Haircuts and Scorpions

I looked after Aidan for Amy for awhile this afternoon. She gave him his first haircut yesterday - he looks like a little boy now without his cute little baby curls. Amy thinks she did a terrible job, but it's hard to cut someone's hair when they're constantly in motion like Aidan.


Here's the front view. The sucker he's holding and eating is one I got in Arizona in Sept. It's banana flavored but there's a real scorpion embedded in it. I was told that it's completely edible. He really enjoyed it. When Amy got home she took it away from him. Poor baby.


Here's a close up of the sucker. He almost got to the bug!

Although she can't stand on her own for more than 3 seconds, and isn't walking yet, Ellie has become a climber. Put any step stool, stair, or railing in her way and she's trying to climb it. Her latest favorite is the Thomas step stool in the bathroom that her big brother and sister use when brushing their teeth.

Of course the toothbrushes are right there and she knows what to do with them, although she isn't sure which end she should be putting in her mouth.


She ends up standing up on the narrow edges of the 'train', which is hard on her feet, then yells till someone comes to rescue her. Life is fun with Eloise!!!

How We Change...

I haven't taken any pictures for the past couple days so went through my files and found a few portraits of myself - there were a few I missed, but I'm sure you'll be able to notice the 'subtle' changes in my looks from the time I was 2 (1950) until this year.

Patsy McCarthy - 2 years old - 1950

Pat McCarthy - 8 years old - 1956

Pat McCarthy - 18 years old - 1966

Lloyd and Pat MacKenzie - 56 years old - 2004

Pat and Lloyd MacKenzie - 58 years old - 2006

Pat and Lloyd MacKenzie - 60th birthday- Family Reunion - June 2008

I guess the next portrait we have taken will be our 40th wedding anniversary portrait in March of 2011

Circle Journal

Early in 2006 a group of nine scrapbooking friends got together and organized a circle journal swap. Each one of us was to buy a scrapbook - any size - determine a theme, and prepare an instructions page, sign-in page, and the first layout. Then we passed ours on to the next person in the list. Ideally this would have taken us about 10 months to complete. Here it is, the end of 2008 and Mickey and I finally got ours back yesterday. It was such fun to see it again and to see all the different layouts our friends had added. I still need to get Emily to do her layout in it, and then it's complete. Here's what it ended up looking like. If you click on each picture, you'll see a larger image and can read the journalling.

The cover

My instruction page and sign in page - I had made a tag for each member of the group to sign and date, which tucked into two pockets on the page.

My page - interesting to note that when I did this 2 and a half years ago we only had 12 grandchildren. There are 17 of them now.

Elsa's Page

Elizabeth's page

Kelly's Page

Mickey's page

Renee's Page

Tammy's Page

Terrie's Page

A Quist-y Day

Jenn, Anders and the boys were in town today so we spent some fun time with them. The little granddaughters refer to their five boys as the "Quisty boys" and since they're the oldest of our grandchildren (at least the first 3 are) the younger kids tend to look up to them.

We went to Swiss Chalet with them for dinner - quite the experience with boys ranging in age from 11 months to 12 years. It was a fun time. It's also difficult to get a good picture of the whole crew.


I did manage to get a nice shot of the five of them earlier in the day. They are Jonah holding James (Jammers), Sam, Micah and Nate all blue-eyed blonds. Lucky for us they just live ah hour south of Edmonton so we see them quite often.

Sweet Treats

I saw six of the grandchildren in their Hallowe'en finery today and took pictures to mark the occasion. Here in Edmonton we usually are knee deep in snow by Hallowe'en but this year we're a balmy 8C (45F) and dry. That makes for a much more pleasant and bearable trick or treating evening.

Charlie was Wonder Woman, although I'm sure she has no idea who Wonder Woman is/was. She wore that outfit to school today and was so proud of herself.


Max was an astronaut (I called him Buzz) - a very elaborate costume Sara bought on line. The helmet has a speaker and sounds - very cool. He wore his costume to pre-school yesterday and was the best dressed 3-year old there.


Aidan was a shark - note the eye and the dorsal fin - it still seems odd to see him walking. He went out for about 10 minutes tonight - trick or treating wasn't very important to him.


This is Elly the Elephant. She wasn't crazy about her costume - kind of hard crawling with that trunk in the front. She sure looks cute though.

A better view of the costume.


Max, with the helmet visor up.


Kenzie - always a princess - she loves to dress up and looked sweet. She wasn't too pleased when her mother made her wear her winter jacket under the dress (not pictured here) but decided it was better than wearing it over the dress. It's her first hallowe'en to go out without her parents - she went with her friend and her friend's mother.

Sydney looked sweet with her hair done in a flip. She's some kind of super hero - Invincible Woman I think. She was just eager to get out and get candy.


Front shot of Aidan and his shark costume.

I wish I could have seen the other 11 grandkids in costume - maybe their parents will send pictures. I'm sure they all had fun.

Fall Garden

The prettiest flower first - Charlie and I checked out the remain of their garden after school today, and then she drove her bike around to the back yard.


We found this bird wing beside the dragonfly stone. Charlie didn't know how the bird flew away with only one wing.

The crocodile pond, with lots of rocks and pine needles floating on top.

The Inukshuk - he's pretty strong and will over-winter well. I want one in Arizona.

The last purple flower (aster?) in the bunch.

Rosebuds that will never open and live up to their potential - so sad.

Rose hips - from the roses that did live up to their full potential.

This yellow flower started it all. I saw it among the rocks at the base of the large rose bush - all by itself, strong and beautiful.