Our grandson arrived on January 12th! If you follow me on facebook, you’re thinking, “we know already!“. I must confess to over-sharing photos (just call me Grammarazzi!), but I can’t help it. It’s either the baby or the cat, and the baby is definitely cuter!

He is a lovely, healthy wee boy, and weighed in at 7lbs 15oz and was 20.5″ in length. His first name is Brian, after my dad. I probably shouldn’t share his last name as he isn’t mine to share (well, not all mine). Although, I wouldn’t mind keeping him. Just saying!

Is there anything sweeter than newborn feet?

Well, maybe a newborn face! He’s just a few hours old here.

I’ve been terrible about my resolutions too! I’ve managed to take a photo a day, except the one day that I didn’t see wee Brian and well there just wasn’t any point. I’ve lapsed with the green smoothies and the week-day blogging, but not all is lost. Today, I made a smoothie today AND wrote a post!

I still haven’t come up with a great ‘G-word’ substitute! I’ll keep you posted.

MK xo

May I introduce you to … the soon to be …

Auntie Georgie and Unkie Sam (he wants Unkie, not uncle). Uncle Sam does sound a bit too American for a Canadian uncle, don’t you think?

Hayley will be induced tomorrow, so our new baby boy will be here SOON!

I’m excited, but the G-word is still doing nothing for me. Mr. MK thinks he might like ‘Pops’, but I can’t think of a good G-word substitute.

What do you think?

Please send my girl your good thoughts tomorrow for a peaceful birth and a healthy baby.

xo MK

Tonight, I don’t want to blog. I have nothing nice I want to say. No cute crafts. No easy recipes. No funny (or semi-funny) stories. I’m just stinkin’ miserable.

I’d love to blog about the rotten ‘effing evening I’ve had, but it doesn’t seem quite right.

I will say thought, when Sarah Palin compared hockey moms to pit-bulls (without the lipstick), she obviously hadn’t had the pleasure of hanging out with ski parents. Hockey moms are mere Chihuahuas.

I’d love to say, “I QUIT!” (as well as a few four letter works and an obscene hand gesture).

I’d love to blog about happiness and light, but I’m drawing a blank.

So these resolutions I made are hard to keep, even when I want to. I’ve manage to keep two of the three so far. I’ve blogged every week-day (Monday through Friday) and I have also managed to take and upload a photo everyday to Flickr (so much easier using my iPhone 4, than my Nikon). I love my Nikon but really … the iPhone is just way, way, way easier. EASIER!

Sadly, I still forget to take pics while the action is going on and I usually snap something after all the action is finished …

This is Georgia at the ski hill after the racing was long over.

And this is the next day, after the kids had assembled and then started to dissemble for the group photography. What a great bunch of backs our team has.

This chick doesn’t really care, I just care that I took and uploaded a photo. Good, bad, even ugly (me not Georgia), I’ll upload pretty much anything these days.

If you haven’t guessed from the photos, we spent our weekend at the ski hill. Our club held four races over the weekend (it ain’t easy), and it was non-stop ski stuff. I’d barely unpacked from the Christmas vacation, there were no groceries in the house. Unless I wanted a rotten lettuce and cucumber smoothie (I didn’t) there was no ingredients to make my green smoothie and no energy or time to shop for ingredients on both Saturday and Sunday.

The race is finally over, the groceries are bought and a very tasty green smoothie was enjoyed by the whole family. tonight’s concoction –> Green apple, pear, orange, spinach, celery, lime, pineapple, ice and water. It was rather delicious!

I’m back on the wagon!

xo MK

To take the Christmas tree down …

BUT, important news first –> Woot! I’m so Pround of my girl who place 3rd in her time trials today and has now qualified for the Alberta Winter Games.

That said, we’ve been so busy with the holidays and skiing. There are so many things in my world that need done.

This 6/365 picture clearly demonstrates two things:

1. Cats and Christmas trees get along all too well!
2. It’s well past time to take the poor Christmas tree down.

Also note that in all of the chaos that seems to be my life, I forget to take decent photos until it’s way too late and then have to take terrible photos of the benign. Why didn’t I get a picture of my ski racer today? Sheesh!

I did (thanks to my kid who made it for me!) have a smoothie (trying to keep that resolution going) today. I’ll admit it wasn’t green, but it was smoothie and I’m counting it.

Two more days of ski craziness and life returns to normal. Two days off from blogging.

What’s keeping you busy these days?

xo MK

It’s been a really busy holiday season! We’ve had a wonderful time with family and friends. And Although I love the mountains and love to ski …

I’m happy to be home. So is Georgia. She’s playing with all the toys she forgot she received for Christmas and I’m curled up on the sofa watching reality TV.

We have a HUGE weekend ahead of us! Liz is skiing in the Alberta Winter Games qualifiers tomorrow evening. Only the top 5 in our zone make it to the actual games, so keep your fingers crossed for her. Georgia has her first race of the season on Sunday. Will and I are both volunteering all weekend. It’s going to be a long one …

It’s only day four of my 365 photo project and already I’m resorting to sharing photos of the contents of my frying pan.

They were for one of my favorite recipes –> chicken in white wine. Mmm, mmm!

Blogging every weekday has been challenging too! We’ve been on the road and I’m using just my iPhone for pics and my iPad for blogging. I love them both, but this one finger typing is over-rated. I know, I know … definitely a first world problem!

Speaking of iPads, do you have a favourite app? I’m absolutely LOVING the BBC iPlayer right now. There are just a plethora of great shows to watch.

xo MK

We spent the day skiing in Banff. I love to ski at Sunshine.

The image above was taken as my 3/365 photo. It’s about the tenth time I’ve taken a photo from exactly the same spot. That tree, the rugged terrain. I’ll never tire of trying to capture the beauty of it.

I never ski by that spot without stopping. Do you have a favorite spot outdoors?

I never make resolutions, but 2012 is going to be different!

This year I’ve made not one, but three promises to myself.

I’m going to have a green smoothie every day.

So far, so good.

I’m going to take photo everyday in 2012 and publish to my Flickr account.

So far, so good.

I’m going to blog every week day in 2012.

If this post goes up in the next 8 minutes … so far, so good!

What are your new year’s resolutions?

The kids and I have been making gingerbread houses for years. Probably 7 or 8 years with Elizabeth, Sam and Georgia and I made them with Hayley when she was a wee girl too.

Many, many moons ago I tried making, cutting, baking and assembling my own gingerbread house from scratch. It was a disaster, a first world disaster to be sure, but a disaster none-the-less.

I have, ever since, bought the kits you see in every grocery store and of course Michaels. Most of them are right around the $10 mark, and very easy to assemble.

I used this gingerbread house kit this year to create the house above. It was just $8.99. A steal really.

The kits are cute and all, and if you just buy a kit and nothing else you’ll have created a super cute gingerbread house and more importantly some great memories to go with it for your children.

However, why not take it a step further and use the kit as the base for an even more elaborate creation? For about $10 extra you can create a gingerbread to call your own! Your kids will love you for it.

Here are a few ideas from this year’s model.

This evergreen tree is made by stacking 4 Spearmint Leaf candies. The first 3 were stacked and rotated, the four and top candy was cut in half with the pointed end of the leaf pointing up.

This kit didn’t come with a chimney and every log cabin needs a chimney. You can build one out of Hot Tamales cinnamon candies and frosting. It’s easy … or if you prefer you can use graham wafers and cereal like we did last year.

Sour Whips purchased at Dollarama were used to make the green siding, window interior and even the roof shingles. These candies are similar to Betty Crocker’s Fruit Roll Ups, which were also used along the roof line and around the chimney base.

Logs for the base of the house were made using Rondoletti Cafe Style Cream Wafers (available at Canada Safeway).

Do you ever make a gingerbread house? I’d love to see pictures if you do. I’m always looking for new ideas.