Going Nowhere

Evan at 22 months

2010-10-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

I have 5 pictures like this and the dog's eyes are closed in all of them.

What is this? An update??? Since I'm hopelessly behind on my 365 right now it seems easier to write an update here than to get caught up there. And I'm feeling lazy this morning. We finally found a TV program that Evan will sit still enough to watch for a few minutes: Waybuloo - and so I bought a DVD with a few episodes on it. Just knowing he's in the living room and not escaping the house or teetering on the edge of something for 15 minutes is so relaxing, I can sit here in the recliner with him watching Waybuloo, and even enjoy a cup of coffee before it gets cold. Waybuloo is very annoying, though - the kids have a theory that the reason they float is that their heads are big and full of air like balloons. Which makes more sense to me than the program's description which is that they do 'yogo' which is like yoga to reach a state of "buloo" so that they float. Uh, I'll take the balloon head theory, thanks. And we worry about exposing kids to drugs, etc. on TV. Try preschool programming. Seriously, I dare you to read the description here: Waybuloo and come to any conclusion other than the developers and writers are high.

I wanted to write down all of Evan's words somewhere because my previous experience says that sometime in the next few months he'll go through some 'language explosion' where he'll know so many new words and learn so many more each day that it will be impossible to keep track. In the past month or so he's started using a lot of the same words regularly and it's surprising how much he can tell you with just the same 10-20 words. I'll try to remember what all of them are.

Mom
Dad
Grandma and Grandpa (gamma, ganpa)
Memere and Pepere (mama, papay)
Madeleine (malala)
Dog, Pup, Beau, Doggy

Notice he has four different words to refer to the dog, and only one word for a sister, even though he has three of them. Even though Madeleine's name should be the hardest to say, he's making an effort and I guess the other two simply don't rate. He knows their names (will point to the right sister if you ask "Where is Annique?" but he's not going to repeat them.

Po-po = potty
caca
peepee

All of the toilet-related words are great, because he's telling us when he has to go, when he's gone already (unfortunately) and has been taking all of the initiative in that department. While I'm not going to get my hopes up that he'll be fully trained anytime soon, I'm glad to see he has an interest in the toilet long before any of my girls did. When he says he wants to go - he usually goes. My big girls had a lot bigger vocabularies when they started training but still seemed unable to tell me before they had to go and it was all a bunch of guessing and waiting. I still have video of Cecily singing her ABC's and other songs while she was sitting on the toilet. I am sure she'll appreciate that as she gets older. Until she was about three, Annique would just stare blankly or ignore any mention of anything toilet-related because she had no intention of using it.

up
bye-bye
dodo (sleep)
la (means EVERYTHING)
shoes
tickle (dee-go, dee-go, dee-go)
peek-a-boo (a-boo-boo)
mine/my
tub
baloo (that stupid show)

and of course - TA-TA. I always said I'd never teach my kids to say ta-ta, because wouldn't it be more polite to just teach them to say "please" if they want something? How hard is that? Please, please, please. For everything. What polite children I'd have. Sometime after the second child I realized, ta-ta is not a parental invention. It's not something you teach your children to say. It's something they teach you. It means I WANT THAT. And when you have a baby like mine who doesn't say anything else that means anything, and the meaning of TA-TA is crystal clear, you don't argue. It is a little bit classier than uh-uh-uh or crying, so I'll take it. Please can wait.

Day 6

2010-07-06T11:43:00.001-07:00

And you ask, why is my van so dirty? Would you want to wash this off? Maybe it's a little bit Blair Witch Project, but I like it.

That's Day 6 of my 365 that I started again, so if you're interested in checking it out, try the link on the right.

Christy made me

2009-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Christy says that November is some sort of national post more on your blog month and so I am supposed to update my blog. Normally, I'd be suspicious but I've never known Christy to lie.

Today's updated is on H1N1. I took my two youngest kids to get the shot because they are on the priority list, and unlike everywhere else in the country - it seems our area has some sort of sensible non-panic plan to get the shot into the arms of those who need it. I simply called a 1-800 number last week, somebody answered on the second ring, and so I gave my kids names and ages, and was booked for an appointment today.

The actual clinic was set up in the gymnasium of an elementary school and it was so well staffed and organized that had I left my children at home, I might have imagined it to be a spa day. I likely could have sat and read magazines in peace for an hour and a half. But snapping back into reality - the reason I had to be there was to bring the two youngest for their shots, so it was certainly no picnic but that wasn't the fault of the H1N1 planning people. Our appointments were booked for 4:25 and 4:35 and there was a bit of a wait, and then I had to listen to an explanation about the shot, effects, give your kid tylenol, etc. We went with Annique first because I knew Evan would cry and then Annique would know it's supposed to hurt. She sat on my lap and the nurse told her to sing a song - she sang Twinkle Twinkle little star, and by the time she was done the shot was over, without even a twitch or tears. Evan was another matter - he was pretty insulted about the whole thing but they gave him a cookie after so it was all good.

Then they make you wait around for 15 minutes to make sure you don't have a reaction to the shot, so we didn't get out of there until 5:48. I set a new land speed record getting both of my kids into the grocery store and was able to load up a cart and spend $125 on groceries AND take Annique to the bathroom before the store closed at 6:00.

So that's today's update. Tomorrow I think I will tell you about my dog.

Summer/Fall/Winter?

2009-10-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sept. 20, enjoying the heatwave

First weeks of October - the sub-zero temps and snow seemed to be here to stay

October 18 - and it's 20+ degrees again!

Mother nature seems to have her seasons screwed up - we are having the weirdest weather lately! Usually we get some decent weather the last week or so of August and then when school starts in September, the long-sleeved/sweater weather starts and I can pack away all the shorts because the weather turns just that fast. This year, it was so different - we had a serious heatwave mid-September and finally enjoyed the hot weather that never really happened all summer.

We were supposed to start building the cabin the last week of September, and Serge and his dad were out working on the foundation in the ridiculous heat and we were hopeful that the weather would still be nice and they'd get a good start on framing and have it all shingled and closed in before winter. But there were a number of delays and in a few short weeks we went from 'too hot' to 'snow and freezing cold' - and after two weeks of snow and below-freezing temps we didn't have much hope that we'd be able to get a long enough stretch for them to get it framed so we just tarped everything and they'll start in the spring. Disappointing, but at least we're not worrying about what the weather does anymore.

Tarping everything and waiting for spring

What's missing? Oh, just a cabin.

This weekend, for example - Annique's birthday - the whole week was snowy and cold, and while I was hoping to go to the pumpkin patch to celebrate her birthday - it had been below freezing for 2 weeks, the kids were going to school every day in snow boots and winter jackets and mittens, and it seemed winter was settling in early. I seriously doubted the place would even be open, and how much fun would it be? So we planned a little party at our house on Saturday and booked a kids' theme room at the CanadInn so they could go in the pool and on the waterslides instead of a pumpkin patch visit.

My birthday girl - 4 years old!

Loving her 'princess' room at 'the Canada'

And so Sunday arrived and the weather was just beautiful - so we decided to swing by the pumpkin patch to see if they were still open, and it was the perfect day for it! So we did that too - thank goodness it was so warm that the kids didn't need jackets or sweaters, because all we had in the van was their winter coats! It was hard to convince them after 2-3 weeks of cool/cold weather and snow that they could actually GO OUTSIDE without coats on. Leave your coats in the van. REALLY. You won't need them!

Beautiful day at Meandher Creek!

Loving the warm sunshine and blue skies

Racing ducks

This morning, the kids left for school in their winter jackets and mittens again. GAAAAAHHHH!!!! At least I didn't have to unpack their spring/fall jackets. Yet.

GAAAAAHHH! August again!

2009-08-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

You know I'm obsessed with sunset pictures, and so here's my top three sunset/beach pictures so far this summer:

Madeleine and Kayla on the dock

Campfire on Craig's beach

This one is actually a sunrise - thanks Evan for the wake-up call!

Where does July go? No, really - what the heck happens to July? June, I don't miss. I love finding myself at the end of June when it seems like June just started yesterday. But I hate when that happens with July. One day you're thinking "I can't believe it's July already! It's really summer! We're here!!!!" and the next day you wake up and it's - you guessed it - August.

My second daughter has it figured out that since her birthday is at the very beginning of August, and her mother thinks August sneaks up on everyone - that her birthday gets thrown together in a panic when suddenly the days in July start with 3, and that means her birthday is in a few days, and nobody bought presents or sent out invitations and they swear they'll do a better job next year. No, this year - she caught on and started warning us when July was in the teens, that her birthday was going to be SOON. And July being like it is, I said - oh, no darling! Your birthday is in August. July just started, that's a long time from now. Don't worry, you'll have an awesome birthday!

The ugliest birthday cake ever, but the kids liked it!

And sure enough, the last few days were a blind panic trying to pick a day and get people together and a cake and presents and... we had her birthday. One day late, but we managed to have a wonderful time and most of her favorite people there with her and some presents. I made a whirlwind trip to the city yesterday for a few last minute gifts and paper plates and treat bag candies and cake decorations, etc. We mini-golfed, built sand castles and played on the beach. It was a good day.

When June and July flew by, so did a pile of milestones for Evan. One day we decided to see if he could sit up, and what do you know - he could! He was a little shaky so we put pillows behind him for awhile but he was amazingly stable pretty much from the start. He still doesn't roll over but he sits like a champ.

Sitting, with pillows for protection. It was also handy having sisters to sit behind him and catch him before he toppled over.

Evan went to school for the first time at 6 months old - Madeleine brought him for show and tell. It was hard to stand at the back of the class and just watch - but both Madeleine and Evan did a wonderful job. I have video if anyone is interested in listening to show and tell in French, but otherwise, here's a photo or two.

all of the kids lining up to see our baby - it was also pyjama day in case you're wondering

Evan rocking the visitor's pass - school is serious stuff!

He also tried baby cereal and baby food for the first time - and wasn't loving either option. He went to the summer fair and watched his sisters go on all the rides, eat mini-donuts and hang out with goats in the petting zoo.

Madeleine on the giant swing

And mini-donuts, of course!

Evan had his first boat ride, and went fishing for the first time. The fishing trip was short lived, not only because it's crazy to be in a boat with three kids, one baby and four fishing rods, but because there were dark clouds gathering. Yeah, that's why we went in so soon. It was the clouds.

Getting ready to go in his 'Gone Fishin' with Dad' shirt and his fishing hat!

Loving the boat ride! (see? Clouds!)

His first tooth broke through the first week of July, and a second one followed about a day after the first. I remember this because my girls were having an incredibly rainy and awful and windy and cold week of swimming lessons and there was nothing like a bit of teething to add to the misery. Annique took lessons for the first time and freaked out about the weeds touching her feet - which is awful I admit but would be the least of my worries if I was freezing cold in the wind with massive waves splashing about my waist and somebody expected me to put my face in the water and blow bubbles. I don't tell the kids that, of course.

The first day (and only nice day) of swimming lessons

The rest of the days were more like this, and worse. Sometimes they couldn't even go in the water!

There was also a first for me in July - my dad bought a pair of jet-skis because one obviously isn't enough. So I had my first ride on a jet-ski, and also got dumped off for the first time. Apparently these particular jet-skis really are meant only for one person, so jumping on as a passenger isn't a good idea unless one or both of you weighs less than 100 pounds. And I obviously don't. The kids love the jet-skis, even though Madeleine had a scare when my dad rolled one of them with her on it and it was swamped so they had to swim to shore. She was really good about it but now has no doubt about the importance of life jackets.

The jet-ski purchase coincided with my dad's 50th birthday and we had a big party with an amazing seafood boil and fireworks on the beach. That was Evan's first experience with fireworks and he didn't freak out about it even though some of them were incredibly loud. Which is odd because now he'll freak out if I start the vacuum cleaner in the same room.

Evan had another immunization and visit with the health nurse, and weighed in at 22 pounds! I guess I don't have to worry that he has no interest in real food yet - he's obviously not starving!

Look at those legs! HUGE!

I think this summer is flying by even faster than usual because we're also up to our eyeballs in plans to get a new cabin built across the road from my parents' cabin at the lake. The lot was cleared last fall but we needed to bring in a bobcat and get all of the brush out, pull the roots and dig a big hole for the crawl space. We have our building permit and approval to go ahead! If all goes well we'll be framing it this fall.

We're making a few changes, but this plan is what we're starting with.

Marriage as a word

2009-05-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm 9 years into a marriage now and wondering why there is all this argument over the rights of people to be married, rights for marriage to be recognized, etc.

I think everyone's missing out on the more meaningful words, which are 'partner' and 'partnership'. Nine years into marriage, and it's the partnership that is most important to me. I remember about a decade ago I was working one day and one of my colleagues said she had met a former classmate and her 'partner' over the weekend. That kind of set me immediately wondering if this person's 'partner' was male or female. Because surely, if it was her boyfriend, wouldn't you just say 'boyfriend'? Or, fiancee? Why use partner unless you are struggling for a way to describe something? Or maybe they're living together but not married, because then you'd say 'husband' or 'wife' - for some reason it seemed weird to describe a spouse as someone's partner. I was engaged at the time - and for some reason would not have thought to describe my this person I was planning to join my life with as my 'partner'.

It wasn't always so complicated. When I was a child in school, we were always encouraged to pick partners. We 'partnered up' - we had partners for walking down the hall, partners for homework and reading and activities in gym class. We didn't choose husbands or wives, or girlfriends - we chose partners. It didn't matter whether you chose a boy or a girl - of course most people chose a same-sex partner, because there was quite a stigma to being partnered up with someone of the opposite sex. Heaven forbid all your friends tease you for having a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Today I am watching an interview with a same-sex couple and the discussion, as it always does - turns to the definition of marriage, etc. They weren't in favor of having any name other than marriage for their partnership. They said - it's like in the past where the white people and black people couldn't drink from the same fountain, sure everyone gets water but the point is not to let the black people taint the water from the fountain for the white people. And it is the same with marriage, by giving it a different name, you're separating because you fear that the word marriage will be tainted by the same sex couples using it.

I completely disagree, I don't think there is any taint to using it. I just think a better more accurate word is in order. I'm very attached to the word 'marriage' to describe my relationship with my husband, because its something I did in a Church before God, and actually according to my belief system - it means a partnership between myself, my husband and God. That is what it means to me, but of course I understand it's completely different for other people. There are plenty of marriages out there where God is not the third partner, and I don't think that 'taints' my marriage. Whatever - that's MY definition, and I don't expect everyone to use it the same way I do.

What is becoming more clear to me as the years go by is that the partnership is most important - without that, do you really have a marriage? How many married people would describe their spouse as a partner? We're worried that the definition of marriage is being tainted - what about partnership? It doesn't matter who you choose, but rather by how you behave as a partner. Building strong partnerships will strengthen the definition. What if we started to really think as partners, and to make a commitment (hopefully lifelong) to this partnership?

Maybe we need to ditch the arguments about marriage and the definition. It means different things to different people, and I don't think it's the government's business to define or change it. But it is the government's business to recognize partnerships - and to treat all people the same regardless of who they decide to partner up with. So, let's just all pick a partner. And if you would describe your partnership as a marriage because you had a wedding, then good for you, whoever you are. But if it's just this word we're all arguing about, I have to wonder if maybe what everyone really wants is a partner, and a partnership. They want their partnership to be recognized by the government and respected equally. It's just like when we were in school - choosing a partner doesn't in any way imply whether you should be picking a boy or a girl. We need to use a word like that. It seems to be more fitting than marriage, anyway.

The month of MAY

2009-05-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

So, obviously Evan is being five months old for most of this month, and it's a busy one. We had that trip to Minot, several birthdays for Madeleine, Mother's day, Evan's baptism, and our first trips to the lake for the year. Oh, and this other little project, which is actually so big, it deserves its own post.

Madeleine seems to think that turning eight has made her into a babysitter, so she's gone from holding him on the couch, with supervision - to picking him up and carting him around with her everywhere. He doesn't seem to mind at all - he's getting sick of laying in the same place and no longer cares who picks him up as long as he is up. I'm still trying not to have a heart attack every time he's not where I left him last.

The weather's getting nicer and so we have been out with the stroller a few times, it never fails that Evan will fall asleep before we get home. I am not sure if it's the stroller or being bundled up so tight but I guess we'll find out when it warms up.

He put up with the whole baptism thing, actually sort of acted like he was interested for some parts of it. Didn't scream until we wanted to take family pictures at the end. So that didn't happen.

I do have an update on Evan's size and weight since he went for another round of immunizations and was weighed and measured by the health nurse. He was pretty friendly with her, so he must forget how these visits end. He was 18 lbs, 2 1/2 oz on May 6, 26 1/2 inches long.

He's not rolling over yet, I can't remember when babies are really supposed to do that - I am sure he could if he put his mind do it, but he's just not that into it. He somehow manages to rotate himself around on the floor so his feet are where his head was ten minutes ago, but he hasn't bothered rolling. I can only assume it's because he hates being on his belly, so why would he put himself that way on purpose?

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

We spent Mother's Day out of the country - we went to Minot, ND for the weekend because there's a hotel there with a waterslide park and a mall attached, and a Target in the mall, and a Wal-Mart that is open 24 hours, and that is a good combination of things for a weekend away with the kids.

Unfortunately, the hotel always makes us check out at noon on Sunday, and we weren't nearly done with the shopping and all of that - which means that we spent the afternoon hauling 4 kids around the mall with us. I sent the oldest 3 with my husband to the food court for something to eat and to play in the kids' room, and I took the baby and ran through a few stores madly grabbing things while he slept soundly. I got to the checkout in the first store with an armful of ridiculously cute and cheap baby clothes to find that I didn't have my credit card, I'd left that with my husband at the other end of the mall.

And the day just carried on like that - we ran around like crazy with the kids in tow, in and out of the van, from store to store. Evan had a blowout diaper in Wal-Mart and I had his diaper bag and a clean outfit but no wipes. And three little girls running around the public washroom with huge lengths of paper towel trying to 'help'. Just stuff like that which is only made better by people constantly saying "Happy Mother's Day" to me wherever we went because it was likely obvious that I was the mother of all these kids, because nobody in their right mind would willingly take someone else's offspring shopping all day. Despite all that, we managed to get everything on the list, and even got Madeleine's ears pierced, we fed everyone and packed the van and were out of the city by 5:00. Not bad!

Madeleine started making the cringe face before they even touched her ears -
and then suddenly, it was done!

So, we loaded up the van and headed across the border (where once again, I fumbled on the question of how many kids we have, and Serge laughed at me, again) and they don't stop us for long at all because it just seems like too much trouble, which is right - and that is good. We made it back home by 8:00 and droppped in to say Happy Mother's Day to Memere, and threw our filthy kids in the shower to clean them off for school tomorrow, and cleaned Madeleine's earrings and phoned Grandma to say Happy Mother's Day to her, too, and got everyone in bed, and that was good, too.

I wanted to just relax but a trip like that leaves a pile of laundry waiting to be done and a pile of shopping bags stacked on the kitchen table - so I started to get at that when I noticed a big juice box wrapped with duct tape and an envelope that says "Happy Mother's Day" on the outside. I had to take the chance that it was for me. And, inside...

Now, just to figure out how to work the thing! I'm so excited! I can only assume it is to block out the kids if I have another day like I had today! YESSSSSS!!!

So, four months now?

2009-04-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

An outfit that all his sisters wore at one time - they always looked like boys in it

See the little change-up in the title? I'm always thinking of new ideas like that. Just to keep things interesting. I figured 12 months of "Baby at X months" might get a little dry.

Anyway, so obviously, he's 4 months old now. And currently going aaaarrragh, arragaaahhh, raaaaaahhh!!! RAH! in his exersaucer. So hit save and come back later, I guess.

Someone who doesn't have a pukey baby might have changed his shirt

Soooo, much later, we're continuing. I have nothing to add about his dimensions, because he hasn't been weighed or measured recently. The old familiar complaint about him continuing to grow out of clothes - he seems to be long in the body, still in size 2 diapers but will probably be moving up a size soon. Everything's 3-6 months for his clothes, much of the stuff that says '3 months' probably doesn't mean 'to six months' as the wrists and pant legs are getting short. I need to go shopping for sleepers and things - the seasons are changing and I don't know what to buy for pants and shirts but I do know he can still wear sleepers in the summer so those seem like a safe bet.

He's liking his Bumbo seat and the exersaucer a lot - he must be longer than his sisters as he stared out one button up in the exersaucer, I stuck him in there on the lowest setting and his feet were flat on the bottom so he needed to go up a notch right from the start. He can move himself in a circle slowly so I wonder if he'll ever get the hang of spinning madly like Annique did? Maybe she'll show him how.

His fine motor skills are coming along very well - his arms seem to move at random, but his fingers are very precise. He has trouble getting his hands to something that he wants, but once he's touching it - he is good at grabbing and holding and moving things with his fingers. He can always grab the chain around my neck or the strings on my hoodie

Evan's still spitting up more than I think he should, because not at all would be my preferred option, of course. But it really is a lot and I am sure he must have reflux or something. I've been told that his dad spit up like that all the time when he was a baby so I guess I shouldn't complain about having only one out of the four kids inheriting that gem from him. Seems a giant waste of milk so I'm glad we're not paying for formula at this point. And also glad it doesn't stain because we'd all need a new wardrobe and possibly new carpeting, bedding and furniture if it did.

He's laughing out loud a little more lately - mostly if you tickle him around the ribs or really put in an effort, or ask him something funny like "Did you pee on your dad?" - then he'll laugh about that. Because it IS funny. He loves questions.

Mr. Popular with the girls, already. Unfortunately they're all his sisters.

He got himself into this nice habit of sleeping from about 10 until 6 or 7 am, that went on for a week so I did the stupid thing and bragged about it on Facebook, and he hasn't done it again since. He's been getting up at 1:30 and/or 4 or whenever he darn well feels like it, for the last three weeks or so. He goes back and forth between his bed and ours because I'm too tired to move him when he falls asleep back in our bed -but if he doesn't fall back asleep and his arms want to wave around and he wants to talk, then I move him to his bed. I'd really like for us to figure out some kind of routine because nights are just a blur. The only thing he seems to have figured out is that he'd like to be awake for the day at 7:15. For sure. And he doesn't seem to care that his mom and sisters and would like to sleep until eight.

Evan at 3 months

2009-03-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

Hurry up, lady - I'm cold!

Dimensions: 14 lbs, at least. He was weighed at his first immunization about 10 days ago, and was 14 lbs. He will start wearing size 2 diapers when we run out of the 1/2 diapers in a day or so. He's out of all his newborn clothes and wearing 3 months and up, including a couple of things that say 6 months on them. And looking at his 6 month old cousin, I have to say that's just faulty labeling.

Getting to the end of the 'evil' 1-2 diapers

I think pretty soon he's going to decide he doesn't want to sleep with us anymore. He's doing the things the girls all did around 3-4 months, starting to sleep with his arms all spread out instead of tucked in, doesn't need to be swaddled quite so much anymore, and seems kind of mad that we're in his space when he wakes up in the middle of the night. One thing he's NOT doing, though - is sleeping long enough to really make the move worthwhile. He's had a good long stretch of sleep one or two nights, but he's not making a habit of it. He's got a bit of a cold and we all know how much fun it is to sleep with a cold, so maybe he's just mad about that waking him up, too.

I'm not supposed to be complaining much right now so I can't really whine about his clothes not fitting, but that's still going on, too. He's not rolling over yet - he hasn't taken it on as a project. He'll get kind of close but its just by accident. I think when he figures out he wants to roll over, he'll be able to do it pretty quick. His hands are a lot busier these days - they can find eachother so he spends lots of time holding hands with himself. And he can purposely steer his hands to his mouth, which makes him happy too because he can gnaw on them and drool all over the place. We've been calling him Monty Burns because he likes to clasp his hands together and hunch over them.

Last month I thought he was a champion burper, now he's honed that skill to become a champion puker. I wonder sometimes why he even bothers eating if he's just going to spit it all up whenever he's vertical. I'm giving up on ever having a clean shirt, or ever having him in a clean shirt, because he's now become quite skillful at throwing up on himself. His timing is impeccable, I am not exaggerating at all when I say he will spit up on a new outfit before I even have a chance to do up the last button or snap. It's like he can't stand to wear anything unless he spits up on it first. I still think he generally smells okay but I am not sure anyone else would agree.

His eyes are looking less blue. At this point I will be pretty surprised if he ends up with blue eyes. They're certainly not brown yet, but they have that muddy color that Annique had. A few weeks ago in certain light they were so blue that I couldn't believe they'd ever turn brown. But now - they're muddy no matter what he's wearing or where he is. His hair, on the other hand - looking blonder every day. He's getting some long, fine hair that I suppose has been on his head since he was born, and since that was 3 months ago - its just getting pretty long now. Then he's rubbed off a spot on the back of his head - the usual baby-bald spot. That makes me kind of sad because the back of his head was so cute with hair on it. I know it will grow back eventually.

today's soundtrack

2009-02-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

So, today I turn on the news and hear that Steven Page, the front man for the Barenaked Ladies, is calling it quits, and going solo or something like that. And I'm kind of sad about that because I've become a particular fan of theirs in the past 6 months or so. It all started when we went shopping for a CD in August - Serge bought Bob Dylan's greatest hits, and since there was a 2 for something sale, I picked up this one:

I've really enjoyed my kids' music up to this point. They listen to a lot of our music, and I'm careful when picking music that's for them. You won't see me throwing in Barney's greatest hits or anything like that. Heaven forbid they decide they like it. I won't buy them any music unless I'm sure I can put up with it. I used to be embarrassed to say I enjoy it - but the more I hear it, the more it reminds me of my kids, and the more I know I'll look back on the times when we drove all over everywhere with music on blast in the van, and I'll remember those songs fondly. It started out with Baby Mozart when they were little, moved on to Carmen Campagne, the Wiggles, and Fred Penner. Even after hearing some of those songs one bazillion times - I still kind of like them. I can't not love Rockabye your bear. I can't not smile when I hear Quack-quack-quack-cock-a-doodle doo. But, time marches on and the big girls are too big for the Wiggles, for sure. Yet, I'm not ready to commit to High School Musical and Hannah Montana, either. We needed a new something we can all agree on. I've always liked the Barenaked Ladies, and I can see how their style and sound could appeal to kids - so I picked it up.

That was August, and its been a lot of months from then until now, and Snack Time continues to grow on me. Pollywog in a Bog is by far our favorite, and even when I was 8 months pregnant and waking up at 3 and 5 and 6 am to go pee, and in the early morning fog, my head was singing "Ribbit, ribbit, a tadpole exhibit, its a transformation no one can inhibit" - it was still okay. I didn't tire of it. I still didn't cringe when Annique yelled for "lil' pog" for the tenth time in a row.

I'm providing this video so that you, too can have "lil'pog" playing in your head at 3 am.
Don't thank me now.

Its good stuff for kids, lots of big, interesting words, great topics, fun sounds, and they're getting smart, learning about the life cycle of a frog, and all. Who cares that there are songs about deadly and unspeakably violent ninjas? If I cared about that, I'd probably care that the band is called Barenaked ladies (giggle, giggle - I told them that) and the lead singer is up on drug charges for cocaine possession or something (yikes! I didn't tell them that!) - and I don't, because this is good stuff for my kids. We like being the Partridge family with music blaring out of the van while it rolls down the highway.

Anyway, with today's announcement - there goes all hopes that I'll get to take the kids to see them live - we've seen the Wiggles, Fred Penner and Carmen Campagne. And also, any hopes for a follow up to their brilliant Snack-time album. I am sure 20 years ago they never thought they'd be writing children's music, and doing such a damned brilliant job of it. Because if they did, they probably wouldn't have called themselves the Barenaked Ladies. I wonder what my kids will think of "If I had $1,000,000?" - I guess there are still a lot of BNL songs out there that are old to me but will be new to them. We'll cope.

baby at 2 months

2009-02-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

Dimensions:
I have no idea of his height/weight size, but he wears a size 1 diaper and has grown out of all his newborn clothes, of course you know that because I already whined about it a few posts ago. He's wearing 0-3 month clothes which don't have much extra room, and starting to fit into some 3-6 month stuff quite nicely. All I have to say about that is, when he's 5-6 months old, those things still better fit him.

Coordination:
Already more coordinated than his mother. Excellent. He can grasp things with his hands and his hands like to go in his mouth, of course. He hangs on to my clothes when I'm carrying him around the house - I keep forgetting when I try to put him down somewhere that he may still be attached with a fistful of my shirt or something.

Strength:
He's still very pushy - doesn't like to rest his head anywhere unless he's sleepy, otherwise he pushes as far back as he can to allow for the maximum view of the world around him. He still has three sisters to keep track of, and it's a lot of work.

Attitude:
What a smiley little guy we have - it doesn't take much to get him to smile, and he's making a few of those 'goo' noises that only little babies can make and still sound smart. That doesn't stop me from making 'goo' noises at him to see if he'll copy me - hopefully nobody's listening.

Sleeping:
All anyone really cares about is how well he's sleeping, right? Well, at night - not so bad. He dozes off at around 9-10 pm I guess, and I lay him down on the couch because he'll freak out on any truly flat surface, like his playpen - then I'd have to pick him up and rock him again and spend another half hour getting him to sleep. So I put him on the couch and wrap him up good and tight so he thinks he's still being held, and he usually sleeps until about 1:30 - then I bring him to bed and feed him and he'll sleep until 4:30 at best, sometimes right until 6:30. Not a bad stretch. Then he gets annoying, waking up at least every hour until the girls get up at 8:00. He will always wake up between 7:24 and 7:27 every. single. morning. just to make sure he gets fed one more time before the morning rush.

Special Talents:
-Burping. He's a champ. With the girls, I would start the first month or so pounding on their backs like moms do after every feeding, and usually - nothing. Now and then they'd give up a little burp or a huge one, or spit up all over the place. Evan will always have a huge, satisfying burp, and if you have a burp cloth handy, it will probably be dry. If you don't, he'll spit up all over the place. He's especially talented at spitting up on everyone and everything but himself. In a day, he can create a huge pile of laundry - blankets, my clothes, burp cloths, towels, etc. - but he'll still be in the same outfit.

-He's also quite good at throwing up into his ears.

-He has an altitude sensor, knows without opening an eye if he's being put down.

-Being cute. He's pretty good at that, too.

games parents play

2009-01-25T21:55:00.001-08:00

When I was pregnant, I thought I missed drinking. Not that I've been much of a party animal these past few years - okay, for about a decade - but whatever. When you can't drink for 9 months, you kind of look forward to cutting loose again.

In the past few weeks I've said a number of times that I'd like to sit down with a bottle of wine or a case of beer and just get drunk - and so far nobody has taken me up on the offer. Did they think I was joking? Or, maybe I was just fooling myself because with Christmas and kids at home for the holidays and a new baby and all of that - there wasn't really a good opportunity. But goodness knows with these -40 temperatures being trapped in the house with four kids for days and weeks on end could drive anyone to drink.

But this week - an opportunity. A good solid excuse to have a drink or twelve. My sister-in-law turned 30. Right in the middle of the week - my husband is home because he works the next day, the kids are all in bed by 8, why the heck not put on my snow boots and my winter coat and pack a bottle of wine in the diaper bag and my baby in the Snugli and walk right across the backyard to her house, and have a few drinks? Why NOT? So, I did.

It was a successful night of drinking - I drank some beer and a whole bottle of wine and didn't get home until four in the morning. The baby is usually up around 4 so it didn't seem to disrupt his schedule at all, but I can tell you I wasn't feeling fine when the alarm went off at 8. I managed to get the kids up and off to school and a pot of coffee made to avoid a hangover.

So the weekend rolls around and we decide that since nobody was hung over, maybe that was just a warm-up, and we should try to have a proper birthday celebration. One where the adults significantly outnumber the babies, maybe. So yesterday afternoon we remembered how to make Jell-o shooters and bought a case of beer and a bottle of wine, and dusted off the old game of Pass-Out. We invited my sister and brother in law over to our house, and attempted to play.

FINALLY, a game that FORBIDS me to play with my children!!

NOT intended for use with alcoholic beverages? How fun would that be?

When I was in University, I had the most awesome roommate. She arrived on a train from Ontario in the middle of the night, with a giant blue trunk full of clothes and a game of Pass-Out. On any given weekend night - and maybe sometimes on weekdays, we'd bring out the game and get a case of beer or and by the time we'd traveled around the board a time or two - we were feeling pretty darned good. Of course, that was usually just to get primed up to go out to a party or bar somewhere and have an actual good time. But when you're over 30 with kids and minimal opportunities to drink, let alone leave the house - the game IS the good time.

a few cans of beer and a mighty stack of empty jello shooters

Anyway - we finished off the Jello shooters, made a few trips around the board, finished the beer, moved on to the wine - laughed, cried, massacred tongue-twisters, started forgetting whose turn it was, or what direction we were playing in - and then realized morning was going to come to early for all of us, and the sitter needed to get home, so we shut it down just after midnight. It was fun, we'll have to do it again sometime - but its just soooo much work to have that much fun. So tired.

The sad truth about baby clothes

2009-01-19T23:16:00.000-08:00

So I'm doing laundry again (still?) today and of course, I have to put some more of the baby's newborn clothes away because he's grown out of them. That is the tragedy of newborn baby clothes, they make them so cute but they have such a short life cycle, rarely surviving for three wearings. It goes something like this:

Wearing 1 - the outfit doesn't quite fit, though it looks about the right size, when you put it on and the baby kicks, his legs get lost and jammed up in the pant legs somehow and you're forever straightening them so the feet stay in the feet-parts.

Wearing 2 - the outfit fits perfectly! WOOOO HOOO! Within three seconds, the baby will spit up all over the outfit, and you'll have to change him and put it back in the wash.

Wearing 3 - the outfit appears to fit perfectly, until the baby stretches his legs and you notice he can't straighten them completely because it tightens up around the neck and his toes are absolutely crammed into the feet. And you think, he's a baby, how often is he stretched out anyway? He can keep his knees bent! But after three different people say "oh, looks like this outfit is getting a little small!" you realize you're just fooling yourself.

With that, I'm packing away some of my favorite little baby boy clothes, and it's breaking my heart. The only consolation is bringing out some of the equally cute 3-6 month stuff that is starting to fit him, even though he's just barely a month and a half old by my count. Hopefully he gets a few more wearings out of those ones.

It's undeniable, he's growing. But the trade off is he's smiling, and paying attention to things around him, and he's learning to bat at his toys and grab things to shove in his mouth, he's making interesting noises and attempting to mirror our facial expressions. I just love to see him learning to do stuff like that.

Baby at one month old

2009-01-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe he's a month old - well, almost 5 weeks by now I guess. Seems like only yesterday we brought him home from the hospital, and right away it felt like he's always been here - you'd think the girls always had a baby brother.

First days

Bringing home baby - he slept for the 2 hour drive

the girls couldn't wait to meet him

When you're sure you're going to keep something,
you can cut the tags off - so we did!

hanging out with Cecily

People often ask if its different having a boy - after three girls, I would haved guessed it is. Parts of him are different, that is for sure. But he hasn't peed on me or at me even once yet, which was the difference that concerned me most going into this. I've noticed he likes to be dirty and stinky more than the girls ever did. He'll often drift off to sleep happily 2 seconds after filling a diaper and would happily stay that way forever if I'd let him. Otherwise, he's quite a bit like any other of my babies - he just has a different wardrobe.

People see him and say he's getting so big and he's changed so much. That kind of makes me sad because he just got here and he's already growing up too fast. I don't notice as much because I am with him all the time - and when you're literally watching someone grow, you don't see it happening. I just know whenever I get another load of laundry out of the wash that some of his little clothes won't fit him by the next load of wash. I hate that because he has cute clothes and it seems like such a waste to put them away already.

Growing

Seems like he's getting so big, until you put him beside his cousin
who is only two months older - they grow SO fast.

I know for sure that at 2 weeks old (Christmas Eve) he was already over 9 pounds, which is pretty good for a little guy who was less than eight pounds when we left the hospital. He's so alert, and curious about everything - when he's awake he's always looking around. He's getting used to having his sisters in his face all the time, and having his head constantly patted and kissed. He doesn't always break their hearts anymore by crying as soon as they try to hold him - he's getting used to that feeling like he could be dropped at any second and will actually let the bigger girls hold him for quite awhile and I can get a few things done.

heartbreakingly sad baby

Since the day he was born he's known how to make his bottom lip shiver so that he looks completely heartbroken. He started doing that whenever we got near him with a cold, wet wipe at a diaper change (and who can blame him?) and it was everything I could to do keep from running out and buying a wipes-warmer for him. The only thing holding me back was the knowledge that he's a winter baby, in Manitoba - and at some point for sure I'm going to have to use wipes that are practically frozen after being left in the van. And I think that could probably kill a child who is used to a pre-warmed wipe on his most sensitive parts. I used soft washcloths and warm water for the first week or two of his life, until he gradually got used to the shock of the wet wipes. Poor little guy.

He's so strong already, from the beginning he was pushing against us when we held him and it wasn't too long - maybe two weeks, before he was able to get his head back far enough to look up and around.

hi Dad!

Christmas day - 2 weeks old

By Christmas he was holding his head up really well when he was on his tummy, and now he can't stand having his head tucked in at all unless he wants to sleep - he pushes his whole back away so he can look around at everything around him. With three older sisters around, I think he's going to snap his neck trying to keep track of all of them. Annique especially has a habit of being up in his face and then disappearing in the blink of an eye, and he will twist his neck around trying to see where she went.

Where'd she go??

smiling at his sisters

Also thrilling for his sisters, he's starting to smile at them a little bit. Annique is constantly reporting on his status when they're hanging out - Baby happy, baby smiling, baby CRYING, mom baby NOT HAPPY!! MOOOOMMM!! BABY CRYING! Yes, I know. I can hear him. But she just wants me to know. Sometimes I can't get to him right away and sometimes I don't get there on purpose because I love seeing how she handles the situation - if he's in the bouncer, she bounces him gently. Sometimes she pats his head or back, or sings to him softly or tries to shove a pacifier in his mouth. Sometimes it works, and she announces "BABY HAPPY NOW MOM!"

Annique loves being the big sister when she's always been the little sister - she likes that her big sisters are gone at school all day, and now she figures she's the one in charge. When they get home, she meets them at the door to remind them to be quiet when he's sleeping. I had some worries about her being jealous but she's just been thrilled with him right from the start. It seems the older girls are actually having a bit more trouble - they remind me now and then that I am always holding the baby and anything that doesn't get done is blamed on him. Like, I didn't cut their toenails, because I am *always* holding the baby. Fortunately with Christmas holidays and a few bad weather days - they've been able to spend a lot of time at home and I can spend more of my time with them that way. And cut their toenails, of course. And put nail polish on them for good measure.

there goes December

2009-01-10T22:27:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks for our family - and Evan's already a month old. Where does the time go? December is always crazy like this but with a new baby I always want to slow down time just a little and stay at home - but there's no such luck with Christmas around the corner!

There was lots of rushing around the week or so before Christmas - the kids had their Christmas concert at school, the wind-up for their dance class and annual Santa day. The temperature dropped to -40 some days and the last thing I wanted to do was haul my new baby around town - but you can't miss this stuff! My greatest fear was that school would be canceled and I'd have all four kids home on a weekday before I'm ready - and of course that happened, too. Twice.

December 2008

Decorating the Christmas tree

Santa day!
Christmas concert

Writing letters to Santa

Baking cookies for Santa

Reading the Christmas Story by the tree on Christmas eve

Christmas Day

Getting to Christmas was pretty hectic, but Christmas itself was pretty quiet. We didn't go anywhere -Christmas came to our house and didn't stay overnight, so it was just perfect. We opened presents and visited with family all day, I cooked a turkey and my mom and sister did everything else for supper - I relaxed, held my baby and sipped coffee most of the day.

This is Annique's crazy spiral train set at a brief moment where it is staying together and Annique is not shrieking because its not broken. It only breaks apart if you drive a train over the spiral part. Or walk anywhere within fifty feet of it. We finally resorted to duct tape. Thanks, Santa for the spiral train. We love the spiral train! Next year, Annique would like something sturdier, like maybe a house of cards.

Madeleine got a little pink Samsung camera for Christmas, and as you can see, she's quite thrilled with it. And actually - so am I! Its not an expensive camera but she's only seven, and all of the kids' cameras were almost as expensive, except then you're paying to have Hannah Montana's face on the camera - not to get decent pictures. This one was less than $80, is really easy enough for a seven year old to use, and she's been taking fantastic pictures with it. Plus, its PINK. She's a budding photo-journalist and documentary film-maker. I love seeing all of the different the things she takes pictures of and the commentary on her little videos - its fascinating to see the world through the eyes of my seven-year old.

We invited my sister in law and her family to come over and play Guitar Hero with us. At some point in the evening - about two seconds after I took this picture, I realized - it looks like a freaking DAYCARE in here. Where the heck did all these kids come from? My goodness, seven kids is a lot to have in one room. Only three went home with their parents. The other four are mine!

New Year's Day

For New Year's, we had a break from the cold snap and had a nice snowstorm instead. The snow stopped early New Year's day and we decided to brave the roads and head out to the lake. This is the first time I've been out there in the winter - and I can't wait to go back. My aunt and uncle have the wood stove going in their cabin, all of the boards off the windows, and its just as nice and cozy in the winter as it is in the summer. The kids played in the snow out on the lake, the men went ice-fishing - and we just sat around and relaxed with the baby.

The girls playing in the snow on the lake

the snow on the lake was too deep for Annique so she stayed in the yard

Staying warm inside by the fire

a birth story

2008-12-28T20:20:00.001-08:00

So the night after I was up all night wondering if I was in labor, I actually did get up at 2 am and was in actual labor. You'd think the fourth time around I'd have things pretty well figured out, but I still sat around for an hour or so trying to decide if it was the real thing or not, and timed the contractions which were coming every 10 minutes, give or take a few - and annoyingly enough - not going away. I did a few things around the house, finished up laundry, put a few things away, made the bed downstairs for my mother in law, who would have to come and stay with my kids if we left. And by about 3:30 in the morning, I figured maybe I should wake up my husband so he could call his mother to come over, and we could get on the road. I phoned the hospital to make sure they knew we were coming - told the nurse my contractions were consistently 10 minutes apart and it was my fourth baby, and she said we'd better get on the road then. So, okay - we will.

I remember that in the last 10 minutes or so before we left, I was doing something so stupid as dusting the baseboards on my husband's side of the bed, because we had just finished painting the spare room earlier that night

Earlier that night...

- and even though I made the bed in there, I thought maybe my mother in law would rather sleep in our bed where the paint fumes weren't quite so thick. And when I switched on the light on his side of the bed, I was suddenly mortified by the thickness of the dust on the baseboards.

With all that important stuff taken care of - we hit the road with bags packed at about 4 am. I came back into the house three times looking for the little notepad where I'd been keeping track of contractions for the past few hours, it also had a bunch of important phone numbers and the list of baby names I'd narrowed down - I managed to misplace it sometime in the five minutes before we left the house and it didn't show up until two weeks after we got home.

The drive to the hospital was uneventful - I kept timing the contractions and found another notebook to write them down. They stayed a nice comfortable 10 minutes apart, the weather and the roads were good, so I wasn't worried. We arrived at the hospital around 6 am, they hooked me up to the monitors for a half hour or so - and I only had one contraction the whole time. I decided to walk around for awhile to see if I could get things going again, then went back to the room and fell asleep for an hour or so until my doctor came in to see me - and basically kicked us out! She said she had a bunch of patients being induced and delivering today and would be really busy, and couldn't do anything for me. Which was fine because I don't want her to 'do' anything for me, except catch my baby when he's ready to come out.

She wanted us to stay in town and check back in later or if things started to progress a bit more. That was good news for me because I can't imagine anything more boring than laboring in a hospital all day long, and I certainly didn't want them to speed things up for me. So, we checked out. I asked the nurse at the desk if it was okay if I ate - she said I could even have pizza and beer if I liked. Well, I would have liked, but it was still several hours until noon, so I didn't. I did hit Tim Horton's on the way out of the hospital, though.

We went straight to the mall where I had a big plate of french toast and coffee for breakfast, then we wandered around there for awhile, then went to Canadian Tire where I started to get pretty uncomfortable and had to find a place to sit while Serge wandered the aisles looking for stuff for the old truck he's fixing up. I don't think it was being in labor, but just the fact that its BOOOOORING - I needed to sit.

After that we went to Home Depot and got a screaming deal on a light for the girls' new room and a wireless doorbell, found parts for our vacuum cleaner and scoped out the deals on real Christmas trees. Then we went to Winners where I really started to feel tired and awful - but we had to pick up a few things at Wal-Mart before finally returning to the hospital at about 4 pm.

So, aside from an hour or so napping in the hospital that morning, I'd been up and in labor for 12 hours by that time, and walking all over the place for most of it. The hospital hooked me up to the monitors again, and my contractions weren't any closer than they were that morning. I told them I needed to get a room there, or I'd find one in a hotel because I needed a rest. They decided they had room to admit me this time.

I realized again that my contractions slowed down a lot when I stopped moving, so I spent the next few hours walking the halls and bouncing on one of those exercise balls - trying to get things moving so I could get an epidural and then get some rest. I had a nice long, warm bath and around 7 I was getting uncomfortable enough with the contractions that I wouldn't be able to sleep if I tried - so I finally asked for the epidural - then crawled into bed and slept on and off for the next few hours. Serge had a recliner in the room and he managed to get a little bit of sleep, too. He had bought a couple of DVD movies to watch but we couldn't get them to work on the little TV in the room - but did discover that the TV was hooked up so we weren't bored.

Happy with an epidural - about 3 hours to go

In the meantime it seems my doctor was delivering babies all over the place - but not mine. Nobody wanted my labor to progress until all these other babies were delivered, and I was more than happy not to be messed with or pushed along. Finally, the doctor had the last c-section done at past eleven or something, then she wanted to break my water and get me started on pitocin so she wouldn't be up all night waiting for me to deliver. It seemed to take forever, and they kept upping the dose on the pitocin - and being surprised when my contractions didn't seem to get any closer together. They kept asking if I felt pressure or anything - and actually - I didn't. I'd sort of lie and say I did just to keep them interested. Yeah, like they were going to call it a night and go home or something. I knew I'd have the baby sooner or later but I was getting bored waiting.

I was just starting to stress a little about what would happen if things didn't start moving - when they checked me and said I was at 9 cm and started dismantling the bed. The doctor came along and said I was ready to push - and she was ready, and I could push any time now. I asked her if I'm supposed to wait for a contraction. She said - well, yes. Cue Jeopardy theme music, because my contractions were *still* 5+ minutes apart, so we have this nurse and doctor waiting around at the end of the bed waiting for me to announce that I am having a contraction, so we can get this show on the road.

The long-awaited contraction finally hits, and so I got down to business with the pushing, etc. which I didn't expect to take long - it was just one or two long pushes, stopping only because she told me to stop (so I told Serge to get the camera, yes seriously, and yes, NOW...) and by the time he reached the camera and had it turned on...Evan arrived!

Hearing him cry for the first time

Helloo, baby!

He was born at 2: in the morning - and it was almost 4 am by the time we were all able to get to sleep. Evan was exhausted from being born, so he slept the rest of the night and woke up sometime after they brought me breakfast in the morning. Then I was finally able to get him out and dressed and take a good look at him - took a few (hundred) pictures. He spent most of his first day sleeping in the big recliner with his dad.

naked, cold and angry about it

warm and happy with clothes on

He clawed his face up the first night,
so then I made sure his hands were covered

soooooooo tired

nothing to do at 4 in the morning

2008-12-03T02:07:00.001-08:00

except, update my blog, I guess. I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking, I must be up for a reason. So I wait around for a couple of hours, put in a load of laundry, read a book, watch TV or whatever until it feels close enough to morning that it must be safe to go back to bed.

I really don't want to go into labor in the middle of the night - I did it once and it wasn't my favorite way to go about it. Mostly I hate to wake up when I am sleeping - I like to sleep. In the day I can figure out if I really should be thinking about going anywhere. At night, I just worry that I'll go back to sleep when we should be getting on the road - and end up having a home-birth or something.

It's weird to sit around waiting for your whole life to change. Things won't be the same ever again in a few days, or whenever this happens. Lots of people have babies and are so anxious for them to arrive but at this point, I just like every day we have where things get to stay the same as they've always been. I know those days are numbered, and we have the rest of our lives to enjoy what comes after. Of course I'm looking forward to finding out who he is and I know after he's born I'll be unable to imagine this life we have right now, without him in it. That's how it always goes. And then, I'll be wanting to stop time again because I know they grow up way too fast and I'll want to enjoy every minute of having a little baby. Unless he likes to scream a lot or something...

Anyway, its all going to happen whenever and however it happens, today, tomorrow - next week in the end, its just a day on the calendar. And right now, I just want a few more of those. And more sleep. I really should go back to sleep.

Hmm, I think this belly makes my face look fat. From this angle, anyway.

Wiggles weekend

2008-04-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

It should have been much, much worse. What were we thinking, bringing a 3 year old and two 2 year olds out for a weekend of fun? Fun for WHO? It seemed like a good idea 2 months ago when I bought the tickets, but as the weekend loomed - I started to wonder if we'd regret it.

However, Saturday rolled around and we packed the van up with kids and luggage, snacks and DVD's, and hit the road. It was a 3 hour uneventful drive to Regina, the worst behavior on the way there was Annique and her refusal to sleep, instead she gazed out the window. I tried not to think about what that would mean for the rest of the day, and just enjoyed the peace and quiet.

First stop was some sort of Fun-O-Rama type place where kids can run wild and free for hours and nobody lets them out without their mom, so its all good. Best four bucks I ever spent in my life, I think. We met a bunch of girlfriends and their kids, and had coffee and visited while the kids wore themselves out on the play structure thing. It took me a while to get over the fact that my child was very likely to be out of my sight for long periods of time, but the point is for the adults to sit and watch, and the kids to play.

One moment where I knew where she was - the ball pit

We went straight from the play place to the concert, there was barely time to feed the kids so we gave them each a chicken finger to eat in the van. Great parenting! Annique was still clutching hers when we went into the concert but fortunately the security there knew better than to seize chicken from an overtired 2 year old.

The concert was short and sweet - a good time had by all. My three year old nephew really enjoyed it the most - he was dancing and singing and having a really good time. My younger nephew was quite a bit more reserved, but he didn't really hate it or anything. Annique recognized a lot of the songs, was happy to see Dorothy, and loved the dancers who were often looking like ballerinas or princesses - two of her favorite things. I took a few video clips of the concert and NOW she wants to watch them non-stop. With great enthusiasm. WIGGLES!! LOOK, mom - WIGGLES, again!

Gee, do you think its safe to let the kids run here?

From the concert we headed back to the hotel, and hauled all three kids and suitcases and lifejackets and whatnot into the lobby, only to find out that the POOL IS CLOSED. They immediately offered to call and find us a spot at another hotel - I think one look at the kids and they knew we wouldn't be staying in a hotel without a pool. Or, maybe they didn't WANT us there if they didn't have a pool. The second hotel had a pool and waterslide so we settled in there, ordered pizza, and took the kids swimming while we waited for it to be delivered.

My nephew approving of the hotel room

The rooms had two queen beds with four fluffy pillows on each. My sister and I plotted to each have a queen bed all to ourselves - we had a portable crib....

a Thomas the Tank ready-bed...

and a playpen, but my youngest nephew was having *none* of that. So my sister didn't get a bed all to herself, but the rest of us did.

The next day was just unbelievably warm for an April day - we did a little bit of shopping and then met my friend and her two daughters to go to the park to let the kids run off some energy before the drive home. It was so hot, there was nothing to do but take off our shoes and socks, roll up our sleeves and our pants, and soak up the sun. I even got a little sunburn on my face.

It was just a wonderful way to finish the weekend - and all that sunshine and fresh air left no doubt that the three of them would sleep all the way home.

And they did. THE END.

Spring on the prairies

2008-04-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

So, this was the tail end of March - we had an evening nice enough that we decided to go for a walk with the kids. I took one million pictures and scrapped a page when I got home:

There? Isn't that nice? Almost worth suffering through the weeks on end of ridiculous ass-freezing cold in February. Its been a miserable winter that way - not even a lot of snow for the kids to play in, I think it really snowed twice in November and early December, and then was just so cold that it never melted. Finally - spring is around the corner!!! Right???!?!

SO, the next day.......

......you know it snowed like crazy. Big, heavy snow, and endless piles of it. I couldn't believe it. And of course, I was driving in it because even if it only snows three times in a winter, with my luck I'd have to get caught driving in it. Thank goodness it wasn't far - I was only driving in and around town but still feared for my life while heading down the treacherous valley hill and I slid over the end of a sharp corner and almost into something that could have been a shrub or a pile of steel, for all I could tell with the thick coating of snow covering it.

I bought a snowplow for my husband's quad for his birthday and it actually plowed a bit of snow back in November but since then of course its been sitting in the garage, parked in the way so that I have no choice but to dent the van doors and bruise my shins a few times a week trying to get in and out. But that's all worthwhile now because my husband plowed the driveway THREE TIMES that day. I went out and took some fabulous crazy snowfall pictures, and of course they were the best photos I've ever taken, because I promptly deleted them off my camera. But I do have the video, so its not a total loss.

Sick of pages yet?

2008-03-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

These aren't really recent - I've tried to start several pages in the last week or so and I'm getting nowhere with them. Here's the one I finished a few weeks ago but couldn't post until it was in store. That's all Kathy Moore's stuff and she's at A Cherry on Top now, if you want to check it out.

And the page I made two weekends ago after my nephews visited - we colored eggs. I wanted to show off these cute flowers from my good friend Chris Wazielewski - I've known her for many years now, and its a lot of fun being on a CT for someone who was a friend first. I'm very excited to see that her designing seems to be taking off - she's got a lot of great stuff coming out and is now selling at Divine Digitals and will soon be at Elemental Scraps as well as Rocky Mountain Hobbies, where she started out! Way to go, Chris - I'm so glad you decided to go digital!

In an only slightly related matter, I found two sippy cups in my fridge today which could only be from the day we dyed eggs. And they had milk in them, unfortunately. I wonder if my sister wants her cup back?

Another couple of LO's

2008-03-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am still scrapping. I have no idea what got into me. So two more layouts to share:

This one I actually started a week or two ago and I keep pushing the elements around and switching and adding and resizing things and finally just decided to upload it and be done with it. By the time I want to print it, I'll probably be able to open it and spend five minutes moving this or that, and it will finally look 'right'. But right now its just frustrating me so its as done as its going to get for now.

This one was a lot easier - its a great free kit from Shabby Princess if you haven't grabbed it yet, you should! I still pushed stuff around endlessly on the page but at least I'm happy with how it turned out. The pictures should look familiar - from about 2 blog posts ago. Its a good thing I uploaded them here because the originals were lost in the Great EHD Crash of Feb. '08.

Credits are in my DST gallery.

return of mojo?

2008-03-10T22:41:00.001-07:00

Whenever someone on the digiscrapping sites says they lost their mojo - I consider how long its been since I had these candies:

And - do they even make them anymore? Where can I get my hands on some? I really liked the pink ones. And the green ones. And the yellow ones.... you know, Mojos might be the only colored candy in existence where each color is a different flavor and they are all equally good.

Anyway, its been a long time since I had a mojo (the candy) but if we're talking 'scrapping mojo' - well, then mine's been lost for the good part of a year. I haven't had any real interest since last spring. I've been so busy lately with hockey pictures and signs and cards and everything BUT scrapping. I'm staring at Photoshop all day and I really don't feel like opening it up to scrap. The last real layout I made was in October or November, I think.

Well, last week - I just started up again and its crazy, I have five layouts done and two half- finished. I even made 12 pages for a calendar and sent that to print. I don't know what got into me but I'll get as much done as I can because who knows how long this motivation is going to last.

Credits for all layouts are in my DST gallery - I have one more done that I can't post until it goes up in the store, and another two that I keep messing with so I'm not happy enough to upload them yet.

First lost tooth

2008-01-15T21:23:00.002-08:00

My oldest daughter lost her first tooth today - very exciting business. I know she's getting older and smarter and growing up faster than I think she should - every time I turn around she's doing something new - reading books, writing her own stories, skipping rope, blowing bubbles with bubblegum, and I wonder when that happened. Those things are happening too fast, no doubt - but this tooth-losing thing happens literally overnight. Sure, a few weeks ago she said her top tooth was wiggly - it was still really solid but if I really pushed, I imagined that it wiggled just a little tiny bit. *sigh*

Earlier this week I was looking at some kids' pictures and I realized - it should be the bottom teeth that fall out first, not the top ones. And sure enough, yesterday she comes to me and says her bottom tooth is wiggly. And I didn't need my imagination this time - it really was. I did what any mother would do and ran for the camera to get the last picture of her pretty full set of teeth for what I knew would be the last time.

With all of her teeth, yesterday afternoon

Then I went to take pictures of 6- and-under and 8 -and- under hockey teams and I am sure they thought I was obsessed with teeth. "Show me your teeth! Do you have all of your teeth? You're missing most of your teeth! Oh, look -*you* still have a full set of teeth! Are those your new teeth, or your old ones?" I couldn't help but notice. This is normal - all the kids are doing it.

Today, she was sad. This tooth-losing thing hurts a bit and is kind of scary when you taste blood in your mouth. She cried through lunch when it hurt to eat macaroni (macaroni?!??) but managed to eat ribs for supper with very little trouble. She couldn't leave the wiggly tooth alone and had her fingers in her mouth most of the evening, kept looking in the mirror to see what it looked like.

Still there, just barely hanging on

Just the teeth fall out. The tongue stays in. Usually.

(If you look closely, you can see the legendary hexagonal forest green bathroom sink with built-in staircase. Its great when you have three kids brushing their teeth three times a day. Always looks fabulous.)

Her dad said "Let me see!" and I had this horrible vision of him just yanking it out which made me feel faint and somewhat nauseous. I didn't want her to be scared because I realize *some* kids actually think its fun if you just yank their tooth out. I am not one of those kids. So I told my husband she gets to decide how she loses her tooth and he's not allowed to decide for her.

Thankfully, I had to run out to a meeting so I didn't have to witness whatever happened next - but when I got home there were photos of my little girl - minus one lower-front tooth, on my camera. She looks pretty happy so I guess it all went well. Her dad says he did yank it out, I still feel nauseous at the thought. That's it - she looks different now. This isn't like learning to read or growing out of her clothes. Its something that was the same yesterday and is different today. She's growing up and there's not a thing I can do about it.

There, finally lost it!

Christmas Vacation - part one!

2008-01-02T22:27:00.001-08:00

We still have a few days of vacation left but I've got a lot of pictures to post so I'd better get started. Here's all the pre-Christmas excitement.

Before posting the pictures, I have to say that I had a 97% normal upbringing. There were three really quirky things that I am sure ONLY my mother did - otherwise she just pretty much went with the flow. First, she never heated our Alpha-getti. (for the Americans, that would be Spaghetti-O's, but we get the whole alphabet instead of just O's) Those went straight from the can to the bowl, and I still love them that way. The second thing was breakfast. We were allowed to have the sugary cereals, but only if they were completely outnumbered by a slightly less sugary cereal. So I could have a handful of Froot Loops in a bowl of Cheerios. Or a half a cup of Cap'n Crunch drowning in a sea of Rice Krispies. When we had a babysitter and they poured us a whole bowl of Froot Loops, we thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

The third thing my mother did was make sure we NEVER saw Santa Claus. There are no pictures of me sitting on Santa's knee, because I never did. I suppose he used to show up at Christmas parties and at the school and I am certain he was in the malls -but my mother steered us in the opposite direction and we had no idea. I was completely in awe of my friends who had pictures of themselves on Santa's lap. Where did they FIND him?

This morning my six year old finally figured out the cereal thing - and asked why we can never have a whole bowl of the same cereal. I don't think she has any idea that Alpha-getti is supposed to be warm. But I gave up on the Santa thing long ago - he's everywhere, and I might as well just accept it, and take pictures whenever I have the opportunity. He's been showing up at our community's annual Santa Day (wonders never cease) every year, and my husband's work Christmas party, and at the school, and this year he showed up somewhere VERY special - but that's for later. For now, here's Santa day.

A. making sure none of the other children are harmed on Santa's lap,
also noting that they all get candy

Cecily seemed to make it through okay

Madeleine also seems to be enjoying herself
Santa passed security clearance. She'll sit.
But she'd prefer to get the candy up front.

and then, there was the hay ride

I don't know about you, dad, but there is no way in hell I'm going on that wagon.

Annique 'wrote' her first letter to Santa - glued pictures of her favorite things from the catalog on some snowman stationary. Cecily wrote her letter and asked for a Baby Alive, and marbles. I have no idea what possessed her to ask for marbles, but she was absolutely sure she needed some. Madeleine wrote her letter to Santa at school and the whole class went down to the post office to mail them. I wanted to get a picture of that but Annique was napping so I missed it - I did get a picture when Cecily mailed hers, though. Santa wrote back to Madeleine in French, and she was really impressed. She was very worried when her letter took forever to arrive - Dad teased her that SANTA KNOWS she didn't eat her supper etc. Thankfully it showed up on the last day before Christmas.

Dear Santa...

She addressed her letter all by herself this year

mailing her Santa letter - this picture was in the paper last week

Why toddlers should eat vanilla pudding only.

A few days before Christmas the girls painted their Christmas ornaments. Our little tree is full of handmade ornaments and the kids add a few of them every year. I make an ornament with a photo for each of them every year, too. Of the three girls, Annique actually painted most of hers all by herself - slathering on blue and purple and glittery paint everywhere. I wiped some of the paint off of the face and hands, etc. and painted those parts in but the rest was all hers. The older girls painted a lot of theirs but got frustrated with the details so they made Dad do it for them, and he wasn't much better at it so I just filled in the white spots and painted faces on when they were done. This was a really fun project so we'll probably pick some more up next year.

When they're all done, they're kind of pretty.

More art projects - I made sippy cups and scrapbook tumblers for the girls and my niece and nephews. I also did a calendar for both sides of the family - the printing is complicated and was probably more trouble than actually doing the layouts - I used Shabby Princess calendar QP's so that part was really easy.

A few days before Christmas (the last day of school, actually) my husband was home for the day, and got bored, and decided to tear apart our garage for no particular reason. There's supposed to be a workbench and cabinets along the far wall, under the shelves. I made him put it all back where he found it. I can't believe men actually have to invent things for themselves to do, three days before Christmas. What is wrong with this world?

Snow Day!

2007-12-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

So this morning my mother-in-law called to say the buses aren't running and the girls don't have to go to school. We only live a block or so away and we could have walked or whatever - but we were already kind of running late, and they never do much at school when the buses don't run and less than half the kids would be there. So, the girls stayed home with me today.

Playing in the driveway

Hot chocolate and cookies - see the new table and chairs?

Painting ornaments for the Christmas tree

Dad's turn to play in the driveway

the title I forgot

2007-11-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

I had something truly fascinating to discuss in my next blog post, but its been so long, I forgot what it was.

Things are rolling along in our household, I'm trying to figure out how I can still be just as busy as I was when I was working three days a week. When did I do all this other stuff?? I finally have it figured out that the difference is - there is a whirlwind of activity in my house all day when I am home, her name is Annique, and she makes a mess. When I was working, she was at daycare. We won't get into the discussion about how the daycare provider could have Annique and at least a dozen other kids in her house all day, and it was always cleaner than mine when I came to pick her up.

Today was the annual Christmas Card Photo Shoot - a.k.a. 'hell' - finally the older girls are used to mom and her camera and they sit still and smile pretty. They're easy. But enter the whirlwind, and its suddenly impossible to get anything at all. I have a bunch of pictures of different parts of her as she tries to escape, and many blurred action shots that were supposed to be portraits. I tried candy, I tried putting her on a rocking horse - I bribed her with toys, I made a fool of myself. It was no use. We might try again tomorrow, if I manage to get any sleep tonight. I wonder if tying her up with Christmas lights would be festive, yet effective?

On the bright side, I did get some pictures of the Cutest Niece Ever. I only have one niece so I can get away with that.

Tricks and treats

2007-11-04T07:54:00.000-08:00

We had the best weather ever for Halloween - just a beautiful autumn day without even a chill in the air. I remember going through huge snowbanks on more than one occasion on Halloween - so it was nice for once to just put a sweater on under the kids' costumes and they could actually wear them without a winter jacket and be comfortable. Its not often you get to SEE the kids' costumes on Halloween! We weren't sure about Annique trick-or-treating but she got the general idea when all the kids were coming to our door for candy, as you can see here, she's pretty wired and she's not even in her costume yet:

So, when it was time to take the girls out she was happy to get into her costume and come too. She insisted on carrying her own bag, even when it got really full and hard to carry - heaven help you if you tried to lighten her load. She knew EXACTLY what to do and often led the way for her older sisters. She's not shy at all when there's candy at stake.

If you feel like throwing rotten tomatoes at me, I don't care, but I'd like to announce that I am FINISHED MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING as of last weekend. I had a little bit of help with shopping as you can see in this video:

It was so great to be able to just walk out of our hotel and into the mall like that - we're just passing the waterpark in that video, where the kids spent a lot of time. When we were young my parents would take us to a hotel with a waterslide for the weekend while the grown-ups did all their Christmas shopping - so the family tradition continues!

Rant ON!

2007-10-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today some woman came in to see me at work and she brought an ENGLISH TEXTBOOK with her, and she had a page selected and a paragraph circled. A month or so ago I typed up a story she had written about her trip to Scotland, and if I had gone through it like I'd go through a student's "What I did this summer" essay - it would have been full of red. But whatever. When people bring stuff in and its not perfect, we correct the glaring errors and maybe re-word a little if its necessary for clarity - but if they're telling the story, we let them tell it.

ANYWAY, she proceeded to teach me (myself?) a lesson on the use of the words 'me', 'myself'' and 'I' and she even shared the handy tip she'd looked up to make it easier for me to know when to use one or the other, and isn't it curious how people use 'myself' so often when actually, its wrong to do so! My jaw was on the floor. She said that her daughter (an English teacher, apparently!) thought the article was well written, but she couldn't believe that a newspaper would leave in such a glaring grammatical error.

First, I don't recall typing every sentence of the very, very long story I typed over a month ago, second, I would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS correct her copy if it said "My husband and I" to read "My husband and myself" - so what the heck is she doing in here? Finally, it dawned on me. She wrote it that way (my husband and myself) and she was coming in to take ME to task for not correcting it when we published HER story. WTF?!

Anyway, it was actually kind of funny, the way she laid it on so thick that her daughter is an English teacher. So am I, but we (or at least I, or should I say, I, myself...) don't go around correcting everyone else's random English unless its really, really awful. She also informed me that the Rec. director constantly makes the same mistake in his weekly report (don't I know it?!? How many 'myselfs' do you think I take out in a week?!?) and *gasp* the editor himself sometimes uses 'myself' in his writing.

My goodness. I'll be the first to admit that my English has been backsliding severely in the past 7 years or so, since I'm not teaching anymore, and I'm living in a French-speaking town with a husband who has a lot of his own quirks and adjustments to the language. I've adopted a lot of those quirks, and I don't mind. Because as much as I like English and grammar, I can get pretty flexible with the rules, myself. (heee.) I think its okay to write like you speak, especially if you're telling a story. How expressive can we be if we don't break the rules now and then? Yes, we have an editor, but that doesn't mean we re-work everything until it would get an A+ in English class. The paper would be pretty dry reading if we made sure all the rules were followed.

Maybe she's just getting back at me for phoning her to clarify a few details before I typed it up. She wasn't impressed when I pointed out (very politely!) that the ship she visited was not the 'sister ship' of the Titanic as her story claimed. I used to teach history as well -- I know where the Titanic's sister ships ended up, and this lady wasn't touring either of them. I might let a pile of grammatical errors slide, there'll be NO messing with the historical facts. ;) For the record, I also changed 'the eighth wonder of the world' to 'CLAIMING TO BE the eighth wonder of the world' - accuracy is important, you know. ;) If you didn't visit the actual eighth wonder of the world, you'd better make that clear.

Plz suggest caption

2007-10-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my photos tonight at full-screen size and was absolutely terrified when I ran across this one:

Now, if its not frightening enough for you, I dare you to click on it and see it at full size. Can you believe we let this animal in our house? He clearly wants to rip my face off!

Anyway, it reminded me of this site: icanhazcheezburger which never fails to crack me up. Something about the combination of hilarious cat (and other animal photos) and the horrible spelling/grammar in the captions. Of course I found the captions hard to take at first WHY CAN'T THEY JUST SPELL IT RIGHT?!?!? WHO TALKS LIKE THAT?! but the more I see of these, the more I realize that's a part of the humor, and now I firmly believe that all cats talk like that. I love it. However, I cannot DO it, so, plz suggest caption. So far all I can come up with is:

365

2007-10-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

If I'm not posting anything here, you can be sure that I am posting at least one photo a day on my other blog:

Yes, I said other blog. I decided to start a 365 project, where I take a picture of SOMETHING every day, and post it. I didn't want this blog to get cluttered up with that - and of course, I don't trust myself not to just abandon the whole thing around day 34 or something, so I didn't do it here. That way if I wander away from it I can just delete that blog and it will be like it never happened. And I'll still blog here, I promise.

So, if you want to visit it, here it is: Cheri's 3-6-5

Pictures as promised

2007-10-08T20:55:00.001-07:00

We ended up with 34 people at Thanksgiving - at least we think so, it was impossible to get everyone to sit still for a head-count. But there were lots of us, and I took a lot of pictures. None of them are especially good, but it was kind of crazy and busy, and so are the pictures.

The weekend was nice - weather was perfect for a last weekend at the lake - if its too warm, you feel like you're shutting things down and leaving too soon. It was kind of cloudy and cool but still nice enough for the kids to be outside most of the time (thank goodness! There were 19 of them, I think!) but cool enough that my dad could have the wood stove fired up and nobody passed out from the heat in the livingroom.

The morning was quiet - we had a volunteer to do dishes

meanwhile, I made the sugar pie (see recipe/results in the previous post)

people started arriving in the afternoon, the ladies kept busy in the kitchen
the kids played outside most of the day - this is 'flag tag'

when they all came in, the living room got pretty crowded
and the other half:
Shoes!
(***my mom reads this blog, so if you think the carpet is ugly, PLEASE don't hesitate to comment on it)

Its not Thanksgiving without a kids' table - in this case we moved them all next door.

That's about it! We had a great supper and a good visit with everyone. We look forward to seeing some/all/most of the family again sometime around Christmas.

Giving thanks

2007-10-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Its Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend - we're going to a wedding and then to the lake for what will likely be our last lake weekend. I always think I'll be down a few more times at the end of the season because I really enjoy being there in the cooler weather - dad always has a fire going in the stove and I love to curl up with an afghan and a book and just stare out the window at the wind and the waves all day. It doesn't have to be nice out to enjoy being at the cabin. There's always good company there, too - and the kids don't care at all about the weather - they'll hide out in the loft upstairs and play all day or if its not raining or too cold they run outside and in and out of the three cabins - we just see them at lunch and supper and bedtime. If this is our last weekend, they're going to miss it. And for the next six months there won't be a day that goes by without one or the other of them asking when we're going back to grandpa's cabin. Annique's learning to talk so I am sure she'll be joining the chorus.

In celebration of Thanksgiving, I'll share my contribution to the dessert lineup - I make a sugar pie every year, mostly because I don't like pumpkin pie and there's no guarantee that someone else will bring saskatoon or apple pie (which *I* certainly won't be making - those take WORK!) - but Sugar pie is almost as easy to make as toast, so I can do that. I love this recipe because there's nothing in it that I don't need (ie/ just enough flour and milk to hold the sugar together, and crust to hold it all in) - its so rich that just a small slice is enough for most people and so one pie goes a long way.

Sugar Pie
1 1/2 cups - Brown sugar or maple sugar, packed
1/4 cup - flour
1 1/2 cups milk or whipping cream
unbaked 9 inch pie shell

Mix brown sugar and flour in a bowl, stir in milk.
Pour into a pie shell, bake on bottom shelf in a 350 degree oven about 60 minutes, check with a toothpick which should come out fairly clean but not completely.

Its great with real whipped cream on top. Because, if its not rich enough for you - a little bit of whipped cream will fix that!

I'll put up some pictures later - I am sure I'll take a lot over the long weekend. I've started a 365 project and I made another blog just for all the pictures - so I am trying to take a picture every day for a year. That shouldn't be hard for me since I take pictures every day, anyway - but the tough thing is going to be to remember to pick one and get it posted every day.

One year from now I'm hoping to be having another little getaway with my friends - this time in Denver or somewhere around there. I think the time will pass a lot more quickly if I count down the days with this 365 project - a lot can happen in a year!

To fall, or not to fall?

2007-09-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of September, the weather really did get chilly - I swear I had every right to think it was all over for summer, and after about 10 days of long pants and long sleeves, I finally accepted that fall is here, and I packed away the summer clothes. We went for a long quad ride and the bite in the air was really harsh - after the first few miles, I really regretted not wearing long underwear! The scenery is always really nice at this time of year, even if the weather isn't.

Two weekends ago - the valley was starting to turn

We had rain, and then a rainbow on Sunday - this is actually a double rainbow, if you look you can see another rainbow above the really bright one.

touques, long pants, sweaters and layers - it was COLD!

So, that was the beginning of September. I'd post first day of school pics, but they are sideways and I am too lazy to turn them. I am sure everyone's wondering if we have TV yet. Yes we do. Its crappy and half the channels still don't work. But its ours, and we love it. We're watching The Deadliest Catch right now. How did we ever survive without it?

Mornings are going a lot better than I thought - actually, its not as rushed as it is on my days off! I started packing lunches and getting clothes ready the night before, and getting up 15 minutes earlier and all that seems to work well - usually the kids are still sleeping when I get out of the shower so I wake M. up first, get her cereal ready and her clothes and toothbrush, and when she's done eating, I get C. up and do the same thing. They've been really good with that, and most mornings the baby sleeps until its time to bring the big girls to school - so I take her out of the crib and right into the van, drop them off, and I come back and get her breakfast and dressed, hair done, etc. and leave for work. We usually have a pleasant drive except that I've had to give up my morning talk radio for Fred Penner. I drop her off at the sitter's and she's been okay with that - a little whiny but I think its all a show and she's probably fine as soon as I'm out of sight. Then, off to work and if all is right in the world, they'll have coffee ready when I get there.

Its getting darker, earlier and its so much harder to drag my ass out of bed when the sun is barely up. Somebody tell me when the time is going to change because that will complicate matters in a HUGE way. This darkness in the a.m. thing has me thinking - its probably going to be soon, right?

The baby is starting to talk a lot more, and really - she's not a baby anymore, she's a two year old. Or, almost. I am wondering about her language development. Its so interesting that she only bothers learning words that she thinks she needs. And I wonder - how does she learn a word like 'mine' that she rarely hears (how often to parents say 'mine' in conversation with a baby?) - but words that I use one million times every day like 'WAIT!' or 'STOP!', or yes, no, milk, eat, drink, sleep, shoes, etc. - I've never heard her say any of those. She calls shoes, socks. Even though we've just been through summer and we haven't really talked about socks in months. And we talk about shoes every day. But shoes are socks.

And, she knows the cat's names. Her older sisters have been around the cats for 5 and 6 years, respectively. And I don't think either of them can tell you which cat is which, either or both of them is Casey, or maybe Percy. Never mind that the two cats look completely different - but the big girls have never bothered to really know which is which. But the baby knows. And with her pronunciation, I really, really would prefer her to just call them both Casey. Just so you know.

Due to the fact that I packed away 99.9% of our summer clothes the week before --- we had a BEAUTIFUL weekend. You all can thank me later for bringing summer back. I accept cash and gifts.

Anyway, even though the weekend before was freezing cold - last weekend was certainly hot enough to wear shorts, and a tank top. There wasn't even a chill in the air - it was gloriously warm and we and another wonderful weekend out on the quad. The kids joined us in the evenings for bonfires and hot dogs.

She'll only go near the quad if its not running. If its running, she screams.

Beautiful day! - here we're parked on the sandy riverbed.

Short sleeves! Capri pants! Bare toes in the sand!

And to think all week before they had been saying it would be so cold and miserable, and might even snow. Now, for this coming weekend they're actually predicting warm weather - so I'd better get out my mittens. We're going to the lake and I'm planning to make a few batches of salsa - it will probably be one of our last weekends out there this season so we'll make the most of it.

Almost 100 days without TV

2007-09-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

If you think its been a long time since I last posted anything on my blog, just imagine how much LONGER it would seem if you had no TV. Then multiply that by three. That is our life. No TV. The silence is deafening. I thought I'd go crazy the first week, the first month was insanity - but now, we're used to it. Every once in awhile I get Star-choice on the phone again, and after an hour or so on hold, I discuss with some 'service representative' how much I'd really like to have some TV. And they assure me they'll get something done right away. And then its back to the waiting. Now they're saying if its not done by Monday, it will probably never get done. At least they're honest. Then I can phone cable. *shudder* Please, anything but cable. Well, anything except NO TV. I miss my boyfriend Jon Stewart. I need my TV back.

August is over, in case nobody noticed, so its fall now. It happened almost instantly. If the calendar says September, you might as well just put msot of your shorts and tank tops away - because you're lucky if you get a handful of days to wear them. It just happens like that. Almost overnight the trees started turning, and now most of them are yellow. We might get some more nice days, and it might not snow for months - but summer is over. Period.

The kids are back to school - C. had her first day of Kindergarten ( a.k.a. maternelle) today, and M. started two days earlier. I'm still working three days a week so starting next week I'll be taking A. to daycare, which is new for her but I think she'd be bored out of her mind if she had to stay home with me 5 days a week so its probably good for all of us. The morning routine is hectic for someone like me who thinks it should be illegal to get out of bed before 8 am. I have to get the two older girls dressed and off to school (with lunches packed!!!) and the baby out of bed, dressed and ready for daycare. Its probably a good idea to get myself showered and dressed as well. That's a lot of activity to pack into one hour, but we'll manage it somehow.

Last night I actually found a few minutes to scrap something, I think having no TV has been bad for my scrapbooking because its too quiet and I get restless without some background noise - and I can't get anything done. But my friend Chris started designing digital, and I had to play with her new kit - so here's my layout:

I think another reason I can't scrapbook lately is that I can't be bothered to fuss with the details as much as I usually like to - drop shadows and what is layered over what, etc. For this one I just gave myself permission to put stuff wherever I want and not worry about any of that. It felt good to get something started, even better to just decide that its done. For now. ;)

No, I did not fall off the earth, but thank you for asking!

2007-07-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

It happens every year. July is like opening the floodgates on summer. You wait and wait for summer, June drags on forever and ever - and then there is the July long weekend and all of the sudden you're drowning in it, and by the time you break the surface and get a chance to look around - you can't believe how much of it has rushed by in such a short time.

I won't talk about what happens next - too soon for that. July is July. The first week of August is a whole other feeling. But we're not there yet so I won't say a thing about it.

Anyway, I just came up for air and here we are in the very late teens of July. The girls have had a week of swimming lessons and they stayed at the lake with my parents and drove them crazy, I am sure. I was there for all but two days of the swimming lessons and the poor kids didn't have one day of decent weather - it poured rain all day Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday it was cloudy with a cool breeze and whitecaps on the lake - finally by Thursday the sun was shining again but the wind was still pretty strong so the kids weren't as cold but they got smacked in the face by the waves quite a bit. The parents all huddle on shore and say "You go back in there, now! You finish your lesson!" and try not to let on that we wouldn't switch places with them for ANYTHING in the WORLD because it doesn't matter if they're singing Wheels on the Bus, its sure doesn't look like fun to be so cold and wet and at the mercy of the wind and waves. Nope, no fun at all.

"Mom says its not as cold if you stay in up to your neck!"

Swimming lessons were worthwhile - by the first day the kids were not only learning to tolerate unfavorable weather with a smile through chattering teeth - they were also putting their faces in the water, blowing bubbles through their noses and floating on their backs. They even jumped off the dock! I couldn't believe they were the same little girls who refused (with tears and screaming) to do all of those things for their mother two days before.

Happily jumping off the dock - the first day

Warming up on the sunny side of the cabin

When the kids were settled in at the cabin and taking lessons, I went home for two days to start my new job. I am working 3 days a week at a local newspaper and I am enjoying it very much. Newspapers are all about things I love very much - news, photos, graphics, layout, reading, writing. Its fun for me to be around when all of that is going on and help out where they need me. I also get to do lots of different things, including working on content for a website and a video billboard type thing that isn't up and running yet but should be pretty soon. One lady I used to work with always said its not a good day unless you learn something new - and by that standard I've had some exceptionally good days at my new job so far. The best part is that I get to work with some really creative and talented people so there is always the hope that some of that will rub off on me eventually.

Things you can do in a community pasture

2007-06-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were invited to a 'barbecue' at my brother in law's fiancee's sister's house. Got that? Anyway, we figured it might be an important barbecue so we made a point of showing up. As it turned out the 'barbecue' wasn't at the sister's house, or even in her yard. It was in a pasture. There was a white tent set up in the middle of the pasture, within walking distance from the road. We had our suspicions at that point that this wasn't going to be any ordinary barbecue.

It had poured rain for a few days before - and that morning, so the pasture was very boggy and just so we knew we shouldn't attempt to drive in - there was a 4x4 stuck up to its axle about halfway between the road and the tent. By the time we got there it was very hot and sunny so we just walked in from the road carrying some salads and the kids and whatever. I was glad I didn't bring a fancy pair of shoes. If I owned a fancy pair of shoes - which I don't.

Arriving at the tent, it looks like Martha Stewart might have dropped by to do some decorating inside. There's a table set with wine glasses and an interesting centerpiece of field grasses, paper lanterns, etc. I strongly suspect that this isn't going to be a barbecue, but since I am not one to argue I begin washing lettuce for the caesar salad I was supposed to contribute. My lettuce-washing was interrupted when a big truck decided to risk the mud and flew through the soggy pasture to park by the door of the tent. And, inside:

Careful! Don't get mud on that dress!!!

Next thing I know, there's a bunch of pretty bouquets being handed out to her sisters, and his sister - and the lady I thought must be from her side of the family is actually a JP or something, and she's getting a picnic table hauled over to the middle of the pasture and we're all moving over there to watch my brother in law and his fiancee getting MARRIED.

instant bridesmaids, just add flowers!
We are gathered today to witness....

Exchanging rings

So, there you have it. I have a new sister-in-law!! It was such a perfect way to have a wedding and we really enjoyed the day there. We had a nice supper, the kids ran and played, the bride and groom had their pictures taken - the rest of us sat in lawnchairs and drank wine and enjoyed the evening. Just as it was getting dark we were all chased inside the tent by a torrential downpour which made getting back to the road VERY interesting in the dark. Did I mention the kids caught a snake earlier in the day and let it go somewhere between the tent and the road? And that this is a pasture? You know, where COWS graze? Yeah - so the walk back was pretty scary. But the rest of the day was perfect.

Just for Stacey

2007-06-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last few Saturday evenings out on the quad:

Looking down at our house (the last one) from the top of the hill

ie/ from where my children went when they ran away from home 2 weeks ago.

From the top of one of the sand hills

Taking a break at the quad shack

Heading across the PFRA pasture, along the top of the valley

Where the train tracks go over the culverts

I'm not impressed about the mud.

(I know, there's still skin showing. I'm not nearly muddy enough!!!)

All the pretty horses

2007-06-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

Since we have one night this week without anything to do - and it happens to be the same night that the Musical Ride is in the community where my sister lives - I decided to take the girls. I still remember the first (and last) time I saw the Musical ride - I was about six years old and completely enthralled. So I couldn't wait to take the girls to see it.

They absolutely loved it - we were outside waiting when they rode past my sister's house and A. loved the sound of the horses' hooves on the pavement. If you ever ask any of my kids what sound a horse makes, its never 'neigh' - always "pitty-cupitty-cupitty-cup"

So A. was saying "pitty-cupittycup" all the way to the fairgrounds and through the parts of the show where she wasn't jumping and bouncing and singing. She liked it, to say the least. I fear that it was one of my children who said "its a big line of BUTTS!!!" very loudly at the very beginning when all of the horses lined up to get permission to begin the ride- and well, we *were* seated on the butt-side. Something a 6 year old couldn't help but point out.

There. Now everyone gets to see their butts.

The weather was beautiful - sunny and warm and amazingly, NO BUGS. Its been raining so much the last few weeks, everything is shockingly green - I regret not bringing my good camera to take pictures, but it just didn't make sense to juggle that along with everything else. The crappy Nikon did get a few shots - and I will upload some video tomorrow if I can figure out how.

The girls meeting "Leanne"

I didn't get very good pictures of the kids with the horses, mostly because I had A. in the sling and she wasn't letting me get close enough to take pictures - she kept bailing out the front because if we got close enough, she wanted to touch the horse TOO. She has no fear, that little one. I just gave up, put the camera away, and took her right up there so she could touch the horse. My nephews, on the other hand, were having none of that. Horses are good from far, but far from good.

Here, Christy - this is why the ride is musical. ;)

Just for Heather, the "Music Box Dancer" part:

No time to blog!

2007-06-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

If you're counting (and I am!) this is the end of week 7 out of 8 weeks without DH at home. He is home every weekend, thank goodness. But its a hectic time of the year to start with, and I will be SO GLAD when its over. One more day, then one more week. I think we'll make it.

Last week was absolute hell. The DVD player self-destructed earlier in the week but we barely missed it, until we had no TV. The night the TV went down, I took the DVD player apart with a screwdriver, held a flashlight under my chin, and tried in vain to locate the laser-eye thing that I was supposed to clean with a Q-tip to get it working again. After about 20 minutes of swearing, I realized that the problem is much more likely the fact that the thing doesn't spin anymore. So I told my husband not to come home unless he was carrying a new DVD player. Then, I called the satellite company over the weekend - they couldn't do anything since we live in a rural area so I had to make my own arrangements to get it fixed - the guys did come out here but they took one look and got back in their van. They can't fix my dish - the problem is the trees grew or something (in a week??) and they need to be cut or we need to cement a pole in the ground in a particular spot and make some kind of bracket to attach a dish to, and THEN call them and they'll get it working again.

Seriously, now. Do you not see me here, alone with THREE KIDS in the house. No husband. No TV. We will certainly not survive until whenever this pole is constructed and cemented and hooked up to a sattelite dish. You know what's going to happen. Don't be surprised if one of these mornings you see me climbing those trees, barefoot in my pink spongebob PJ's, with a wild look in my eye and chainsaw in hand. Its getting close, I tell you. Its been RAINING for three days straight. Pouring rain. Don't think I can't use a chainsaw. I don't even have to climb the trees, I can take them out at the base.

Of the 7 weeks we've been without a dad/husband in this house - we have also been three weeks without the Good Brush. You know, the one that keeps the children from screaming (as much) when I brush their hair. We did manage to find the brush that comes apart whenever it encounters a knot. So, every morning has been a total joy. To add to the misery, the tangle spray went missing on Tuesday and has not been seen again.

At the end of last week I thought I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown of sorts. My kids ran away on me Thursday at suppertime, they aren't supposed to leave the YARD, but somehow while I was getting supper for the baby, the older two got out of the house, across the street, and climbed the hills across the street. It was a very windy day so they couldn't hear me yelling and just kept on climbing, and I watched them reach the top, thinking they'd turn around and come back down. But they disappeared over the top of the hill and didn't come back. I had no idea what to do - I actually had to phone my husband who is 5 hours away and ask him what to do. He said to phone my in-laws and send his dad to go find my girls. I felt like the worst mother on earth - they were gone, there are bears and cougars and lord knows what else up there - who knows where they went? My father in law found them - the kids could see the school yard from the top of the hill so they ran down the other side and were playing there when he found them. But that's when I started to think maybe I can't handle this anymore. My kids ran away and I didn't even know what to do - I must be losing it.

However, this week is much, much better. I've had a little help and it goes a long way. I'm so much more relaxed, I don't feel so alone - I have more patience with the kids and I am no longer overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. Its been a long seven weeks but we just have a few more days, and its going to be over.

Even with all the chaos, we're getting a lot done. I've kept my flowerbed weeded, and the lawn and dandelions somewhat under control. The there are baskets of clean, folded laundry in among the piles of dirty laundry. The dishwasher runs daily and the house isn't quite ready to be condemned. The kids eat three times a day and M. gets to school every morning. We wrapped up preschool and t-ball. We've ripped apart the deck on the house, and I've done a lot of paint scraping and a little staining so hopefully it will be done this weekend. I have been going to one bazillion meetings and I even arrived on time for some of them. There is so much happening right now and a lot to do - I can't put it all on hold just because my husband is away. We have a library opening in the next couple of weeks, where there was no library before. We had a successful used book sale last weekend, and the shelving went in last week, the books should be arriving next week - we have a librarian training and some last -minute details to iron out - but it is REALLY HAPPENING, and I am so excited. Its all going to be worth it in the end - I just need to hang on for one more week.

Somehow in all that, the scrapping fell by the wayside - but I did find enough time to do a couple things this week.

layout for my friend for her daughter's first communion

coffee cup insert for Father's day

that goes in a travel mug like this:

I am also thinking I'll get him a pair of crocs for Father's day - but he's going to have to pick them up himself since he's the one living in the city. Oh well, saves me agonizing over colors. I told him to get a pair for my father in law, too!

Weekend at the lake

2007-06-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

A. is going to be a water baby. She soaked three outfits before we finally gave up and put her in a swimsuit - then she just sat in the water and played.

Oh, we needed this SO BADLY. An absolutely beautiful weekend at the lake - the water was like glass most of the time, the sunshine was warm but not too hot - and we just relaxed and had a good time. We had our first campfire, and the water was warm enough that the kids could play in and around it for hours and not turn purple.

C. playing in the water for hours, and hours

There were cousins at the lake for the girls to play with - boy cousins, but they would do just fine. We barely heard a whine or whimper out of any of the kids, they played so well together.
Within the first hour M. was already changing her usual mealtime conversation to include blood and gore to impress her audience.

M's mealtime dissertation on what the cat dragged in...

Boys are different. Fun, but different.

But, now we're back - its back to real life and school and meetings and babysitters and a pile of dandelions and long grass to mow. I don't mow, but its looking like I'm going to HAVE to - when I find the time - not sure when that will be. Three more weeks of school for DH - this can't be over fast enough for me.

They say its like crack.

2007-05-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

I knew about this Facebook thing a few months ago. Everyone said it was SOOOOOO addictive and the last thing I need is another internet addiction. So I avoided it for a few weeks and then finally went to check it out. I am proud to say, I was in and out in about 20 minutes - I found a few kids I used to teach and that was that. Back to regularly scheduled internet browsing.

Well, yesterday both my sister and my sister in law told me that they are on facebook and finding so many people they know - so I gave it another shot. Made a profile for myself, figured out how to do the searches right - and WOW. It *is* like crack. I got one reply from a friend request, and suddenly I'm hooked. One night browsing around and I've found about - fifty people, I guess? Maybe more?

I started a group for digiscrappers, since there doesn't seem to be one yet. If anyone's interested, its here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2441301769

So, yes. I know you don't have any more time to spend on the internet. But you will FIND time, I promise.

Shutterfly book is HERE!

2007-05-22T23:03:00.000-07:00

I finally got my first Shutterfly album in the mail today - so exciting to see all these pages printed and bound in a nice little album! It reminded me of getting high school yearbooks - I just kept going through it over and over again and looking at every little detail on the pages. I already have a little list of things I'll do a bit differently next time - I am just so glad I finally have one done! Its going to motivate me to do a lot more now that I can actually hold a book in my hands and turn the pages! Its worth it!

I have that two page layout to upload - what a pain! Next time I am thinking of doing a two page layout, somebody smack me around really good until I come to my senses. They drive me crazy from beginning to end! I started this one weeks and weeks ago, and just couldn't get it finished. I was never happy with it and to tell the truth - I am still not 100% happy with it but I am *very* happy to finally have it all saved and done with. Anyway, here it is:

Well, that's small. Add that to the reasons I *must* remember not to do 2 page layouts anymore. They're a pain to upload and then they're too small. I will upload the individual pages to my gallery, but they will also look stupid when they are cut apart so - whatever!! Its done! YAY!!!

2007-05-22T12:02:00.001-07:00

Its a drippy Tuesday after a drippy, wet and cold May long weekend. Which is how it is for every May long weekend for as long as I can remember, so its not like I am surprised. It could be bikini weather on Thursday before May long, and it will always ALWAYS be miserable for the weekend. Always. It is a rule.

The sun did peek out for about an hour and a half on Saturday, and the kids went nuts. All down the lake you could hear doors slamming as people came OUTSIDE after peering out at the dripping cold misery for days. The sun! It was OUT! The wind - there was none! The lake was calm!

Within minutes, we were bombarded with pleas from the children to GO TUBING. That is right, the same weekend where you pack your long underwear because its twice as likely to snow as to be sunny - the kids wanted to strip down to their swimsuits, go in the icy lake and get dragged behind a boat in a tube. We held them off for about an hour or so, saying that the lake was cold, saying that it would rain again soon - whatever to appease them. Finally we said - look, if you can get into your swimsuit and stand outside and not freeze, then ask us about tubing.

So, they did. And we said - Look, if you can go into the lake and you can stand the cold, then talk to us about tubing. But it was too late because Uncle Craig was itching to get his sea-doo running and the children had blocked off all of their pain/cold receptors and were running for their life jackets. Before I even had time to run to get my camera, they were flying around the lake on this massive three-seater thing. Let summer begin!!

M. finally asked to come in - not because she was cold, but because her LEGS were sore. Uh-huh.

I think I have some more work to do on that layout - so I won't post it in the gallery yet and you'll have to wait for the credits. I think its mostly Angela Spangler stuff and a Kimberly Geswein template.

True to form, it clouded over again and was cold and wet and rainy for the rest of the weekend - and it still is today. I got a LOT of scrapping done this weekend because it was perfect to just sit in the cabin and stare out the window at the rain. Not much else to do, except relax and do a few pages.

We also had a birthday party for M. - she wanted a 'surprise' birthday and though she did have her party at the pool last weekend, she was pouting that she didn't get to have a 'lake birthday' like she always does. So we didn't tell her she'd be getting a party this weekend, and she was surprised. It was just a little party with her cousins and our neighbor - and the girls decorated baseball caps with glitter fabric paint. They had a lot of fun!

Birthday girls!

As always, you can see nou-nou somewhere in the picture. He was a gift for her first birthday party at the lake - and here he his hanging out at her sixth birthday. She isn't the type to make a big dea about dragging her nou-nou with her everywhere so I don't notice him around until I see the pictures - he's always in the background somewhere.

Baseball caps hanging on the 'art' line:

I also finished a 2-page layout this weekend but I have to go through all the bother of splitting it in half to upload - so if you don't see it in a few days, bug me about it and I'll try to get it posted.

Another Mother's Day

2007-05-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Mother's day present for my MIL

We had a good weekend - and a good Mother's day, and as always my very first ever Mother's Day present also had her birthday this weekend. She's six years old now - how time flies!

M's birthday party was at a local pool with family and friends - the pool is indoor and very dark and humid and poor for pictures so I only have one picture of the actual pool party to share but I can assure you she had a WONDERFUL time. I bought a bunch of beach balls and swimming goggles for party favors - those went over well:

The girls on the ride home

The pool with a bunch of the beach balls, there are kids in there too, somewhere:

In other news, I am slowly losing my mind with this whole 'husband away for eight weeks' situation. Last week was okay but this week I have meetings every. single. night. of the week, and throw in some T-ball practices and a T-ball game for good measure. The kids will never get to bed before 9 pm, and 8 is their usual bedtime. Mornings are just fabulous when all the kids are tired and nobody wakes up on time. This morning we must have broke some land speed records - I woke up in a panic at 8:28 to a COMPLETELY quiet house - all the kids were still asleep!! By some miracle I got the two big girls up, dressed, breakfast, lunches packed, hair and teeth brushed, coats and shoes on and out to the van - the baby woke up just as we were ready to head out the door and that was perfect - just tossed her in the carseat and we were at school at 8:49. And to think some mornings they are ALL up at 7:30 and we very rarely get to school before 8:55, with the baby still in her pyjamas and last night's diaper, of course. Every morning when we get to school with no time to spare, I vow that we will get up earlier, try harder - we will make it. We will not be late anymore! We can do it!

But you know what, the truth is, it doesn't matter if we wake up earlier - time just gets wasted - things are lost and disorganized and kids are WHINY and I get stupid ideas like "Oh, maybe I should BRAID her hair this morning" and - the last ten minutes always takes fifteen minutes, and before I know it, we're late as usual.

I have no idea how it happens*** but BY FAR it is more effective to wake up late. We should do that every morning. Anyway, despite the fact that we had a great start this morning, and made cookies and bought groceries this afternoon - we still screwed the day up badly at around 5:30 when I forgot about T-ball practice completely so now my kids will have no clue what they are doing when we go to our first game tomorrow. And we managed to end the day with mayhem because I lost my mind temporarily and decided I could take all three children to a MEETING that started at their usual 8:00 bedtime. Because the meeting was at the neighbor's house and of course if my kids were already bathed and in their PJ's, they would sit quietly on the couch and watch TV while mom had a quick meeting - right??? What's an extra half hour past bedtime, if they are quietly watching TV on the neighbor's couch? Why not?

Do I even have to tell you how that ended? With me dragging three kids home - two completely wired on chocolate chip cookies and one screaming tired and miserable. They did not sit quietly on the neighbor's couch - oh no. They woke up the neighbor's kids - and the five of them ate cookies and had pillow fights and did everything BUT sit on the couch quietly and watch TV while we had a meeting in the kitchen, constantly interrupted by cookie requests and getting up to tone down the ruckus in the next room. And with all the interruptions, the 30 minute meeting dragged into an hour and a half meeting, and so I finally got the kids tucked into their own beds at just before ten. With any luck we'll all sleep in tomorrow and get to school on time!!!

*** that is a complete and total lie. I know exactly how it happens. If we only have a half hour to get to school, I don't make coffee, and the TV stays off.

Yay, Shutterfly! Boo, Photoshop!

2007-05-04T00:12:00.000-07:00

At the end of April, Shutterfly sent me an email offering me a free 8x8 album if I bought something (anything) from them between April 23 and 27. That's an offer I can't refuse! And solved the problem of getting a bunch of my St. Louis pictures printed - everyone who went uploaded their photos there and so I could pick and choose from everyone else's pictures. I took plenty of my own but I fought with my little Nikon camera for half the trip. It hit the ground rather hard tonight (by accident!) at my nephew's birthday party so hopefully it will work better now.

I finally got the Shutterfly book done tonight about 40 minutes before the midnight deadline. I added a bunch of extra pages so with that and the shipping to Canada, the total for my 'free' album came to $12.00. I don't think that's bad at all to have almost 30 pages printed and hard-bound into a custom album. I can't WAIT for it to get here. Here's the preview if anyone's interested:

My FIRST photo book!

Sorry, Kimberly - I did end up editing a few of my layouts (read: all) - just little things that would have made me crazy if I would have printed them like that. Since I was in there re-sizing stuff to fit and moving things in from the edges a touch so they wouldn't get cut off - I adjusted some MEAN drop-shadows and changed a few elements that I would never use on a LO now. Minor stuff really but it took me ALL day. I was 99% done and previewed the book, and I noticed that *one* page had the journalling cropped off of the side. So I went back and moved the .jpeg file so it fit well on the template, re-saved and uploaded it again, but it was *still* cut off - so strange! I had to go back to the original layered file and change it but every time I tried to open the file in Photoshop, it would freeze up. Then Photoshop would take 20 minutes to shut itself down, and lock up the whole computer in the process. This went on for over an HOUR, and I was ready to rip out every hair on my head. I finally decided there was something wrong with the file on the laptop, so I had to dust off the old desktop and do it from there - slow and painful but it finally worked, but not before I uploaded that same file to Shutterfly 5 times trying to get it right.

Sorry for boring you with all that - but it was the kind of misery that *has* to be shared. On to better things - maybe a few pictures to share - oh, and speaking of misery - I'll try to upload a video of A. whining because her dad doesn't come home at 5:30 like he's supposed to. She usually can't stand any of us by 5 on any given day so she hangs on my legs and lays on the floor sobbing until her dad gets home. But the thing with him being at school is that he DOES NOT come home, so it goes on forever and ever until I manage to distract her with food, throw her in the tub and then put her to bed.

DH and both of his babies

Since that photo was taken (last week, I think) we've had a lot of rain and a little sunshine so now our lawn and the whole valley is a brilliant green. I can't believe how much it has changed in just a few days. The rain can stop any time now, the girls' t-ball practice was cancelled today and is rescheduled for tomorrow.

I finished another layout tonight - M. has a very well-loved bear called nou-nou, and he got pretty dirty at the lake last weekend. Usually nou-nou isn't supposed to play outside but she took him to the playground and he took a roll in the dirt and was very grey. M. was pretty upset so instead of putting him in the washer, we gave him a bubble bath in the sink. And we had ALL KINDS of help. You can see A. eating the bubbles in one of the pictures. When we had him all clean and towelled off, M. sat in the laundry room and waited for him to come out of the dryer. He's almost good as new again, now!

NOOOOO!

2007-05-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

How could I forget that my baby learned a new word this weekend? You can guess what it is! I was taking her back home from the playground and she ran in the opposite direction - I told her to come back with me and she paused and said...... NO! and that felt good, so she said it again, more forcefully.

So here it is, another milestone. We notice first steps and first teeth and all that - but when they start to tell you "No!" - its a whole new ballgame!

But is it? I mean really - was she having any trouble communicating "NO!" with the whole shrieking routine - stomping in a circle, collapsing on the ground, shaking her head and feet and arms back and forth wildly? I suppose she's been communicating "No!" quite clearly for as long as I can remember. I don't think she's going to stop all that, by any means - its waaaaay too effective. But this is so much sassier. We're in trouble now, I know that for sure.

All by myself (sort of)

2007-04-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely weekend at the lake - back to reality now. My husband is gone to school for 8 weeks, but he comes home on weekends so its not all bad. The baby hasn't noticed that he's gone yet but I expect there will be hell to pay when she figures it out. She started mentioning something about dad around about the time he'd usually be home for supper - but then I gave her some macaroni, and a bath, and then my mother in law came over to watch them while I went to a meeting, so she was well distracted. Tomorrow could be another story.

Income tax return deadline was midnight tonight and so I got that done - I had it finished a few weeks ago but the file saved wrong or something so when I went to submit it, I couldn't get it to open. So I had to do it all over again and instead of getting $33 back, now we're paying $88. Whatever. Its done. If I did it wrong, I get money back. I can live with that.

I am working on a Shutterfly album - I hope to have it ordered by tomorrow night because the sale ends soon. I found this layout that I started a couple of months ago and didn't get very far with - but I found all of the elements (the stars etc. ) in another kit and I'm finally happy with it. So here it is:

So, that will go in the album along with about 19 other layouts - I am having a hard time deciding which ones to use and what order to put them in. I really just make pages without any particular plan in mind so there's no theme or anything to go by. I think to simplify things, I'll just say its my favorite layouts from my first year of digiscrapping. Then they don't need to really 'go' together. I think I made my first page in May last year, so its almost a year now and I might as well make an album to celebrate. I can't wait to see all of these pages printed out, but I am scared that I'll see all the mistakes I made and want to redo all of the pages.

I cheated.

2007-04-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

I've never used a quickpage before but when I saw this one, I knew I could make it my own. I added a little photo and curved frame in the corner, some journalling and a picture of my baby's toes. And it *was* quick - I guess that's why they call it a quickpage. Its available at www.oscraps.com - and full credits are in my DST gallery.

Skunked!

2007-04-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

In the wee hours of the morning yesterday, we were awoken by a smell. That is right, a smell so strong and so bad that it WOKE US UP. It was unmistakably skunky, but so strong that we had to be worried that maybe there was some kind of gas or chemical leak causing it - or (heaven forbid!) a skunk actually in our garage or something. We confirmed that the smell outside was at least as bad as the smell inside, and decided that there must be a skunk in the yard. So I went back to sleep with eyes watering and a headache brewing from the horrible smell. It wasn't any better when I woke up the girls for breakfast, and that is when I noticed Percy scratching at the patio door. His normally white front was streaked with yellow lines - by the looks of things he must have been sitting on that skunk when it sprayed him. And he wanted IN! I don't know, if he smelled that bad from the other side of the door, his chances of getting inside were pretty slim.

He eventually gave up and ran off somewhere for most of the day, I scoured the internet for getting skunk smell off of a cat. And apparantly, there aren't a lot of cats getting sprayed by skunks, because all the instructions and magic potions assume you're washing a dog. I have to think that a dog would probably be a more willing participant than a cat. What's all this about "leave on for five minutes" and "if smell persists, repeat several times..."

This is a cat. There are no 'repeats' when washing a cat. It needs to be a one-shot deal. Because after the first time you wrestle him into the tub, he KNOWS what's up and there is no way on earth he's going to allow it to happen a second time. And there is no 'leave on for five minutes'. Who exactly is going to hold a skunky wet angry writhing cat for five minutes? Certainly not ME!

Tonight, Percy finally returned home, bringing the smell with him. I had a rubbermaid tub full of warm water and baking soda/peroxide mixture and a bottle of "Skunk off" waiting in the garage for him. And DH went running for his mom's house, so he was no help whatsoever. I would have thought he'd stay just to make fun of me wrestling a stinky wet cat, but whatever. I can do this better without an audience.

Oblivious Percy wondering "Hey, what's with this pink tubful of water?"

It was wet, and disgusting and the smell was unbelievable. But we got the job done. I rubbed Percy down with the baking soda mixture BEFORE I put him in the tub, and he actually allowed it for the full five minutes. Being put into the tub was a whole other story, though. He completely lost his mind. I felt sorry for him but since the alternative was to shoot him and bury him in a deep hole far, far away - I was determined to hold him down long enough to get most of the smell off of him. Then I wrapped him up in a towel like a baby and we both worked at getting him dry enough to hang out in the garage overnight. There is nothing as pathetic as a wet cat.

Pathetic Percy vowing not to be friends with me anymore

Today, he's looking a lot fluffier and his white parts are whiter than they've been in years. He still smells a little bit skunky but it will have to do. Unfortunately our other cat Casey decided to hang out on the porch swing with skunky Percy all day yesterday - which is odd because usually they can't stand the sight of eachother. So Casey stinks too and he's going to need a bath when he gets home. He's not as fluffy or as stubborn as Percy is, so hopefully the worst is over.

Easter got in the way

2007-04-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in awhile, I could blame it on Easter but that was over a week ago. I've been busy. Doing what, I really can't say. Its finally nice outside, we can go out in short sleeves and as long as there's not a gale force wind, its pretty comfortable. The snow is all gone, and the mud is pretty well gone now too. I am just waiting a little longer to put the winter clothes away because we all know it will snow for sure if I do that.

I got hung up for three days trying to make a layout with my Easter pictures and its still awful so I am more likely to delete it than post it here. Its a few wasted hours of my life that I'll never get back so I am reluctant to delete it but I am certainly not going to mess with it anymore, either. I moved on to other things:

This is my tribute to Mini Eggs. We've had plenty of time to devour the three family-sized bags of regular Mini-Eggs, and three large bags of Poppin' Mini-Eggs, and its getting hard to find them in stores again - so we bid farewell to the Mini-Egg for another year. Its sad but the truth is, I'd be 900 pounds if those things were available year-round. My youngest daughter has discovered Mini-Eggs, and like her mother - she doesn't share well. She spent much of Easter morning hovering over the dish of Mini-Eggs we had out on the kitchen table and snarled at anyone who got too close. Not that anyone would actually eat them after she drooled all over them (which is what happens when you shove three in your mouth at once) - even *I* have standards when it comes to drooled-on candy!

This one is a layout for my baby and my grandma. She always says that to my babies - whatever it is... a poem? Verse? Just her own saying? I don't know, I googled it and came up with nothing. But it needed to be scrapped.

Spring break, and long awaited St.Louis layouts!

2007-04-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Well, they are long-awaited for me, anyway! I made these right after I got home from STL but I had to wait for Kathy to get her new Spring Ribbon essentials up in the store before I could post them. I love getting to see and use this stuff before its up in the store, but the waiting is torture!

This is a two-page layout so you're supposed to imagine them side by side - I used one of Emily Farnworth's new Plug n' Play templates to make it. I am not sure if I can get them to show up side by side on the blog but I'll give it a try:

We went to the Winter fair this weekend - really a nutty idea with three kids, but whatever. Everyone else does it!!! And that's precisely the problem - EVERYONE else does it. It is absolute lunacy to go there on Saturday, with a baby in a stroller and two kids it took us an hour to get to the petting zoo, and when we finally got there we just turned around because the lineups were too long. We could have gone any other day of the week, but we went on the craziest day because I like to see the heavy horse events and Fred Penner was playing for the kids. It is even more insane to try to stay there until 10:00 pm for the final event, the 6 horse hitch. But we did it anyway, because I like to see it.

This year was the 100th anniversary so they had the Budweiser hitch there. So I went to see the horses in St. Louis a few weeks ago, and this weekend I got to see the whole hitch in action, dalmatian and all. Very impressive for someone who likes that kind of thing, which I do. Do you think I remembered my camera? Not a chance. I do have a few pictures we took in the barns though, but none of it all hitched up in the ring.

So, here's me with the one they have on display in St.Louis

And then, deja-vu, here I am at the Winter Fair with the girls:

Is it just my imagination, or do I look so much more relaxed in the first photo??

The girls really enjoyed Fred Penner - and as luck would have it when he went over to a table to sign autographs after the show, we ended up first in line. He was really great with the kids - brought the girls around to the back of the table for pictures, and figured out from her name that he could speak to her in French, so he did. Its so good to see her understanding and responding back to people like that, and I think she's starting to think its really neat when she finds someone outside her school or family who speaks French, too. She also had a little chat with Sister Cecile this week when we went for tea at the hospital where my mom works.

the girls and Fred Penner

Backtracking now, we had spring break last week so the girls and I did a little bit of travelling - went to visit my mom and dad, and then took a day to go 'down home' and visit both of the grandmothers and some cousins. The girls discovered Nanny's old Nintendo and were soon hooked on Super Mario Brothers. When I was younger, Nanny and Grandma Silver both had their own Nintendo systems - Nanny was Dr.Mario champion and Grandma Silver was always quite good at Tetris. I always thought it was great to go visit my grandmas and they didn't just have the Nintendo 'for the kids to play with' - they were addicted to it, too!!

Discovering Nintendo at Nanny's house

More traditional 'grandma activities' at my mom's house - baking cookies
A. wasn't really invited for cookie-making but was in there like a dirty shirt, anyway:
Grandpa tried to intervene, but she was having NONE of that:

A critical point in the negotiations:
Finally, an agreement is reached, acceptable to all parties:

SPRING!

2007-03-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, its spring break for the kids at school, and it actually feels like spring weather-wise. The snow is melting but there is still a pile of it in the backyard - I can't quite get to my flowerbeds yet but if we have a few more days like this it won't be long.

DH brought the girls' bikes out yesterday - and we've been going for walks and rides in the wagon. We even tried to fit all five of us on the quad and took a little ride up to his grandparents' house. We do fit, but its pretty tight! Since we don't go very far or very fast, it works for now but if we are going to be doing this as a family more often, I'd like my own quad someday. He ordered a new rear seat from Cabelas and it will help out a lot in that department, plus it has lots of storage for my camera so I'll be able to take it with me when we go riding this spring. I'm probably the most annoying passenger ever because I insist on driving slowly so I don't miss any of the scenery - and because I am constantly stopping to pick flowers and take pictures. Its so beautiful out here and that's what I love about the quad - we get to see places we probably wouldn't see otherwise. I think DH likes exploring all of the old trails and the sand dunes and the hills and to tell the truth, its not really that big of a deal to get him to drive slowly because he doesn't ever want to get the quad DIRTY. When we didn't have the quad he'd always like to load all of us up in the van and go for drives all over the countryside. Even a trip to the dump is an adventure and he's disappointed if we don't all come along.

These are all reasons we wouldn't make good city people, I suppose! Who goes to the dump for fun? That's just crazy!

ANYWAY, spring is in the air here, and you might be able to tell from this LO that I'm excited about it. Its been a long winter and I'm looking forward to green grass, short sleeves and tulips blooming.

This is my first LO for Jennifer Howland, using her "Airy" paperpack, I also found Kathy Moore's "Essentials Stamped Alpha" tied in really well for the title. Full credits are in my DST gallery.

101 things...

2007-03-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

My first posted LO with Kathy's stuff - her studio is now open at Scrapbookgraphics. I actually have three more that I will be posting as soon as I get the green light - I have two pages scrapped from the St. Louis trip that I can't wait to share.

Awhile back, DH put on a hockey-stick-taping clinic in the kitchen. I probably should have been paying attention, but the girls seem to be getting the hang of it. There was also a 'stick curving' lesson but it involved use of a blowtorch so we all stood back.

Digi update

2007-03-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

With all the St. Louis excitement, I haven't posted much about what I am scrapping these days. I decided I had time to be on another CT and specifically wanted to work with a designer instead of a store this time around. Knowing my luck and probability with CT's, I applied for three hoping to get one - and was shocked to get three acceptances! All on the same day, too - so my head was spinning but now I have three fabulous ladies to scrap stuff for, and I'm jumping right in now that I am back.

Here is my first LO, using Emily Farnworth's "Cold Play" kit. When I was on polkadotpotato CT, I had the HARDEST time choosing between Emily's kits when I was assigned to her. I desperately wanted to do a winter page with this kit, and so now I did! Full credits in my DST gallery.

My other two CT's are Joyful Heart Designs (Jennifer Howland) and a three month guest spot with Kathy Moore at Scrapbookgraphics. com I am so excited - I have something done with one of Kathy's kits already but I can't share it just yet - and I have some ideas for one of Jennifer's kits so will hopefully have something up by this weekend. Not only that, Nina has some fabulous new stuff out right now - I just need more hours in the day!!

Meet me in St.Louis - the great Mom's getaway!

2007-03-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

The whole gang

So, we did a little bit of touristy sightseeing in St.Louis. First stop was the Budweiser brewery which is interesting to me, of course - because its a brewery, and I like beer. I had NO IDEA how fabulous it would be. There are chandeliers in the horse stables, fancy woodwork and tile work and beautiful brass trim and everything, everywhere. It was surprising for me because I expected to be touring a working brewery - something very sterile and industrial - but I felt like I was touring a fancy billionaire's estate or something. Its really worth seeing even if you don't like beer, which I can't imagine, but whatever.

So, what they say is true, you do get free samples when you tour a brewery. I was fully expecting they'd just hand us a dixie cup full of beer on the way out, but they actually have room set up sort of like a bar and you can have TWO FULL GLASSES of beer, for free. They even provide pretzels. Since I could have two drinks, I tried out the Bud Light knowing I'd probably like it, and then took a chance on this pink beer. No, your eyes are not failing - that is a glass of pink beer. Or a 'malt beverage' to be exact - it tasted nothing like beer, but it was still very very good. I hope we can get them in Canada, I'll have my summer beverage all lined up. Its a strawberry flavored "Peel" - highly recommended.

We went out for a nice supper at the St. Louis Fish Market which was very good but I was expecting to be able to pick out a whole live lobster and eat it, and that just didn't happen. It wasn't even on the menu so I had a steak. No surprise there! After supper we went for a night out on the town - at the Big Bang Duelling Piano Bar I don't have to tell you that we don't have piano bars, much less DUELLING piano bars, where I come from. So I really, really enjoyed this place. Great music, lots of dancing and singing along - we had a lot of drinks and a lot of fun!

(above) Beth, Kris, me and Michele at the piano bar,
(below) Me with Laura and Chris

The next day we went for a tour of the famous Arch, which freaked me right out the more I looked at the thing and realized that if I were go to the top of it, there would be nothing but 600 feet of air below me. That's different than going up to the top of the Eiffel tower or something where you are up high, but at least there is something substantial between you and the ground.
We travelled up in these little pods that look like something directly out of Spaceballs. They clunk and bang all the way to the top and if it wasn't for good company in the pod, I'd have probably been clawing the door to get out (and the door looks very much like I wouldn't have been the first to do that....) We laughed nervously (and boisterously) about elevator nightmares and such things, and before we knew it - we were at the top.

me at the top of the Arch, avoiding looking down
looking down from the arch, the city of St.Louis including their shiny new fabulous home-of-the-World-Series-champions stadium. :)
after the arch some of us went for lunch at the School Street Station in Laclede's Landing they had board games set up so we played Trivial Pursuit together
l/r: Beth, Julie, Kelly, Ann, Sue, Eleanor, Geri, Michele and Kris

So, with the touristy stuff out of the way, we planned to just stay in the hotel and hang out that evening - there were almost 20 of us and we came to St.Louis to spend time together - so we did. Our hotel rooms at the Residence Inn St.Louis - Downtown had lots of room and full kitchens, so we were able to make a potluck-style feast right there in the hotel room. We spent the evening laughing until we cried, or crying until we laughed. I did a lot of the latter I am sure there will be plenty of teary-eyed pictures of me posted all over the place, so I won't do it here.

Carrie, Sarah, Geri and Chris - dishing up supper
Christy laughing till she cries, behind her - Kris, Karen, Sarah and Bethany
(we were all wearing our ugliest PJ's for the night in)

Over the weekend lots of people asked who we were and why we were in St.Louis together. The best answer I have is that we are all friends, we've known each other online for years - some of us have kept in touch for almost 7 years since this all started when I was pregnant with my first baby, who will be turning 6 in a few months. They've asked if it was weird when we met for the first time, was anyone uncomfortable - did you like them as much as you thought you would? Were they how you thought they would be? You know, everyone was exactly how I imagined they would be, only even better. I already know who they are, but to see them in person - hear their voices and know what it sounds like when they laugh - its pretty amazing after all of these years. Sometimes I would just sit there and watch and listen - because I couldn't believe we were all there, together. It was fun, and amazing and I can't wait to do it again, someday. For all of you (you know who you are!) who couldn't make it this time around - I know it will happen again and I'll have the chance to meet you all. Its been so long it doesn't matter WHEN it happens, as long as it does happen, someday. And for everyone who shared this wonderful trip with me - thank you for being so amazing. I couldn't imagine having a better time, but I know we will manage it whenever we get the chance. :)

Okay, I lied. Here are a few pictures of me sobbing:

The realization that Heather really IS leaving, in a few minutes, for real

BETHANNNNNYYYY!!!

saying goodbye to Christy, forgot to get a picture BEFORE we both were crying

Me with Eleanor and Geri. The three of us are on Emily Farnworth's CT together now - I'm not sure if Emily knew what she was getting into!! :)

Home for a rest...

2007-03-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

You'll have to excuse me,
I'm not at my best
I've been gone for a week
I've been drunk since I left
These so-called vacations will soon be my death!
I'm so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest!!!

Well, its not *quite* that bad, I didn't drink that much. But I did have a few and I had a wonderful time, and I am SOOOOO tired. I'm more sick and tired from the travelling, than the drinking! I flopped into my own bed just before midnight last night, and I left at 4 am on Wednesday, so its been a long haul. I had every possible trouble getting through the Toronto airport, and mark my words, I will NEVER EVER EVER take an international connecting flight out of that airport again. So help me.

Aside from airport issues, my trip was incredible. But I have to grouch about my flights for a bit before I can move onto the good stuff. I didn't make my connecting flight in Toronto, despite the fact that I got off the plane and RAN through the airport to baggage claim, and I only waited 5 minutes in front of the carousel before asking for help - they told me that my flight was boarded, my luggage would be another 20 minutes, and I would miss it. I fell apart right there because the lady who was 'helping' me also told me there wouldn't be another flight to St.Louis until tomorrow. There is no way in hell I was planning to stay in that airport overnight so I started to freak out a bit. Then she sent me a bunch of wrong places, I lost my purse (yes, that is right - LOST. MY. PURSE) and I knew exactly where it was but they wouldn't let me back through security to get it - etc. It was just a mess and people sent me to see people who said, you're not in the right place, go here instead, etc. And then I finally got to the woman who DID help and with a few keystrokes, got me on a flight to Chicago, which would get me into St.Louis by 10 pm. Not bad! I thanked her a million times and went on my way.

Until I got to US customs where the guy looking at my passport said "You're going to Chicago? Why would you go there? Its horrible! You will circle endlessly above the airport and never land. It is so huge, you will never, ever get out of there. I will take a layover anywhere before I will ever fly out of Chicago. Have fun!"

Me having no fun whatsoever in Chicago's O'Hare airport while I waited an hour for a plane to stop circling the airport and land, so that we could board it.

See? That sign says O'Hare airport. What the HECK am I doing in O'Hare airport?

Hrumph. So I went back slightly into panic mode wondering what I am getting myself into flying into CHICAGO when I couldn't even handle Toronto. But I made it to my connecting flight in Chicago with no problems - they just delayed the flight almost two hours and so I didn't get into St.Louis until after eleven, they lost my luggage of course, I waited in line for an hour dealing with that - ah, the JOYS of air travel. But I made it!!

And that was the last worry I had for four days, while I had the time of my life in St.Louis with my friends. Then it was back to the airport, and everything went smoothly until I got to Toronto, again. Another short international connection, with customs etc. I ran until I thought my heart would explode, I freaked out when the baggage claim took forever, I rushed through customs and security and ran my ass off for a few more miles and got to the gate just in time to board my flight. Sweaty and dying of thirst, I was one of the last to get on board but settled in for TWO HOURS of sitting on the plane waiting for it to move from the terminal. Which it did not. They didn't have a pilot, one would be running from the other end of the airport (how fitting!!) to fly our plane. Then when he got there, he discovered a problem and so they had to wait for mechanics. Then it couldn't be fixed so we had to get off the plane and haul ourselves and our luggage to another gate (and not a nearby gate, heaven forbid, but one far away!) and wait to board THAT plane, and THEN wait for it to fill with fuel and whatever, and FINALLY two hours after Iwas supposed to be in Winnipeg, my flight left Toronto. We got into Winnipeg at just after 4 am, and after waiting for luggage (mine was lost AGAIN!!!) and waiting in the freezing cold for a cab for 20 minutes - I finally got to the hotel at 5 am.

So is it just me, or is the Toronto airport quite possibly the Gateway To Hell?

I'm going to post this so that I can put all the good stuff and pictures in the next one, so it will show up on top. :)

Going somewhere!!!

2007-03-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, at four in the morning I hopped on a Greyhound bus, and now I'm in the Winnipeg airport waiting for my flight to Toronto. I am ON MY WAY!!!

I'm nervous about this whole flight connection/customs thing that is going to have to happen in a heck of a hurry in Toronto but otherwise, things are going well so far. Apparantly the whole network of computers for the airline went down causing a 1 hour delay this morning but they seem to be working through it and predict that I'll only be delayed 10 minutes going into Toronto. Not bad - I am just so worried about missing that connection. I should have pretended I was an unaccompanied minor or something so they'd make sure I know what to do and where to go when I get there.

Ok, so hoping they'll call my flight soon. I'm sitting on the floor next to the only outlet in the boarding area. I wonder if people used to care so much where the outlets are in an airport. :)

The weather is clear and gorgeous in Winnipeg - well looking from the window anyway. I have a window seat on the plane so there should be lots to see.

WOULD they please stop calling every flight but mine 10000000 times? Its making me nervous that I missed something!!

Meanwhile, in the bathroom....

2007-03-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

The other day while I was busily posting my clean "after" pictures - the baby was being too quiet. The picture is fuzzy because she was caught in the act:

CAUGHT!!!

Mom, you look kind of angry. Here - have a pantiliner!

20 minute challenge

2007-03-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

Today, I looked around the house at about 2 pm and as always, it was a disaster. It usually is relatively clean before we go to bed every night - the kitchen and the livingroom cannot be left like that overnight! The thing about being at home with the kids all day is - they make a mess. I remember when I used to work and in the morning I would drop the kids at a sitter, go to work until 5, and come home and it was like some miracle - the house was EXACTLY the way we left it in the morning. Which might mean some empty cereal bowls in the sink, but certainly not the tornado-effect that we have by suppertime when the kids are home all day.

Those of you who have clean houses all day never cease to amaze me. My sister in law, for example. She has an almost four-year-old son who is very busy, and a little baby girl. And her house is always clean. She will often call and ask if my four year old would like to come and play for the afternoon (crazy? YES!) and so I will be at my house with one napping baby, she is at her house with one baby, and two four year olds. At three thirty when I go to pick up my oldest from school, I go to get the four year old from SIL's house. And as I walk by I can smell clean laundry from the dryer vent, then I can smell something very good cooking for supper from her stove vent, and then when I get in the door she will be standing holding her 5 month old baby, with a batch of cookies or banana bread cooling on the counter, and whatever the heck it is that smells so good cooking in the oven for supper AND a clean house AND her son AND my daughter have been playing all day.

So, I know it can be done, I just know it can't be done BY ME. But today, I took a look around and wondered if 20 minutes of dedicated cleaning might be able to put a dent in it. I challenge anyone else to do this - take a picture of an untidy place in your house, then work at it for 20 minutes, and take another picture. Let's see what you can do!!!

Kitchen @ 2:40-ish

Kitchen @ around 3:00

With the kitchen looking better than it has in days, I walked into the livingroom to find this:

That is right, two children still in PJ's and a heckuva mess. So I decided to put in another 10 minutes or so before I had to get my oldest from school, and so by the time I got her home, it looked more like this:

So, that was well worth the half hour I put in but the sad part is that since she came home from school, there were demands for a snack and they discovered the neatly stacked coloring books on the island while they were snacking, so now the island in the kitchen is somewhere between the "before" and "after" picture. And, I have to make cookies and supper isn't started. So I can't say what its going to look like 20 minutes from now. But I have pictures to prove it *was* clean, once.

Shopping spree!

2007-02-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

There must be something in the water - all these fabulous designers are announcing retirements which is always sad news for digiscrappers, but also very hard on my paypal account and scrapping budget. It started off with Michelle Pearson's actions - at 50% off I could justify getting a whole pile of them, and I've been playing with them all week. I also bought Kellie Martin's beautiful "Storm" series of papers - so pretty! Then I have to take another run through Kimberly Geswein's stuff to make sure there isn't anything I don't have - and then she offered a fabulous font freebie which was just what I needed for the page I was working on. I threw a bunch of my new stuff together with freebies from Michelle Coleman, Amanda Rockwell and Catscrap and I really like how it turned out. I normally couldn't afford buy so much great stuff for one page - but with retirement sales and freebies, all things are possible. These ladies' talents will surely be missed in the digi world - and for Amanda, Michelle and Catrine - your generosity is very much appreciated.

But, that's not all. I also found a great sale at ebags this weekend, and finally decided to get a bag for my laptop - it might need to travel when I go to St. Louis, and right now it travels in a fabric grocery bag that came free with a package of paper towels at Wal-mart. That's no good! So I bought this one which is one of the few that will fit my 17 inch laptop, and its PINK.

And while I was browsing there, I realized that I am rather ashamed of the purse I'm carrying right now - I recall that I bought it when I was shopping for wedding stuff - so that was well over 6 years ago!! Its worn right out and when there are perfectly acceptable purses available for less than $20, I really have no excuse. So I bought a little purse and a wallet while I was at it.

Ok, by request, here's the purse. Its nothing fancy but its better than what I've got now, by a mile! Both the purse and the laptop case came from ebags.com for all of you that are wondering. And Geri, the bag comes in green, but its not a lime green - more a sage color. I almost got that or red instead. But I ended up with pink, because - its pink!!

OH HELL. The corn-popper toy has been lying around our house for months and hasn't interested the baby in the least. Until now. Just this second she discovered how it works. By the grin on her face, I think I'd better get myself some tylenol. I'm going to need it.

Homework

2007-02-24T20:19:00.000-08:00

Well, she's only in Kindergarten, or Maternelle, as they call it. So she doesn't have a lot of homework but they send her home with a little book every day and she has little things written in her school agenda that we're supposed to do with her each night. Her school is full-time when most Kindergarten is half-time, so you'd think she'd have enough of school by the end of the day. But she loves to have 'homework' even if its just writing her classmates' names or memorizing her phone number. Anyway, homework has become Dad's job so most nights he's the one reading the stories and helping her with printing letters and words. He's great at it so there are no complaints from me, but I always thought it would be me. I *could* do it, and when he's not around, I do. But I think its important for her to learn French and that if he shows its important to him that she does - it will be important to her too.

So, despite it being against everything in my nature (to teach! to mother! to run everything!!!) I stand back and watch them do homework together. :)

Its HEEEEEEEREE!!!!

2007-02-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

Look what came in the mail today!!!!!

So, there are 60,000 Canadians waiting for passports, I've heard every possible horror story and all these people saying they didn't get theirs yet when they submitted it in December or whatever - and look at this!!! They said it would be back by March 5 and I hoped they weren't lying. Well, its the 23rd, and look what came in the mail!! So it took just 15 working days! Yay for the Canadian Government!! YAY for bureaucracy!! My passport is here, and its two weeks early!

What goes around...

2007-02-20T21:24:00.000-08:00

M is sick. We went to my parents' house this weekend for a bit of a visit before they go on their long vacation - they'll be gone almost two weeks. As we were leaving she said she didn't feel well which I might wonder is just a ploy to stay longer but there was just something in her eyes. We brought a pail in the van. I knew it was serious when we stopped to get Subway on the way home and she wouldn't eat a tuna sub. She LOOOOOVES tuna subs.

So, its Wednesday now, and she's still sick. She has a roaring fever which just goes down a bit when she has tylenol or whatever, but never gets near normal. She has headaches and her tummy hurts and she just lays on the couch all day. Last night she woke up screaming at about 4:30 and she was so hot, it was crazy. I gave her a dose of Advil and brought her and a big pail to bed with me. She slept on top the covers and I could seriously feel the heat from the other side of the bed.

I'd be getting aoctor's appointment except for the fact that all of the first and second graders at her school had this last week - all with high fevers for 2-3 days and headaches and this cough. So whatever it is, its going around. So far C and the baby have no signs of it - just wait!

I found the baby jumping on the top bunk of the bunkbed today. We took the ladder off completely back in the fall because the little devil who couldn't even WALK yet at the time was able to climb ladders in the blink of an eye. And with two other kids in the house its impossible to keep the door closed all the time - we had two more close calls before we just took it down completely and told M she's going to have to climb up to bed some other way.

Then a few weeks ago DH had a brilliant idea to take the bunkbeds down and have two twin beds instead. That didn't last long as there was no way to put the dressers in the room that they weren't up against one of the beds. And so I kept finding her climbing up onto the dressers from the beds. That wasn't good for the heart, either so the bunkbeds went back up last week.

And NOW, she got up there again, somehow. I have to think the four year old was somehow involved - but she's not talking. And I can't see how she really could help much, she can barely lift the baby. But I DO know there was a baby bouncing on the top bunk even though the ladder is long gone, so I have to figure out what to do about that. And I am not sure how far I am willing to go with keeping her off of stuff - she climbs onto the kitchen table whenever my back is turned for a second, and also likes to climb the backs of the couches and stand against the half-wall in the livingroom. So, STANDING on the back of the couch. Nice. Do we remove all the furniture? Or do I just try to keep up with her? With the stairs we finally gave up because she got really good at them within the first week or so - in fact, I worry more that *I* will fall down the stairs while carrying her, than I worry that she will fall while going up and down them 123456789 times a day.

So, with that in mind, I saw this layout last week, and I just love it. I usually don't post other people's layouts on my blog but this one makes me smile every time I see it so this way I can look at it whenever I want . I hope everyone else gets a kick out of it, too.

We'll call it my LO of the Month or something: "Almost Free" by Dixi (2GB)

Her credits are posted in her gallery at DST. I am also pleased to know I'm not the only one who might be standing with a camera while my child is climbing all over everything.

2007-02-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, I saw this 13 thing on Christy's blog (see link on the side) and thought I'd give it a try.

 
Thirteen Things about CHERI

Today's topic:  13 things I learned this week.
  1. It is pointless to send preschoolers to school with Valentines with all their friends' names on them.   They can't read!   
2. Its slightly less pointless to send a child to Kindergarten with Valentines with all their friends' names on them.  They *should* be able to match names with faces, but its still pretty hit-and-miss.
3. I can't really complain about Valentine's day being overdone if I sent my kids to school with Valentine cookies and jellybeans and homemade cards for all their classmates.
4. Just for the record, it *is* overdone.
5. Pouring the coffee back into the coffeepot and turning the element back on works better than microwaving it.  
6. The baby has two new teeth and THAT is why she's so miserable and won't eat anything.
7. My nephew has the chicken pox even though he just got the vaccine, and he has it BAD.
8. It doesn't matter what the incubation period of chicken pox is, or when we saw him last, or whether or not my kids have had it - SOMEONE is going to get it, I just know it.
9. Sweeping the kitchen floor is pointless.  Also, it is pointless to convince Blogger that I would like to keep the same font for this entire thing.   It will do whatever it wants. 
10. Crockpot cooking makes the kitchen just as messy as stovetop cooking.    You just have to clean it up sooner.
11. I cannot do anything else when I am walking on a treadmill without posing serious risk to my life and limbs.
12. If you only watch The Bold and The Beautiful once a month, you cannot accurately predict who will be married to whom the next time you watch it.
13.  Use the noun "confidant" for men, "confidante" for women.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday.  Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!  If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments.  It’s easy, and fun!  Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well!  I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The first step

2007-02-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

My father in law got a new treadmill with a tv and whatever else - so his old one is upstairs in our room right now. DH runs on it every day. I am thinking, I always said I would if I had one in the house, so maybe I should find my running shoes and give it a go. When nobody is watching, of course.

Yesterday, I did find my running shoes, but they're all muddy - so I just gave up. Today, I was feeling much more motivated, so I took them out and washed all the mud out of every little crack and crevice. I know these shoes need grip but do these companies pause to think about how much trouble its going to be to get mud out of each of those crevices?? And thank goodness it was just mud, I cringe at the thought of it being anything worse. I'd probably just throw them away.

Anyway, there's the first step of my plan for fitness. My shoes are scrubbed clean. I'd really like to try out the treadmill today, but I have to wait for them to dry. Can't have wet squeaky shoes on the treadmill, can we?

Tomorrow's project: Find appropriate clothing for treadmill use.

I swear, I'm not an idiot, but...

2007-02-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

My latest layout - I took this picture for C's valentines for school, and liked it enough to make a whole page. Everything is from Nina's Symbiosis kit.

Sometimes, I get too impressed with myself because I can do some things in Photoshop. Yeah, lots of my friends can, too. But its hard. Photoshop 7.0 is what I am running, and it can be a beast. When someone I know is interested in learning to digital scrapbook, I say DO NOT USE Photoshop 7.0, its rotten and mean and I don't want you to give up! Find something more user-friendly so you can enjoy this from the start! Sometimes I can't believe I kept at it through all the frustration and eventually figured it out with a little help from my friends along the way.

But, if I start to get too self-congratulatory, I would like to thank blogger, itunes, etc. for knocking me down a few pegs, or off the whole ladder. Last night I tried to put up this nifty slideshow like everyone else has on their blog - how hard could it be? It was pretty easy to upload the photos, almost *too* easy in fact. The trouble came when I tried to move the thing to the SIDE of my blog, because I don't want it to be a post. I want it to be OVER THERE ------->

Well, as you can see, its not over there. Its below. And it will eventually disappear off of this page. No amount of clicking around could find a way to get it where I want it - but somehow EVERYONE ELSE's blog has their photo slideshow over on the side. This is when I start to think the whole world knows something I don't.

Don't even get me started on the difficulty of getting songs from my computer to DH's Ipod. I was ready to throw that thing across the room. How come everyone else in the free world can figure that out, and its a mystery to me. The instructions for it are written (I kid you not) much like the posters on the wall in kindergarten. They politely imply "we're slowing this down for you, using small words, colors and pictures as not to confuse you!" Green dot means this, orange dot means this. Orange flashing dot means, Don't touch! etc.

And I'm thinking - I learned to use Photoshop without using the Help files (much) surely to GOODNESS I can operate this thing that plugs into my computer and has one button with a play symbol on it. The songs are supposed to move so easily from one to the other, that's why these things are all the rage, no? How hard can it be?

Hard like programming a VCR, that's how hard. We managed to get some songs on it, but I hope he doesn't mind listening to Barbie Girl and the Wiggles, because I couldn't figure out how to get *particular* songs on it, and so its got just about everything we had on the computer, even the really really annoying stuff the girls listen to. And considering the trouble I had getting songs onto it, there is NO WAY I am going to attempt removing songs from it. Not a chance.

its minus a million, with the wind chill

2007-02-07T22:05:00.000-08:00

Oh, here's Cheri complaining about the cold again. Its *always* forty below where she lives. She's just too lazy to do the conversion, so she says its forty below so the Americans will all understand, that is DAMNED cold, because its the same in the US.

No, really FORTY BELOW. That is how cold it is. I don't know the whole conversion thing, I admit. But it does seem funny to me when I hear someone whining that it is almost *zero* - or heaven forbid, MINUS TEN.

Ok, I don't know what your minus ten is, but ours is livable. Minus forty, however, is not.

Tonight on the news, they were obviously as sick as I am of trying to impress anyone with the coldness of 'forty below' - so they said - with the windchill, its minus a million. There. You heard it on our news first - minus ONE MILLION. That works for me, because honestly, if its less than 25 below zero, and there's a windchill, it might as well be minus a million. Its too freaking cold. And its been at least minus 25 for so long, we just think its normal for some reason.

M. was threatening to break free and run outside. She is so sick of having to stay in. She'd be like one of those cartoon characters that freezes in mid-air, then gets tapped with a hammer and shatters. See, kids don't see stuff like that on TV anymore, so they don't understand when their moms say 'You will FREEZE in less than a minute! GET INSIDE!"

~Cheri

DONE!

2007-02-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

The passport application is submitted - it will be done in a month!!

And, I only waited 15 minutes!!!

Things the baby knows...

2007-02-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

The baby is 16 months old now. Here are some things she knows for sure:

1) Screaming like you're on fire is better than whining. If you don't get what you want, at least you're not the only one suffering.

2) Diapers (even fresh, clean ones) belong in the diaper pail.

3) Milk is good, but CHOCOLATE MILK is FANTASTIC

4) If it can be climbed, you absolutely should climb it.

5) If it can't be climbed, find something that can be climbed, and climb that.

6) Broccoli tastes awful, and isn't improved with cheese.

7) Otherwise, cheese is good.

8) Spinning in circles makes you fall down. Falling down is fun if done correctly.

9) About 15 feet is a good start on mom, she'll never catch up in time.

10) Whatever is new on the tray will probably taste better than what you are eating now. You should probably spit that out.

Here's a LO of with a picture I took of her last year in February. She's grown SO much. Full credits in my DST gallery, but I tried to use a little from each of the CT kits I was working on before I stepped down, Faith True's "Valentine Odds and Ends" at PDP, and Valorie Brown's glitter hearts and sequin shapes. The papers are from Nina at oscraps and NDISB and I'm staying on with her so will be using a lot more of her stuff from now on.

Home again, home again...

2007-02-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I got everything packed and everyone in the van, and we set out on the road only to find that what was a beautiful sunny day turned into a white-out blizzard late in the afternoon. We got about an hour from home and had to turn back.

So, we're home, and safe, and warm - but not any closer to having a passport. Next attempt: we'll drive up Sunday evening and I'll go to the passport office on Monday morning, I guess.

Going nowhere - no kidding!!!

~Cheri

Dads and little girls

2007-02-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

The other night I put A to bed as usual, and a half hour later when I went up to my room, I could hear that she was still awake and chattering happily to herself in her crib. I did what moms do - I said to myself "awww, that's adorable" and went on with my business.

THEN, DH comes upstairs and as he's walking by her room, she hears him and says "HI!"

Do I even need to tell you what happens next? I seriously doubt it.

He comes into our room, and he says, "Awww. She's in there by herself! She's not ready to sleep! She's wide awake!"

I say, "She's happy, that's how she winds down, just leave her..."

To no avail, he's already back in her room and I can hear him saying "Hello! You're being too cute to be in the dark alone! Do you want out? Do you want to come and watch TV with dad???"

And, of COURSE she does!! Sure! Well, sure to the first question - HECK YEAH, she wants out, but watch TV with dad, I seriously, seriously doubt it. There is no way on earth she is going to sit quietly and cuddle with dad while he watches the news. After 20 minutes of her jumping on the bed, running in circles around the room, and literally climbing the walls, he realizes *maybe* its not such a bad idea to let her wind down in her crib. He put her back to bed. She sang and chatted to herself for 20 minutes, and went to bed.

~Cheri

letting stuff go...

2007-02-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

I have had a crazy couple of weeks as I am realizing how many meetings and committees and sub-committees I am on with council. With the library moving forward, and I'm heading up the committee for that - its only going to get busier. I think the plan is to have this library open and full of books this spring and we have lots to do in between now and then. So, I have way too much going on and I am at risk of not doing any of it well if I don't cut back a few things. So I stepped down from all of my CT's but one - I'll still be scrapbooking when I have the time, but being that I can't find regular time to do it, I need to let some of my obligations go.

Last night I was at the end of my rope - January is my month to host our $20 club party, and I originally had it organized for all of us to go to a bellydancing class last week but that fell through at the last minute - so I planned it again for Thursday (today) and everyone could make it, and that was good, except bellydancing was no longer an option so it would have to be doing broken tile-mosaic in my house - requiring me to have a clean house and supplies for tile-mosaics. As you know I didn't get to the city on Monday, and so I had to move my party AGAIN, to last night, when only about half the ladies could make it. But I was running out of January, so I had to just do it anyway. And I don't know WHY I cleaned my house because you should see what doing tile mosaics did to my kitchen. What a huge mess!! But I did get a mosaic done:

Then DH got home from work last night and said he can't get tomorrow off - so AGAIN, going for the passport would have to be put off for another week, and I re-scheduled my party and ran around like a madwoman getting things ready - for nothing. And time is ticking on this passport thing - its getting seriously close to impossible to get it back on time.

This morning, he phoned from work to say he did find someone to work for him tomorrow!!! We're going!! I will have everything packed up to go after school, pick DH up from work, and we will be on our way. Weather permitting of course - and its been horrible for the past week or so but looking sunny and bright (but SO COLD) today. It must be close to 30 below but we'll pack warm clothes and drive carefully.

~Cheri

Can't stop smiling

2007-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

When I say everything I need is right here - I'm kind of short *one* thing. We don't have a library in town, and for someone who likes to read as much as I do - its something I really miss. I'm not French myself, but I can see that having a library with materials in French would be a great benefit to a community that is largely bilingual. So, a few years ago we organized a group of people who are interested in starting a bilingual (French/English) library for our community. We worked pretty hard at it for a year or so, and then the road seemed blocked in too many directions - and I had a baby and was busy with that, so it was sort of left hanging for about a year.

This fall, I thought I'd be able to work on this project and lots of other good things if I took a seat on town council. I've been a council member since November - its lots of meetings and work but we have good things happening and its worthwhile. Last night was one tof the many meetings, but a special one for me as the two councils decided last night (and read the bylaw for the first time) to establish our library.

And, so - we're on the way! The renovations are getting underway, we are finding donated shelving and desks and computers - here we go!

This has been a dream for me for a long time, and its really happening. I can't stop smiling. We're going to have a LIBRARY.

It almost makes me forget that a blizzard and road closures kept me from getting to the city to get my passport yesterday. I'm going to try again Thursday/Friday. Wish me luck!

Passport stress

2007-01-26T18:55:00.000-08:00

On Monday we went to the city for no other reason, except for me to submit my passport application. I knew to expect it to take longer because everyone is applying for passports right now as the new policy came into place this week and nobody can fly into the US from Canada without a passport. I thought I had plenty of time with almost 8 weeks before travelling. And I thought going to this "Service Center" would be the best option because they could check over my whole application and make sure its right so that it won't be rejected. Imagine my surprise when they told me that they cannot take my application - I have to go to the nearest Passport Office and apply for it in person. For us, "nearest Passport office" is either 3 1/2 or 5 hours away. And at these Passport offices, people are having to wait in line all day. My aunt went before Christmas (before the big rush) and waited over three hours. Now, I am hearing that people line up at 6 in the morning when the office doesn't even open until 9. Its just crazy and I am worried sick that I will make the 3 hour trip in and STILL not get in to submit my passport. I am hearing that people wait all day only to be turned away when the office closes at 4:30, and they have to return the next day. Living 3 1/2 hours away, I can't afford to be going home and coming back the same day.

I did as much of my application as I could online, and they say that's supposed to make the wait a lot shorter. I sure hope so because I don't have another chance to go, and I have to be back home for a Very Important Meeting at 7 pm. Everyone please cross their fingers that this goes smoothly - I'm just sick about it. I'll pack a good book and an Ipod and just plan on spending the day there, waiting.

Any Canadians reading this blog - if you have plans to go anywhere in the US in the next 6 months, get your passport application in NOW. If you can mail it in or drop it off at a service center, you can avoid the waiting and line-ups. But they told me at the Service Center that anyone planning to travel before May/June won't be guaranteed to get their passport on time unless they apply in person. Craziness!!

Alarm clock issues

2007-01-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas, my husband bought me an alarm clock. For years we have been resetting his alarm clock on any morning when I need an alarm - he gets up around five and I will re-set it to 8 or whenever, and that has worked. But considering there are alarm clocks with TWO alarms, it would make sens for us to have one of those, no?

Uh, no. This alarm clock is posessed by the devil. I won't go into its evil behaviour on Christmas morning which ended with me ripping its batteries out and throwing it against the wall, and using profane language not fit for this blog. It has been on good behaviour since, so we let it have its batteries back and I took the time to carefully set it, following the beyond complicated instructions to the letter, to make sure its not a user-error problem. I've had various alarm clocks since I was 12 years old and never needed instructions until now - but this one is a beast, I tell you.

ANYWAY, I don't trust it enough to set the alarm. I read every letter of the instructions to make it NOT GO OFF, ever. And for a week, I've had peaceful mornings. But, suddenly Sunday morning at 8:03 - its going off. The crazy thing is, it even *knows* its Sunday. I think I gave it too much information when I carefully programmed it. It says "SUN" right on the front, even though it has a handy "Weekend Cancel" feature that should mean it NEVER EVER goes off on the weekend without specific instructions, it still chose Sunday to go off for no particular reason.

That thing has one more chance - ONE, and its out to the dump. And I will not be the least bit surprised to hear anyone saying they went to dump garbage at 8:03 and heard this obnoxious beeping. Not surprised at all.

Even though we had a rough start, I did get a page done today - a great kit from Faith True.

Busy, busy...

2007-01-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

Is it Friday already? Can that be right? I've been busy all week with one thing or another. Gosh, this house looks like it too. Maybe I should invite someone over so I have motivation to clean things up. As you can see I have a couple of new LO's done - full credits are in my DST gallery but those kits are basically Valorie's "Goodnight Moon" at DSS and Tamra's "Color Me Happy" at PDP. I had lots of fun with both of them.

Yesterday, DH and the kids went skating after school - they're really getting the hang of it and spend much less time lying on the ice. The girls had their first skating lesson this week and even though they missed the first half - it seems to be making a difference. M was making "bubbles" with her skates, C was practicing skating BACKWARDS (yes, backwards) and I've noticed them both girls letting themselves glide a bit instead of just taking steps on the ice. I took more pictures, of course.

Then, I tried taking pictures for our minor hockey teams. I know now that I need to take a class or something because I am pretty hit-and-miss. I stood in exactly the same spot and would take two pictures in a row and one would be great, the other not so hot. I expect if I took a class, I might be able to figure out why. Never having played hockey, I had no idea how to pose the kids so they looked spectacular - finally on the last couple of players I figured out a pose that looks really good and natural, shows off their faces and everything - but I wasn't about to drag the rest of them out there for a do-over. But it goes to show that sometimes the only way to learn is to keep doing it until you get it right. One thing I know for sure is, every bone in my body is still frozen solid.

I won't post the hockey pictures since they're not my kids, but THESE ones are mine:

I skated to you, mom!!

Concentrate! Concentrate!

Take the picture so I can GO!

Expanding my horizons

2007-01-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend at my mom's, working on a couple of sewing projects. Usually, I just do the stuff I know how to do (cut and iron) and I make my mom do all the sewing because I can't sew a straight seam to save my life. Before Christmas I was desperate to make a Peanut Shell-type sling (pouch sling) and attempted to make it at home with no help from mom. It was a disaster and would have been graded an F if it was for Home-ec. It stretched the wrong way and the baby would fall right out. And that's not even considering the hemmed edges and the crooked pocket. It was just a bad job, all around.

So, I decided - I should make an even more COMPLICATED baby carrier. To heck with this easy stuff with one seam and a pocket, I am going to make a Mei Tei. My friend Beth has this awesome pattern and I found some fabric I loved, so I kidnapped my mom for a day and forced her to help me with it. But it was just before Christmas and all the kids were home so I only got about an hour of slave labour out of her, and had to do most of it myself. And to my huge surprise, it turned out great. So good, in fact - that the person I was supposed to be making it for as a gift will just have to wait, because I am keeping it. I have a hard time parting with homemade gifts - I should know that by now. No wonder I couldn't part with it - how cute is this?

Anyway, this weekend, I bought some more fabric and got a good start on the replacement gift - and so far I have done all of the sewing myself - even the nasty straps that require me to fold the edge under, and under again and sew straight along the 1/4 inch edge. Mom's new sewing machine can go really slow - 'tuck.....tuck....tuck.....' so we get along fine, way better than her first sewing machine that had one speed 'RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR' which scarred me for life.

Also, I skated this week. That is right, I strapped on some skates and joined my girls and my husband on the ice. It was short-lived because the skates are unbelievably uncomfortable - but I skated. I took the skates off and went out there with my boots on to get a few pictures - and also finished up a new layout with those this weekend. The girls love skating - even though C. looks depressed in this photo, its because of some sibling-rivalry unfairness, not because she hates skating.

Credits are in my DST gallery, but I have to say this is digiscrapshak's January Challenge kit, and its well worth participating in the challenges to get the kit - lots of great papers and I love the glass alpha.

2007-01-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

I had a pink and girly kit to use for one of my CT's and these pictures of the girls that I didn't use for our Christmas card, but I thought were cute anyway. Every year I try to get a good picture for our cards and its just more impossible than ever now with three giggling girls. They can't get close enough to eachother to fit in the frame - and they're all laughing or moving or making silly faces. This year I ended up throwing each of them in a snowbank and taking individual pictures while they were partially immobilized by their snowsuits. They were still giggling, but it worked like a charm.

So, these didn't quite make the card but I thought they'd make a cute page.

Onward then!!

2007-01-07T23:57:00.000-08:00

The Christmas pictures have been scrapped. I packed as many as I could on one page, and if I get around to making a few more pages, great. If not, I think I've got it just about covered with this one.

Now, the Halloween pictures are a whole other matter...

As always, full credits in my DST gallery.

"The Best of 2006" - Photos

I took a lot of pictures this year, especially after I got the new camera in May. I picked out a few of my favorites for the "Best of 2006" Not surprisingly, they were all taken at the lake this summer.

This might be my favorite, ever. My girls are walking back to the cabin from the playground across the road. I love the sunlight on their hair and the way their arms are swinging as they walk.

I have a gazillion sunset pictures (I'm beyond obsessed) and usually the water is like glass and the sky is a million colors. On this night, there was a storm brewing and an eerie orange color in the sky and on the water.

This was taken in the playground, the very last weekend we spent there in the fall. The colors of the leaves were so bright and the weather was beautiful - blue sky and warm all weekend. I have so many pictures I love from that weekend but this is my favorite. I recall we also saw a fanastic display of the Northern lights that last night. Its so hard to leave when everything is so beautiful - its a LONG winter here but well worth the wait when spring comes and we're back at the lake again.

Back to normal life - almost.

2007-01-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

I can't believe the holidays are over already - M. is back at school again on Monday. The girls are already asking "When is summer? When is my birthday? Is winter over yet?" - they are driving me wild. THREE MORE MONTHS, at least, so get used to it!!! As far as they are concerned, after Christmas, summer is 'next' on the agenda of things to look forward to.

I have a bunch of things I want to scrap - lots of Christmas pictures need to get done because something tells me I won't feel like looking at Christmas papers and decorations for much longer. I guess I'm already waiting for summer, too. I'd kind of like to crawl into that LO of my nephew blowing bubbles at the lake this summer. *sigh*

I also did one of my dad and the baby at our family Christmas party. I wanted to see if I could make a sepia-toned picture on my own - that's my best effort. I had Laura Berger's "Shenanigans" kit to scrap for DSS - so much in that one it was hard to decide what to use. I like how it turned out, though. Full credits for both LO's are in my DST gallery.

Christmas Hits

Well, the girls have had over a week to sort through their loot and decide what they love the most. C's clear choice is "Bella Dancerella" which is driving me insane, but she loves it. She shows up in the livingroom in her pink tights, ballet slippers and tutu, and the show goes on for hours. She takes it very seriously and will not be disturbed when she's dancing. As an added bonus, the girls got "12 Dancing Princesses" movie for Christmas, and she dances to that, too.

M. loves her Jungle cat - which is this mechanical cat that purrs and growls and drinks from a bottle and (thankfully) goes to sleep. The Bilibos went outside and played in the snow the other day - they're finding all kinds of uses for them. There is also a Barbie house with 123456789 little pieces included, and a whole set of new Disney princess dolls and new Barbies who like to hang out in the house and spread all of those pieces from one end of the livingroom to the other.

We have some new games - Cranium Hullabaloo, which is great and really gets the kids moving, and Disney DVD Bingo which is also great game for us to play together. I love those two games because I don't have to constantly intervene to enforce the rules/prevent cheating/explain the concept of being a good sport, and its okay to lose, etc. But, then - there is Disney Princess Monopoly which is a whole other thing. Its very good - the girls understandd exactly how to play and its more interesting than the rest of their simple board games that they're getting tired of. HOWEVER, its also enough like real monopoly that DH was able to ignore the fact that he had to be Pocahontas and quickly got into it and had castles all over the place. M. had the worst luck I've ever seen - kept landing on his castles and spaces where she had to give money and she never got around the board even once. She only had one castle, and nobody ever landed on it. She started crying when DH won the jackpot on the loose change space (cause most of the money in it was hers and we'd been telling her if she hit that space she could win it back) - then C. didn't like that M. was crying and in true form, tried to give M. some of her money and then kept taking off to the livingroom or hiding under the table because she didn't want to be a part of anything that was making her sister cry.

DH was incredibly disappointed because he had 3 groups of castles at this time and was looking forward to bleeding us all dry. He loves Monopoly. LOVES it. Even with princesses and pink and purple castles - its still Monopoly and he was winning.

So, I had to call the whole thing off since nobody but DH was having fun. We packed it away, and M. collapsed to the floor in tears and howls. The baby came out of the livingroom to investigate and found her sister in a heap between the kitchen and livingroom, sobbing her heart out. You could tell she *wanted* to go back and watch Baby Mozart, but there was something wrong with M., and she couldn't just leave her there like that. She kept trying to move M's hands to see her face, and when that didn't work, she'd walk away a few steps. Then, came pack and patted her gently on the back. That didn't help - Oh, well, back to baby Mozart (huge racking sobs from M.) - Ok, maybe not - and she came and sat against M's belly and leaned back against her, tilting her head to see her face. So sweet, I almost cried. She also kept leaning around the corner to see if she could catch a glimpse of the tv - she was trying to be a good sister but she really just wanted to get back to her show.

C, also in a great demonstration of solidarity, announced that she doesn't like princesses anymore. After 2 1/2 years of near obsession and every princess costume/game/movie on the market, a homemade quilt and a full collection of princess dolls - she's done. She wouldn't even wear princess pjyamas to bed and said we could give away all that stuff.

Two days later, the girls actually asked to play Monopoly again - they're did a lot better with it the second time around. DH acted like a carnie the whole time in the hopes that he could make it fun and interesting enough that they'd stick around to finish the game. That seemed to work, and M. had a lot better luck so she didn't freak out. C. is even playing with her princesses again, things are back to normal.

You were SUPPOSED to WISH me LUCK!

2006-12-29T22:27:00.000-08:00

And obviously nobody did otherwise I wouldn't have spent 4 hours getting my router set up this morning!! I'd say the breakdown was about 40 minutes on hold, 1 hour fussing with connections and 2 hours actually on the line with someone named Jonas in some outsourced call center somewhere overseas. The remaining 20 minutes I managed to sneak in some laundry and housework and fed the kids some lunch. I didn't even finish a whole cup of coffee this morning. I never want to do that again.

But the router works now, properly! Its fantastic! I also have a new wireless mouse now - the touchpad on the laptop takes a lot of getting used to. I find its much easier for me to plug this little mouse into the side and just work that way - I'm at the table most of the time but I found out that an old Reader's Digest Condensed edition works as a mousepad when I'm on the couch or in bed.

Now, I'm on a search for a case that will accomodate a laptop with a 17 inch screen. Any suggestions?

Booked!

2006-12-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

Today, I phoned Air Miles and booked my flight to St. Louis. I love Air Miles - the whole round trip flight will cost me $150 for taxes and trip insurance - the rest was paid with Air Miles I collected on about three grocery shopping trips to Safeway. Not bad since I need to buy groceries anyway.

Christmas was great- I am just having trouble finding the livingroom floor the last few days - I think its time to start packing away all the old toys the girls have outgrown and make some space for all this new stuff. The biggest hit with the girls seems to be the game Hullabaloo - even the baby gets into it. All three girls like their bilibos - its amazing the ideas the kids come up with to play with those things. M. even made up a song about hers tonight.

I am now working off of my new HP notebook computer - but it doesn't have any of my photos or scrapbooking stuff on it so its going to take awhile to get things transferred over from the old one. I hope I do better than last time - I've had the tower from my first computer sitting in the hall closet for two years, never got around to getting the files off of it. It was so old, it didn't have a burner or anything so it seemed like too much work. I am having a miserable time with my wireless router and have spent hours on hold with the ISP's technical support - twice the connection miraculously started working as soon as the tech finally answered after a half hour wait. Tonight, the guy helped me to get it working again - I re-set the connection and all that, but then told me that the fact I need to set up a connection at all means that my router is set up all wrong and I'll have to redo it - so that's tomorrow's plan. Wish me luck!

Christmas can happen, now!

2006-12-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

I spent all day yesterday in the city getting the last of our Christmas shopping done. So its finally finished except I wanted to get M. a couple of packages of barettes for her hair and for some reason Zellers, Shoppers Drug Mart and Wal-mart (the last 3 places I went) all think that $5-$8 is reasonable to pay for a few barettes. They weren't even cute!! I'm going to have to get my mom to pick some up at the dollar store, where they are a dollar. I am having trouble with paying too much for something that will be worn once or twice and then lost forever.

I am also having trouble with Blogger and posting pictures, I had a little update all written up and when I went to post it, I decided to put this picture with it, and that's when all the trouble started.

So, I lost that and so I tried again with a few pictures and it seems to be working now. So, here's the picture I really wanted to put up - the girls' artwork on a bunch of the Christmas cards I sent out this week. Really, money spent on toys for them is almost wasted because they spend so much of their time coloring and drawing. No complaints from me, of course!

2006-12-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

M. making sure nothing is left off of her list.

2006-12-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

C. going over her Christmas list with Santa.

Blogwarming!

2006-12-20T09:37:00.000-08:00

I finally think its ready to go, so I invited some friends over here for a little blogwarming.

Hope you like what you see - I'd love to know what you think!

Today's stats:

Baby - has a nasty cold. Threw her stuffed cat in the toilet and is supposed to be napping but I can hear her chatting and singing in her crib.
C - has no school today. Still in her PJ's and currently talking to herself in her bedroom with her Barbie dolls. One of them sings, and she sings along with it when she thinks nobody is listening.
M - at school. Returns every day at lunch begging for a 'tapis fou' because everyone else has one, EVERYONE EVERYONE, mom! Except ME! She can even provide a list of names, and its long. All of the kids at school have crazy carpets that they use to slide down the snow hills at recess. M is getting one for Christmas.
DH - at work.
Me - working on finishing Christmas cards, setting up my blog, drinking coffee.

2006-12-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

So, its that easy to start a blog. I've been putting it off forever and it took all of five minutes. So, here I am, talking to myself in a whole new place. Looks pretty dull in here, could use some decoration. It will probably take me hours to get the rest of it set up but this is a start.

gotta start somewhere

2006-12-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

Even if you're going nowhere, I suspect you have to start somewhere. So, here we are.

Hey good lookin'
Why the frown?
You always
look better
when its
upside down

You say you got
nowhere
that you're
going to

Can I go nowhere with you?

Lyrics - Joel Plaskett "Go nowhere"

So, we're going nowhere with this blog. Its not the frustrated, running-in-circles type of going nowhere. It's enjoying any little bit of time when you have nowhere to be, nothing to do kind of going nowhere. It's a good thing! You're welcome to come along for the ride.