Dash’s first choir concert was on Sunday – so cute! He was very shy on stage, but he did sing. It makes me think about when I was in the very same choir – I was a little older than him, but I thought I would post some pictures for fun.

Aren’t we the cutest? (I also noticed that we’ve changed the uniform a little since I sang in choir!)

Congratulations Joanna! I think I might have 2 copies of another book as well, so look for another giveaway sometime soon! Thanks for sharing all your favorite books – we will check them out for sure!

I love books. I love everything about them. Looking at them, touching them, taking them out of the library, buying them, storing them…oh, and reading them. My favorite kind of books are Canadian literature (hence my internet-wide user name, canlitlvr), but a VERY close second is children’s lit. Oh man, I love children’s books. I love an excellent story, whether it is clever, poetic, touching and/or funny married with beautiful illustrations. In what other genre can you enjoy both art and poetry?

I was looking for a book to read my boys the other night (I put my foot down about reading the same old $3 Superhero board books again), and discovered that I own two copies of the same book – one of my favorites. So I have decided to have a giveaway. I have always wanted to have a giveaway, but never had anything to give away. (I did try and do a little prize for my 1000th comment, and my dear little brother won and I still haven’t given him a prize. I was going to sew a cute little apron, but then a dude won.)

So please leave a comment with your favorite children’s book (no novels) and I will do a random draw for a copy of this hilarious book:

Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt

I chuckle every time I read it to my boys, but the humor is kind of over their heads.

Here is a little list of some of my favorite books. Bonus points if you name a book not on my list!

I’ll do a random draw on Monday morning. Good luck! (Leave a comment even if you already own this book and let me know if you don’t want to be in the draw. I still want to know your fav book!)

On a side note, am I the only person in the world who doesn’t like Robert Munsch?

Since you are all probably dying of suspense, I’ll fill you in on what must have happened with the strange photo. (And yes Kristin, I am very glad it was a G-rated anniversary picture!) I can not explain the technology behind it, nor can my very technically intelligent husband, but somehow, I think I downloaded someone else picture. I don’t know how it got onto my phone, or into my iPhoto, but it has something to do with ’sharing’ your iTunes and using WiFi all at the same time, secure or not. Needless to say, I have turned off any sharing-type things on my computer – not only do I not want other people’s photos showing up on my phone, I don’t want my photos showing up on anyone else’s either.

Maybe someday, when I meet my new neighbours, I can ask them about this strange scenario and I will learn the truth. But for now, I have to settle for this odd, nonsensical explanation.

I have publicly criticized my peers who make a point of not swearing and then use texting shortcuts that mean the same thing. But this situation is definitely worth a big WTF!? And if it makes you think of me as less of a hypocrite, I’d probably say the real thing too.

Last night, I went to plug my iPhone into my computer (where I charge it nightly) and of course, iPhoto pops up to sync with the photos taken on my phone since the last time it met with my computer. There is this odd photo I do not recall taking…

My first thought: Who in the hell are those people? My second thought: Why in the hell are they on my phone?

Before panicking, I check to see when the photo was taken. 4 am Tuesday morning. OK, start freaking out.

I could NOT sleep last night, I was too occupied with this strange photo. Here’s what I came up with…

The reasons why I am pretty sure I did not accidentally take a picture of some photos of old people I don’t know:

• I’ve never seen that piece of paper before in my life.
• That piece of paper with photos on it is NOT in my house.
• Tuesday evening was the first time I left my house in days (oh except I went to my parents house for dinner on Sunday. The photo wasn’t on there then because I was showing pictures to my family on my phone).

Reasons why I’m pretty sure it’s not a screen shot (you can take a screen shot of anything you do on your iPhone):

• It’s taken of a picture on a tile floor that looks very similar to mine
• I have never come across that picture while surfing the internet on my phone.

Reasons why it wasn’t someone else in my family:

• All claim innocence and ignorance.
• All were sleeping at 4 in the morning. I woke up pretty close to the time the photo was allegedly taken because that’s what time the Babe usually wakes up to eat. (He didn’t that night though…maybe he was out on the town with my phone…)

Reasons why someone didn’t break into my house to take a photo of old people on my phone, not steal anything and lock the door on the way out:

• Did you read that last sentence?

So unless it was my husband or brother playing a practical joke on me, (Joel, were you suffering from insomnia, sneak over to my house and take a strange photo?) then seriously, WTF!?

Anyone have any ideas? Does anyone know these people? (BTW, Happy Anniversary Old People I don’t know. 60 years – wow! That’s a long time.)

I want to make this (the wall art and potentially the matchy pillows):

But I am having trouble choosing fabric. My couches are this color:

I also have these chairs, covered in this fabric:

Amy Butler

They don’t have to stay in the room, because I’m not sure they match, but I love that fabric and have extra of it – so it could be one of my fabrics. At first I thought there was no way I was going to combine the grey color with the brown, but then I looked at my kitchen and what do you know?

Here are some fabrics I like, but I don’t know if they go together, or if they are too busy, or not colorful enough or the pattern is too small…What do you all think? As you can see, I tend to lean towards blue, but I also thought it would be fun to throw in something more exciting, like the red. The real problem is, I will really like one pattern, but not all the matching ones and all the ones I like do not go with each other…

So please comment and let me know which ones you like, what you think will match the furniture and maybe I can narrow down my search to try and find matching fabrics to one of these:

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Michael Miller

Michael Miller

Michael Miller

Michael Miller

Michael Miller

“To laugh often, to win the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of fast friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Almost the whole family went away to choir camp last weekend. Only Jack Jack stayed home with my mom. I think both boys had a good time in their respective places. It’s been fun having Dash join the choir – he loves to sing and does pretty well, even though he is the youngest chorister. I also took my Babe to camp, which proved to be slightly exhausting. I came home and crashed – physically and emotionally!

My baby also turned 2 months! It’s gone by so fast! He really is a good baby – he will sleep for about 6-7 hours at sometime during the day. Sometimes it starts around 8, sometimes midnight. He isn’t completely predictable yet. I tried to take some photos of him for his 2 month birthday, but he wasn’t really into it. As you can see, Jack Jack really wanted to be in the picture and kept popping up behind the Baby.

The older boys love the Baby, but they are a little too physical. I have to keep telling them to leave the Baby alone!!

Since they have gone back to school, the boys play together so much better. I find that when they are away from each other all day, they appreciate their time together more. They love to play variations of ‘house’. This morning, Batman was the dad and Robin was the son. Apparently, Batman registered Robin for gymnastics. It’s pretty cute.

The Baby has become quite the little smiler. He is so cute and sweet when his little face breaks out in a huge grin. He ‘talks’ more and more every day. The most I’ve ever heard him talk was the other day when I took him to a meeting I had to go to. He was cooing away and I felt like I should be shushing him!! I have yet to capture his little smile perfectly. This is as close as it gets:

Today I was chatting online with my bestie who lives in a land far, far away. The next thing I knew, I woke up to my doorbell ringing with the imprint of my computer on my forehead. I put away my computer and went to get Jack Jack who was being dropped off from school by a very sweet friend. Later, I got an e-mail from the previously mentioned bestie, saying something along the lines of, ’sorry we didn’t get to finish our chat…’ Oops!! I completely forgot I had been carrying on a conversation when I fell asleep. On my computer. Literally. Sheesh!

Enjoying the new baby…

Our new family looks a little something like this…

And then a new little niece and cousin is born…(and for some reason all my pictures are out of focus!)