{341} seeing stars

my mom gave me these sheets of star stickers as a way to mark a "good day" on my fitness tracker. yeah, that lasted about four minutes. at least the stars got used now!

{326} new year's card

i was a little (okay, a lot) late with sending out christmas cards so i decided to do new year's cards instead. g and i got our "hair" done today and then my dad did our photos in his backyard. i rushed over to ss and got them printed just in time to hand out. :) my name is on it so it counts for this. :)

{311} mom's baking

my mom spoiled us at work this week and brought in a huge tray of her amazing christmas baking. seriously. within ten seconds of me removing the lid, half the tray was emptied. we were hoarding the treats at our desks. it was awesome.

{304} in hawaiian

a few years ago my parents went to hawai'i and gifted me with this bracelet when they returned. they told the crafter that my name was "lauren" and so she carved the bracelet with the hawaiian version which is "lalena". loves it.

{292} snow globes

i'm going to do another name with ornaments yet but this was a quick and easy one. each year my mom buys me a pair of these little ornaments with mine and george's names on them. love. such a sweet gesture but i look forward to them every single year.

{265} wrapping paper

i found this swatch of "lauren" wrapping paper in one of my memory boxes! i'm really stoked that i saved it...i just wish i knew which gift had been once wrapped in it! definitely something i received from my amazing mother. :)

100 names to go!

{209} birth announcement

being sick this week has meant that i am reverting to some names that i don't have to spend a lot of time creating. like this one. i went through my baby book the other day and i was looking for examples where my mother used my given name (ie. "lauren") and didn't use it in conjunction with my last name (since i want to keep this project focused on my first name mostly). so, here it is. these birth announcements my mom created on her very own typewriter back in 1981. :)

{156} street sign

i'm officially getting to the point where i can't remember if i already did this idea or not. lol but, i checked and i haven't. i had googled for streets around the world called "lauren street" or "lauren lane" (my fave) but i hadn't actually done a street sign. phew! :)

for whatever reason, i have struggled to keep up this week so i feel like today is a little bit of a cop-out (tomorrow will definitely make up for today's lack of creativity!). i just merely found this picture on google. blah.

but it did inspire me to go and get a picture off of google maps of the original "twin oaks place" street sign and the house that inspired it all!

it's quite blurry (but that's google maps zoomed in!) but this is the street that i grew up on and the namesake for my blog. i think "twin oaks place" is the best street name in all the world. i have always loved it. it sounds so made-up and something you'd hear in a movie. i just think it's a lovely street name. i wish i could still have my address at 27 twin oaks place.

the above picture is the house i grew up in (at the end of the cul-de-sac on twin oaks place). it looks quite different than how i remember it--we had a lot more shrubbery and planters beautifying the house than these people from google maps do. it's quite a shame. my parents love to garden and our house and yard always looked immaculate.

the giant trees in the front of the yard (though barren in the picture) are what inspired the head graphic on my blog as well. i know that they are chinese elm trees but i always liked to think that they were the reason that the street was named "twin oaks" because there are two sets of twins that grew out of that one base of a tree. and then the person thought they were oak trees instead of elm trees. i don't know. my mom says that's boohockey.

{138} father's day

today's post comes courtesy of my dad! my mom made my name on mother's day so it was only fitting for my dad to make my name on father's day! can't wait to share the results of his hard work!

given my recent successes with golf (*wink! see day 136), my dad decided to create my name using golf balls! he even had to go to canadian tire to get another bag of golf balls just to do this--i'm so proud of him! AND, he came up with this idea himself--no help from my mom. i'm so super proud of him.

he is the greatest father ever. he is ALWAYS my number one fan. he is my number one supporter. he is my number one encourager. he always has the right advice for me (even if i don't always listen to it). he is my hero in every way that a daughter wishes her dad could be. i don't know how any other dads can live up to him. he has taught me right from wrong. he has taught me the value of family and faith. he's an incredible grandfather and still acts like he's a kid with them. he is always an example to his children and his family of how to handle situations with class, dignity and respect. he has earned crazy amounts of respect among people in this community (this daughter is super proud of him). he lets me make mistakes and then doesn't hold them against me. he tells the lamest jokes ever. he knows a lot of random stuff (like who invented the vaccination for smallpox). he kills all the spiders in the house that i scream about (he even shows up at 11:30pm to kill the big ones that gross me out too much). he takes me to all the blue bomber games i want. he helps me by taking care of george on days i cannot. he even says things like it is an honour being my father. he always tells me that he loves me. he is truly amazing. he is the best dad in the whole entire history of the world. no question. love love love him.

{103} mother's day

instead of creating a name today that would be inspired by my amazing mother, i decided to let her create my name! i told her that she could do whatever she wanted and had no limitations.

so, she chose to use chewed gum.

when she and i play games together we always keep a pack of juicy fruit at our side so that we can munch on the delicious gum together. so, she would chew a piece and then spread it out on wax paper. i think it's pretty cool. i hadn't thought of this idea yet so i'm really glad that she did! and, i just love that she is now a part of this project.

she's the most incredible woman and an amazing mother. i love her more than words can express. every time i'm with her, i'm happier and feel more alive. she is beyond the funniest person i have ever met in my whole entire life. she is also one of the smartest people i have ever known. she loves to watch the bachelor/bachelorette shows and i love that she loves them. my mom makes the most delicious food ever. my mom is greatest grandmother i could have imagined the Es having. my mom gives everything of herself to her husband and her family. my mom would rather go without the comforts of her life than see her family in any sort of trouble. she has the most giving and generous of hearts of anyone ever. she is the kindest, gentlest and sweetest woman. she has the most incredible talents with singing and playing the piano. she's an hysterical actress and brings down the house every time she performs. she is a true example of what a loving christian mother is. she leads her life by faith and is a blessing on everyone she touches. i love that i am like my mother in so many ways. i love that i am compared to my mother in many ways. i can only hope to some day have half of the strength, class, humour and poise as she.

{88} probe

does anyone else remember the popular 70s game "probe"? it was one of our family's favourites and i guess it still is! every once in awhile my mom and i haul out the game and play a few rounds. she kicks my ass each and every time. she always somehow wins with simple words like "cupboard" or "fridge" or "cabinet" whereas i'm playing difficult words like "pneumonic" or "psychiatry" or "unfortunate". ugh. but, we always have a great time no matter what!

{87} rook

yikes. almost every night this week i have found myself at my parents' house playing rook! lol we're just slightly addicted. or maybe it's because i haven't won a game since AUGUST! that's 27 games without a single win for moi!

we love to play rook. see, my dad was a major competitive rook player back in the 60s and before he and my mom were a couple, they even played games together then. but, my dad was a different person. he was so competitive that he couldn't handle losing or he couldn't handle it if his partner didn't play their cards correctly. he's such a different person now. he's so mellow about it. i mean, does he want to win? of course! but, it's NEVER a big deal if he doesn't.

i ended up taking the kitty with this hand and winning a round! yay!

george had so much fun playing outside in the nice fresh air that he totally zonked out. my parents always have this chair in their eating area just for george. that way he feels like he is part of the game too and he is always within stroking distance. :)

my mom helped me lay out the cards to spell my name.

i am always the dealer. fastest dealer in town! my parents always joke that i should work in vegas. :)

{64} pencil crayons

do you remember "laurentian" pencil crayons? they were the pencil crayons of choice before crayola took over the industry. they were the pencil crayons we always had as kids. see, they had these white blocks on them for parents to write their childrens' names on them so they wouldn't get lost or mixed in with others at school. my brother always had his name written on them. but, what did i get? my mom would take a scissor and scratch off the "tian" part of the brand name so all that was left was the "lauren". genius, right? well, it totally embarassed me. so, eventually i started writing "laurie" on the white part because i didn't like all this "lauren" nonsense.

fortunately, since my mother kept our old pencil crayons in a big pail (which i have now inherited), i still found a few of the original "lauren" pencil crayons, still with the scratched pieces on them. love it.

{62} mom's handwriting

my mom had written me a note and put it in this envelope so i decided to take a picture of her beautiful penmanship.

parents.

oh, how i love my parents. they are the best. they amuse me so. we just had this conversation and it made me laugh so hard (once i hung up with them--i can't let them know that they amuse me) that i had to document it for all eternity on the interweb.

{57} famous laurens

i thought "oh, easily i know six famous laurens." and then, after four i was stumped. fortunately google images helped me out and i found lauren alaina and lauren holly (both of whom i knew of, i just didn't think of them on my own).

oh, and as previously mentioned, my namesake is lauren bacall so it's about time that her picture showed up. hmmm, this may not be my name created out of a different medium but it shall represent today's post. :)

{54} birth certificate

where has the time gone?! life has been a little nutty and i'm falling a little behind here. i shall catch up as soon as humanly possible! i thought i'd do a post of my name on my birth certificate. my mom picked my first name after reading a magazine and seeing the name "lauren bacall" and she asked my dad if he was cool with it and he said "yup!" and so, how totally fitting that i got named after a celebrity.

{51} the peg game

when our family went to florida three years ago, we went to "cracker barrel" twice. on each of the tables in the restaurant were these peg games. our family enjoyed playing them so much that my mom bought one and brought it home with her! she has completely mastered the game and can finish it in the blink of an eye and end up with just a single peg in the middle. since i was at her house again today, i decided this would be a great platform to make my name.


WRONG! after the "l" and the "a", i realized that this wasn't such a great idea. even my mom declared this name to be a #fail! lol oh, well. it had to count because i needed a post for today!

{39} rummikub

another game, another day! rummikub is the game that i would always play with my grandmother when i'd go to her house. she was very competitive and would ALWAYS win at this game. i would barely have played out my first hand and she'd already have won! i have such fond memories of those times with her--playing rummikub and scrabble!

now it's a game that my mom and i also play. it all comes down to who gets those happy faces because that almost always determines the winner. right now, i am on a three-game winning streak!

{38} tealights

well, i had tried this once before. i started using the automatic lighter but my hand was getting tired so i decided to use matches instead. so, i've lit all the candles for the LAU and i started lighting the "R" with the match but i go to blow it out and i blew EVERYTHING out. i got so upset that i just threw all the tealights back in their bag and figured i'd had enough of that.

but, this time i decided to haul all the tealights to my parents' house and try it there. they had a much better lighter and it took me minutes to get everything lit. then i quickly hopped up on the chair, grabbed my picture and blew it all out. THEN, i had to worry about the smoke alarm going off because there was so much smoke in the kitchen. fortunately, it all worked out. ;)