashion, cooking, photography, home decor and more. It is pretty much addictive and both girls have been hooked along with me. I had seen some teacher's gifts ideas made by some of my scrapping buddies before but I stumbled upon them again through there. Along with some similar ideas for embellished frames with quotes, I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and make some for the girls' school teachers. I was pretty happy with the quotes that I found and the end result. 

 

And I was able to see one of the teachers when I picked up the girls yesterday and she was very happy with her gift, loving the quote that I chose and telling me that it was too nice to leave at school and that she already had the perfect place for it in her home!  I've also heard through Laetitia that her teacher also loved hers and that she too had the perfect place for it at home. =)

Having made six mini-cards for the daycare educators, two cards for the main teachers and those two frames has given me a little  creativity boost and I'll probably try to do a couple of pages real soon.  Anyhow, it's not the superb weather that they are forecasting for the weekend that would stop me, would it? *sigh*

Well, anyhow, Happy St-Jean-Baptiste Day for all my Quebec friends, even if the celebrations will pretty much be drowned by the weather...