12 of 12 March

I enjoy this 12 of 12 Challenge each month. It never fails that I manage to end up with far more photos than I will ever use! Today, I found it very difficult to whittle it down to 12. Especially when one of them had to be of me ... and of course, I have to have at least one picture per child. So that leaves me with a measly seven photos to represent my day.

I managed to select these 12, but rest assured, I had photos of laundry piles - clean and dirty, dishes - clean and dirty, getting caught behind a very slow school bus first thing this morning when we were running late. Oh, and a great, embarrassing, Slice of Life, for which I have no photos because I forgot the camera!

Caden really did not want to go to school this morning. Par for the course. Caden would prefer not to go to school any morning. He decided to lie on his Daddy and try to get out of the drudgery of an education. It didn't work!

Claire was pretty quick getting ready for school. As always, her winter drink of choice is a hot chocolate - doctored up with some half and half and a bit more sugar. Ick. But she likes it.

Here is the home for my new iMac. A nice little alcove in our Master looking out onto the red maple. It'll be gorgeous when the leaves appear. I love this room and the wall colour - Rusty Nail. Gorgeous. More naked walls, but that's another post for another day!

I have no idea where I first saw it, I think maybe Susannah's blog, or maybe Sherri's, but the idea of an "Artful Blogging" magazine was brilliant to me. It arrived in the mail today. Yay!

I made a new layout for a challenge blog: Divine Scrapbooking. Always fun to try new techniques by other artists. I'm enjoying these challenges: it's only the second, but I'm now 2 for 2!

Cole's after school snack today was a hotdog. Well two hotdogs, one bun. Ugh. I can't believe he can eat all that then go to hockey practice and still function. But he does. Every day. I keep telling him that his 12 year old body can't take it much longer. His answer? He takes a shot of Mona Vie and gives me a hug.

The obligatory photo of me. LOVE the Contessa, she's one of the few celebrity chefs who looks like she enjoys what she cooks. Oh, and Char, there, you can see the new hair colour :) A bit brighter, can't wait for you to see it in person tomorrow!

There she is, down the drive, off to a last-minute sleepover at her buddy Jessica's house. Claire's Spring Break started at 4:30 this afternoon. No school for WEEKS.

Caden is a hockey stat nut - a mini-Louis. He's holding up the rosters for each country's Olympic team next winter. He's coded them: a dot means he's a good player; an X means they play for the Dallas Stars (his favourite team). Crack.me.up.

Pork chops with a dijon caper cream sauce and dirty mashed potatos. No, not found in the Contessa's book, but one I made up years ago.Followed by salad and dessert. Delicious! Well, I skip dessert, the kids all got the rest of Lorraine's cupcakes. No, they did not even make it to the weekend!

The kids were thrilled to remind me that it is Survivor night. Every season I'm in a pool with my friends Lorraine, Elaine and Lindy. I am terrible because I rarely remember to watch! This season I'm determined to at least know who is voted off each episode. Bye bye, Sean. I think that was his name.

Cole, Chloe and Caden have their last day of school tomorrow. Cole's teacher had some kind of contest and he had to get the answer in before the end of the evening so she could give him credit for it. Amazing how they can just e-mail their teachers. Wow.

Now, I'm typing this out, in my new little alcove in the Master bedroom. The TV is on in the background and I can hear sounds of "Life" - love that show, aka, kiss of death. I hope you had a great 12th of the month!