Hockey and Christmas - Can It Get Any Better?

Ok, time for a much-needed update. :P

The game I went to was great! The Pens won 6-3. You can read all of the details here, if you like. ;) Though the majority of Blues fans weren't impressed with their own team, apparently Sidney Crosby was, LOL. That's good to know. :)

A couple of days before the game, I received my "Roaming Penguins" in the mail. These little guys are so cute! You can read all about them here, and about a special project that they're a part of here. And, if you click here, you can see what other Roaming Penguins are up to. One Marc-Andre Penguin has actually met his human counterpart, Marc-Andre Fleury! I have a Sidney Penguin, a Geno Penguin, and a Marc-Andre Penguin (so far! :D).

My dog, Bunny, with Sidney, Geno, and Marc-Andre Penguin. They're all so cute!

And yes, Marc-Andre is actually sitting on Bunny's back. :P

A couple of weeks ago, Lizzy surprised me with an amazing drawing of Sidney Crosby. Now, i must take a minute to brag on my friend. ;) I showed her an icon I made using a picture that I found and mentioned that I would love to have a drawing made from it, but I would need to find a bigger version of it as this one was on 250 pixels. She said that if I found one she would try to do it for me, so I went to Google Images and started hunting. We were talking on Windows IM while I was looking, and I was sharing my results...some were quite interesting, and I found several good pictures (I probably added at least 50 new pictures to my rather large gallery :P)...but not the one I was looking for. About 50 pages into my search, Lizzy informed me that she found my picture. Quite amazed, I asked if she could send me the link. She said no, and sent me a file on IM. I was completely speechless - It was a drawing! She drew it while we were talking and I was searching. Isn't she wonderful? :)

This is the picture that I showed to Lizzy, and have yet to find a bigger version of.

I made a wallpaper using her drawing, and added a poem I wrote to go with it. I love how it turned out. :)

Click the image for a full-size version

Voting for the starting line-up of the NHL All Star game is now open. Somehow Canadiens fans have managed to cheat and get their players tons of extra votes...if it weren't for that, I do believe that Pittsburgh's own Crosby and Malkin would be in 1st and 2nd place for the Eastern Conference. None of the Blues' players have made it to the leaders' board yet. :( We're trying, though...

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Moving on to a different subject (one that I'm sure my readers will be much more interested in! :P) - Christmas is coming! One of our local radio stations has already switched over to playing Christmas music, and another one will tomorrow. I've also started some of my shopping. :D This year, I'll be knitting as many gifts as I can. I have the yarn for three scarves...I have no idea who I'll be giving one of them to. :P And the other two I'm making using Lion Suede. I really love how the first one's turning out. I'm going to have to get me some later to make one out of. :D I'd also love to be able to figure out how to make socks before it's too late...and my Mom has requested leg warmers. The pattern I have for those has some unfamiliar stitches in it too. :P This past weekend, I invested in the Knitting For Dummies book, so I'm hoping that it can help me. :P

I still have yet to decorate my room. I hope to have it done by Thanksgiving. :) My sister won't let it not be. :P We have twice as much this year than we did last year...it should be fun. We even have lights to put up this year. :)

Also on the subject of Christmas...I'll be playing the part of a cow in a Christmas play at church. Yes, a cow. :P My mom volunteered me. Excepting the narrator, the cow is the largest part. I guess that's why she wanted me to do it...

My sister is drawing the animals that we'll use for the play, and I'm colouring them. You'd be surprised how hard it is to colour a sheep. :P

Ok, I think I'm done. :P Is this the longest post I've ever made? I think it is...

Now I have to go and locate all of the links that I need to add in...:P

Preparing for the Big Game...

What big game, you ask? A hockey game. :D

From a previous post, you now know that I'm a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they're coming to play our home team this year! *happy dance* It's this Saturday. It seems like it was just yesterday that my brother and I were counting down the months until November 1st. :P It was the beginning of July when we found out that the Pens would be coming here. With them being in the Eastern Conference, and us being in the Western, they'll only come here once during the season, if that. Unless we're one of the three Western teams that they play twice next year, they won't be coming here at all next season. So this is a big event for us. :)

So I decided to "Pensify" (a new word I created :D) my camera bag that I'll be taking to the game.

I found some cute little penguin beads at the store, and decided that I could do some neat things with them. So I got a few, and then headed toward the letter beads. I used one of the penguins in the key chain with the letters. End result:

(My favorite player is Sidney Crosby, and he's #87 :D)

The things on the side are neat little things I made with some of my home-made beads. (Have you noticed that I have no idea what to call some of these things? )

And the other three penguins I made into neat little chains:

I also bought some gold hockey player and goalie charms and hung them on the side of the bag, and used a couple as zipper pulls (I guess I didn't take pictures of those, because I can't find any! ).

My favorite are these cute little guys that I made out of clay.

I hung them on some leather cord like I did all of the other things and put them on the side of my bag:

Aren't they cute?? :D

I'll probably make a couple more key chains with player names on them after I visit the bead store again. I only had enough money to buy the stuff for one this time. :)

Lastly is a thing I made on my bead loom. I plan to make another one after I buy a bigger loom. :P I didn't have enough space to do this very well...so it looks a little stretched. I took a picture of the Pens' logo and copied it onto graph paper, and then made it out of seed beads on my loom. :)

Wallpapers

Ok, for those of you, my beloved readers, who haven't noticed it yet...
I happen to be a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL hockey team. :D

This past week, a project was introduced on a blog that I frequent, The Sidney Crosby Show (Crosby is the Captain of the Penguins). It was a project to submit your favourite wallpapers of the team, either one's you've found or ones you've made. So I started making some. :D

I thought that I'd share with you all the ones that I submitted:

And a final one was added late:

The bottom quote is by a fellow follower of TSCS, Mer, and we had to wait for permission from her before posting it. :) I made this wallpaper in celebration of the awesome win that the Pens had in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals 2008. In that game Talbot scored the tying goal only 30 seconds before the game was over and the Red Wings would win the Cup. That sent the game into overtime where their goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury, was amazing. And Sykora after calling his shot in the 2nd overtime, scored the game-winning goal in the 3rd. Unfortunately, they went on to lose Game 6 and did not win the Cup. :(