You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

So, according to dog training books I've read, a great way to discourage a dog from stealing food off the table is to rig a trap with tin cans where the tin cans fall and startle the dog when he takes food from the table. Normally, Howie's pretty scared of loud noises so we thought this would have to work really well.

Well...as you can see, not so much.

Any suggestions on how to teach him to stay off the table?

I-Spy Swap

I signed up for my first I-Spy Swap this weekend at Obsessively Stitching - this is a new concept to me and I think it's a fabulous idea. I made an I-Spy quilt about 6 or 7 years ago and it was really really hard to gather enough fabrics, each one different and with some kind of picture on it, to put together a fairly small quilt. I think I came up with about 75 different squares and felt happy with that. Well, by entering this swap, all I have to do is buy 0.2 metres of 10 different fabrics (2 metres total), cut them up into 20 4" squares of each fabric, mail them off and then I'll receive 200 different squares back. TWO HUNDRED different squares! I'm so excited to see what I get back.

And yes, I do realize that I already have an I-Spy quilt, as Jess has already reminded me. But that's not the point.

A Hole in the Bathroom Wall

So, the grout in our ensuite bathroom has always had mould issues. But we've been putting off redoing the tile until later. And then last week, Jess decided to pull back a couple of tiles to see how much water was getting in behind them. And then he pulled off a couple more. And then a couple more.

And sure enough, the drywall had turned to black mouldy mush and the insulation wasn't looking too good either. So then, instead of taping over the hole and phoning a bathroom renovation company, he decided to go and buy a ventilation mask, put on some goggles and a head to toe haz mat suit (I wish I'd snapped a picture of his outfit but sadly I didn't), and finish pulling off all the tiles. So now our bathroom looks like this:

And it's going to be at least a month until it's fixed. But at least I'll finally get that bathroom reno I've been wanting!

Mini Maira

I came across a cute idea when I was reading one of the blogs I follow: hand-drawn paper dolls customized to look like your daughter. It's called Mini Me and if you don't want to pay for shipping, Hannah, the woman behind the business, will email you the paper dolls in PDF and you can print them off yourself on cardstock. So, you just give her your daughter's name, hair colour, hair style, eye colour and skin colour, and you can add glasses and/or freckles as well, and then you can also choose from a few different lines of clothing. I got a line of regular spring clothes as well as a line of fairy tale costumes. Maira loves them and I do too, they're just so cute!

Maira already has an old-fashioned paper doll set that I keep up high and let her play with once in a while and she loves it but she really struggles with the tabs. So, on these ones, I just cut the tabs off, laminated the doll and the clothes and put sticky velcro on them to make it easier for her to use them. I also printed off a second doll so they can play together.

Bad Dog

Howie likes taking food off the table when we're not looking. We've known that for a while and so we've been trying to teach him not to and we try and remember to keep food away from the edge of the table, out of reach. But yesterday, Jess decided to set up a surveillance camera and watch what Howie would do if he left some food in the middle of the table and then left Howie all alone...

Apparently all he's learned is to wait until we're gone to eat off the table.

A Couple of Quilts

So, I finally finished Connor's quilt a couple of months ago but I'm a little disappointed with how it turned out. You can't really tell in this photo but the strips in the middle would not line up in a straight line, no matter how much pulling and muttering/mild cursing I did. So, instead of starting over (which I never do), I just sewed it together with crooked lines and a few bunches in the fabric here and there. What was supposed to be a simple quick quilt ended up taking way longer than I thought. Oh well, I learned a few lessons along the way and after a bit of a break from that pattern, I'm ready to go ahead and make a matching quilt for Hudson which will hopefully turn out much better.

Howie's favourite place to sleep is snuggled up close to Connor.

And here's another quilt I just finished (finally - I've been working on it for about 6 months). It's a Yellow Brick Road pattern with a kit of fabrics I bought at Earthly Goods. I really love it, it makes me happy every time I see it. Even Jess likes it (he's never complimented one of my quilts before!), especially because it's long enough to cover his feet when he uses it for a nap on the couch!

And since Hudson was hanging around while I was taking this picture, I thought, what better way to cuten up a shot of my quilt than to add a cute baby?

Sorry, it was my fault

I washed my kids' snowsuits and put away their winter boots so today's snowstorm was obviously my fault. Here's the view from my kitchen window this afternoon:

Yes, that's Connor's soccer net where just a few days ago he was out practising his soccer moves.

Here is a picture of a few of the crafty things I've been up to lately. There are other things, I just have to get around to taking pictures of them. A good friend is expecting triplets next month, 2 girls and a boy, so I made her some blankets, hats and booties. The hats came out awfully small, it's hard to believe a baby's head could be that small but we'll see.

Well, in another hour, I'm off to the first of my 3 mother's day spas I get to enjoy this week. Shae's activity days girls are bringing their mothers tonight and they're going to do our nails, and there may be a massage in there somewhere too. Then on Thursday, I'm invited to Maira's playschool class for a mother's day party and then Thursday evening, I'm invited to the kindergarten class's "Extreme Mom Makeover" where Connor is apparently going to be doing my nails, hair and makeup and giving me a fancy schmancy massage too.