a peek inside the fishbowl

I’m heading to BlogHer 2012 in NYC in August. I bought my ticket last year and have been waffling about my attendance for many months. It was only a couple weeks ago that a decision was made. It’s official. I’m going, and bringing the family with me.

During the day, I’ll be in sessions about content development, marketing, and branding while they explore the city and do all kinds of fun stuff. I’m happy they are coming with me, but sad I won’t be able to join them on their adventures. At this point I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to swing another visit. It’s just so expensive to stay there. Boo.

Anyway, one big thing that’s been on my to-do list is to get all of our passports renewed.

First thing: the photos. Did you know you’re not allowed to smile in Canadian passport photos anymore? Your expression must be totally neutral. That means that our photos ended up looking like mugshots.

All they’re missing is black horizontal bars in the background:

You can’t wear reflective glasses or funny hats either! Darn.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. I didn’t want to pay through the nose so I asked Twitter and called around to see where we can get the cheapest passport photos in Ottawa. You might be surprised at what I found out:

Read the rest of this entry »

Every week my daughter and I make something for CanadianFamily.ca. This is our latest:

We made some non-permanent window art with our favourite comic book characters! You can get the instructions over here.

I love crafts that promote literacy and creative play, don’t you?

Consider the different applications:

• You can build your own comic strip. Work with your kids to write dialogue between several different characters and make up a new story.
• You can leave messages for each other (maybe like the one above?)
• … or just decorate your windows.

Enjoy!