Some b-day invites and a couple SMASH pages

A quick post today to show you what I was up to on the weekend, and to share some big news (no, I'm not pregnant, haha!) Ailis and I made birthday invitations for her judo party this Saturday. As you can see, I let her do the gluing of the elements. It took a lot of restraint on my part to let her do as much as I did, and I know some of you (Alison Day!) will appreciate this. I kept it very simple this year, as I tend to go overboard making beautiful invites that will, inevitably, end up in the garbage, as DH is quick to remind me! So, scrap cardstock, die cut squares, and an uncoloured digital stamp (that Ailis won herself from C.R.A.F.T. Challenges), and they're done.

Here are a couple more SMASH pages I managed to finish, one for Brenna:

And one for Nolan:

I've decided that this SMASH book is going to be about family and friends, but everything is still pretty random. I've got things glued in all over the place, nothing's in order, and I'm embracing the chaos!

Anyway, this Nolan page brings me to a boy update. As I've mentioned before on this blog but some of my new followers may not realize, we suspect that Nolan's got Asperger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism. I just got the date for his full assessment by a team of doctors, and this will happen at the end of March, woohoo! It's been a long wait, but in the meantime he's been making some progress with school and hockey with our increased understanding of him. Last week he participated in a geography challenge at school, and I think he was the top Grade 4 student - we were really proud of him! Then, at his hockey tournament, he made a major breakthrough - he came home and said to Jason, "Daddy, I just realized I can skate with the puck!" You have to know that even though he's been playing hockey for 5 years already, and he's a fantastic skater, he never scores or performs to what we know he can do in a game situation. It's pretty frustrating as a parent, but I knew one day it would click for him. After the light bulb went off, he scored a goal, made a couple of assists, and numerous shots on net! We were all very pleased, but then one of his coaches asked to speak to Jason after the game. Uh oh, what's he done now? But it was all good, the coach asked if Nolan would be interested in playing on a Northern Selects team! So now, he'll be traveling to Edmonton and Vancouver for tournaments, and representing all of northern BC!!! Holy cow, he didn't even have to try out! Anyway, now we're pinching pennies like mad, but we're all really excited for him and this opportunity! I told you it would be a good week!