Messy Chic

Farewell Mom Blogs

2012-01-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

Many of you who read this (all 3 of you) know that I've been a bit of a blog addict for a few years now. I kind of fell into the world of Mom blogs when I was on mat leave. I saw Nancy had a link to 5 Minutes For Mom on her blog, followed it, followed more links... went from bookmarking everything to discovering Google Reader... and so became an addict.

And it's been fun. Some blogs I just really enjoy how they are written. Some I found were like bad car accidents - I just couldn't look away. I started to drop blogs that I couldn't handle the whining any more (some people tend to always blame other people for all their problems). And heck, it is fun to win stuff online. I average about 1 thing a month or so - everything from shoes (favourite win ever from My Organized Chaos), fabric, books, baby clothes, make up, and more.

There are still a few Canadian Based blogs I follow, as I actually find the information I get from them is useful or interesting in my daily life - Natural Mommie, Feisty Frugal and Fabulous, Glimpse, and My Organized Chaos.

But other than that, I'm done. I've found a lot of Mom blogs have just turned into these big social media machines and all they are interested in is building readers without providing any actual useful content. It's all "follow these 150 blogs on twitter and you can win a Kindle", or "follow all these people on facebook and wine an amazon.com gift card". But they don't actually do proper reviews any more, and frankly I'm tired of them mucking up my inbox, and Reader feed.

And then Pinterest came along. Ahhh... Pinterest. Do you Pinterest? If no, well... it is a time suck, but a beautiful one. Find me at http://pinterest.com/carolejm/ . And if you need an invite, just let me know. Side note... how beautiful Pinterest is. Yesterday Duncan and I were hanging out and he wanted to do something. I asked if he wanted to bake something. Yep, I said let's see what I have pinned. While going to my "Sweets" board, he sees the "For my Son" board, and asks to see what's inside. One of the things I have pinned inside is a home made Angry Birds game made with birds and pigs made out of yarn pom poms. Well then he asked if we could make that instead. It's a weak spot. I love it when the kids want to do crafty stuff. Cordie loves crafts, but is too young yet to ask for specific stuff. But Duncan and I often will put our heads together and make up stuff on our own, or by following something we've found in a magazine or online. Anyhow, so off to Michael's for yarn (yay Michael's iphone app... 25% off purchase!), and back home. We've now made 4 birds, and 5 pigs, and make buildings out of plastic ups... we glued googly eyes and beaks and eyebrows on to all the characters... A happy kid, a home made game... never would have thought of it on my own. So anyhow, yay pinterest. Find the craft idea at http://www.makeandtakes.com/crafting-with-angry-birds and hers look much better than mine.

Anyhow back to Mom blogs. I'm tired of it, find it boring, and I have unsubscribed from the majority of the Mom blogs I used to follow. So I thank you for a few years of entertainment, and time killing, but I don't feel a loss there.

However, I have replaced Mom blogs with what I have termed "Quilty Crafty" blogs. This year I am really trying to up my quilting, learning more, trying more, producing more - out of love for quilting. And there is so much inspiration out there!! I can't always be downstairs quilting. Since the new year in the evening Bill and I have been heading to our respective rooms (the Man Cave and Sewrenity) for creative endeavours (Bill is doing some writing), and I'm actually almost done the top of my 1st started in 2012 quilting project. I won't go into it too much here. I've started a quilting blog at mysewrenity.blogspot.com if you're interested. But it is all about quilting, and not much else.

Well I hope everyone is well. We are. Busy with life, but happy. Thanks for dropping by.

Datebook - Boxing Day

2011-12-26T12:12:00.000-08:00

Well Merry Christmas! I was so bad, as usual, for getting cards sent out this year.

Today - is Boxing Day. Unless it's not. But it is here. We have one more big family dinner this afternoon - 40+ people over at Mom and Dads. It will be fun. I am bringing crockpot stuffing, green bean casserole, tortellini salad (been getting some good potluck mileage out of this one), and Better Then Sex cake for dessert.

Yesterday - was Christmas. It was a wonderful day. We had a lot of fun with the kids. Duncan was "upgraded" to the Thomas Trackmaster stuff, and our entire living room is the Island of Sodor right now. This is the motorized Thomas stuff. Cordie got some very musical gifts - a microphone, keyboard and mini drum kit and she just loves it. There were also books, puzzles, pjs and bath robes, and both kids got this huge pillow for their beds. Of course they were spoiled by the family - which was wonderful.

Tomorrow - well the rest of the week really - we need to gut both kid's rooms and go through everything that will now be passed on to other kids, or sold online, to make room for the new stuff. I find they let go of their old stuff a bit easier when they have new stuff. We're taking Duncan mini golfing tomorrow afternoon. Bill works on Wednesday. Thursday Cordie and I are going to take my friend for coffee for her birthday, and in the evening we're going to our new Pastor's house to game with them. Their youngest and Duncan have been getting on very well - they only moved here a month ago - so nice they get on. I went to College with both Tim and Andrea, so it's fun they are now here.

Outside - rainy and chilly. Typical Wet Coast Christmas.

Right now - I am drinking some tea. But the kids need a light lunch, and Cordie needs a nap. And I need to get on with cooking of things.

Where have I been hiding?

2011-10-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

Peek-A-Boo! I see you!!

My Mom was bemoaning the fact that no one blogs any more... myself included. Well it's true. And I admit that even if you have blogged I have probably missed it b/c my blog roll goes unread a lot lately. Hey, that's how it is when real life wins out.

When I had my gall bladder out I admit it was fun pretty much sitting on the couch for 2 weeks with my laptop and catching up on the world of the internet. But it's just not a pace I can maintain when I work full time. And hey, I don't apologize, hanging with the kids should get priority.

So where have I been hiding? Well the biggest thing is that we all survived 6 house guests for over a week and a half. Bill's entire family came to stay with us, and yes it was insane. But it was also awesome for the kids to meet Auntie Kelly and Uncle Robbie, whom they hadn't met before, and their cousins Erik and Oskar. Duncan and Erik got on famously, and it was so awesome they could meet. Kelly and the kids came all the way from Sweden, and Grandpa Bob and Uncle Robbie and Uncle Frank came from Newfoundland. Uncle Robbie was totally won over by Cordie - not a big surprise - we knew that would happen! He took some great video of her dancing and singing, but unfortunately his camcorder was stolen on the way home, so he never got to share it :(

We're still trying to get the house back in order and get our garage functional for the car again. Yes, we actually like to park the car in the garage. It's given us (read: Bill, because honestly, he does all the work) a chance to move a bunch of stuff around, and we really like how it looks.

What else is going on... well still going to Weight Watchers - lost 30lbs so far. I was down to 33 gone, but I'm still recovering from Thanksgiving and visitors. I have not weighed in in about a month now due to company and other extenuating circumstances, but I still journal daily, and I walk my 10,000 steps a day, if not more. I plan on going to aquafit at least once a week again, but as something always gets in the way... Last night Bill went for his swimming lessons, and had just jumped in the pool when everyone was evacuated due to a chemical spill in the pool. Um... oops! And Duncan was supposed to have swimming tonight, but the pool is closed for an unknown length of time. So this also means no aquafit this week for me. No, I'm not so motivated I am willing to drive to PoCo or Langley to go :) I'll still with my walking thanks.

And that's a snapshot of life. We're all good. The kids are good - loving the new daycare. School is good for Duncan - loving Kindergarten, although he doesn't like the fire drills :) Cordie is Cordie - our free spirited princess who loves to dance. Bill is good - we're hoping to get away for a few nights in November if we can swing it.

And that's it!! How are you?

Sitting here with my feet up

2011-09-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hello friends! It's Labour Day, and I am doing anything but labouring :) I am sitting on the couch with my feet up - and that's about it!

Recovery from surgery is getting better every day, but I had a bit of a complication this morning. Saturday I over did it a bit - I know that. Sunday I noticed I was quite sore and there was a lump near one of the incisions. Well this morning Duncan accidentally elbowed me in that spot and caused a bit of a set back.

I guess it goes to show how tricky it is when you're feeling 'better', over do it, and then have a set back. I don't doubt now that I need the rest of the week to really take it easy and continue my recovery. While it is nice to be sitting here reading, playing on the computer, watching tv, and have my wonderful husband take care of everything, it is kind of hard to not participate at all. I guess it is good to know I'm not inherently a lazy ass :)

So one more week off work. I just saw Nancy's Datebook entry and I thought oh maybe I should do one too, but realized I don't have much to say. Meal plans are whatever we're pulling together, no activities planned because I can't really go anywhere. Um...reading - oh I am reading the Dresden books by Jim Butcher. I am enjoying them as much as Bill said I would.

Oh, Bill wrote a book this weekend!! He actually finished it in 2 days, so is using this afternoon to clean it up a bit, but even if he were to send it off now, it is good enough! I'm really happy it worked out for him to do this.

Did I mention my addiction to Pinterest? Insane. Fun.

I hope back to school goes well for everyone! I'll post pictures of Duncan dressed up for school on Thursday.

Until then, is a picture of Cordie in her fancy shoes, her fire fighter's hat, and purse in hand - ready to go to the store.

Farewell Ye Foul Gall Bladder

2011-09-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

I had my gall bladder out this past Tuesday! Yay! I'm actually thrilled with how quickly it went from confirming the diagnosis to actual surgery. People complain about the Canadian Medical system, but as they had to wait until thing settled down prior to doing the surgery, this went about as quick as it could go. And they managed it laparoscopically. This is also good because I did not want to have to be recovering from major surgery with two small children in the house.

It is actually only right now that I realize behind the discomfort of recovering from surgery, I don't have any of those gall bladder pangs any more. Once again, Yay! Now, don't kid yourself, while you might recover from lap. surgery more quickly, it still hurts, and you still need to recover. Your body still feels like it has been beat up quite badly, it hurts to move, sleeping sucks (you can only sleep on your back, and that causes it's own share of back pain), and I can only walk around for 5-10 minutes before I need to sit down again. But hey, today I don't feel the need to fall asleep by noon, and I hope I might even be awake after 8 PM tonight.

Bill took yesterday off, and bless his company, they asked if he could use another day to help me out, and he said yes, so he is home again today. He is so sweet. He's always been hands on around the house, but he's doing awesome filling in on what has normally been Mommy duties - cooking, getting up with crying children in the middle of the night, etc... check out his blog post http://htwavcbh.blogspot.com/ about the experience.

Now what did I find out from my experience with my gall bladder? Well I read a lot about what could I eat and not eat. Here is what I found: I could eat boneless skinless chicken breast, veggie ground round (soy crumbles), and fish - including water packed tuna which I threw on my salad every day. While the rule of thumb is anything with less than 5 g of fat is okay, that was not always true. I could not eat fat free ham. I could not eat bread. I found I could eat pitas (3 days before my surgery I figured that one out). I also ate routinely: oatmeal, fat free plain yoghurt, any fresh fruit, any vegetable except avocados. At first all bran bars were okay, not at the end. Salad for lunch daily. Tea, iced tea, water, skim milk, wine (yay!), and once in a while coffee. Dinner was usually some form of chicken and potatoes or rice or pasta mixed with some kind of vegetable. I like chicken well enough but Bill is sick of it!

As it has not been worth while for us to go out for dinner (why pay $15 for a grilled piece of chicken on a bed of lettuce) once I am better Bill and I are hoping to maybe take off for a few nights and make up for our anniversary and other date nights that simply haven't happened. We'll see.

Up next: Bill is doing a 3 day book writing challenge this weekend and I need to man handle children I can't even lift. That will be fun. school starts for Duncan next week - Kindergarten!! Eeps! My boy is growing up. In a month the Martin Clan descends on Maple Ridge and we have 6 extra house guests for close to 2 weeks said and done. And the kids starting new day care, and my birthday is in there somewhere... But first I recover. Time for some more HGTV (about all I have the mental capacity for right now).

One of the hardest things I've had to do

2011-08-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last week I had to do one of the hardest things ever - break up with my daycare provider.

Anyone who knows me knows how much of a blessing Nikki has been to our family over the years. However, recently the opportunity arose to reduce our monthly daycare costs by almost $500/month. We couldn't say no.

It's such a tough thing to do especially since Nikki did nothing wrong. The kids love it there, and have always been loved and well cared for. I fretted and fretted over breaking the news. I am confident she will get new kids to watch quite quickly, however I also know a big chunk of their monthly income is from what we pay them. It was "you've done nothing wrong, but you're fired" and "It's me, not you - we're breaking up" all rolled into one. I'll admit I got teary when I told her.

She took it really well. I was just very honest with her, and she totally understands. That Saturday we were at a birthday party for two of her kids, and the family did not chase us away with shotguns, so I guess they took it well. Who knows, maybe they were looking to get rid of us and it was an answer to their prayers *grin*

However, we don't regret our decision. The kids will be attending the daycare run out of our church. I know the 2 ladies who run the place and they are so excited about the kids joining them. My Mom works in the same building, so Oma will be only one hall way away if the need ever arises.

I think Cordie will thrive there. Not that she's not loving Nikki's, but I think she's more wired to the routine a group daycare will provide. And love craft time, and story time and circle time etc...

Funny thing - we emailed the daycare to see about getting in. We had to apply for a variance to get Cordie in a few months before she turns 30 months old. Also we had to get Duncan into the out of school care. There is actually a waiting list 30 kids long into get into that program. However their policy is that people who have children in the full time daycare get priority. So we told them we were interested, and Duncan was at the top of the list for the next available spot. The very next day someone pulled their kid from the school care, and Duncan got the spot. The day after that, the lady called back again saying she changed her mind and they replied "sorry, it's already filled!". Oh, and there happened to be one spot left in the van going to his new school. Now we think that was the Lord having a helping hand a bit in our decision.

We expect Duncan might have a harder time adjusting than Cordie, but I think after a week or so he'll be loving it.

One of many things going on in our house right now!!!

It's getting closer! Christmas!

2011-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

The other day in the car Duncan asks how much longer until Christmas. We are sort of Christmas addicts in this house, watching Christmas specials throughout the year, singing Christmas songs, and looking forward to it coming around again next year. Okay... "we" is a bit of a loose term... Cordie doesn't really get it yet, and Bill just shakes his head sadly at us :)

Several years ago I stumbled upon a blog from Jennifer Tankersley to help me plan for Christmas - 100 Days to Christmas. Subscribe to the email and every day you receiving another tip in your inbox to hopefully help get yourself organized for Christmas. Last year I followed along again with my handy dandy Christmas binder.

This year Jennifer has released her 100 days plan into an e-book, and I am really happy to have the opportunity to review it for her. Jennifer realized some people might do a bit better having all the steps laid out for them in an easy reference. I actually prefer this as I quite like to skip a head a bit and get my head around what might be coming.

Several things I really do love about this e-book and plan:
1. A focus on handmade gifts. I'm a crafty person and I love to give hand made gifts every year I can (time permitting), and I think it is fantastic to encourage people to try it on for size.
2. Budgeting - a big focus is picking a budget, sticking to it, and acknowledging some tough economic times for many people.
3. Sundays are down time. It's time to spend time with your family and enjoy the fall and Christmas season!!
4. Focus on others - like a challenge to donate to the food bank and Goodwill.
5. Cleaning week! It's like Spring cleaning for Christmas.

Now, the book is American centered - which is totally fine and makes sense - that is who the book is written for. Previous years I just pick out what applies to me as a Canadian, and use the extra time that I don't need to spend getting ready for US Thanksgiving to catch up or just take a day off. I don't follow all the daily suggestions to a T, but you don't need to. The whole point is to help you get organized and enjoy Christmas for what it is.

To make it a bit easier the e-book also includes links to some very convenience calendars, charts, and lists through the ListPlanIt website.

100 Days To Christmas is available on the Kindle for $4.99 through Amazon.com and Amazon.ca on August 25, 2011 - exactly 4 months until Christmas!

Check out the facebook page or on twitter

My gall bladder and I are at odds

2011-07-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well because summer has just been so normal, we had to throw something into it to make it more exciting. I guess since we had no plans to go away...

A week ago Saturday I had horrible pain mid morning all from my chest into my back, and down into my abdomen. I thought at first it was really bad gas at first, but it didn't go away. For the next few days I had these attacks again, sometimes lasting a long time, and then I realized it might be my gall bladder. I remembered my Mom saying that anything with fat in it would set her off before she had hers out.

I made an appt to see the doctor on Saturday morning. On Wednesday night/early Thursday morning I had a really bad attack lasting about 2.5 hours. I was waiting until the family was up so Bill could bring me to the hospital. Well I decided to shower 1st, and it totally went away while I was showering. So I went to work. Then I got sick. Then I came home again.

Knowing it was likely my gall bladder I Googled it for some tips on how to manage it for a bit. So Friday I was fine. Saturday morning I went to my weigh in (down 25 lbs!!) and then to the doctor. He confirmed that yes it is likely my gall bladder and sent me for some blood work an an ultrasound.

I have managed to avoid any attacks again as of today, although I can certainly feel it. It sort of fells like someone is constantly punching me in the back.

Small amounts of fat can set it off so I am eating almost an entirely fat free diet. Yesterday I had some 2% milk in my tea and even that caused some pain. I can eat boneless skinless chicken breasts, fat free plain yoghurt, and fish for protein. I was already eating oatmeal and salads for lunch, so no big change in my diet there. Night time is the hardest. No alcohol (hard on the liver), no coffee (boo hoo!).

Today I got a call from the doctor that my liver levels are high, so the ultrasound has been bumped up to this Thursday morning. We might have surgery soon after that - we'll see. Unless I have an attack before that, in which case I'll be there even sooner!

Kind of crazy, but if we get this done with the laparoscopic surgery I should be good to go within a week or two again.

And that's it from our corner of the world!

Happy House Anniversary!

2011-07-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

It's been one year since we moved into this house! Crazy! One year! On many levels it is hard to believe it has been that long, and on several other levels it feels like it has been a lot longer. We're just so happy here.

When we bought this place one of the things we liked was that it was a bit older and we would not have to worry about being a little hard on it- denting walls or other such things. We put in a 3rd bathroom, revamped my sewing room (moved a door, put up a wall, took down part of another), put down new floors in Bill's room, my room and as gift from my brother, through the whole entry hall. Bill finally got around to painting the downstairs bathroom on Friday (yeah, it took us a year).

We love, love, love the back yard. The kids do too. They are out there every day the weather allows them. The previous owners left a sandbox and a play house, and we have two climbers, and a water table. So there is lots to do out there. Duncan loves to play baseball out there, and anything else that involves running and hiding and lots of giggling. Our garden is doing okay... Mom came and took a look yesterday and gave me some advice on it, so I'll need to get some of that taken care of.

What would I change? Well our deck still needs a revamping. The plywood underneath is a bit soft, and in my happy little world I would like to make it a bit bigger, which we might do at some point. The kitchen needs the most help. We've been trying to score some cabinets off of Craigslist, but every time we find what we're looking for (just a bank of cabinets up and down, about 3-4 doors long) in our price range (free - $200) they are snatched up so quick we can't get our hands on them. Eventually I see renovating the whole thing, opening up the wall and making it a great room. But by my guess that would cost upwards of $20,000, so we'll be waiting on that one a while.

But we love it here. We feel blessed to have this home, and have no plans any time soon to look anywhere else. Happy Anniversary House!!

Quilt Shop Hop Weekend

2011-06-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

My goodness, has it honestly been almost a month? Oh well - hello!

This past Thursday and Friday the little escape I've been waiting for finally happened with Theresa and Ronnie. It was time for the yearly Washington Quilt Shop Hop and I haven't been in 3 years due to life happening (you know having babies, moving houses, etc...) I was determined to go this year whether I was on my own or now. I'm glad I was not on my own though!

We all took Thursday and Friday off work and headed off on Thursday morning. I had some fun making the girls some quilted tote bags for the shop hop, something my friend Lisa did for me a few years back. I did a bit of advance planning and progammed in all the shops to my GPS before we headed out.

No problems at the border, and down through Lynden first, then down to Bellingham. We stopped in Anacores for 2 shops and some lunch. Anacortes ended up being dangerous because I spent a good bit of money in one of those shops.

We had 11 shops to get to altogether and were done by 4:30 - pretty good for a days ride, and it was not rushed at all.

The thing I need to mention is that with typical Carole timing, I was sick. I thought I had just caught my Mom's cold at first but I now think it was strep b/c my throat hurt so bad and I hurt everywhere and me neck hurt... so I was pretty pathetic at the end there. Advil was my friend!

We had a reservation at Tulalip resort. I love it there! Oh I can't wait to go back and I hope one time I can go spend 2 nights. 1st order of business was heading down to the pool. I soaked in the hot tub for about half an hour and that helped a lot with the aches. We went up, got cleaned up and then headed out for dinner. We opted for the buffet, and although none of us ate our fille as one might at a buffet we all agreed that with dinner, pop, dessert etc... the price was not bad and the food was good. I just wasn't hungry! Probably a good thing.

We decided to go up to the room before coming back down, and had some drinks. I was actually not feeling too bad by then so we did some gambling - I spent $40 and won $76+ so I was happy. We did a bit of dancing which was also a hoot.

Next morning after breakfast and check out we went to the Premium Outlet Mall. Oh heaven! We could have spent a lot more time (and money!) there! I think if we ever decide to do this again we'll go to the mall the 1st day and quilt shops the next.

Crossing the border was the best ever - drove right up. No problems getting across. We were home just after 5.

It was great spending some time with the girls and getting away. Although I look forward to that little get away with Bill in the future. We've been there together before and really enjoy the hotel.

Actually, 2 weeks ago we spent the night in Vancouver to go see Wicked. I made the huge mistake of booking through Hotwire. We got a room at a 4 star hotel and it was the biggest let down ever. More like a Hotel 6 than a 4 star hotel. I complained to both the hotel and Hotwire that I paid for a 4 star hotel room and got more like a 2 and hotwire said well they use us to fill rooms, and the hotel said well the next time you book with us.... Um, we're not booking with you again. Duh. I know other people have had good success with hotwire, but we will never do that again. I'm not mentioning the hotel name b/c I have a feeling hotwire would get at me about that. But it won't stop me from thumbing my nose at them and the massive waste of money it ended up being.

Wicked was fun, although not what we expected. We enjoyed the Lion King more. Although Defying Gravity was an amazing song.

Blogging? What's that?

2011-05-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, work and real life gets in the way of writing blog posts. What's funny is that I write them in my head all the time, but I don't get the chance to put them down so I can share them with you.

So, how are you doing today? Thanks for coming by. It is another cold, early March day... oh...wait... it's almost the end of May. Easy to get confused. It is only 11C out! (about 52F for my American friends). They showed the other day on the news the hottest May temp was back in 2005 and it was like 27 degrees. I totally remember that really hot May! I remember us melting away in our town house, and it was that day that we decided to go and buy our 1st big screen tv from Costco. It is still used in the rec room. Funny how we remember these things.

We did get our vegetable garden planted this week though, so that's awesome. We're keeping it simple to begin and we'll see how it goes. At least with all the rain I don't need to remember to water the plants. *grin*

Weight loss - down 20.8!! I'm thrilled with my progress. Slow but steady.

I just spent the last 3 weeks working in our downtown office. It was really good to see many old friends there and it was funny b/c it felt like I had never left, but oh boy did the commute kill me! I have become quite used to my cushy 10-15 minute commute now, getting up at 6, not leaving until well after 7, home before 5. Working downtown I was up at 5, gone by 6, traveling basically 3 hours a day... I was exhausted. I don't know how I did that for 12 years. Mind you, the train is nice - my daily sudoku, reading books, checking email and such on my iphone. But I couldn't go back to it! They were happy to have me though, and it certainly won't hurt me for having been willing to do so. And hey, the company paid for transportation.

I should probably update on the kids and all (they are good), but I'll save that for another time. See you soon! (or not).

Quilters Blog Festival

2011-05-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

I am writing this post to participate in Amy's Creative Side's Bloggers Quilt Festival.

I have not had a lot of time to be doing quilting lately. I think a full time job and two small children get in the way of that some times, but I am still sticking with my quilting, and have recently completed several baby quilts.

But I wanted to share this quilt. This is, by far, not the best quilt I have ever made. It is one of the 1st ones I ever made out of the Washington Quilt Shop Hop 2004 blocks. That was the shop hop that made me want to learn how to quilt, when I innocently tagged along with my friend Lisa to check out a few quilt shops. Little did I know.

I ended up making this quilt for my Oma, which she loved. She had me hang it on the wall of her kitchen/dining room, right where everyone could see it. And for a woman as crafty as she was, that meant a lot to me.

What I like about this quilt is that it taught me a lot of different techniques that I had to learn to finish the blocks. So is it perfect? Nope. Are the colours perfect? Nope! But it was one of my biggest labours of love, and inspired me to keep learning more and more.

Thanks to Amy for organizing this. There is a lot of beautiful stuff out there! I'll share some pictures of my more recent quilts soon.

Datebook: May 1, 2011

2011-05-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Good morning! It is a gorgeous day today!! I look forward to getting outside with the kids. I think maybe we'll go up to Alouette Lake this afternoon. Duncan has been asking to go to "the mountains when the weather gets better" for a while now.

Today is: beautiful and sunny. May 1 and spring has finally arrived!

I am reading:
I am reading Sherrilyn Kenyon's "The Dream Hunter" in paperback, and Kate Morton's "The Forgotten Garden" on ebook through Stanza on my iPhone. I am really enjoying that one and my Mom says her friend may have lent it to her, so I might borrow it to read the hard copy. The iPhone is not an ideal format for reading books. Nice to have on hand though.

Weight loss:
I am doing pretty good!! -18 lbs as of yesterday morning!! I am averaging about 1.5 lbs a week right now and am happy with that pace.

Exercise:
I have taken to walking every day at lunch. It is 2.5 km around the block I go, and aside from the one road which is all construction and has no sidewalk, the rest of the walk is dead quiet and very peaceful. I love it! As some people may have seen on my facebook, I met a personal fitness challenge on Friday. I said about 3 months ago I was going to walk home from work over the bridge. They laughed at me! They weren't being mean, but they just thought it was a ridiculous plan. Well on Friday I did it! It took me 15 min longer than planned, but probably b/c I stopped to take pictures on the bridge. I am really thrilled having done it. I need new runners though.

In the kitchen:
Beef stir fry
shake and bake chicken and either french fries or rice and veggies
left over chicken soup casserole
BBQ beef and rice
Kraft dinner Italiano - a favourite of ours. We make it with veggie ground round and it's not that horrible for us!

This week:
Bill starts swimming lessons again tonight. We received a call this week saying that Duncan got in on the waiting list for lessons to start next Saturday. We're very happy about this b/c he loves swimming! So he starts again. Monday is the Federal Election, so we'll drag the kids along to that. We think it's good for them to see the process. Friday I have a flex day. I might send the kids to daycare anyhow just so I can get some stuff done. Otherwise, normal week.

Around the house:
We're hoping we can get someone to take the kids on Saturday morning so we can borrow my parent's carpet cleaner and do our living room carpets. They are in bad shape! Bill plans on digging up around the side of the house to put gravel down to keep little creepy crawlies getting in. We're rather paranoid of ants since that incident a few years ago in the old place. The kids and I have the garden dug up. I am going to go lime it this afternoon (better done with little people not around), we'll fertlize next week and then get ready for planting! Looking forward to that.

Okay, Cordie wants "up!" so I should go get her.

The Tuesday that feels like a Wednesday

2011-04-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

Yay for short weeks! I'm so glad Friday is a day off. Although I get flex days, official long weekends always just feel better. Most people also get Easter Monday - like my husband - however my company does not. But I do have it as a flex day, so I also have a 4 day weekend. Yay!

Due to the availability of family, we're actually having our family dinner on Friday. A little unconventional, but thast's okay. Sounds like it will be quite the crowd.

We're all doing well here. Just happily trucking along. Weight loss is going well for Bill and I, despite various colds and sinus infections etc... Bill is down 20+ lbs, and I am down 14.6 as of last Saturday. Yay! We're happy with the pace - although faster would be nice, but you know we didn't put it all on in 13 weeks either.

I told Bill the other day he should start a book review blog b/c it seems there are so many out there, he likes to read and he likes to write. He said sure, but now I need to do the foot work to figure out how to get started. I have an idea for the blog already. So let's hope we can get that going.

The kids are fantastic. Duncan only has a few months left of preschool and in the beginning of June we have orientation for Kindergarten. Kindergarten! Already!

Let's see... we're going to Day Out With Thomas again in June, Bill and I are going to see Wicked a few days after that. I'm really looking forward to that. The Wiggles are coming to town in August, and we're definetly planning on going to that show again. Always fun.

Work is... mmmm frustrating. I was going to vent on my blog tonight, but it is probably better not to. I'm not an emotional person, but I was in tears today. Not a good thing. It just gets frustrating. I know it is in my better interest to not vent, but it gets hard not to you, you know? Anyhow, Bill heard all about it on the way home, and now my Mom will be calling or emailing and asking what happened :) I'll tell you when your busy social life settled down okay, Mom?

And that's it! Cordie want's UP UP UP so I should probably do that. Hope you're all well!!

Monday Misc.

2011-03-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

9:30 at the end of a good day. I had a flex day today... gotta love flex days! I am tickled we've made it work with our car pooling for me to do full flex days. What's funny is I leave the office at 4:30. We work right beside the freeway, and so I walk across the overpass and meet Bill in a parking lot on the other side. This is b/c the lights at the overpass are so bad that it would easily add 10-15 minutes to the drive if Bill were to drive over and pick me up. So I walk over and we pretty much meet up exactly at the right time. This past week it was quite funny though b/c Bill was stopped at the light from the freeway off ramp, and I was able to run through the middle of the stopped traffic and jump into the car. The other drivers must be wondering what the heck...

So I had a flex day and kept the kids home. We had a blast. It was Theresa's birthday today so Duncan and I baked her a chocolate cake, and we iced it this AM. We had Theresa over and Phil and Karen and the kids. Bill tried to get the day off, but was told there was training today so no. However, it turns out he was misinformed and he could have had the day off! Oh well. We still had fun.

It would seem our cat Strider had a bit of an adventure yesterday! We don't know for how long, but we think for several hours, he was outside. He is an indoor cat - always has been from the time he was 8 weeks old and we adopted him. But Bill came home yesterday evening and in came Strider. We had gone out to our friend's place in the afternoon so we think he was out for a good 5 hours. For a cat who has never been outside, can you imagine how that would be? I wonder if he went exploring or just cowered in place? But he came home again... yay!

Had a good weekend. At Chris and Ronnie's on Saturday - watched MegaMind and enjoyed it. Sunday we visited John and Amy at their new place, home for dinner and watched the movie Red, which we really enjoyed.

Weight loss efforts are going well for both of us. I'm down 11 lbs over all, Bill is down more than that. And you can tell on both of us, which is awesome. We're both working out, and just sticking to it. The more results you get, the more motivated you become.

So for menu planning this week
tonight we did shepherd's pie with scamburger (veggie ground round... scam hamburger... Bill came up with that one tonight)
we also have on the menu for this week
tacos
tropical chicken made in coconut milk
pineapple chicken
something else I can't think of :)

Have a good night!

Menu Planning Monday

2011-03-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Really, I do my menu planning from Saturday - Friday, but I can post things on Monday.
So here we go:
Saturday was Chicken Fried Streak and Potatoes from Pioneer Woman. Yes, this was way out of the range of my daily points, but since Saturday is my free day, I decided to enjoy it. It was good. I can not imagine there are people who eat stuff like that every day.
Sunday - Jambalaya in slow cooker
Monday - turkey sloppy joes in slow cooker
Tuesday - taco chicken and potato foil wrap
Wednesday - Mushroom Burgers
Thursday - Spaghetti and meatballs
Friday - Bill is home and I will be sending him grocery shopping and we'll make a new menu for the following week by then.
Cheers!

Sunday afternoon

2011-03-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

We decided to let Duncan not nap today - yes, he is still a pretty good napper, which is awesome. But due to the time change, we figured if he didn't nap then he would be tired a bit earlier tonight and it will be good to get him back on track for getting up earlier tomorrow.

Weight in on Saturday - down 11.2 over all in 7 weeks. I am thrilled with my progress. And it's nice that I can look at myself and notice that weight is going down. This week I started - once - the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred dvd. It about killed me. I will keep doing it. Friday we went swimming, so I opted out, and Saturday was about 2 hours of grocery shopping and I decided that pushing a cart and a child around for that long counted as exercise. I have no excuse for today. Maybe I'll go work out yet.

Duncan got into the school we were hoping, the one not in our catchment. It has a reputation as a good school, and all his little friends go there, so it should be really neat for him. June 3 we have orientation. Nikki explained what you do is go in for a few hours with your child and then at the end they decide who is going to what class. We agreed heaven help the teacher is all 4 boys end up in the same class :) Can you believe my little man is going into Kindergarten? He'll need to get used to no nap then, b/c it's all day K in the fall!

Cordie is good. She is such a funny, funny girl. This week she found the Dinosaur's Binkit book by Sandra Boyton. Duncan loved that book when he was little too. But everytime Dinosaur said "Where's my Binkit?" Cordie would just laugh and laugh and laugh. It's awesome. Her words are so good!! 3 word sentances. I don't remember Duncan's words being that good at that point, but as it has been pointed out, she's a girl. And she's my girl!

I'm working longer hours for flex days now, which will be nice. It's funny b/c my 1st normal flex day is a week Monday, and I was looking forward to bringing Duncan to school, and Mom pointed out it will be Spring Break. Duh.

Well seeing as I have room in my points, I think I might go have some crackers and cheese. Nom nom nom...

Things I don't miss

2011-03-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

I just realized it's been a month since I blogged. And to consider I once thought of starting up a reviews and giveaway blog. No way. It's funny how easily you can give up something that used to just suck you in.

Things that I have given up recently that I don't really miss:

tv. We're not watching much tv these days. Oh, we PVR for a later date, but even a lot of the stuff we're recording we're just not interested in watching right now. I think Castle and the Mentalist are the ones we're really watching every week right now, and everything else can wait.
More specifically - American Idol. I admit that the new judges threw me off, although Mom assures me that they are doing an excellent job. But I really didn't want the 2-3 night a week committment to watch this show this year, so I'm not. I kind of miss it, but at the same time and not really.
Facebook. I am spending nil time on facebook. I am not actively playing any games - although I started a Cityville so my friends can get an extra neighbour, but I have not even gone so far as to see how it works. I imagine a lot like Farmville, which I once loved. I don't miss that either.
My blogs. I still follow a bunch of stuff as I still like to try and win things. Most recently (last week) at $25 gift card from Chapters. I already have some credit on Chapters and am seriously considering ordering the Cities and Knights expansion for Settlers of Catan.
My weight. ha ha ha... Yeah so it's been 5 weeks I've been on WW and it is going well! I had one week where I went up .4, but over all I am down 8.6 and am really thrilled with how I am doing. I am not finding it hard at all to follow the new Points Plus program and don't really feel like I am missing out much on food stuff. Okay tonight I super wanted a nice big hamburger and home made deep fried french fries. But I didn't. We had macos like we planned (tacos made with veggie ground round). Duncan ate 3 tacos!! Growing much?

Things I am enjoying as I am no longer doing those things:

Time with Bill and the kids. Duh. Evenings are fun. Last night we moved the art desk that Chris and Ronnie gave us a while back into my craft room. I taped some paper down, pulled out the paints and both kids had a blast! Was it messy? Yep. Did they need baths after? Yep. But what's the point in having a craft room if it isn't going to get messy?
Swimming. This kind of goes with the spending more time with the kids theme. Duncan has swimming 2x/week and for $2 each we get to go while he has lessons, so we've all been going together. Cordie loves it. Duncan loves it. I swam a few laps the other day. I am out of shape!! But you know, I'm doing something about it, so not beating myself up there.
Quilting. As most evenings we don't feel like watching tv, I wander into my lovely craft room and, well, craft. Sunday I finished the top to Cordie's quilt I've been meaning to get to for some time now. I love it! It's all blocks given by my quilty friends online, and I just love it. I need some backing fabric for it. I'll post pictures when it's done. And I also started a quilt for Nikki who is due in one month now.

Oh, one thing I miss that I can't seem to get enough of: sleep. It's bed time. Good night!

My 1st weigh in

2011-01-31T06:47:00.000-08:00

Good morning! Had my 1st weigh in for WW on Saturday morning, and off to a good start. Down 4 lbs. My Mom was down 6.2! Yay Mom! And she was wearing jeans. I hate her. Not really. Love you Mom!

The new program is really good. I am really liking it. I love that fresh fruit and veggies are all 0 points, so when you want a snack your 1st thought is to grab something healthy. And I am easily, easily getting all my servings of fruit and veggies every day. Even more.

As Mom pointed out, there are no 0 point other snacks any more. There used to be that certain things you could get away with being a 0 point snack, but not now. So your daily points allowance went up, but things cost more points, but that is offset by fruit and veggies being free. Before bananas used to be 1-2 points, so that's okay.

I actually found I was not even eating all my points every day, and by no means did I even eat all my flex points. And I'm dedicated. I am measuring everything, journalling everything... so we're off to a good start.

In order to kind of boost myself a bit further, we've decided on no wine in the house at all. Not that we were drinking so much of it, but we figured until we're well on our way with weight loss, lets cut it out. And that also saves us money. Also no take out. In order to afford WW I have also cut out on my Starbucks each day when I was at work. It was only $2/day, but that adds up. So I also now bring my own coffee to work. Look at me being all responsible!

Now... let's add in some exercise... that's the hard part.

Today January 25, 2011

2011-01-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

In an effort to step up my blogging again, inspired by Colorado Nancy - here I am! Good morning!

Today...
Outside my window it is raining. Again. I don't mind the rain, but the kids really want to get outside and play play play. And it's just too cold and damp to do that right now.

I am reading:
Kind of inbetween books right now. I think I'm going to read Watermelon by Marian Keyes next. I just finished one of the books I won in the November Romance Book giveaway over on Simply Stacey, and before that I read a Carole Matthews book...oh my I can't remember I read something else inbetween, but for the life of me I can't remember what.

Life:
I've joined Weight Watchers again. You know, previously I lost 50 lbs on WW, so it's time to do that again. I know I can do it again. I actually really like the new Points Plus system as all fruit and most veggies are free, so I don't need to think 2x about grabbing a piece of fruit if I need a snack or something. I joined last Tuesday, but am changing my weigh in to Saturday mornings, and will go with my Mom. So I have not done my 1st weigh in yet.

In the kitchen:
Well in an effort to step up healthier eating I've reached for my Hungry Girl cookbook.
Faux Fried Chicken and roasted butternut Squash
Sloppy Janes - made this with veggie ground round and some PC Thins hamburger buns - was quite tasty!
Pork chops with potatoes and veggies
Hamburgers and Sweet potato fries
Seseame Chicken and rice

Around the house:
Well now we've been here for 6 months it's time to go through everything again, declutter more, clean things up, and do some painting. We need to finish putting casings around the doors downstairs where we moved the door for my sewing room into the main hall. We need to paint the 3rd bathroom and finish off adding things like towel bars and a mirror and vanity lights etc... Bill would like to paint the entry way. We need to fix the paint in Cordie's room as our sweetheart started peeling the fishy border off the wall and it looks really bad now. We need to price out and replace our back deck. This is the big one - we knew this when we moved in. Bill hopes he may be able to do work with my Dad helping him out. He's been enjoying doing more around the house and becoming a handyman. I also need to go through the kids drawers, pull out everything that no longer fits... Tanya, I will have clothes for your sons soon - maybe a good chance to get together?

This week:
normal week here. Monday night Bill had swimming lessons -yep, Bill is learning how to swim. I think it's awesome. he wants to be able to keep up with Duncan. Otherwise, drop off the kids, work, pick them up, dinner, play, bed.

And that's it here!! Time for some coffee and then get the kids up. Have a wonderful day!

Maui

2011-01-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've only been home for a week and a half. Sorry I didn't write sooner. I just haven't been spending any time on the computer. It actually took a bit to get over the 2 hour time difference. I think it's just enough to throw you off. Next time we stay longer!

Flight - this was what I was worried about the most. How would both kids do on the flight, and how would Cordie be if we didn't get a seat for her to use? Well Westjet stepped up and got us an extra seat - yay! They both did awesome. I brought a big selection of snacks, movies and other activities and they did really well. We landed at I think 4 PM and got into the resort around 6. Everyone else stopped at Costco to buy groceries but we figured with the kids it would just be best to get to our place and settle down. Oma brought us some breakfast chicken and veggies and stuff, and that was perfect.

The next day we had to go grocery shopping, but Duncan really wanted to go swimming at the Pirate Pool outside.

Well we had other stuff to do first, so thank goodness the Lord provided us with a downpour to put him off for a bit. We got lots of use out of the pirate pool though, which was just for little kids. In fact even Erik and Katie only managed to sneak in after it was dark out.

Anyhow, off to Safeway. Yeah, everything is expensive there. Actually we found lots of the prices are comparable to home, but just expensive compared to the rest of the US. Oh, and the booze was cheap, so we had enough wine and other stuff to do just fine.

Sleeping arrangements:
This was the other thing I was worried about was how sleep was going to work out. We actually thought we were going to need to sleep on the sofa bed and let Duncan have our bed. But the 1st night of laying on that thing I said forget it and climbed into bed with Duncan - you know the king sized gorgeously plush bed in the other room? Oh that felt nice. Oh, and Cordie had a crib, which worked fine for her. Anyhow, the 2nd night we said to Duncan do you want to sleep on the sofa bed? And he thought that was pretty cool. I was worried that he would wake up too much if we moved him - nope, not a problem. So that worked great, and we got the nice bed :)

Daily routine was some variation of this:
Get up, give the kids snacks, sit on the balcony and have some coffeem, have a nice leisurely breakfast, go play in a pool - the pirate pool or the shallow pool on side over. There was another one with a slide, but Duncan wasn't big enough for that one, and we didn't want to tease him that he couldn't go, so we just didn't swim there. Back to the room for lunch, naps for the kids while we napped/read/had a drink, and two times my Mom watched them while we went into Lahaina once and for a drive up Island once. After naps down to the beach for sand train building,

jumping in the waves, hanging with Oma and Opa,
and whale watching. Back to the room, clean up, dinner with the family. Most nights we all brought our own thing down to BBQ - the resort had BBQs all over which was really great, but we'd all hang out while we ate. Uncle Sean learned how much work it was to chase a Cordie. LOL! Then up to my brother's place (next door - we were all in a row) for drinks and hanging out on the balcony, which was nice b/c we could put Cordie to bed and use the monitor and still go hang out.

We also went to the Aquarium one rainy day - which was cool, but expensive, and perhaps the kids weren't old enough for it yet.

Bill took Duncan on the Sugar Cane Train - which Duncan just loved.

(on the Sugar Cane Train)

We were supposed to use the round trip another day, but the day we were going to a Kona storm rolled in and it was closed down. I also took the kids to a local playground one morning while Bill was watching football. That was fun b/c it was a park local people use and I got to chat with some local Moms and Grandmoms while the kids played together.

Mom and Dad took us out for a family dinner one night. Cordie was a little owly at that one, but it was nice! And we also all went to a Luau one night, which was a hoot.

Again, Cordie didn't like to sit still - but she was just wiggly, not fussy, so I'm good if she is not screaming *grin*.

Final thoughts? How soon can we save up to go back? We loved it. I had been to Maui before, and Bill and I had been to Waikiki a few years ago, but seeing that the kids were so easy to travel with, and knowing how kid friendly Maui is, we want to go back - and for longer!! It will take a few years, but we'll swing it.

Thanks again to Oma and Opa for this wonderful trip.

Because I said So

2011-01-15T22:55:00.000-08:00

Aloha!! Blog post about our trip to Maui coming soon, but 1st this:

Do you read Because I Said So by Dawn Meehan? Well Dawn is in a really, really tight spot right now, and so I am adding this in, in case you feel like helping.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T11:51:00.001-08:00

Quick note to wish you all a Happy New Year. Just getting ready for our little trip. No, potential thieves, our house will not be empty in our absence. We won't be gone long. See you on the flip side!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! Merry Christmas to you! I wish you all a blessed and wonderful Christmas Day.

It has been a long time to say the least. Life just keeps us all busy and I get normally maybe 20 minutes on the computer in the morning and maybe a bit at night before bed - but not always.

We're all doing good. Duncan of course is very excited about Christmas. We are also looking forward tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun. Tonight, Christmas Eve, we are having my parents over for dinner after the Christmas Eve service. Tomorrow morning we'll unwrap presents with the kids, go to church, home again after probably after naps, go to Mom and Dad's for the rest of the day. It should be fun.

And of course in a week and a half we're off to Hawaii! That too is going to be wonderful!

I pray you are all well, enjoying time with your families and friends, and will hopefully speak with you in a few days.

Hi hi!

2010-12-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

Hey friends! Yes its me, your non-blogger friend Carole. As you can tell I have not been blogging much. I just don't have time. I am totally behind on my blog roll, in fact I just clear it out unread more often that not. I haven't been on facebook much, and emails get deleted too. Just busy with life and taking less computer time.

But we're all doing well. Having fun ramping up for Christmas. We decorated the tree this week and Duncan had a blast helping with that. Of course, as would happen when a 4 year old decorates a tree, all the ornaments are all in one section. I moved a few of them b/c they were falling off the branches where he put 2 or 3 on the same branch, but otherwise I left it alone b/c I love how it looks. Cordie is also fascinated with the tree but so far has not knocked it over.

Tomorrow I am leaving for Seattle very early in the morning and am going to visit Laura for the morning. It's the only day we could make it work for me to come and visit. Mom wanted to tag along, so the two of us are going to go and hope to be home by 3 PM or so. Bill has the kids home today, and tomorrow. Not that he can't handle them, but I don't want to be gone all day!

Duncan's birthday was a week ago. Our little boy is 4! We had fun with a little party for him at our house. 4 of his friends came over, but with parents and siblings etc, we had a good crowd, and it was lots of fun.

Let's see what else... both kids are good. Bill transfered to the Abbotsford office which was effective this week. The hope was that he'd have a shorter commute, be able to leave later in the morning, and get to see the kids in the morning. Well let me tell you - it worked! His commute is now 35 minutes, he doesn't have to leave the house until 7:20, and is home around 4:50. I'm home with the kids around 4:30, so it all works out great. As a result we're also taking turns working out in the morning before the kids are up. This is good b/c to say I am a bit huggable would be an understatement :) But I'm working on it.

Alright, I told Bill I would make pancakes for everyone this AM as we're out of bread. I already made the batter, but should now go and actually make the pancakes. Everyone is still sleeping, which is not horrible.

Take care everyone!

Snack Pack Share a Smile

2010-11-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

What are things that make you smile? Without a doubt my kids make me smile. They make me laugh - a lot! My husband makes me smile. He often claims he's the funniest person he knows. :) On the same note, I also make myself smile. I'm the second funniest person he knows :) My morning cup of coffee makes me smile. Taking a minute to sit down with my book makes me smile. Getting a purr from my cat makes me smile. My friends make me smile. They are also funny people. :)

I also like to make people smile. I try very hard to greet my children with a smile each morning, so hopefully set them off on the right foot for the day. I try to walk around the office smiling. It makes people wonder what you've been up to.

Snack Packs - the fine people who bring us pudding in a cup and Juicy Jels - are trying to spread a few smiles.

Visit Snack Packs' Facebook Page, hit the like Button, and then hit the smile tab. Every day you share a smile Snack Pack will donate $1 to Canadian Food Banks, up to $20,000.00. Not only that, but you're given a reason to smile, and a chance to win some really great prizes. Do this once a day and you can earn smile badges. Hey, who doesn't like to share a smile?

To find out more about Snack Pack products (including Juicy Gels and low-fat puddings), visit them at
http://www.snackpackcanada.ca/

Disclosure - I am participating in the
Snack Pack program by Mom Central on behalf of Conagra Foods Canada. I received a gift card as a
thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Checking for a pulse

2010-11-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

Hi friends! I'm writing before you start checking for my pulse! Not much on facebook, not much blogging. You know, work is so crazy all the time by the time I get home and sit at the computer for a few minutes I'm ready for bed. Don't feel like doing much at all. The kids have been waking up earlier (the time change didn't help that) so I don't even really get my morning 30 minutes email and a coffee time. And b/c work is so insane, I don't have time to check things there.

But we're all doing well!! Bill is sick again... he had strep throat a few weekends ago and it has now apparently moved into his chest and he has bronchitis. He has Friday off, and was going to send the kids to daycare, but I'd already told her they were staying home, so she made other plans... so he'll have to rest another day :)

The kids are good. Duncan is doing awesome in his second year of preschool. I am loving how much he is learning both academically (pre-K program) and with going to the Christian school the things he comes home with wanting to talk about God and sing Bible songs etc... I love it!

Cordie is just growing by leaps and bounds. She is such a funny girl. Loving the world of walking. She loves books "Book! Book!". She loves Bubbles "bubble? bubble!!" for bath time. She loves cookies "cookie? cookie?" That's my girl!!

Like I said work is busy, but I'm doing well with my new team and all. Picking up the pace. But the pace is so fast the days fly and the weeks fly. Not too long until Hawaii now! Woo hoo!! So who is all in favour of drugging children for a flight? What worked for you? I'm not so concerned about Duncan, but Cordie, who won't have her own seat will be the challenge. She is not going to want to sit on laps for 5 hours. We'll figure it out.

Books - finished the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and enjoyed it. Now finally reading World Without End by Ken Follett, sequel to the Pillars of the Earth. I loved Pillars, and am really enjoying this one now. Nice thick 1000 page novel with small print.

Alright, and as a large yawn just over took me, I need to head to bed. Good night!

"Bob"

2010-10-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

For some unknown reason, everything unknown to my son is Bob.

Mom, what's his name?
I don't know.
Is it Bob?
Sure.

Mom, who lives there?
I don't know.
Is it Bob?
Sure.

Mom, who is making that noise (someone was operating a power saw)
Our neighbours
What are their names?
Well one of them is named Cody
Who else?
I don't know.
Bob?
Sure.

Mom, who sings this song?
I don't know
Bob?
Sure

Mom, what's this song?
I don't know.
Is it the Bob Song?
Sure.

Mom, who are those kids across the street? (3 boys and one girl are playing)
I don't know
Are they Bob, Bob, Bob and Bob?
No, I think the girl is Bobette.

What's funny is Bill's Dad is named Bob, and we call him Grandpa Bob, and it makes me wonder if that ties into it somehow.

How I know my husband and I are well suited

2010-10-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

You know, aside from being happily married for 10 years, do you know how I know I married the right man? Here's how - this afternoon from our respective offices this is the type of conversation we had through email:

Him: I'm thinking of doing Movember next month
after a bit of explaining to me what Movember is... you grow a mustache to help raise money for prostate cancer
Him: I was thinking of growing one like Ra's al Ghul from Batman
Me: Oh, like Liam Neeson - nice!
Him: No, not Liam, the real Ra's. Liam didn't assume Ra's until the other one died
Me: I think Liam's character was always the real Ra's
Him: yeah, so do I

Yeah, we discuss Batman in our regular conversation in our married life. It's why I like being married to this man :)

Friday Ramblings

2010-10-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

Stealing from Nancy's subject line... sometimes it's hard to think of something more catchy. I couldn't believe it had been 2 weeks since I blogged.

I guess there isn't too much to say anyhow... things, over all, are good.

The Wiggles concert on Oct 10 was loads of fun. I hope I can take the kids many times before they tire of it. We were in 14th row floor, which meant we got to see most of the Wiggles right up close while they walked through the audience, but it was quite difficult for Duncan to see, so in the future, up in the stands.
Thanksgiving was nice too. Mom and Dad came over. My chicken didn't cook proper, but there was more than enough food so we just threw the chicken in the oven and had it for lunches.
My new team at work is going well. I'm still quite slow, but I've actually transitioned into this new team quite easily, which is good. I still have a lot of learning to do b/c it is a new block of work, but I thought I was going to be quite anxious about the whole thing, and I'm not. My new team seems to be a really good group of people.
Bill has strep throat. I hate sore throats so I feel especially bad for him. I also take back all my jokes about man colds b/c it turns out he actually is sicker than I am.

The kids are good. Cordie is loving the freedom of walking, and now thinks it is quite fun to climb up the baby gate and ride on it... so Dad is coming over tomorrow to put up out climb proof one we hadn't installed yet. We took it from the other house but this one had one at the top of the stairs so we never bothered to put the other one one.

Duncan is doing awesome with school. He is really enjoying it and learning lots. I know this b/c he talks about things he's learned there, which is awesome. The other day we're out for a walk and talking about the seasons and he asked why there were seasons and we said b/c God made it that way. And he says "Just like he made the light and the dark?" That's right bud! So it's sinking in, which is great.

Thursday night

2010-10-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

Good evening friends!

I find it funny how I am always writing blog posts in my head, yet they never actually translate into being typed and posted.

What's going on....
Well I've almost survived my 1st week on my new block of work. I have so much to learn. I know I have lenience b/c I'm new, but I feel so totally lost about the whole thing. I know how to assess medical, but how different groups like it done is what I need to learn. But the team is good, friendly, and supportive. I'm actually not near as stressed as I thought I would be.

Today we had a potluck at work in honour of Thanksgiving coming up. I'm on the social committee and we organized it, so for a while there I was worried we weren't going to have enough food. Well it wasn't an issue. We had plenty and it was good! I cheated and picked up a pecan pie at the store, but it went over well b/c it was all eaten!

Tomorrow is my Mom and Dad's 45th wedding anniversary. How awesome is that? 45 years!! We're going out for dinner with the family and so for the 1st time we've hired a teenaged babysitter. My coworker Robert's daughter. She is coming over tonight to meet the kids. We decided to not bring the kids b/c frankly, they would get really bored really quick.

Speaking of Mom and Dad, I don't think I told you the deal about Hawaii... well my parents are taking the whole family to Hawaii in January!!! How awesome is that? (Very! Thanks Mom and Dad!). Mom has been wanting to go on a family vacation for a long time now but it was never a good time, but now the kids are getting bigger and all, they are doing it before we get too old. We have a lot going on between now and then, but it is going to be great.

So this weekend we have the Wiggles concert. Monday we're doing a small Thanksgiving dinner with my parents b/c we're getting together as a family tomorrow night.

Otherwise... we're doing good here! I hope you are too!

Westjet and Travel Insurance

2010-09-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that we had a bit of an issue with our bags being lost.

So here is the low down. We flew out of Vancouver on a Sunday morning on what they called Black Sunday because 7 cruise ships were coming into port. This meant the airport was going to be a zoo. We did hit the 1st wave of travelers around 8:30 AM, but since most ships dock at 8 AM down town, we weren't too worried.

When booking the trip I opted for travel insurance after an incident a few years ago where we bought insurance for Bill's brother when he came to visit. There was a clause in there that if bags were delayed for 12 hours he had $400 to shop for necessities. His bags were delayed, he went shopping, came home, bags came in, boom, new wardrobe.

Travel insurance also covers things like cancellation due to weather, illness, death,etc... since I work in insurance I tend to make sure we've got approrpiate coverages.

So when we showed up in LV and our bag didn't, we figured it had been caught up with other bags from various cruise ship passengers going who knows where.

We started a claim with with Westjet people at McCarran Airport. Let me say the people there were so friendly and helpful, it was really nice. It was annoying our bag wasn't there, but over the next 3 days they did everything they could to locate our bag, call us with updates and put up with my 3x/day phone calls. I gave a description of the bag and what would be inside. When they located the bag they knew it was ours b/c they took the time to compare our list with what they found.

Among the things inside were books 2 and 3 of Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy, and I had finished book one and I needed book two!! Have you read the Hunger Games? If not, why are you not running to find it right now? Phenomenal. I am 30 pages from the end and am sad it is almost over. Thanks again Colorado Nancy for putting me on to this one. Bill has been enjoying it too.

We got our bags. When we got back to Vancouver I had to clear up the claim with the baggage counter there. Again, super friendly and helpful employee. We were allowed $75 for necessities and a $150 travel credit for the broken bag (the handle had come off, did I mention that?).

So yesterday I go to submit our receipts and I submitted more than $75 but sent a note saying that with a 3 day delayed, these were the neccesities we had needed, and get this -Westjet covered all the receipts I submitted, no arguements.

I really appreciate that despite the annoying inconvenience of this all that they were friendly, helpful, and efficient.

Now I am waiting for my claim forms from RBC for the balance of the claim. What Westjet paid will be deducted from the RBC claim, so it's not like we come out ahead by Westjet paying more, but it's the fact of the matter.

I know we also got travel insurance for Hawaii, but I hope we don't lose anything there going with the kids and all... What's that, you don't know about Hawaii? :)

Our Las Vegas Adventure

2010-09-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I've been meaning to post since we got back about out little trip away, but I just haven't bothered :) You know it's funny how you go through enjoyment of the internet in bouts. Some times I could spend hours online, and then some times I couldn't care less. I stopped playing Farmville, I unsubscribed to a bunch of the blog I used to follow, I post on my blog less. It's all good though!

Anyhow, we're back from Vegas and had a wonderful, wonderful time. I would love it if we could take off there every year, and maybe we will. I doubt we can swing it next year with going to Hawaii in January (oh I didn't, tell you about that? Later then) and Bill's entire family coming out next fall. Yeah. 11 people in this house. Come to think of it I think I will go stay with my parents during that time and let them have fun of the place. LOL!

So we flew out Sunday morning, landed just after 1PM. Unfortunately our luggage didn't. We settled in and then headed over to Macy's to pick up some stuff we needed at least for the night (pjs, toiletries, etc...). I had bought travel insurance, and so if our bags were delayed by 12 hours we would get $400 each for necessities. Well the next morning our bag still hadn't arrived, and it had been 12 hours, and after checking with the insurance company twice ("really? we get $750?) we went shopping!! We hit Target (love Target! Got most of what we needed there), and then the mall with a Lane Bryant, and headed back to the hotel. That was quite fun. We still need to settle our claims with both Westjet and RBC, but we came out with better clothes than we went in with!

So let's see... lots of walking, not as much eating as we'd have thought. We'd have a good breakfast, split a sandwich at lunch, and a nice dinner. Did room service 3x - which said and done wasn't too horrible for the money. We did the CSI Experience... well let me back up. We stayed at the MGM Signature in Tower 3 and LOVED IT. It is set way back from the strip (like 3 blocks, although attached to the MGM - it's down form the Miracle Mile Mall, which was actually a decent shopping place). Aside from the pillows being way too soft, it was fantastic and I would totally stay there again. We cabbed almost everywhere, which is totally the way to go if you don't want to spend your whole day walking.

So, CSI we had discount tickets for and it was worth about that. No where near as much fun as the old Star trek Experience used to be. Lounged by the pool - and in the pool. Enjoyed the real jacuzzi bath tub in our suite. We saw the Lion King which we loved. Lots of fun. We ate dinner at Emeril's - which was also fun and delicious. We plugged $40 into the slot machines and cashed out at $80 which paid for some ice cream, Starbucks, and Burger King on the way home at McCaran Airport which later gave Bill food poisoning. Poor guy still feels like crud. But at least that didn't hit until we got home.

Mom and Dad did awesome with the kids. Thank you again. I think we wore Mom out, but she survived :) And the kids were mostly really good for her. Even Strider didn't mind having the dog around.

Oh, and our luggage did show up on day 3. The handle holding all the tags had ripped off and then for some reason it went to L.A. instead of Las Vegas, but they got it to us. So we came home with 2x as much stuff as we went with, but customs had no problem with that. Westjet is being good about it. Actually, they were all fantastic to us.

Another comment. Every service person in LV was just so nice. You know people actually seem to enjoy their jobs whether it's being a waitress, a cashier, a bell hop, room service, cabbies... everyone was just really pleasant. We look forward to heading back!

Menu Plan Monday

2010-09-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

Hey, even if I don't post about much else, this is something simple I can do. I can't promise this will stay in this order, but it is essentially what we'll be noshing on this week!

Sunday - Nachos (these were yummy!)

Monday - Mushroom Linguine with chicken (I used spaghetti)

Tuesday - Saucy Beef and Peppers (let's be honest, it's a stir fry)

Wednesday - hamburgers and fries

Thursday - Pesto Chicken pasta and garlic bread - made with President's Choice Tomato Pesto

Friday - whatever we feel like!!

How about you? Check out http://orgjunkie.com/ for more meal plan ideas.

Saturday morning

2010-09-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!

I know I haven't been blogging at all, but quite honestly there is not a whole lot to say. We're all doing well. How are you?

Let's see... one week until we take off for Vegas and my Mom moves in to watch our monkeys. That will go fine b/c they are always super good for other people. Although I know there will be a certain amount of tears when we head off. I'll miss the kids but I'm trying not to think about that part of things.

School started for Duncan this week. New school, new teachers, and of course he jumped right in. I took Wednesday morning off and went to the 1 hour orientation, and then Friday was the 1st 2.5 hour class and Nikki said they both did great. So I'm glad that transition went well.

Duncan also starts soccer soon. This coming Thursday is the meet and greet and then next Sunday (of course the Sunday were gone) is their 1st practice and game. They practice for 30 min and then have a game for 30 min. My Dad has said he will take Duncan though. We also think we're going to sign Duncan up for another round of swimming lessons. It's about time.

The house is coming along great. We've been here for 2 months now and we just love, love, love it. We're so at home here. My Dad has been in this week renovating our laundry room which now also has a working toilet - which was very important for little boys who are playing trains and suddenly need to go pee NOW! The vanity is actually a laundry utility sink with drawers, so it will double well.

And finally, after years of nagging, we have a cleaning lady starting on Thursday!! YAY!! This is the woman who has been cleaning my parent's house for years, and she does a phenomenal job. You know, I know to some readers it might seem silly, or a waste of money, or excessive to have someone come in and clean my house, but quite honestly it's a time vs. money thing and right now I'd rather pay to have it done really well every few weeks than spending all my weekends scrubbing. So I'm happy about it!

Have a great weekend! It's beautiful here. We're about to go meet some friends for breakfast.

Menu Planning Monday

2010-08-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try posting my Menu Planning. I always Menu Plan (I can't shop without it) but I'm hoping I'll get some inspiration for some new meals by joining in this fun.

What's on the Menu this week:
Monday: No Bull Burritos - I find Mexican food works well with the kids b/c we can give it to them "disassembled" and they love it. I'll be making some home made guacamole to go with it.

Tuesday: Slowcooker Meat Sauce and Ravioli with Garlic Bread.

Wednesday: Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetable Fried Rice and some kind of Veggie.

Thursday: Ham and New potatoes and Broccoli

Friday: Something simple.

How about you?

Weekending. Or should I say weekend ending

2010-08-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

Good morning. As usual a few moments to sit with a coffee and read some email before getting the kids up.

I've been actually getting up a few minutes earlier in the morning and using the elliptical trainer for 20 minutes. Kind of crazy I know. Exercising! Hopefully it does some good. It does cut into my sit on my butt and boot around on the computer time, but oh well.

So how was your weekend? Good I hope! Ours was good. We got our new furniture for the living room on Friday. Ohhhh it's nice. We really like it. Opted to pay the extra cash and have it stain proofed. We also had our screens put in. We started actually moving boxes and stuff into my sewing room. It's going to be great once that is altogether.

Friday night Bill had some guys over to hang around in the man cave. So I had Theresa over. We got take out Indian (YUM! 1st time in over a year as I couldn't eat it while I was nursing) and rented The Ugly Truth. Oh boy, that was funny. Rated R for good reason, but it was funny.

Saturday Duncan and I went to his friend's place for a playdate there. And while the kids were napping I went grocery shopping, and then I took the kids to a birthday party at the park. Cordie was stung by a wasp - poor girl. Got her some children's benadryl and it seemed to do the trick. We rented Date Night. That was also funny. Reminded me of Adventures in Babysitting.

Sunday morning was church, then Mom and Dad came over for coffee. I took some time to unpack some boxes in my room and otherwise, we hung out with the kids. Duncan and I went for a nice long walk. Picked some blackberries. I ate either a poisoned one, of it had a spider or bug in it that was poisonous b/c it tasted so bad. I spat it out immediately, but it made my tongue go numb for at least an hour (well part of it). It was kind of crazy. I'm fine now. We rented Shutter Island for last night (having fun watching movies lately... ) and are really enjoying it, but were falling asleep. So we'll need to finish it tonight and pay the late fee.

And that's about it. This week ahead nothing too crazy. We're attempting a trip to Seattle next weekend with our pukey kids. I told Laura if one of them pukes we're turning around, but at least we'll give it a go. DVD player, frequent stops... hopefully it will work.

Alright time to get the wee ones up and get some breakfast into them. Have a wonderful day!

My kids make me laugh

2010-08-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

You know, I think I can kind of tell I like being a Mom. I am the sterotypical Mom who still share stories of my kids with anyhow who will listen. Not that they care. But some times, at least to me, something is too good not to share.

My children make me laugh. Cordie makes me laugh because she mimics words and sounds, often unexpectedly. We often joke with Duncan when we're going somewhere we'll tell "Come On Duncan! To The Upstairs!" and make that do do do do sound (like this). Well we did that the other day coming home and Cordie totally mimicked the do do do sound. We about doubled over laughing.

Duncan loves to sing. Both kids do actually, but seeing as Cordie's words are quite limited, we can a bit more legitimately say Duncan loves to sing. We sing songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, Thomas, Backyardigans, and fun things like Peter Gabriel, Black Eyed Peas, Tom Cochran. But the funny part is he has his own words. And don't try to correct him.

"I Gotta Feelin'" by the Black Eyed Peas (which he can almost sing the entire song of, very funny in itself) there is a line "We'll paint the town". Except Duncan says "We'll paint the tail". No honey, it's town. "No it's not Mom, it's tail.". If you say so sweetie.

"Life Is A Highway" (Cars soundtrack). "Life is a Highway! I'm going to drive in on my lawn!" (as opposed to all night long).

Yo Gabba Gabba Keep Trying, Keep trying... there is a part where it says "don't stop, don't stop, you'll get it right", except the Duncan version is "No Socks, no socks, in your eye..."

And again, he is quite insistent that those are the words, making it that much more awesome.

What's also funny is he mumbles with songs when he doesn't know the words - he tries, and he wants to learn them, and so he tries and sings anyhow (which is awesome). But when he gets to the part he knows he belts it out. Often this is only two words of a song.

Yeah my kids make me laugh.

Mid-week hello

2010-08-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

Hello!! Yeah remember me? I write lots and lots of blog posts in my head, but you know, unless they get transfered to my blog, it doesn't really matter does it? I'm just busy and I take very little time to be on the computer. I wish work was a little less crazy that I could get away with it there... Maybe soon?

Bill is listening to Billy Joel's Piano Man and writing some kind of a spoof of it and laughing to himself, which means it will probably be highly inappropriate :) We'll see. Oh wait... yep, I was right. Check it out. If you dare.

The weather has finally cooled down. Ahhh... Right now I'm hanging out in the Man Cave with my laptop, having a glass of wine, which Bill is playing on his computer. It counts for together time for us! I think we might go upstairs soon and maybe watch some tv. And have ice cream.

Tonight we went to Red Robin with C&R to celebrate Iain's 11th birthday. Okay, Iain was 2.5 when we met C&R. Insane to think. They kind of staggered our meals and what not, so the kids were done way before the adults, and they got a bit antsy. I have Up on my iPod (digital copy) so Ally watched that. Nice to see them.

Ummm.. last Thursday was our 10th wedding anniversary. Theresa baby sat and we went for dinner. It was wonderful. Bill got me a beautiful ring, and I got him... a beer fridge for the man cave! And he loves it! It's been going over quite well with his friends. Always good to have your husband's friends think you're cool. Not that it was an issue. I am cool. *grin*.

But yeah, 10 years. And although cliche, better than ever.

Saturday we had our kick ass party to celebrate the house and 10 years of marriage. It was so awesome to have our friends out. The kids played awesome (over all). And as most people have small childen, we were done by 8:30. LOL!

Flooring is all done in the house, so we can finally get around to moving my stuff into Sewrenity! We need baseboards done, but we can just pull stuff away from the wall and do it that way. Next, and pretty much last, thing is putting in the 3rd bathroom. We bought the toilet and sink already, so it's just a matter of getting it done.

What's coming up... this weekend we've got two play dates for Duncan. So that will be some awesome Duncan/Mommy time, and Daddy/Cordie time. Weekend after we're attempting Seattle for Jesse and Laura's party. It's been 3 years. Duncan doesn't do well in the car. But we're going to try. I told Laura if one of them pukes going down we're turning around and heading home.

We're still looking for a preschool *sigh*. More on that later.

Alright, laundry is done. Have a good night you all!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-08-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday Night Catch Up

2010-08-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

You know it's kind of funny because I had the whole week off work and was home for most of it, but spent less time on the computer than I normally would. So despite having unsubscribed to a bunch of blogs, I'm behind on everything. But fear not, I have the personal blogs I am loyal to, so my friends, I am not ignoring you.

So briefly, what's going on...

Well we attempted to go to the cabin with the kids. I had some reservations about going, but everyone said "Go! Enjoy" and so I got over myself and we went. And it was fun. The kids were having a great time during the day and very well behaved. However night time was a different story. The kids are not used to sharing a room, so when one made a noise the other woke up, etc... and then Cordie was up to 3 AM one night coughing... which meant I was too, and Duncan was up before 6 because he was so excited.. well after a few nights of that I declared myself a quitter and we went home. We're glad we did. We all slept well in our own beds and enjoyed the week together.

We have finished painting our rooms, and my brother hopes to get floors done for us this week, so that will be great. Once that is done, it will go a long way to gettting a bunch more stuff out of the garage as there is no point in moving it inside before floors are done.

What else... Cordie is officially weaned. I am sad about it in that Mom way. 14.5 months of nursing my baby girl every day. Truth is, she hasn't been interested in it for a while, and barely was nursing at all in the end, so Cordie isn't suffering, but it's a sweet bond. If we weren't going away in September I might have pushed for her to continue, but I think it's better to be done so she doesn't look for that comfort while we're gone.

My Mom is bravely moving in for 5 days in September while Bill and I take off to Vegas. I have no doubt it will go fine, but I'll miss the kids!

Colorado Nancy mentioned she is annoyed at her babysitter (and I don't blame you!). I am annoyed at the lady I was trying to hire to come clean our house. Bill caved in after years of me going on about it - I wanted someone every other week to come and clean the house. So I decided Craigslist might be a good place to look for someone. And I found this lady, and we got in touch, and I explained what we're looking for, and we discussed prices. I said I would like to meet her, check references, and then get her in once next week, and then the following Friday, and every 2nd Friday after that. At first she was very keen "Oh I'll get you the references to check" which she never did. And then We should meet. But after several emails she still hasn't gotten back to me to meet. So today I said forget it. I am not going to chase you down to get your business. Work for it honey. So back to square one.

Well that's enough for tonight. Hope you're all well! Back to work tomorrow!

Datebook July 26, 2010

2010-07-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

Today...
outside it is sunny. I accidentally just typed that it is funny. Anyhow. It's been sunny and hot. I think high 20s again today. Blah. I love the sun, but a few degrees cooler in the evening would be good.
I am reading "A Kind of Magic" by Carole Matthews. This is like my 6th or 7th book of hers in the last 2 months or so. They are all totally unrelated, so something different each time
In the kitchen I almost don't even remember. Last night we did Beer Butt Chicken, something we love but havne't done in years. Nice having the BBQ outside the kitchen. Makes it a lot easier to just step outside and throw something on the BBQ. Also on the menu this week home made greek, tacos I think (probably tonight), chicken nuggets and fries (yeah, I know, exciting, but it works), and we'll figure out the rest as we go.
Weekend Saturday was a wash. Sunday was awesome. Saturday morning we met my folks for breakfast - something the kids love. Duncan loves the hashbrowns and pretty much clears off all our plates of it... wait, unless Cordie isn't grabbing it 1st! she was helping herself to mine. Quite funny. Anyhow, then off to Costco to pick up some stuff we needed. We bought, and Bill installed, a ceiling fan in the dining room - much needed. Also a new microwave b/c, well, we need one. And also these pop up foot rest block things we'll use in the living room until our furniture arrives. Then Duncan just started acting horrible all day. He wouldn't nap - but he needed to. And then he was just being a, well, 3 year old. Anyhow, we were going to do movie night with him but didn't. We were asked by some friends to go to the Fair, but didn't b/c he was acting so bad. We also turned down two separate friends asking if they could come over. Sorry Tanya!! We'll have you guys over before you're back to work!!
Sunday was nice. We went to the Country Fair with our friends - the kids really enjoyed that. I'll post some pictures soon. Then home. Theresa and I got our nails done - you should see my cute toes! And then our friends Phil and Karen and their kids came over and the kids played in the pool and on the climber, and ran around... it is so wonderful having a back yard! We had some salads and corn on the cob with the chicken and then went out for ice cream after. Duncan was over the moon about going out for ice cream. It was so funny.
This week Not much on the go. Bill's boss is retiring so he'll be out on Thursday. Work will be crazy this week as I'm off next week. I think I need to see if Duncan's friend can come over one afternoon as we haven't had them over yet.
Alright, kids are waking up. Have a good day!

Ah the peace of sleeping chidlren

2010-07-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

It's a soothing time of day when everything is done - the kids are in bed, lunches for tomorrow are made (thanks Bill!), the kitchen is clean, puttering is done... You can truly sit back and relax and not have that "I really should be doing..." feeling.

We're doing good thanks! How are you? We're settling in really well. It feels like we've been here much longer than 2 weeks. We're really comfortable in this house. Yesterday we borrowed Dad's truck and went and bought a china cabinet off of Craigslist. It looks good and is providing some much needed storage. We're now toying with the idea of cabinets in the kitchen. Well, more cabinets. We may go used if we can. The drywallers finished the Quilt Cave today so now I need to pick paint colours and get on that.

Other stuff... this weekend is Country Fest which we're planning on taking the kids to. It's free and should be a good time for them.

Work is pretty crazy. Rather stressful. *sigh* Whatcha gonna do though.

We are off the 1st week of August, so that will be nice and relaxing. And then we're off to Vegas in September while Mom watches the kids. Oh bless her. She thinks she is going to be tired when she is done. I think she is right *grin* You'll do fine Mom!!

The kids are doing great. Cordie is just a sweet willful little girl. She is so funny though. She loves to laugh. She adores her big brother. She is not walking yet, but it shouldn't be long. And then watch out!! She sleeps awesome at night. We are still nursing, but only once a day and maybe for a moment before bed. I don't think it will be long before we're done with that.

Duncan is also good. He's just an awesome little kid. He loves the big back yard. He still loves his trains.

Alright, Bill is waiting for me so I am gonig to go. Have a good night!

Making it through to the other side

2010-07-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone!

From our wonderful new living room, enjoying a few minutes peace before getting the kids up... it's Carole! Yes I am still around, I am still alive, and we lived through the moving experience.

Actually, everything went great, and we are loving being here. We are really comfortable in the house, and it just feels good to be here. It certainly doesn't only feel like it's been a week that we've been here.

What sucks is that I have to go to work today. They gave me M-Th, but not Friday b/c Fridays can be busy. *sigh* Oh well!! Bill couldn't get today either, so one day of work is better than 5! And thank goodness we had most of the week off to get stuff done.

So let's see... the move actually went well. A little chaotic at the end. I had to wait around at the new place for the cable guy and so I was unable to help at the old place - which I hated. I mean I had to unpack stuff here, but I just felt like I wasn't doing my part in the move. But between Bill, 5 of his buddies, and Theresa and Rhonda they took care of everything, bless them!

This week the kids were at daycare still so we could get stuff done. We also had a lot of running around to do, and paperwork - address changes etc... which I'm still not done! Mom and Dad came back from vacation on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning jumped right in and helped us tackle getting this place in order, and right now, I would say we're 80% there. The main living area upstairs is about 90% done. We ordered some furniture, but it will take about 6 weeks to get here so I popped on Craigslist and found a free local couch- which is actually a great couch in good condition, not ugly, and will make a good rec room couch later. We also borrowed a love seat and chair from my folks that used to be my Oma's. Not the colours I would choose, but wonderful to have until our stuff arrives. Downstairs we also have Oma's old wall unit for the rec room and it is awesome! Holds toys and books and dvds and is just perfect for the space.

Bill and my Dad jumped in right away to start renovating my sewing room, and it looks awesome! The door had been through the laundry room, so they put a door way into the main hall, and framed up the previous door. They moved the previous door up so we can eventually make the laundry room into a separate bathroom. They gutted the fake wood panelling and nasty brown carpet. Dad set up a new light switch and power socket. Today he is bringing in someone to measure for dry wall. Once that is done, new door, new floor, and then it's all mine! I can't say how much I appreciate them getting on it right away.

As for other stuff - the kitchen is actually quite limited in space, especially counter space. We are looking to get some kind of a kitchen island on wheels. Dad is also going to be installing a new kitchen faucette for us as the other one is short and leaky.

The kids love the house! They love the space and the back yard. I love that Duncan can go run around the back yard and a. he has a lot of room to do so and b. we don't need to worry about him. They left a little play house built out of wood. They also left a sand box with a lid, but we need to get the old sand out and new sand in. We have several fruit trees - pear, peach (my Mom thinks), apple, and I think maybe one other. We also have a plot for future vegetable garden use.

And that's it!! I am behind on all things internet - just not a priority, but I'll get there!

Monday morning

2010-07-05T06:40:00.000-07:00

Good morning! Super quick post as the kids are waking up. It is going to be insane at work this week. Insane! I've been doing 1/2 a case load with someone, and her last day was last Wednesday. A new girl starts today (who has had training in our other office, but still will take a bit to get up and running), and she's only part time to start (she was hit by a taxi a while back!). So on top of being behind from last week, and carrying most of this case load until the new girl is up and running, I'm on vacation next week for most of the week (they wouldn't give me Friday *sigh*), and we're supposed to work ahead. Ha ha ha!! Not a chance! But the week will go quick!

You know what's also insane? Tanya is shaving her head today for cancer. Good job Tanya. Enjoy your carefree hair style just in time for the heat wave coming through!

We should be finally completing today. Well our notary has the money so I just need to go in and get my cash. Woo hoo!! Will be good to have that all done.

What else... we had originally planned to go to my parent's cabin in August, but as Cordie is just at that mobile stage we think we need to bail on that idea. The idea of having to watch her every second makes me tired, and we wouldn't be able to go to the beach b/c we'd have to hold her the whole time - something she wouldn't be too keen on. But it's all rocks down there and she loves to put rocks in her mouth! Anyhow, I know Duncan would love it - he loved it last year -but we might need to wait a year before going back with both kids. I'm hoping Mom isn't too mad at me about cancelling!

It's supposed to get hot this week *sigh*. I like sun, but don't love it being hot. Can't please everyone though.

Alright, time to get the kids up. Have a good week! 5 days until we move! Woo hoo!

It's done! (Or is it.... okay, yeah, it is)

2010-07-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

I said on Facebook the other day "if you're sick of this, imagine how we feel!"

But it's done. Well mostly. Okay, let me back up. I'll be as brief as I can. Our realtor was out of town for 5 days and so his coworker handled stuff for him. We were getting quite frustrated having heard nothing. Was the buying planning on completing? Not? Did we need to proceed with legal action? So we got our temp agent to call the buyer's agent and find out. Yes, they were planning on completing, just getting stuff together.

On Tuesday we heard she was waiting for CMHC approval, and we were asked what we would like in the addendum to the contract. New posession date (July 11th, had been June 26th before), and we asked for $500 in damages. More on that in a moment. Temp realtor went back to them with it, and what we heard back was that while the buyer was willing to cut us a cheque for $500, Buyer's realtor ( let's call him "BR" from here on to save me typing) refused to write it in and they were going collapse the deal if we didn't just take the deal they offered. Said and done, we just wanted it done, so we took it as it was. We got a call Wednesday afternoon "It's done. Money has been transfered. It's officially done" (the lady had to add someone to the title in the end, so she had a bit of a time).

But as I thought about things on Wednesday I got really mad about it. Oh, PMS didn't help either. LOL!! But I felt we had been bullied into accepting that deal, and it made me really, really mad. Bill had a few good points though:

We had prayed that if there was a way we could stay in this place for two extra weeks, we would like it please (prayer answered)
We had prayed that said and done if we could still complete the deal, we'd really like that (prayer answered)
Temp realtor is a bit of a pushy person (as opposed to Andy, it's why we like Andy!), and we were wondering if just perhaps he had tried to push BR into something and so BR pushed back. Our experience with him had been one of being reasonable, and it didn't sound typical of BR to get all bitchy about it all of a sudden.

Andy called today, back from his trip. I was really frank with him - we're supper thrilled this is done. But we were wondering if maybe it was a "personality conflict" over the $500. Andy was wondering the same thing. He said one way or another he will get us our compensation. Even if it has to come out of his own pocket. I hope not!! But he appreciates how good we've been about this all.

Oh, we've had our mad/grumpy/sad moments about the whole thing, but overall, we did pretty good.

It's Canada Day today, so everyone is closed, and most people have tomorrow closed. Our notary is closed tomorrow, so we can't get our money until Monday anyhow. That's fine, we weren't going to do anything with it until we move anyhow. But it's nice to move ahead with planning again.

I'll go on about other stuff soon. Back to normal life. Both kids have colds. I had to take Duncan for a chest x-ray - oh boy, that was traumatic! He now needs a puffer for a chronic cough - hopefully it goes away soon too! Tanya is shaving her head on Monday for cancer. You are a rock star Tanya. Enjoy your short hair! I wonder if it will come back in different!

I am going to post about this experience in aother post. It's been interesting...

Sunday Update

2010-06-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here on the couch with Duncan while he is watching Yo Gabba Gabba - his newest favourite show - one that we don't mind! It has catchy tunes, and some fun guest starts, like this one has Weird Al.

I realized I hadn't done an update since Thursday, and I think most people know me on facebook, so know what's going on anyhow, but briefly - we didn't move and we currently own two homes.

Friday morning after dropping the kids off we went to the bank to sign papers and get a line of credit in place so we could get the balance of our deposit to complete on the sale of our new place. That was our foremost concern - not losing our new home. Then it was off to the notary to drop off the money and complete the sale. We now own the house! Unfortunately we also still own this one.

We don't quite know what's been happening with the woman, and we still think we'll complete soon and not have to relist this place. Although I did have a fantastic plan in place to completely stage this place with free furniture from Craigslist and Freecycle if need be.

We made sure power wasn't going to be cut off, nor our phone/tv/internet. We had to make sure the insurance wasn't cut on this place either.

Now, there is one advantage to staying here - it's a heck of a lot easier to move once. The kids can stay in the home they know for two more weeks, and we're of course more comfortable in our own home. We actually think it was either the cats that brought this around (they some how knew we were about to pawn them off on someone else), or it was Duncan and his friend Lily next door so they wouldn't have to move away from each other yet. Yeah we're only going to be 3 blocks away, but right now it's wonderful being able to send him out side and they can play together with no plans in place. Yesterday our friend Sarah brought Dylan around, and with no "play date" planned, Dylan and Lily and Duncan were able to run around for probably a few hours and have a wonderful morning together. So we're going to miss that.

What am I saying - we're going to miss our neighbours, and we're going to miss this community. It's been wonderful living here for the people, and we've made some great friends. Theresa lives two doors away, Phil and Karen next door. Jill on the other side is a great lady too. Living here is how we found Nikki, daycare provider extrordinaire. Although they are moving too, so the convenience of that was coming to an end no matter what!

13 days until our "bigger house"! Let's hope by then we've got the funds from our sale so we can proceed with our plans for the place. I'll let you all know once we know which way this is going.

Plan B again

2010-06-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

Last night around 7 we got a call from Andy saying we might want to get plan B into place again. Our buyer had changed lenders again (we're not sure what's going on there... 3rd lender now) and they need to provide a letter of committment by the close of business today or else the whole thing goes belly up.

What's super frustrating is a. her mortgage lender told everyone it was all in place yesterday, which obviously it wasn't and therefore we b. lost a day of running around getting banking stuff in order if needed. My parent's still are willing to step up to the plate, however there are still only 2 business days (today and tomorrow) before we need to complete. That is not a lot of time when you're talking about that much money!

I still want to have a heart for this lady - she obviously also has a lot going on, but she strikes me as quite flakey. I mean come on, she has had 2.5 months to get this all together and is scambling now? She signed a contract. A legally binding contract, and obviously she does not comprehend the legal implications if this falls through. We're not the kind of people to go aronud sueing people, but we'd have to go after her for it all, pursue the $5000 deposit (which we know now we should have asked for more - oh the things we've learned!), etc etc etc... which is just a pain all around.

Anyhow, I'll let you know how it all comes out. We're at the end stages of packing here. Tomorrow is M-day (unless it isn't! LOL!!), so assuming all goes well, let's pray that goes well.

I like this quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer (you may have seen him on PBS)
" It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized."

What happened today

2010-06-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

Gah, what a draining day!

The long and the short of it is that our realtor contacted us around lunch time today to say there may be a problem with the people buying our house. You know it's not going to be good when someone says "now I don't want you to panic..." (and I didn't - then *grin*).

From what we understand our buyers lost their financing through the place that was going to give them their mortgage. Not sure what happened there. Anyhow, if she was unable to come up with the financing then we wouldn't have the proceeds from our sale to fund the purchase of our new house, we'd have to come up with an additional $33k, and figure out something about financing our current home on top of it all. We, you know, just having bought coffee from Starbucks, don't have 33K laying around.

And if we can't buy the new place they can sue us for breech of contract, and we in turn can do the same to our buyer, etc etc... but no matter what we were stuck in the middle and kind of hooped.

So we prayed. I said right away I had faith the Lord would take care of us. I also suggest people pray for the woman buying our place - who is going through a nasty divorce, has two children, and really, would have been in a much tougher spot than us had this not gone through.

Our 1st answer to our prayers came when my folks told us that they would make sure it works out - lend us money, buy our place if they need to, etc... the 2nd answer came with our banker calling saying "we'll make it work, fear not". Our 3rd answer came on the way home when I got a call (I pulled over to answer it, don't worry) from our Realtor saying everything was settled and her financing was in place, and it was all good.

So said and done we had a stressful afternoon for nothing, but that people stepped up to the plate for us like they did means so much to us. Thanks again Mom.

And then we came home and Duncan and I made cupcakes and cookies and then Mom and Grandma Mac asked if I could come out for dinner, and we went for Greek, and now it is 10:12 and time to go to bed. The end.

Where there's a Will...

2010-06-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

Well look at us being all responsible! We finally did up a will! You know we've only been married for 10 years and had kids for at least 3 1/2 years. So perhaps it was time we finally got around to it. Not that it's a complicated one - if one spouse goes the other gets it, if both do the kids get it, if we all do, our parent's get it, etc... But after having seen recently how messy things can get when no will is in place, it was the kick in the butt we needed to finally move ahead with it.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the notary and signed all our papers and what not. One step closer! Either Thursday afternoon or 1st thing Friday morning I need to go pick up my cheque from the sale of our place and go deposit it, and then turn around and get a new cheque done up for the purchase of our new home. Said and done we have a little less left than we thought. Still enough to get done what we need to, buy some furniture, a lawn mower, etc... but maybe the lazy boy recliners need to wait a little while longer.

Packing is going well. Okay, Bill has done 99% of the packing - he takes care of it while I run interferrence with the kids. He has been awesome about it though. We won't finish the kid's rooms until Friday morning when they are at daycare b/c every time we try to pack something that is their's (okay, Duncan) he wants to play with it. So we plan to move his stuff to Mom and Dad's during the day and have his bed all set up so it will be a bit easier for him to adjust once we're there.

Other stuff... both kids are sick again. Just a nasty cough. They both slept better last night but were up early this morning. Poor kids. It sucks b/c there is very little you can do for them. Okay, so when did cough and cold rx start being for ages 6 and up? It used to be don't give it to them under the age of 2, but now it seems it's 6?

Ants!! The ants are back in the back yard! Thank goodness not in the house, but after the horrors of last year, we dug up all under the back and put down rocks b/c it's supposed to keep the ants from coming near the house... well they are just coming out on top of the rocks! We put down a bait trap that our exterminator gave us last year, and it did the trick, but we also called the exterminator to come spray b/c I don't think that's a present the new owner really wants. You know, those ants are part of the reason we decided to sell.

Okay everyone, have a great day! Nancy - saw your post on 5 minutes for reading. I still don't have enough time to read :)

5 days until move #1

2010-06-21T06:39:00.000-07:00

Good morning friends. Quick post before getting the kids up. Duncan has a nasty cold and had a hard night last night, so I think I'm going to be extra gentle with him this morning.

5 days until move number 1! Let's see... the place is slowly getting there. And when we came home from Father's Day festivities yesterday the house actually had that starting to get empty feel. It's hard to keep the house functionally neat during this process, but we do still have two small children who need to be able to play, and eat, and sleep etc... The plan is to not finalize their rooms until the morning we actually move. We're actually moving out a day earlier than we need to so we have time to finish cleaning, move odds and ends etc... I don't like that pressure of get out by noon.

We are into the "make meals out of stuff in our freezer and cupboard" mode, but we'll actually be pretty good on that front. Which reminds me, I need to take the steak out to thaw for dinner tonight.

We meet with the notary this afternoon to do all our signing of papers and to, yes, believe it or not, make a will! We've been putting this off for a long, long time, and figured it was time to finally get it done. Not that it would be complicated - pretty much when one of us goes, the other person gets everything, if we both go, the kids get it all, if we all go we don't care. Bwahaha!! No, but really, it needs to be done.

So, Friday morning my brother is delivering his trailer (bless him) that will allow us to store our furniture at his place for the two weeks - thereby removing the need to unload it all at Mom and Dad's and reload it again in two weeks. We could still use some extra hands if someone is available to help move stuff or clean. Ronnie and Theresa are both helping me clean. It shouldn't be too big of a job, but you know, wipe down walls, good vacuum, etc... Our realtor actually told us to not have the carpets cleaned and don't go crazy with the cleaning b/c what might be clean for us is not clean for someone else. Likewise, plan on a cleaning job when we move in.

And that's it! Time to go get the wee ones up. Have a gloriously wonderful Monday.

Celebrate

2010-06-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Further to Tanya's post, she encouraged us to join in:

The smell of fresh baked bread that's filling the house right now
8 days until we move! (for the 1st time!)
It's Duncan's last day of school (we're celebrating because he had a wonderful year)
Although she'll be walking soon, Cordie actually crawls now instead of army crawling
I've been getting to read books lately - it's wonderful!
friends who take time off work to help us clean and move
Father's! It's Father's Day this weekend and I have a wonderful one, my kids have a wonderful one, and my husband has a wonderful one. We're blessed!
Mild weather. I know people are whining b/c it's not hot and sunny, but this is perfect in my opinion

Join in! Link back!

New House stuff

2010-06-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

I figured this should be a separate post.

Less than a month until we're in our new house. I wish it was sooner. We're just ready to be in there. We love to chat about what needs to be done, what we're going to buy. I think we'll get a cordless electric mower. The yard is big enough, but not huge, and in efforts to be more environmentally friendly and all.

What we need to do: Okay I say we, but Bill will be doing most of this with my Dad acting as foreman *grin*. I have the Monday and Tuesday after we move into the new house off. Bill might also. So we're hoping we can get most of what needs to be done, done then. That includes having service people in - furnace services, chimney swept, insulation piped in, gutters fixed, flashing around the chimney fixed. We plan on making the downstairs laundry room into a functional bathroom, so we need to get a toilet and a small vanity for in there. We need to move the door from my woman cave (men get Man Caves, so I think a better name than "my sewing room" is warranted - can you think of a better name?). Anyhow, we need to move the access to that room from what will be the bathroom to the hallway. That's probably our biggest job.

We need to replace the wax rings around the existing toilets. We need to replace the door from the garage to the basement with a proper rated steal door. The deck needs to be repaired. It's not broken - actually all of this stuff is more preventative than needs to be fixed. It's "an ounce of prevention" type stuff.

Okay... so you know I started writing this around 8:30 this morning, but Duncan wanted to play. And how do you say no to a little boy who wants to build train tracks with you? Well, you don't. It's almost 10:30 PM now, so I'll just send this off and blather on about our new house later. Good night!

Sunday Morning

2010-06-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!

Yeah it's your long lost Carole who has not been blogging at all any more. Darn work for getting in the way of my blog writing and reading! I am constantly hitting "Mark All as Read" in Google Reader and I've been unsubscribing to a bunch of blogs I used to follow as I just don't have the time any more. Don't worry dear friends, I do still make sure I keep up on my friend's blogs. I can't access Reader at work. It's not blocked, but our net connection at work is so slow. It's dial up slow. That's right - DIAL UP SLOW! I honestly think that having a slow internet connection is our company's best defense against people wasting time online during the work day. It's too frustrating. Thank goodness for my iPhone *grin*.

So I'm behind on my reading of blogs. I've also been enjoying doing this ancient activity known as "reading a book". I've been back into book reading again. Just finished another one last night and it's so nice. I am enjoying spending time in the evening with my book on the couch and just reading. I'm glad I have a husband who is also a reader and understands when I say "I don't want to watch tv tonight, I just want to read". He get's that. I'm still reading books from British Author Carole Matthews. Really enjoying all the books I can get my hands on (through the library).

We're less than 2 weeks to moving date. We've done a lot, but still lots to do. We're now into "eat everything we can in our freezer and cupboard" stage. Although we're not moving far but since we'll be at Mom and Dad's for two weeks the less we need to bring there the better. When we move to the new place there is going to be a major shopping trip involved. We haven't been replacing stuff we're running out of like condiments etc... So by the time we move we'll be living off of bread, milk and peanut butter. *grin*.

Bill has had some kind of flu again this week. It's been brutal for him. He missed all but one day of work this past week and frankly I'm not sure he'll be ready for work tomorrow. He's been doing what he can to pack some boxes and stuff but his energy is so low he pretty much can do a little and then has to rest. And sleep. I'm glad Cordy-ella has been sleeping through the night consistently, so I'm actually not too bad for getting up with the kids. Yes Tanya, there is hope for kids sleeping through the night!!

Duncan. What can I say, this kid is awesome. Yeah he's still very 3 - throw the ocassional fit, but less and less all the time. Potty training is going well - at least at daycare. He's still resistent a lot of the time to wear underwear at home and sit on the potty. And I still refuse to push him. He got a hair cut on Friday and looks like such a little man. At this age you think about how much they can change in even 2 months and it's amazing. Verbally, singing, learning. Yesterday he figured out how to blow bubbles. It sounds like a silly thing but he's been trying to learn for a long time now. The look on his face when he got it was awesome.

Cordelia. She is a gorgeous, clever, funny girl. She is totally figureing stuff out. She's cruising around furniture now so it won't be long to walking. She really just sits down and figures stuff out. She is a total go getter. She is an awesome eater. Really, usually she eats more at meals than Duncan does. I'm still nursing her, which I love it's going this long, but will need to wean by August before we go to Vegas.

Work. I'm glad I live close to work now. I'm glad for the pay cheque that comes with it. 'Nuff said.

Looking forward to the new house!!

The other side of the weekend

2010-05-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

Since I posted on what the weekend was supposed to hold, I thought I would post on what the weekend did hold... which was pretty much what we had planned :)

Saturday was pretty much spent doing Saturday things -cleaning, shopping etc... The Bell's came over as it was much easier for us with the kids. You know, when Duncan was little we'd just set up the playpen whereever and we were good to go. Now, Cordie just doesn't sleep well when we're out. I have no doubt this is because we have not gone out with her as a little baby near as much as we did when Duncan was that little. Oddly, the reason we haven't is b/c Duncan needs the routine of a normal bed time more - well he did in the 1st year of Cordie's life. Now we don't really care if he runs around to whatever hour once in a while, but Cordie is in her routine now, and it can't be messed with. I really wonder how it is going to go once we're living at my parent's place.

We had a great visit with Chris and Rhonda and the kids. You know we used to be at their house at least 2x a week, if not more - and then kids came along. LOL!! Not that I regret having kids, but it is funny how it changes things. And frankly, as Chris works 5 evenings a week we wouldn't be there that often anyhow, so we treasure getting together with them more. We made home made pizza - okay, Bill did, and hung out. Rhonda and I went to bed together... it had been a few years and I felt I owed her. *grin* Okay... so the story there, the 1st time I ever met Rhonda was just after Christmas and they had just gotten a new feather bed topper, and she asked me to come check it out. So within moments of meeting her we were both flopped out on her bed saying "oh" and "ah". In many respects it was how I knew we were instant friends. The other was that I had a nasty cold and went through an entire box of kleenex, and they still asked us back.

So last night Alex said she was ready to take a nap (around 9 or so) and so I said sure go lay down on the bed. Well Rhonda comes downstairs "your bed is so amazing" and since everyone else was occupied (Alex didn't stay in bed) we went up there and hung out on the bed and chatted about exciting things like Alexandra's 7th birthday party. But we had a lot of fun making jokes about how long it had been since we'd been to bed together (at Laura's house quite a few years back actually).

Enough about that. Today we went for a nice long walk with the kids. My 1st good long walk with Cordie in our back carrier for her, and she fell asleep, so it must have been comfortable!! Duncan had, a few days ago, wanted a turkey dinner, but turkeys were too expensive, so I bought a cook from frozen chicken and it turned out now, so we had a chicken dinner instead. It was a great weekend.

And now I can't stop yawning, so time to head up. Have a good week friends!!

Weekending

2010-05-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! It's 4:30 and I'm having a coffee, my little girl having me up every night caught up to me today. I was hoping b/c I didn't need to get up for the alarm today she would let me sleep in, but it was false hope. I told Bill tomorrow he can get up with her. I'm pooped!

But we both had the day off (Bill flex day, I took a vacation day) so we could go into the bank and sign off on our mortgage, set up an RESP for Cordie, and re-set up our RRSPs. So we're all done there. After we had some fun and went to the La-Z-Boy store. We are certainly planning on buying 2 recliners when we move - it's our new house gift to ourselves, so we were trying them out. I think we've narrowed it down to the Maverick and the Joshua. If we decide on something from Lazyboy though we might order it through our local furniture store as they are actually pretty good for price matching or getting it cheaper. We will also be getting a sofa of some sort.

We went and saw Prince of Persia this afternoon. It was fun. Nothing spectacular, but enough of a plot to make it worth while, and it's crazy b/c this is the 2nd movie this week we've been to!

Then home, made some phone calls about house stuff, and then time to grab the kids. Cordie is standing on the outside of her exersaucer right now - she is really close to cruising - she wants to walk - watch out world! This morning for the 1st time Duncan got out of bed and came downstairs without someone having to go get him. So I guess we need to lock the gate at night now b/c I don't want him wandering down during the night.

Torrow is Sportball and in the afternoon I think we're going to the Bell's to visit. If the weather is nice Sunday we'll go for a hike or something.

And that's what's going on!

Today...

2010-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

How you can tell I'm back at work. I have no time to blog (or read blogs!)

Today…
Outside my window: Some sun. some rain. Clouds. I hope it's cooler tonight.
I am hearing: Bill playing the latest Prince of Persia game. It is 9:43 and I was going to go to bed early tonight. So much for that.
I am thinking: I should really go to bed.
I am hoping: That the people we are buying from still surprise us and we can move on the 26th of June. That Cordie once again starts sleeping through the night. That my 5-year plan works out.
I am wondering: not a whole lot.
I am reading: A Minor Indescretion by Carole Matthews. A week ago I'd never heard of this British Author, and I read another one of hers called With or Without You - good British romance with some good humour thrown in. And practical results. I loved it! So I'm reading this one too. I got them from a coworker. Bless her.

I am wearing:my pj pants, a black t-shirt and some purple socks. Yep, I'm a sight to see!
In the kitchen: tonight was tostadas (like toasted tacos - pretty good!). Also this week - pork chops, several chicken meals (which reminds me, I need to buy chicken), steak kabobs

This Week: it's Tanya's birthday! Happy Birthday my darling! Love you lots! Otherwise, work, work... um Friday I have off so we can go to the bank and sign this and that and the next thing - mortgage, rrsp, resp, etc... I am thinking of seeing if I can set up a playdate with one of Duncan's friends from school.
A few of my favourite things: Duncan finally getting being potty trained. We've yet to get it mastered, but he is doing awesome with the 1st part of if. I knew we only had to wait until he was ready! I think night times will be a while away b/c as much as I love it, this kid does not get out of bed. Playing with Cordie. We play "here you go" - she hands me something, I say thank you, then I give it back, she grins, gives me a big hug, and then hands it to me again. We can do this for a long time, and I don't mind one bit. My husband. Hey, he's not a thing, but he's a favourite!!
A picture thought:

Weekend catch up

2010-05-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Good morning friends!

Lots going on around here. It's a beautiful weekend. Today is Cordelia's 1st birthday. She is an amazing beautiful little girl and it's been an awesome year. She is pulling herself to standing, so I don't think we're too far off cruising and then walking. She never really did crawl. She could, she just does the army crawl instead. She is an awesome eater. She seemed to enjoy the cake we gave her.

Oh, we had her party yesterday. It was a super nice little get together. We parked our car somewhere else and used the carport. We brought the BBQ up front and hung out around there. It was Mom and Dad (Oma and Opa), Theresa, our neighbours Phil and Karen and their daughters Lily and Ava. And Jesse and Laura and Gabe came up from Seattle. It was perfect. Rhonda was going to come with the kids but very sadly she had to put her 19 year old cat Hemmingway down yesterday. She said she thought she'd be fine, I'm not surprised she was upset. I was a wreck with Wraith died and he was only 7!

On the housing front - inspection went great! No surprises. A few recommendations for upkeep, or warnings like "you'll need to replace the furnace soon" (which we knew). We'll have some cash at our disposal after all the dust settles so we'll get some of the bigger things taken care of. There will also be the matter of new furniture for the living room, shelving and redoing carpets in my sewing room, painting - little things. I want to put a toilet in the laundry room (it's roughed in to be a bathroom), so we have a toilet downstairs for the kids. We're still trying to figure out the bedroom situation. Upstairs the two of the kids rooms - the one that is perfectly decorated for a little girl is quite a bit bigger than the smaller one which is boy colours. I think we should leave them as they are b/c Duncan will have all his toys in the rec room anyhow, whereas Bill thinks we should switch them b/c Cordie doesn't need as much room right now and then Duncan can have his train table in his room. Both make sense. I think laziness will win initially - not wanting to do a whole lot when we move in, and later Duncan can take a bedroom downstairs if he would like. I can always switch my sewing room to the smaller room upstairs.

It's all exciting though. We have signed off on the subjects, however do need final verbal confirmation that the house is insurable. Then we need to get the deposit cheques and we're done!! Please pray that these people find a place to move June 26th. We can live with Mom and Dad, but it means moving everything twice.

Now, on a very sad note, we found out this morning that the father of our friend's son (our good friend Theresa, her son Ryan's Dad) was killed in a motorcycle accident yesterday. Everyone is still in shock. Ryan is a mess (he's 16). Theresa is sad on so many levels - not only for Ryan, but Rick was her friend. It's going to be a long road for Ryan. Although she said she wasn't hungry we had Theresa over for "coffee" but got her to eat some yoghurt and pancakes anyhow. I told her she'd need the energy, and the last thing she needs is that feeling sick b/c she hasn't had anything to eat feeling. Please pray for Ryan. To be 16 and lose your Dad. Well really at any age, but they were close.

Have a good week friends.

Thursday morning

2010-05-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Good morning friends!

Uhg it has been so busy lately I have not had time to blog, or read blogs, or anything! I am reading your blogs, but with my return to work (really, you can only spend so much time misusing time at work to read blogs), and house hunting, and offer etc... well it's been crazy.

But hopefully for the last time, we have a house. If all goes well we may even have subjects removed by tomorrow. Financing should bet set up today, Andy is doing title search, inspection is tomorrow, and we're getting insurance in line. I'm taking a 1/2 vacation day tomorrow afternoon to be there for the end of the inspection and hear the report, but we don't expect any surprises.

Once it is all said and done I'll tell you more about the place, but we're very happy with it, it's only 3 blocks from where we live now, so we're staying in our current neighbourhood, and for commuting purposes, on a better side of town. Now let's just hope that if Pete and Nikki sell that they buy on this side too! I know they want to stick local too.

Cordie's birthday party is this Saturday. Her actual birthday is on Sunday.

And speaking of my little sweetness, time to get her up.

Sunday Afternoon

2010-05-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

It is a glorious day! Happy Mother's Day! I hope you're being treated well and enjoying your day.

I found it quite funny as I was running errands yesterday how a lot of signs said "Say I love you with..." Say I love you with roses. Say I love you wish a gift basket (from the liquor store ha ha ha!). How about we say I love you with our mouths and actions?

I've been having a really nice day. Bill tried to let me sleep in. He got up early with Duncan - how was awake early for some reason today. And I got up with Cordie around 7:30. She is teething and is quite irked at me this weekend for the whole day care thing. And so when she is awake it's all about Mommy. I don't mind this, but some times I need to put her down or pass her to Bill, and even this she doesn't like. She is going to be super POed at me tomorrow morning when I drop her off at Nikki's.

Bill made me breakfast (french toast and bacon). Cordie took a wee nap while I showered, and then went for a walk down by the river. It was really neat! We hadn't been on that trail before. Duncan did fall into the mud, and so when we got back to the car had to strip him down, but we weren't too far from home, so that wasn't a big deal. We hung around outside talking to our neighbour while Duncan and Lily played. I made some Sunshine Lemon Bars and the rest of the family is napping right now. We'll be off to Mom and Dad's once everyone is awake.

Housing Update. Okay, I edited this part out b/c there has been a development. Bah. I need to stop blogging about places we like.

Surviving my return to work

2010-05-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Actually, it wasn't that bad today. I wasn't sad, I wasn't nervous, it just felt like I'd never left. Well except it's a new office, I don't know 1/2 the people, and almost 1/2 the proceedures have changed. But otherwise, it's the same old, same old.

I did get the low down on what I'll be doing. For quite some time they've been saying they didn't know where I would be going. I always said this was nonsense (okay, I used a stronger word than nonsense, but we'll keep it clean). And today I got called into a meeting with the head guy, and they asked me to do a 3-4 month stint in a roll I haven't done in 8 years.

I actually don't mind - I always enjoyed that job, but I pointed out that it had been 8 years, and every thing about that job had changed in that time. So while I appreciate their confidence in me, I'm not sure they'll be getting the output they perhaps were hoping for. The roll is called a DBA. I explained I'm also an expensive DBA because I still get paid at case manager levels. I just hope they don't have some silly idea of my going back to that permanently.

Duncan's school is having a Mother's Day tea on Thursday morning. So I took a 1/2 day off, and I am going to surprise Duncan at school. I was going to keep Cordie home for part of the day, but I think while we're gettting into the swing of it all, it would be better to maintain routine for a bit longer yet.

No word on the house yet. They accepted our counter offer, but the other people are still trying to remove subjects and have until tomorrow night to do it. They went ahead and got an inspection in case financing comes through - their final subject. Having had an inspection - not good news. But maybe if they haven't had financing yet, they won't tomorrow either. And if they don't, it's our turn. Let's keep hoping and praying!

In other news. Duncan went pee on the potty FIVE times today!! He'd been sitting on it here and there, but this is by far the biggest jump forward for us. Nikki said she'd straighten him out. Gee Nikki, on day one - good job! I told you she rocks. Okay, we're still a ways off from fully trained, but that's an awesome start. Cordie also did good today. She seems to be adjusting to the new swing of things just fine.

Datebook May 2, 2010

2010-05-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

Today... is my last day off work! I'm surprisingly okay with it right now though. Now it feels like just another Sunday where I need to go to work tomorrow.

Outside - well it's dark right now, but pouring rain and windy. It was okay this afternoon. Yesterday was quite nice. I have no idea what the long range forecast is like.

I am thinking - I should probably find out what the long range forecast is like so I can send the kids in proper clothes *grin*. I am also thinking I should call my folks and make sure they got home alright as I don't know what the water was like for the water taxi.

I am hoping - we get that house!! Won't find out for a few days yet, but until then, we wait. I am also hoping Cordie does alright right full time daycare. She is in good hands, but she is certainly out of sorts since starting to go to Nikki's. I am also hoping that my body adjusts for nursing needs pretty quick because if not, I might be quite uncomfortable by 3 PM tomorrow :)

In the kitchen - tonight I made ribs for the 1st time ever. Super simple, and yummy! Will certainly be doing that again. Monday is slow cooker rotisserie chicken. Also on tap this week are steaks, something with ground beef... and something else I can't think of.

The weekend - Actually was a pretty good not over stuffed weekend. We went to Chris and Ronnie's on Saturday night as they invited me over for a "we're sorry you need to return to work" dinner. We brought the playpen and thought to have Cordie go down and just let Duncan run around until he fell asleep somewhere, but Cordie just wouldn't settle. I think it's because there is so much going on. Anyhow, so we were gone by about 8:30 or so. A far cry from the many nights we used to be there until the wee hours of the morning... oh the pre-children days :) But that's okay, we'll get there again.

Today we went out to Golden Ears Park and went for a walk on this little trail. Duncan wanted to go to the mountain. This trail ended up bring super short, so we drove a bit further down and wandered by the lake for a bit while Duncan and Bill threw rocks in the water. It was wonderful. It was nice to get out and do something different for us - and we'll be doing it again. But then it started to rain quite hard and it was time to go.

Oh, so I complained on facebook the other day about McDonalds screwing up our order. I complained to their head office, and they called back saying we're sorry etc etc... and what can we do. I said I'd really like my money back, and she said sure, please come on it. Well it was lunch time on the way back from the park so I said let's pop in, I'll get my money back, and get some food. I got my money back, but then I ordered food and the manager also gave me 50% off our order, and she packed the whole thing herself to make double sure the whole thing was correct. I was actually pleased and impressed with how she handled it, and I appreciate it.

We came home, lunched, got kids down for naps. Bill and I sorted through our closets to get rid of clothes. Bill has lost 30+ lbs since January, and so there was a bunch of stuff that fit him now - it was like going shopping! After that Duncan and I baked chocolate chips cookies which only turned out okay because I had to bake them with the ribs in the oven at a lower heat... they are okay, but not my best. We supped, bathed the kids, and now we're vegging before heading to bed.

This week - well, return to work tomorrow. We're hoping to hear on the house Tuesday or Wednesday. If we don't get it...well either we keep looking or take one of the ones we've seen. But we don't like anything near as much! We'll see. It's in God's hands.

I'm reading - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - kind of slow. It's cute, but I'm ready to be done.

Picture thought:
The one I want is on my phone and I'm too lazy to go get it.

Saturday afternoon

2010-05-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone want a 3-year old? :) Oh it's crazy. Yesterday he was the most agreeable little boy on the face of the planet. Today we had a 15 minute melt down because he didn't want to get dresses. They didn't go to sportball because it was not worth dragging him out there when it would just be him sitting on the bench not wanting to play. *sigh*. But he's down for a nap now, and then we're going to Chris and Rhondas, so hopefully he'll be a bit better for us.

Chris and Rhonda invited us over for a "We're sorry you have to go back to work" supper. LOL! That's so awesome. Looking forward to seeing them. This time we're remembering the playpen so we don't need to leave by 7 PM due to an overtired girl with no place to sleep. Duncan I'm not so worried about. He can either keep going or do what I used to do as a little kid when were out - fall asleep under the table :)

Yesterday the kids were at daycare - Cordie has done pretty good transitioning in to that. And Bill had a flex day, so we had a day alone together! So what did we do?! We ran errands!! *grin* Actually, we met Andy to look at a few more houses. It just confirmed our decision on the one on 228th. More on that in a minute. We then went out for lunch together, ran to Zellers (Cordie needed a jacket), Payless (BOGO - so got 2 pairs of runners for Duncan - one for now, one next size up for later... both for $21 total - not too shabby!), and then to Hopcott Meats for our week of meat needs.

So yes, we looked at 3 places, including one we'd previously liked as our back up in case 228th fell through. Well, upon 2nd showing - it's still good, but we do realize it would need some work. Two other places - one was awesome location, but higher in price and would need work, and then one was really neat - different layout and good shape over all, but the rooms weren't enough for our needs. So we had put in an offer on the one we love, they countered, we countered... and we were supposed to hear today if it was accepted.

Except it turns out that the other offer on the place was never officially collapsed, and those people are still trying to get financing for this house. So after all that we still might not get it. That would be a shame. We want it!! But subjects are set to be removed on Tuesday for that deal, so we just need to wait. Sounds like that other realtor is a bit of a piece of work and has left town for the week, didn't leave his work with anyone, and can only be reached by email...

We're not fretting over it - we're just annoyed because we want to move ahead with it all. We're ready to be done with this process and get subjects removed and look forward to moving in.

And that's where we're at. Duncan is just waking up from a nap and I can hear him whining... so doesn't sound like that did him a world of good. Great. I keep hearing Jo Frost's voice in my head "be the adult, be the parent"...

What's going on

2010-04-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! It's supposed to be Wordless Wednesday...but we'll go with Word Wednesday.

I won some stuff! It's always fun to win something. I won some body wash from Simply Stacie, and I won a t-shirt from Billy.com.

Cordie is doing good at Nikki's for daycare. Today is her 2nd full day this week. Monday she didn't sleep at all, but I spoke with Nikki on the phone and she said she napped both in the AM and PM and Duncan did too. Duncan is on this verge of not napping - it's about 50/50 now, and that's tough!! He's also still not potty trained - but I don't think we're too far off. I'm still not fretting over it. No point. Can't make him do it. And I'm not going to punish him for it. But I do encourage him a lot :)

Monday Bill and I went down to the States to do some shopping for back to work. So I got some clothes there. I'm not a good shopper. Bill was sweet to come along with me though.

Housing update (you didn't think I wouldn't mention this now did you?). We are officially sold. Subjects were removed on Monday, but they had only received verbal confirmation on the financing, but on Tuesday the hard copy came through. So that sweet little SOLD sticker is on our sign.

But then back to the finding a new house. We still have our eyes on the one we loved. We went back yesterday afternoon with 1/2 my family in tow - my parents, my brother Jeff, and the kids to poke around again. They do have an accepted offer, but it sounds like it might collapse, so we're writing a back up offer today. We will also be looking at a few more places in case we need to keep looking because the other one we like sold in two days.

I'll let you know!

I was going to clean out my closet today. I got a bunch of boxes from the liquor store this morning after I went to Aquafit (awesome work out - she was like the Jillian Michaels of aquafit "FASTER! FASTER!" and she'd point at people "HARDER!" lol... it was awesome). Anyhow, it's going to look like we drink a whole lot, but quite honestly those boxes are great - good size, sturdy... let people think what they will :)

Housing update

2010-04-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

Because, you know, what else would I blog about?

We got a call from our realtor today about our buyer's financial conundrum and it sounds like everything has come together. They want to come through Monday evening and she wants to show her kids the place, but then they are going to sign off on all subjects. They aren't doign an inspection. We honestly don't think it would have shown anything anyhow - it's sound. But I hope nothing pops up right after!!

On our search, we looked at 4 more places on Friday afternoon. Bless Opa for watching Duncan. They have been having a bunch of fun together lately - I love it.

The 1st place we were quite hopeful about. On a busy road, but excellent location. New roof, furnace, hot water tank etc... right near the school Duncan will be going to in September, near our church, on the way too and from Bill's commute right now. We went in - not bad lay out. Has a rec room right off the kitchen. We couldn't see the basement b/c it has renters (we would have been able to if we were serious about wanting it, and arranged a 2nd viewing). So we went from there thinking it was a really good start.

Then we saw the 2nd place. We LOVE THIS HOUSE. It's on the top end of our budget but is on a quiet street, is only 8 years old, has all the rooms we want... it's great. That link is to pictures we took. See, over night, the listing disappeared from the MLS listing. *sigh* Wouldn't it just figure if it wasn't available anymore? The day after we want it? Well Andy is looking into it and will let us know what he finds out.

The 3rd one we also loved. Once again, a busy street, but although an older house, really well taken care of and an amazing yard. So at this point we'd already ruled out the 1st one, wanted the 2nd one, and this was our back up.

The 4th one was ruled out immediately. Just blah. Bad lay out. Needed a lot of work. It just was not good.

But then today there was an open house for a new listing, so Theresa, bless her, watched the kids for half an hour while we went and checked it out, and we really like this place too. All the rooms we want, nice quiet street, newer roof, flooring, etc... So this one is now our back up to the one we really love.

But it sounds like we're narrowing it down. And once subjects have been removed on our place we'll be able to go full steam ahead with good confidence.

Duncan would like to go make a bowl of fruit salad with play doh so I need to good.

Hmmm....

2010-04-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to have the inspection of our place today, but got an email around 3 PM saying that there was a problem with the financing part of the buyer's subject.

We heard later that this individual was preapproved for a mortgage, but when she actually went to take of financing that they denied her. However, she is now going through another mortgage broker who doesn't think it is going to be a problem.

So we've extended the subject removal date to Monday (was supposed to be tomorrow).

I am not going to panic! Okay, I wasn't going to anyhow, but worrying over it won't do any good. I just really hope it doesn't fall through (well duh, of course I hope that) because we now have 4 people for sale in our complex. Kind of losing our edge there.

House Hunting: We went out yesterday aftenroon. Took the kids with us, who were actually really good. The 1st place was promisng at first (you know, aside from the reek of cigarette and pot smoke that was throughout the house). Really neat sunroom (which would have been great for a play area for the kids), and really neat kitchen. But the bedrooms were too tiny, and no option to add one for us downstairs. Honestly, we would have had to pull out almost everything in the way of flooring and then paint with Kilz, and then repaint the whole place to possibly get rid of the smell.

The 2nd one was also promising at 1st - older house with a lot of neat character. But there were only 2 bedrooms upstairs and no option to feasibly add a master downstairs that didn't require running through halls, upstairs, and down more halls if we needed to reach the kids. So that one was out.

The 3rd one wasn't bad at all. It didn't wow us, but it also didn't have any major drawbacks, other than the fact that it didn't wow us. But good size, good yard - not too big, but big enough. Nice big deck, good bedrooms, etc... good location. So we can lean back on that one if need be, but we'll keep looking for now. Our realtor wants us to be thrilled with what we get, not just "yeah it will do". So we'll see.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

Pictures taken by our good friend Theresa on Sunday afternoon.

Datebook: April 19, 2010

2010-04-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

Today:

Outside my window: it was gorgeous today! Mid 20s (which is somewhere in the 70s, low 80s for my US friends). Right now it's dark, but it's still nice out.

Today - I went to Aquafit for the 1st time in forever! It was Cordie's 1st 1/2 day at daycare (as part of our easing her in program). She did awesome. I went to Aquafit. I got to sit in the hot tub. I never get to b/c I'm always with kids who can't go in (did you know that's b/c children don't sweat and therefore can not regular body temperature to help adjust?)

I am hoping: we find a new home soon. We're going house hunting tomorrow afternoon - with the kids. Let's hope that goes well.

I am thinking: I need to clean this place up as our buyers are having the home inspection on Wednesday afternoon and they need to be able to access the hot water tank etc... whereas right now it is behind a pile of boxes.

In the kitchen: Kind of a weird week. We went in saying we'd have pizza, tacos, pasta, chicken parmesean, and something else. And so far we have had the pizza, tacos and pasta. But tomorrow we're out looking at houses in the afternoon, so I have a feeling it will be take out by the time we get home and need to get the children fed. And Wednesday we invited ourselves over for dinner at Mom and Dads.

Plans for the week: well - tomorrow house hunting, Wednesday the kids are 1/2 day at daycare again while I drop the Mazda off for service and walk up to MOPS, back down to Mazda, and back to grab the kids. Then in the afternoon the home inspection is around 4, so we need to be out of here. Duncan has his last swimming lesson, so we're all going to go swimming, and then I asked Mom if we could come over for dinner. So we'll go hang out there until about 7. Thursday, nothing right now. Friday no kids in the AM again, so might go to Aquafit again if it works out.

I am reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's certainly good for a chuckle with the random zombieness of it all amidst women trying to get married. I think I need to speed it up, finish it off, and move on to something else.

Pictures thought:
With the money we received from Grandpa Bob for Christmas, and the gift card to TRU from Uncle Frank, we finally picked up a bike for Duncan and a helmet (Thomas of course).

Housing update

2010-04-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

It feels like I almost only blog about our housing situation lately.

There are other things going on - like my imminent return to work in two weeks, but I'm really not thinking about that at all. *shudder*.

I could blog about my awesome but very "three" three year old. No, he's a good kid. We actually just got tickets to the Day Out With Thomas, which should be just awesome. Theresa may watch Cordie for us that day, but we'll see. It's a bit of a long drive and she got car sick the other day - she's just not used to riding in the car for long.

The kids both start at day care for 3 half days next week (Duncan has been going 2 days every week anyhow, but Cordie is starting new), so we can ease her in. I think as long as her big brother is there she'll be fine. It is going to be so weird to not have her around.

So back to the house thing. Oh, I never even blogged after our Friday of house hunting - well heck, most of you are on facebook anyhow, and get my updates. Well we saw 4 places. Two were totally ruled out right away, and one was an "it will do if it has to" and one we totally loved. Loved it loved it. So we put in an offer. Our realtor called later to just warn us that aparently the seller is a bit "anal" and may be difficult to deal with. So as we were waiting for a response, Bill and I talked it over and said "we don't have a good feeling about this" and decided we probably weren't going to get the place. So when the call came back from Andy with some bad news, we weren't surprised. I guess this guy wants to sell it now, but wants to continue to live in it for two additional months - through August, and has this whole crazy spread sheet of how he is calculating things. And because we were the 1st offer he'd rather wait and see. *shrug* Whatever. I mean even since then places have come up on the market that are certainly worth looking at, so we've moved on. We have time too as we don't need to move until June 26th.

And so it is!! We'll see how it goes and I'll let you know.

Another Housing update

2010-04-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote that the people who are buying our place accepted our counter offer. This is all fine and well but one of the subjects to sale is that they had to sell their place by May 8th. Well I went into the Realtor's office this morning (normally, they come to us, but I was out and about, so I offered to pop in) to accept the offer and Andy (our realtor) advised that the buyers had sold their place - they were just working on a few small details and he would call me later and let me know. He did call a bit later in the morning and told me that they had officially sold, and that subject to our sale had been removed.

This is awesome news! This is all moving so fast, the momentum is exciting. I know it's not all said and done, but there are a lot of people praying for us, and it just seems to be coming together well. The market is like that right now, so not unexpected, but pleasing.

Tomorrow is house hunting. I have a few places I'm looking forward to seeing especially. We're going to check out one that I'm not too interested in, but the seller is "motivated" and we might be able to get a good deal on it. Excellent square footage on that one, but it's what we call a "BC Box". These houses are all designed the same and you can practically walk through them with your eyes closed they are so similar.

I'll let you know what we find!!

House Selling update

2010-04-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, most of you know this already from facebook, or twitter, but we got an offer on our place yesterday. I've only been listed since Friday, so this is nice and quick. Actually they came to see the place around 12:30 and wrote up the offer right at our kitchen table. I was glad I took the time to iron the tablecloth in the morning! :)

They came in with a good initial offer, and we countered, and they accepted! We're just tickled b/c we thought they would counter again. They do need to sell their place 1st, and so it's not a given at this time, but we'll remain optimistic. And so the search is on for us to find a place. I'm not too concerned as there are places out there.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful day! Cordie is napping right now but I think after she is up and has had some lunch we're going to go for a walk before heading into town. I hope she's good while we're out!

Datebook April 13, 2010

2010-04-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's Tuesday, but I have not had a lot of time to blog nor compute lately!

We had 2 viewings on Sunday (and yes, Nancy, ensuite means bathroom attached to master bedroom), one yesterday, and two more today. It's a bit of work keeping it all up, but at the same time, today there is very little I need to do to make the place look good. And it's nice having a clean house all the time. I'm glad I'm off work right now though to dedicate time to keeping it looking good.

On to datebook:
Today:
Outside my window - gray and drizzling. But not cold out.

I am listening to - Halleluia from the Hope for Haiti album, hammering outside as they are replacing the roof of the place behind us, and nothing else - Cordie is napping and Duncan is at school.

I am thinking - I need to go clean the kitchen and tidy before getting Duncan from school. I think we're going to go to Costco after, and have lunch there, and it will hopefully cover the time our place is being looked at today.

I am hoping - our place sells soon (duh!), and that we are really happy with the house we end up buying. I also hope our next door neighbours are home soon. They were due back yesterday, so I hope they are just delayed, and that nothing happened.

Plans for the week - Bill is out tonight, so this afternoon we're going to a friend's place for a playdate while we have the other showing of the day. Tomorrow I'm going into town with my Mom, Helen and Cordie to get my hair cut (town being Vancouver). I think we're going for supper after, but I'm not quite sure how that is all going to play out. Friday Bill has a flex day so Opa (my Dad) has said Duncan can come hang out with him for the morning while we go look at a few more places.

I am grateful for - well, many things. But specifically that our taxes are done, we do get a refund, and it should be just right for closing costs (lawyers fees, inspection etc...)

My favourite things - Duncan singing (his favourite right now is "Slippery Fish"), watching him play with his trains and totally use his imagination while doing it. He make stuff up, moves stuff around, and when he totally gets caught up in it he doesn't realize I'm watching him, and it's just fun watching him be himself. Cordie has learned a new sound and it is the funniest thing. She gets into everything. She loves book. She has this one book she keeps pulling out and honestly it's like she is studying it. It's awesome.

In the kitchen - this week is kind of weird b/c we were at the Bell's last night, Bill is out tonight, I'm out tomorrow night. But I think there is chicken in there somewhere, and something with ground beef (I know this b/c I need to go to the meat shop), and something with all natural smokies - which I think we'll do tonight.

Picture thought:

Real Quick House Hunting Update

2010-04-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well it's house hunting/house selling update.

1st, we had two viewings today - one was through our old realtor - awkward! But our realtor assures us it's okay (of course he would LOL!!). Anyhow, they were both looking for a place with an ensuite, and one thought the carpets could be replaced. Well a. I also want an ensuite - hence the reason we're looking for a new house! and b. carpets - yes, but they aren't awful, and we're not beyond giving an allowance for them. Oh well. But we have another viewing tomorrow afternoon, so that's good. Place is still clean from today.

2nd - house hunting - saw 5 places on Saturday. A really good start. There was one house we fell in love with, but the more we think about it the more we think it's not for us. And there was another house we thought was wonderful, but ruled out right away due to space restrictions, but now are thinking perhaps it's worth considering. I hope we can look at some more yet. Well our place needs to sell 1st anyhow.

The kids are totally thrown off by all of this - so 2nd day in a row with Duncan not napping - and he needs to nap or he get down right owly. But we'll get beyond it. It's bed time. Good night!

Ultimate Blog Party

2010-04-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm going to try this. Going on right now through 5 Minutes for Mom is this Ultimate Blog Party which is an attempt to get people to discover new blogs. Goodness knows I already have enough blogs on my Google Reader Subscriptions, but for some reason I keep adding to the list.

So I've added the button (down on the right), and then you can also choose from a list of prizes you'd like to win right here. I'd like to win, well, any of them really, but specifically USC 42, USC 43, and USC 13.

If you're interested in checking out some new blogs, join the party!

Oh, well looking around, and having people stop by here I guess I should introduce myself!

My name is Carole, I'm a 36 year old working Mom, just on the tail end of my year of maternity leave. I return to work as a disability claims adjustor in 3 weeks (boo hoo!). I've been married for 10 years, and have two amazing children (really, who doesn't think that of their kids?) a 3 year old boy who is obsessed with all things Thomas the Train and an almost 1 year old girl who has an attitude and gets into everything and loves to laugh. She's awesome.

My interests are in quilting, reading - almost anything if you put it in front of me and say it's a good book. However moreso historical fiction - like the Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. I've also been known to read my fair share of fantasty fiction and some sci fi. I'm a geek. I stuggle with my weight like many people do.

We're currently in the process of selling our 3 bedroom townhouse in search for a bigger house and to move on up as it were. I've been blogging since um... I have no idea when. I had it in my head at one point that I was going to start a reviews and giveaways blog, but then life promptly got in the way, so that's on the hold for now.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Wordless Wednesday: Easter Sunday Cordelia

2010-04-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

I think we're ready!

2010-04-07T22:04:00.000-07:00

After all that hard work over the weekend, our place was actually in decent enough shape today for our realtor to come in and take pictures to post online. So as soon as we have an MLS number, we're good to go. Our realtor was quite impressed with the decluttering and work we got done on the place, and he quite liked the blue laminate in Duncan's room we put in last year that we received from freecycle.

This coming weekend we're going out and looking at houses for the 1st time. I don't expect to find that one perfect house right away, but we won't know what we like until we start looking.

Cordie was quite unhappy today - teething or something, but we didn't go to MOPS, and that's a good thing because I don't think she would have been too impressed with me if we had gone. So it was actually a nice quiet day at home (when she wasn't screaming at me), and I actually got some fabric cut out for quilting!! Crazy.

Weekending

2010-04-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

As I sit here Strider is cold-nosing me. He's a sweet cat and awesome with the kids, but it drives me nuts when he rubs his cold wet nose against me. LOL! Oh, my poor cat.

Anyhow, it's Sunday night. We got some good stuff done this weekend, and we're making really good progress, but it's hard to sit down knowing there is still so much to do, but at the same time we're both exhausted.

We did get the master bedroom painted. It looks really good. Just an off white - nice and clean. The kids went to Mom and Dad's yesterday morning (thanks again!) and we 1st ran to Value Village - I picked up some curtains for Cordie's room, and then a few pictures to hang in the bathrooms. It was funny, the cashier asked if it was a famous artist we were buying the picture of and I laughed and said "no, we're staging our home and needed a cheap picture..." They do look good though and will fit real well. I got most of the touch ups for all the other paint done - I say most because as I look around I realize I missed a few spots. But oh well. Bill also redid the trim on various doors, and it looks nice and clean. Bill also got the entertainment centre cleaned up, and I did a good job on the kitchen.

We're almost to the point where they can at least come in and take pictures to post online- although our actual listing goes live tomorrow. Tomorrow Bill will be pressure washing, and I'll be gardening. If the weather is bad we're probably just going to buy some lava rock (Mom's idea - a good one too I think) and use it to cover up one of the front gardens. Everything else we can kind of keep working on as we go.

I'm still totally looking forward to this, but the idea kind of scares me. Also when you get so much conflicting advice from people it's hard to just make a decision based on your own hunches. "No, you shouldn't buy there" or "max out your mortgage, it's a better investment", or "go with a variable not fixed"... Now - we'll buy whereever we find a house we love, if I can help it we are not going to max out our mortgage b/c even if we're approved for a higher amount, it doesn't mean I want mortgage payments that high, and, said and done, we'll probably either go fixed or blended. But it's just hard.

Easter was really nice. We had fun doing up Duncan's basket. We just got Cordie a little stuffed rabbit, and then some chocolate for ourselves. I was in the nursery for church, and there were only two kids there - including Cordie, so it was nice and relaxing. Home, lunch, got Duncan down for a nap "I don't want to nap!!!! *snore....*" Bill also napped and so I puttered for a bit. Got them up and off to Mom and Dad's where they had planted a bunch of plastic eggs full of goodies. So the grandkids had a fun Easter egg hunt. It was just super relaxing. The kids play super well together, so the adults just vegged - read, chatted, hung out. Dinner was delicious! It was a really good day. Duncan didn't want to leave so we had a bit of a temper tantrum there, which carried on at home, but he settled down. I think he just didn't want the fun to end.

And that's what's going on. You?

Moving on Up

2010-04-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

I once heard that moving is the second most stressful thing a person deals with, second to a death in the family. I'm not quite sure that's true, but the process of getting your home ready to sell is certainly up there.

We're actually making good progress. Bill has a 5 day weekend (Good Friday and Easter Monday being stats, and so his flex day was bumped to Thursday - w00t!) and so we've been able to put some good time into getting stuff done. Yesterday Duncan had preschool, so we got some stuff done then. Today Rhonda took the kids - bless her. And tomorrow my parents are - at least for the morning. Duncan miss his nap today because of it though, and by 6 PM You can tell. So I said to Bill that we need to make sure he doesn't miss it tomorrow.

Today we got the master bedroom painted. What's quite amusing about this is that it is the one room we have never painted since we moved in 9 years ago. We find it quite funny that we're finally doing it now that we hope to sell. And it looks quite nice! And so clean! It's just an off white colour, but it just looks crisp. Tomorrow we need to do other paint touch ups in the kitchen, living room and stairwell. Then it's just finish decluttering - we're doing well there too, and finishing our good spring cleaning. Oh, and the outside, but considering how stormy it is out today (blustery actually), it will probably be Monday before we get to that.

So, some of it is a little crazy, but we're making good progress. We like to chit chat about our next home - things we'd like to see in it. Perhaps all new flooring and paint before we move in (keep in mind we don't have a new home yet). Let's hope that once we are live on the market things go quick.

Datebook March 28 2010

2010-03-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

I usually copy and paste from Word, but am too lazy to do that, so I'll go from Memory

Outside - yesterday was gorgeous! Today pouring rain! Oh well. I have no idea the forecast for the rest of the week

I am thinking - I need to make sure I don't spend too much time relaxing this coming week. I think part of the reason we've never moved before now is that we're lazy. Also, only 5 weeks until I go back to work.

I am hoping - we can pull this house thing off within our time limit.

Weekend - Saturday morning we went for breakfast with my parents at White Spot. It's been months since we did that, and you can tell because Duncan was so well behaved. We just don't eat out a lot, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt once in a while. It could also be that he was extra good because Oma and Opa were there. Anyhow, we went home, cleaned out the shed, vegged for a bit while the kids napped - okay, Duncan didn't nap. And he was tired. And so we were going to go get him his bike, but said he'd have to wait b/c he didn't listen to us. It worked out better that we didn't get one because we had a busy day. Anyhow, off to Mom and Dad's dropped off stuff, helped them with computer problems, had a cup of tea, then we went grocery shopping, and then finally home. Sunday we went to church this morning, and in the afternoon Cordie and I went and looked at some show homes with Rhonda and Alexandra, and then we went over to the Bell's to celebrate Rhonda's 40th birthday today. It was nice to see them again - 2x in 2 weeks!

In the Kitchen: A little unprepared this week, I think pasta tomorrow, we have pork chops and chicken in the freezer, and also fish sticks and fries.

Plans: clean, sort, pack, blah blah... I need to run some errands, Oh, the realtor my brother is asking us to consider using is coming over Tuesday night. Bill is off Thursday and Friday. Oh and Duncan has swimming on Wednesday - he's starting to do better with it now.

I am reading: Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie - it's cute

Picture thought:
I posted this one on facebook, but it's just cute.

Things to do

2010-03-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

We had a good weekend getting a kick start on preparing to put our place on the market. Our goal was to empty out a good number of boxes from our shed and bring them to Mom and Dad's (aka Mom and Dad's House of Storage), so that we have more room in the shed. We want more room in the shed so as we get stuff boxed up we can just put them in there and we should be able to avoid needing to rent storage space like we did the last time.

Our brief stint on the market last time helped us get rid of a lot of stuff, and we made a lot of repairs at that time, so we're in too bad of shape.

So, what needs to be done:
Outside the gardens need to be cleaned up and we need to pressure wash all concrete
Inside: put the majority of kids stuff up in their rooms, pack away most dvds, find a nice table cloth to throw over the train table so that when we're showing it looks like a coffee table (although we're not going to try and totally hide that kids live here, kids do, after all, live here)

Not too much in the kitchen, although we're discussing moving the sideboard or sewing desk. We'll see there. Oh, and Jeff is supposed to come and tile a backsplash for us. I also want to see if I can find some reliable way to string a curtain across the washer/dryer area. So far spring loaded curtain rods have not worked. I already did a good declutter of that bathroom.

Upstairs - go through all closets, pack stuff up, move it around, make more room, etc... we want to paint the master bedroom (painting party next weekend if anyone is free)

And then clean clean clean.

Bill has a 5 day weekend over Easter, so we're really hoping we can get it all done and on the market by next week. We have 90 days to sell, buy, and move. It is 3 months, and not undoable. Let's pray it all comes together!

House Hunting

2010-03-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

You know House Hunters and House Hunters International are two of my favourite shows on HGTV. I think I enjoy them for their simplicity, but we also enjoy guessing which one are they going to pick. I also like seeing some really fancy houses.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up, is that we will soon be House Hunters ourselves.

Following a strata meeting a few weeks ago (which Bill described quite well on his blog here) I came home declaring we were moving. We've been here for 9 years, and when we moved here we figured we'd be here for about 10 years. And actually, we were going to wait until next year. We wrote a list of improvements we were going to be making because we were going to stick around a while long. But following this meeting, I realized I don't have much patience for some of the people around here any more, and that perhaps I'm done with strata living.

Don't get me wrong - this has been a great place to live. We've made friends, it's been an awesome investment, our daycare is 7 doors away (speaking of which, they've listed too). But with frustration, and the HST coming in July 1, 2010, I think it's time to go.

And so begins the process of cleaning, decluttering, repairing, sprucing, etc... We actually don't have too much to do in the grand scheme of things because when we went on the market a year and a half ago we got rid of a lot of stuff, and fixed a bunch of stuff. My brother is going to install a tile backsplash in the kitchen for us, we're going to paint the master bedroom, we need to powerwash outside, but otherwise we're good.

And of course I'm searching online for houses, even though we're not ready to buy yet. I've found this one, which I really like from the looks of it, but of course it probably won't be for sale any more by the time we're ready to look. We have a realtor coming over on Tuesday evening to just meet with us and say hi (someone my brother has worked with, although we'll see if we actually use him or our regular realtor). We also have preapproval from the bank for a mortgage - so we're on our way.

We have 90 days to get this done. Let the games begin!

Quick Catch Up

2010-03-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!
Sorry I've not been blogging. I write blog posts in my head all the time, but lately spending time on the computer has not been a priority, so I haven't :)

So what's going on - and I'll try and expand on a few of these later - but here we go.

Return to Work (or RTW as we call it at work) is in 5.5 weeks. Not too happy about it. But you know, need the money and all.
I've enrolled Duncan in the Pre-K program at Maple Ridge Christian School
At that, I still have not received my cheques back from the other preschool and think I might put a stop payment on them
We're hoping to buy a house soon. But we need to get this place read to list. Our friends in our complex listed on the weekend and have already had two 2nd viewings - so when we're ready it might go quick. I already found the house I want, but I doubt it will still be available when we're ready to buy
My computer seems to be acting up. Hermmmm.... perhaps time to do a back up? :)

And that's it! Going to watch Idol and enjoy some time with my husband!

Swimming lessons

2010-03-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, wait, I don't think you can call it swimming unless you get into the pool. :)

Duncan started swimming lessons today. Up until now it's always been swimming with Mom or Dad in the pool. Well now he's of an age where it's guppies 1 (which I think the goal is to get them to put their face in the water), and it also means no mommy or daddy in the pool. Aferall, the point is for him to learn how to swim on his own eventually.

I knew Duncan might need to do guppies 1 a few times before moving on, but I had to laugh when literally the entire lesson today was trying to get him into the pool. They tried everything (so did I!). A life guard came over to try and coax him in (it's just the kiddie pool), and then the head life guard came over and tried. Nope! There is this little ledge between the kiddie pool and the leisure pool, which is about 6 inches of water, and he had no problem wandering around there - after I took off my socks and shoes and rolled up my jeans and walked through with him. But he would not get in the pool. Until the end when it was time to go down the slide, and then he tried to push past the one other kid in the class to go first. Ah, that's my boy. So "no Duncan, it wasn't your turn" and he had to back up, let the other boy go, and then he went down the slide into the pool just fine.

So perhaps there is hope down the road (of course there is). I spoke with the teacher and the head life guard who both assured me there is always one or two in every class. But I also said I didn't want to be a meddling parent, and what would they prefer I do to help. They suggested we come early and go swimming together 1st. So I will try and do that on Friday (it's 2x a week, which I think will be good).

He is such a funny boy. I knew he would be hesitant, but I also know he's curious b/c they were playing some pretty fun looking games. We'll see!

Preschool update

2010-03-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that since I made the decision I want to do a reviews and giveaways blog I have had no time to even think about it!! I still want to. I'll get there. But right now the kids are priority, especially since it is Spring Break.

So, an update on the whole preschool situation. Thanks to those of you how commented before. I did call the school to pull him for next year and they were surprisingly understanding and said they would get me all my cheques back to me. I'm happy about that. They said they only had 3 kids register new (aside from the 19 total returning). This only puts the school, which has no home, at about 1/3 capacity. What bothers me - among many things - is that, for example, they said they were advertising on Criagslist, but there is no ad on there since I think September of last year.

Now we need to find a new school. It has to be something on this side of town, reasonable price, etc etc... I have a few more I will be calling after Spring Break is over and finding out. I called on one last week but I didn't get a good vibe on them. I still think it's a shame we even need to do this.

On Friday I was talking to the friend of one of our current teachers, and they didn't know at all this was all coming. I feel so bad for them b/c they are great teachers.

Also on Friday afternoon one of the other Mom's was talking to us and asked if we'd rec'd the letter from the school basically indicating that if you had attended the meeting the week before you were agreeing to the extra money each money, and to the parents who didn't attend, that meant majority said everyone had to pay. This is getting a lot of backs up. Attending a meeting doesn't mean you agree to it. So now more people thinking of pulling the kids out, which makes me wonder again if the school will make it to the end of the year. I would like to see Duncan be there through June because he really does love it.

And finally on to the wine raffle. Well I called printshops to see if we could get free tickets and it kind of comes down to they have so much in sponsorship available each year and we didn't fit in that anymore. So I emailed the other people who said they would print up tickets themselves, but since it is spring break I don't think the fellow who said he would do it got the email yet, and we were hoping to have this all out on Monday.

It's just a mess. Thank goodness it's just preschool though!!

Preschool drama

2010-03-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

First let me say we love the preschool Duncan goes to. The teachers are fantastic. He absolutely loves it there. He loves his friends, the teachers, the songs, the playing, and we're really seeing him grow in his independence and abilities. Duncan is the kind of kid preschool was made for. It gets him used to group settings and having to listen etc... This year we did two mornings a week, and next year we registered him for 3 mornings a week. The year after that we're in full day kindergarten - eek! But that's still a ways away.

Back to the preschool - it's parent led. Which means that the teachers work for a parent board and the parents on the board make all the decisions and handle financials etc... This became quite a problem last week when we all received a notice - after we'd already registered for next year - that the school is in financial distress, and they are proposing each student pay $40 extra a month which might get the school through until the end of the year.

There was a meeting on Monday night. Lots of things came out of it - the school district has raised rent by $400/month, student enrollment is down by 18 students, provincial grants didn't come through, the teachers have had hours reduced already, the school phone has been cut to save a bit of money, and that the school has to find a new space for next year b/c with all day K coming in the school we're renting from needs the space back... We asked questions like when did you find out about the rent increase ("we just found out" we were told), what is going to happen next year? ("we need to get through this year 1st") what if we can't pay? ("we need everyone to pay"), etc etc etc...

A lot of things didn't sit right. Gina, a friend, had a good point, we don't understand what it's like to be running that business, so we should cut them a bit of a break, but we're all thinking you can't tell us you didn't know back in September that enrollment was low, you knew several months ago about the rent increase, why didn't you come to us sooner? Oh, and it came up that fund raising has not been too successful, and the fundraising parent in charge had left the board. Gina and I suggested we do a wine raffle to maybe raise a bunch of money (worked well for my Mom's school) and we'd spearhead it. So we were all there for probably an hour and a 1/2 talking and coming up with ideas... but Jen and Nikki had these looks on their faces like "I'm not too sure about all of this".

There is so much going on. The next morning I'm talking to Gina to start coordinating the wine raffle. She mentions she is going to put her son in another school next year b/c if these people can't handle this year and communicating with us, would they really be able to find a new spot, move the school, get the students etc... I thought that was a good point. Then I was picking Duncan up and chatting with the Moms outside and one of them is the fundraiser Mom and she told me the reason she quit is because they knew all of this a long time ago (last year) and made a conscious decision to not tell parents yet. Fundraising would have been effective but they weren't communicating with the parents (which they weren't at all). Anyhow, she left b/c she couldn't handle the way they were making decisions any more. They knew a while ago the school would need to move. They knew a while ago the rent was going up, not "we just found out" like they told us when I'd asked the night before.

Then I was talking to Nikki after and she says "I don't think the school is going to make it to the end of the year" and wondered whether or not to pull her son now. I said I would like Duncan to see out the year if we can - unless the school folds, because he really does love it there. She then told me that one of the board members (and this was just killer) had already decided to enroll her child in another preschool for next year. The board doesn't even have confidence in the school being around!! So we've decided we will look for a new school for next year for the boys. We will try and stick it out for the rest of this year - but apparently parents are already pulling their kids, so we don't think it will be around until the end of the year. I then called Gina and said "do we want to bother with the wine raffle if it isn't even going to make a difference?" she agreed and said she would talk to some people and get the low down. I also talked to Jen (who watched Duncan for us a few years back) and she has already registered her son in another school for next year.

It's just shame!! I just wish they had communicated with us more and more often. Keeping the parents in the dark and telling untruths to kind of protects themselves... I'm sure these women are otherwise good people, I don't want to slander them. I think they just didn't know how to handle the situation. But the long and the short of it is that my kid is being screwed out of this all, and I don't like that.

So now we're out shopping for a new preschool, and I need to get my cheques for next year back. I need to find out who to call about that actually.

Today March 2, 2010

2010-03-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

Yeah I know I'm a little late. Oh well!
Today…

Outside my window: it's getting sunny now. It was spitting earlier. I brought Brayden too and from preschool with us today, and so Mom watched Cordie while I did that (thanks again Mom! (and she cleaned and put my groceries away too! My Mom rocks!)). Anyhow I was going to walk for the pick up portion of it but b/c it was rainy and cool and both Duncan and I have this cough, I decided to drive.

I am hearing: Rachel Ray.

I am thinking: I need to get the kids up. We're going to one of Duncan's friend's house for an afternoon playdate. I'm really glad Sarah (Dylan's Mom) and I get along and that we call each other to get the kids together to play. It's nice.

I am hoping: We can figure out our preschool problem. I'll post about that later. I'm hoping I can blog more. I'm hoping Cordie keeps sleeping through the night as she has the past 2 nights. Bless her!

I am reading: Both a Lion Among Men (bedside) and Unexpected Gifts by Holly Jacobs - that's the Harlequin Romance I won recently, and it's fun. Holly was very sweet to send it to me with a personal note inside and all.

I am creating: Nothing. I need to be! But I'm not.

I am wearing: jeans and green t-shirt

In the kitchen: So I won this subscription to this menu planning site, which is cool b/c it helps me think of new things to make, but at the same time, it makes my grocery list a mile long. So this week we've gone back to basics - burgers, tacos, tonight is a breakfast chicken and fries, also goulash, and shake and bake chicken. Groceries were still expensive but because it was one of those we ran out of everything weeks.

Plans for the week: well last night was preschool meeting. today we're going to Dylan'S house, tomorrow is MOPS, Friday morning Duncan is getting his haircut. It's spring break next week. I'm going to attempt potty training.

A few of my favourite things: Cordie learned how to clap and cheer watching us cheer for the Olympics. It's the cutest thing. Duncan learning how to jump and actually get his feet off the ground.

A picture thought:

Datebook February 22, 2010

2010-02-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

Today…

Outside my window: gorgeous day today. A little cool this morning, but otherwise sunny and beautiful. I think it is supposed to rain the rest of the week though.

I am hearing: Olympics - waiting for the medal ceremony for ice dance.

I am thinking: honestly - I am thinking "okay, we'll watch the medal ceremony, then finish watching that episode of True Blood we were watching last night, finish my wine, go to bed, and hope Cordie sleeps well tonight..." Nothing too exciting going on upstairs in that head of mine!

I am hoping: we win more medals. Ha ha ha... that Cordie really, really feels better soon and starts sleeping through the night before I return to work.

I am reading: A Lion Among Men. Enjoying it too. Have you picked up the Wicked Years series?

I am creating: I finished one of my block of the month blocks, so I need to get to my February one for Marcie down in Louisiana. I'm making her a Saints themed block (Bill's idea, she loves it!)

I am wearing: purple t-shirt, purple track pants. Slippers that are dead, dead, dead.

In the kitchen: tonight was home made pizza. We're also having a pork chop and mushrooms dish one night, crock pot chicken drum sticks, goulash, and we'll decide more later in the week.

Plans for the week: Well today Cordie was going to have her 2nd half of her flu shots, but I really didn't want her to b/c she has a cold and is fussy as it is, and the last time she got her flu shot she was feverish and up half the night etc... And so I went to the appointment and it turns out they are out of H1N1 anyhow, and doctor agreed that it's okay to not get the other 1/2 of the regular flu shot as the regular flu is almost non existant this season. He did check her out though - it is just a cold, which I knew, but I just wanted to make sure she didnt' have an ear infection (which she doesn't). So we walked out of there with a relatively happy baby. The rest of the week. Ronnie will be visiting. Tanya and the boys will be visiting. Otherwise... the days will fill up with many of the things I need to be getting done!!

A few of my favourite things: Duncan yelling "Go Canada Go!" to the tv while I was upstairs changing Cordie the other day. Cordie go, go, going. She is a determined little girl who loves to smile and laugh. It's awesome. And she has attitude, and she talks and talks and talks - and she is telling you something, but we don't know what it is yet. She is going to be trouble as she gets older, but that's okay. :)

A picture thought:

Us at the Olympics.

Weekending

2010-02-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

We had just fantastic weekend.

First, I need to say though, Cordie has a nasty cold and so that has made it a bit tougher in some respects. Poor girl is just so full of snot, and hates to have her nose wiped. And she's teething. Poor girl. She was up 1/2 the night last night. Add that I was gone 1/2 the day on Saturday (the longest I've been away from her) and she did not want to let me out of her sight today. She is supposed to go for part 2 of her flu shots (both H1N1 and regular) tomorrow, but I might post pone it again and just ask the doctor to check her over because we're worried maybe she has an ear infection. She's been pulling on them, but that could just be due to teething.

So, back to Friday. As the Olympics are on the local commuter train has added trains (normally 5 in in the morning, and 5 out at night) and so we decided to take advantage of Bill's day off and surprise Duncan with a ride on the train. We bought tickets early (thank goodness, the crowds were crazy) and Duncan thought we were all just there to look at the train. When it pulled up Bill says "Hey Duncan, do you want to ride on the train?" You should have seen his face light up. They hopped on the train and I left with Cordie to drive to a stop about 15-20 minutes away and meet them. As I'm leaving one of the employees says she's be surprised if the train even stops at other stations b/c the train was so full it couldn't take on more people. I thought eek! That would make a bit of an adventure to get the boys back home again, but it all worked out. I picked them up (we met up exactly, I saw the train pulling in as I was driving up), popped over to the mall real quick, and then came back home.

Saturday was our big Olympic adventure. Needless to say, we had an awesome time. The atmosphere in Vancouver was just so great. Sure there were crowds and lines, but everyone was so laid back about it, and it was so well organized to keep people moving. It was wonderful to see Gosia, who gave us the tickets to the game. She said it was for all the years we had her over for Thanksgiving dinner. The game was fun. We didn't have time to pop down to see the cauldron, which is too bad, but as mentioned, it was the longest I'd been away from Cordie, and while I brought my breast pump we decided, not knowing how long it would take us to get back home after the game, to just head on out. As it was we made awesome time getting home. We got some take out Greek, and for my parents too as Mom watched the kids all afternoon and evening.

Speaking of which, the kids were awesome for her. Not too surprising. At least we knew Duncan would be super well behaved - and he was. They watched the hockey game on tv, but we were kind of in a camera dead zone, so they never saw us. I was a little worried for Cordie though. Pumping hadn't been producing anything, and so we went the way of formula. She drank a bit of it. I'm glad we had that options for Mom though b/c I have a feeling if we hadn't she would have been screaming the whole time we were gone.

And then today is my Mom's birthday! We did end up missing church as I was up with Cordie 1/2 the night, and so Bill, bless him, let me sleep in. Anyhow, we went to Mom and Dad's this afternoon for food, and cake, and watch the sucky hockey game *grin*. Everyone except my brother Sean was there too, so nice to see the family. Duncan's cousin Erik, who is almost 10, is just awesome at playing with Duncan, so it's kind of nice to not have to entertain him the whole time.

So it was just a really neat weekend. And one of those weekends where everything comes together the way you hope it will.

Datebook February 16, 2010

2010-02-16T21:06:00.001-08:00

Today… from the home of the little girl who is 9-months old today!

Outside my window: It's dark, but it was quite clear out, I saw the moon, and it's not that cold. It's supposed to get up to 15 C later in the week!

I am hearing: Duncan's music. It seems quite loud tonight.

I am thinking: Not a whole lot.

I am hoping: Cordie sleeps longer than 2 hours at a time tonight. Duncan doesn't fuss going to Nikki's tomorrow.

I am reading: Would you believe I am 14 pages from the end of Echo?! Yes, after all this time it is almost done. I said to Bill my next few books will be shorter and paperback so they are a bit more portable. But you know, I've totally enjoyed it, and because it's like visiting old friends, I don't mind dragging it out a little because I know it will be a while before the next book comes out.

I am creating: Nothing. But I should be! I'm so poor with my time management lately it's crazy. Oh, I am working on my other blog. It doesn't look like much yet, but I'm learning how to make my own banner, button, etc... check out messychicmama.blogspot.com I'll let you know once something real is on there.

I am wearing: pj pants, brown t-shirt. Slippers that are barely hanging on to life.

In the kitchen: Um, tonight was steak, potatoes and green beans and peas. Last night was pasta and a yummy sausage/turkey pasta sauce. So, later this week we've got stuffed pastry chicken, lasagne, goulash, and other stuff I just can't bring to mind. But we do have a menu.

Plans for the week: Well it's Tuesday. Sorry about that. Tonight I had registration for next year's preschool. M, W, F for the boy. He's loving going there so that's a good thing. Tomorrow is MOPS, and seriously I'm considering not going because I'd like to get some stuff done around here, but I kind of feel like I paid for the year, so I should go. Otherwise... our big plans for the week... on Saturday we're going to an Olympic event!! Our awesome friend Gosia said she has 2 tickets for us to join her and her friend (she's in town from TO) and if we pay for snacks she'll pay for our tickets. So I called up my Mom looking for a sitter. "Mom, Gosia has offered us 2 tickets to go see a men's hockey game on Saturday afternooon..." "Yes I'll babysit!!!" LOL, I didn't even need to ask. My Mom rocks. Anyhow, so now the challenge is getting Cordie to drink milk from a bottle. I've been giving her water from a bottle, so she's getting used to that, but I have not been pumping at all and produce almost nothing when I do, so we'll see how that goes. I need to keep at it. We figure we'll be gone for about 8-hours total so if all else fails, formula? She's never had it before, so we'll see. Not a horrible option. Not like I'll quit nursing over it. Anyhow, I'm super excited to do something Olympics.

A few of my favourite things: Duncan singing with all his heart in church Sunday morning even though he didn't know the words or the tunes. And I know God didn't mind that either. It was just awesome.

A picture thought:
From gym time at the Leisure Centre last Friday morning.

The Olympic Torch

2010-02-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Today the kids and I had the honour of seeing the Olympic torch run through our town. Yes, I did say honour. For it or against it, it is likely something that will only happen once in our lives (unless it's not).

I wouldn't be surprised if in 50 years the Olympics aren't even around any more due to costs and controversy, and just the sheer task of pulling them off. Bill thinks there should be two permanent Olympic Islands - one for summer, one for winter, not associated with any specific country. I like that idea too. I'm sure Iceland is up for grabs. Oh, just kidding.

Whether you are pro-Olympics or anti-Olympics, the fact is the 2010 Winter Games start in Vancouver this coming Friday. When I first heard that the Olympics were coming I'd said I wanted to take the time to Volunteer for it. I'm a bit of an Olympic junkie. But as life would have it, I have two amazing little children, and I just couldn't make myself available for volunteering. I have no regrets there. But oddly, as the games are going to affect a lot of people, I think seeing the Torch today was pretty much the extent of the games touching my life some how. I never go to Vancouver anymore. In fact I go weeks at a time now where I don't even leave town here. Something I'm quite content with. I guess 12 years working in downtown Vancouver has kind of done me in for big city life.

In a way it's a bit of a shame I'm not taking advantage of many of the free things available to people during the games. But based on past experience, I can pretty much guess that the horrors of dragging a 3-year old with no knowledge nor care of the Olympics, and a 9-month old baby through traffic, and transit with one hour waits, who need snacks, and naps and everything else, would far out weight an enjoyment such an event would hold.

And as for Bill and I getting a sitter and enjoying an event or concert? Same deal. Bill works in Vancouver and makes that trip every day. It's a personal little hell to make him doing it again when he's not working, and again with the traffic and waiting...not to mention that I'm nursing a little girl who has no interest in a bottle at this time.

And so I'll watch the games on tv like it was somewhere else in the world. I'll laugh quietly at how pretty our city looks - the kind of thing you sure don't appreciate when you're working there every day!!

On a little side note, it was rather humorous this morning when we went to see the torch. See, it was supposed to come into our town around 7 AM. I said forget it with getting the kids up that early and dragging them out to see it. I didn't think it was running by our place, and so I was planning on dropping Duncan off at daycare and then driving to another location quite near our home where the torch would be around 8:45 - a lot more reasonable time.

Bill's Aunt out in Newfoundland pointed me to the live feed that is always on of the torch as it is run through towns (her son is on the crew) and so as we're sitting in the kitchen having breakfast, I pulled the lap top out to watch the torch come through our town. And I'm noticing it's getting closer and closer. I didn't think it was coming this way. I looked for the route online real quick and realized it was going to be 1/2 a block away. So I said "Duncan! Do you want to go see the torch?!" And he said "Yeah!" "Quick get your boots!" "Quick Mom, I need ot get my boots on!" and we scrambled, locked the door, and ran down to the highway. (I felt kind of bad here though. Turned out only 1/2 of the traffic was blocked, and we were on the other side of the street, so I tried to cross the street but Duncan tripped in the middle. Oops! So I apologized to him and we just stood on the far side of the road - I think I looked like a pretty crappy Mom then!). And then a minute later here came the torch. We waved and cheered, and went home. Nice and quick like that. I don't think we were gone 10 minutes. I don't think many people have that luxury.

Datebook February 8, 2010

2010-02-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

You know, I still keep accidentally typing 2009 before catching myself.

Today…

Outside my window: It's a beautiful sunny day! Considering how gray and foggy and rainy it was this morning, I'm rather surprised.

I am hearing: The Bonnie Hunt show. Cordie laughing and talking to her toys.

I am thinking: I did not get done near as much as I wanted today. Oh well.

I am hoping: my parents have a safe flight home from Hawaii tonight.

I am wondering: is it possible to get an iPod dock that we can play music off of one ipod but in two rooms? See we have lullaby music playing in Duncan's room at night. We'd like to do that for Cordie too, but I don't want to listen to 2 different kinds of music at the same time.

I am reading: Still "Echo" but I'm getting closer to done. Ronnie is reading her 3rd book of the year, and she is not a reader at all, so I keep joking that she's read more than I have, and we can't have that!

I am creating: I needing to make, hopefully tonight, my January block for the Block of the Month exchange I'm doing with my online quilters group. I also want to make a block to contribute to a friend who is making a quilt for a sick friend of hers. I finally have what I need to make some bibs for Cordie, so I want to make those too. I need to get to the fabric store and get material to make a quilt for our new nephew Oskar in Sweden. (Isn't that an awesome name? I love it!). And I almost have all the blocks for Cordie's quilt with contributions for my quilters group online, so that will be pretty quick in line too.

I am wearing: A black t-shirt and brown frumpy pants. I'll change back into jeans before I go grab Duncan.

In the kitchen: In no specific order:

tacos
ham and mashed sweet potatoes
chicken and rice casserole
braised chicken and baked broccoli
some other pasta dish

Plans for the week:Welll.... today we saw the Olympic torch (more about that in next post). Groceries. I was going to work on Jeff's stuff while Cordie was napping and then work out, but as it is, my workout was the grocery shopping I did wearing Cordie in the wrap and she decided not to nap. Right now she is rolling herself up in the floor mat. It's so funny. I'll try and post a video later.

Anyhow, tomorrow is field trip to the firestation with Duncan's school. I'm also bringing Brayden, so that will be fun. We'll be popping out to see my folks a bit later in the day. Thursday is the Valentines Day party at Duncan's school and I need to do up a fruit platter for that. I was supposed to be in church nursery next Sunday, but someone asked me to switch, and I did it yesterday, so that's done. Of course there is swimming and Sportball on Saturday.

A few of my favourite things:Cordie rolling herself up in the floor mat. Cordie almost crawling. It's also scary.

A picture thought:
Puddle jumping

Datebook February 1, 2010

2010-02-01T20:31:00.003-08:00

Crazy! February?!

Today…

Outside my window: dark and rainy and mild. Most. Boring. Winter. Ever.

I am hearing: Bill typing. Otherwise silence. Could it be Duncan actually fell asleep?

I am thinking: I need to get my act together.

I am hoping: Duncan stops playing these silly bedtime games.

I am reading: Hahaha... Echo. But I'm going to be ordering Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and a Gregory Maguire book, and something else from Chapters as I have a gift card.

I am creating: A blog? Lots of stuff still in pondering mode. I'm participating in a block of the month exchange with my online quilters group, so I need to get my January block done up and sent off.

I am wearing: pj pants and my black cat pirate t-shirt. Oh, and brown slippers that are falling apart.

In the kitchen: Check out my previous post.

Plans for the week: Well today I was off to see my brother and he sent me home with some stuff to do. I haven't asked for any money for what I'm doing, but I have a feeling it will come back to me in the way of some gorgeous new tile for our kitchen backsplash. Anyhow, so rest of the week, sort that stuff for Jeff, I'd like to lay some groundwork for my blog, keep working out every day. Not massive results on the weight loss, but I already feel better for being more active. MOPS on Wednesday. I believe we have a playdate on Friday from Duncan's friend from school.

A few of my favourite things: Duncan having play dates. Cordie smiles and laughs. She is such an amazingly happy baby and when she smiles it reaches her eyes and they just sparkle. My kids are remarkable. My husband is too. He went back to work today, but it was nice having that two weeks together.

A picture thought:

Duncan has taken to creating living room wide train tracks. It's awesome.

Menu plan

2010-02-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

I'll do my datebook post later.

Meals for this week...

Saturday was home made pizza
Sunday was beef fajitas
Monday is pork roast, scalloped potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, veggies
Tuesday - Polynesian Beef Skewers
Wednesday - Soy garlic chicken
Thursday - Sweet and Spicy Grilled Pork chops
Friday - take out? We'll see then!

Thursday Ramblings

2010-01-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

Good evening friends
Just a bunch of random things going through my mind. I just bought the Haiti benefit album from the telethon last week. It's beautiful. I love the acoustic sounds of all the songs. Right now the song Halleluia - originally by Leonard Cohen I believe. I think Rufus Wainright's version (as heard on Shrek of all sound tracks) is my favourite. But it is such a gorgeous song.

I haven't actually bought much through iTunes. There seems to be very little music that impresses me these days, and so 99% of my music on my iPod is from cds we've transfered over. But I'm enjoying this.

A few things:

I had an awesome visit with Tanya and the boys coming over today. Tanya - thank you so much for taking the time to head our direction. I really loved seeing you all. Bill did too.
I twittered (@carolem) this - but I'm seriously contemplating starting a reviews/giveaway blog. I figure I read enough of them, I know what I like, so why not? Bill is on board with it agreeing that he'd help as he is a writing genius. I'm also going to ask my friend Andrea tomorrow if she might be interested (Andrea, if you're reading this, be prepared!! LOL!) as she is a technical genius when it comes to publishing/web site design (the guts behind), etc... I've been picking the brains of some of the ladies whose blogs I follow and they are very supportive. The name I have going right now is Messy Chic Mama (b/c darn it Messy Chic was taken for blogspot).
I have a $50 Chapters giftcard to use - what book have you read recently that you totally think I need to buy and read? Nancy, was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies good?
Bill has been off this week. I love my husband. As I said to Tanya today I'm not one of these "oh I need a break from my husband" kind of people. I like it when he's around, and although it sucks he has had to miss work, it's been awesome otherwise. And it's been extra awesome for him and Cordie to spend time together. Cordie adores him. I love it. Duncan on the other hand has been off because of it when he goes to Nikki's and school. I don't blame him.
So today Duncan didn't nap. He was still good but crashed within minutes of going to bed. Please don't tell me my boy is moving beyond naps! I rely on that time!!
Check out http://picasaweb.google.ca/carolejm/January2010# for some pictures I just uploaded.

3-year olds and bed time

2010-01-26T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, I realize it is a phase, but honestly, is it a phase my son needs to go through?

My darling boy is going through the "I don't want to go to bed" phase of life. I know it's because he thinks he's missing something, and really he is, if he thinks us sitting on the couch together and watching "Castle" is missing something. But I don't think that's what it is.

He lays in bed "I want something else" what do you want? "Ummmmm... I dunno" but if you leave his room he starts wailing - and I really don't want him to wake his sister. So I go back in. I'm sure I'm supposed to let him cry, but it just doesn't seem right to me to make my son cry himself to sleep. I don't mind him reading books in bed, and chatting with his animals, it's the fussing that gets me!

And what I really hate is when I give into my frustration and take it out on him. Bill says it's hard not to, but you want to convey to this child how frustrating it is - but without yelling, or anything mean. But he's 3. He doesn't understand frustration like that.

I don't know how my Mom did it with 4 of us. I don't know how my friends who have large families do it. How do they get any sleep at all?

But let me put in a qualifying statement - Duncan is a really good kid. He honestly is. Mostly he is smiles and giggles and loves to play and run and he makes us laugh so much. So I know we just need to work through this, but when he does carry on I find myself getting anxious at his bed time because I don't feel like putting up with him.

And someone recently told me that if they aren't like this at 3, they are at 4, and it is much worse at 4. So I'll take 3 thank you very much :)

Datebook January 24, 2010

2010-01-24T15:06:00.000-08:00

Because I'm thinking of it now, and it makes a bit more sense for me to do this on Sunday...

Today…

Outside my window: It is cloudy. Quite uniformly gray out there. We're supposed to get a bit of rain and wind I think. I believe this is one of the most boring winters we've ever had.

I am hearing: Football. Jets vs Colts. According to Bill we're cheering for the Colts. We're thinking of having a Superbowl Party here.

I am thinking: If we're going to have a Superbowl Party we'd better invite a few people.

I am hoping: My mood improves. Could be linked to the totally incosistent sleep I've been getting. Last night Cordie was only up around 1, but then slept until after 7 - which was awesome. But then Duncan had me up 2x!! Imagine...I almost got more than 5 hours straight sleep :P

I am reading: Echo - really, I am...

I am creating: Nothing.

I am wearing: white t-shirt and workout pants b/c I just finished working out on the Wii Fit Plus. I've actually been sicking with it, and my weight is heading in the right direction. Goal - 12 lbs before I return to work.

In the kitchen: In no specific order: pineapple chicken on either rice or pasta, baked ziti, chicken and mushroom bake, pineapple and bacon hamburgers with frenchfries, Kraft Dinner Surprise - this is because we have some KD cooked and in the fridge, no microwave, and I'd like to use it. I have a feeling it will be something with ground beef.

Plans for the week: Let's see... I really want to get back into taking Cordie to Peek-A-Book, so I'll do that tomorrow. I'm targetting different small places in the house to clean and organize, so I'd like to get the table beside me done (it's kind of my desk b/c I don't have one), and the shelf on the entertainment centre that is the other half of my desk. I want to get some stuff done for my brother Jeff. Tanya and Warren and Xavier want to come and visit, which would be awesome. I want to work out every day - which I've been doing when the kids nap in the afternoon.

A few of my favourite things: Duncan telling me "Good job Mommy" when I'm doing something for him like building train tracks. He's so encouraging *grin* But it does tell me he hears us saying it - which is good too. Cordie is just an amazingly sweet little girl. I'm loving that she's interacting with things more - and she dances! Which is hilarious!

A picture thought:
What little boy can resist dropping rocks down a storm drain? Not mine!

Friday Night

2010-01-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

I am so freaking tired. I'm just tired of being tired. I have not had a full night's sleep in a long time now, and I really hope I might get the ocassional one again soon. But I hear from people who say their kid did not sleep through the night until they were 2. This will be a problem once I return to work and am a zombie :P

But I signed up for it. And she's rather cute!

In case you missed it on facebook, Duncan had been sleeping really poorly at night. We figured it was just a stage. Until the other night I was reading him a story. I normally sit on the side of his bed, but this time I climbed in beside him. While I was there I noticed how lumpy his bed was. Turns out his mattress was upside down. I never would have thought a mattress could have a wrong side, but this one did, and you could feel every spring inside. We flipped it right and he was sleep in minutes. Poor kid. We think it was from last week Monday when he was sick and we changed the sheets. Right now he's babbling at me "Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy..." but he's just being silly.

Tonight we went to Jungle Jaks which is one of those indoor play places. It was a fund raiser for his preschool. He had a good time. But the thing about Duncan is that he's not a starter. You need to go with him and be there. He won't just run off and "see you later". So I was climbing all through it with him - I think I am going to feel that tomorrow!! I'm happy though that some other people we knew were there and the Dad didn't mind taking Duncan along while they were climbing up and what not.

See, Bill and Cordie didn't come because we were told they would charge for Cordie to get in. We said that's rather silly because she can't play with anything, so Bill kept her home. But it turns out when they are little yet there is no charge. Well we know for next time. Bill got to finish watching this season of Dexter.

Our microwave died. I'm super annoyed on several levels a. b/c it's only 3.5 years old b. we use it to reheat food on a regular basis (not usually for cooking food), c. it's also our range hood which is light and vent, neither of which work now. I called to see if maybe we'd bought an extended warranty on it - nope. I called the licensed repair place and they want $80 just to come look at it. I don't think so! So I called my brother Jeff. Jeff is awesome. Anyhow, Jeff usually knows a guy. Any time we buy something he says "you should have asked me, I know a guy!" And he usually does! So I called Jeff, but he didn't know a guy. But he is doing work for the owner of the store we bought the microwave from and suggested I talk to him to see who he might suggest for a repair job that's reasonable in price. I'm certain it's just a fuse, but looking up DIY online, we simply don't have the equipment or knowhow to repair a microwave on our own. Jeff, being the generous heart that he is, also said he has an extra nuker we can borrow until ours is fixed. Bless him! So I'll need to coordinate with him to get it. I wonder if perhaps I can bring the kids out tomorrow to his place to get it and say hi. Duncan adores Uncle Jeff. okay, he adores all his uncles. Uncle Sean earned total bonus points on Christmas day by sitting and playing with Duncan for what seemed like hours.

And that's our week. Sportball tomorrow for the boys. We start swimming next week. I got Cordie swimsuits at the dollar store. Even if they only last 5 lessons it was a good deal.

Oh, doctor's appointments. Bill had his follow up with the Ophthamologist and his eye is getting much better and he's back to work on Monday. We're very happy his eye is better but we're sad our unexpected time off together is over. Duncan had his 3-year check up. He was hilarious. Wouldn't stand on the scale. Screamed when his head was being measured, just wanted none of it. But he did settled down and made the doctor laugh. He wanted to hear Duncan sing and the only song he would sing was the Toby song from Thomas. But he's doing well, exactly where he should be developmentally and right on track. We weren't worried, but always nice to hear. And finally Cordie got her flu shots (H1N1 and regular) and she didn't even peep. She just glared at our doctor, but that was all. That's my girl!!

Food is ready.

Baby food

2010-01-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've been making Cordie's baby food. Half my freezer is now full of things like ice cube sized pureed carrots, peas, broccoli, sweet potato, avocado, banana, cauliflower...

What's funny is I never made baby food for Duncan. I found the idea of making my own food totally overwhelming. Heck, with Duncan I could barely get dinner on the table half the time. Mind you with Duncan I think ever day I was out doing something baby-ish with him - story time, Shop N Stroll, Mom talk, swimming, coffee with Andrea... We'd get home, I'd nurse him to sleep, and I'd opt to have him nap on my lap, and next thing I knew the day was done.

How different it is with the second one. Even with Duncan gone to daycare two days a week, I've only managed to get to story time twice - which is sad b/c I have Monday's for that reason. But we're now always getting stuff done around the house, running errands, doing this and that. And not that much socializing. Very little napping on my lap.

It's just funny. I find it easier to get dinner ready on time (although it still feels like the house is never clean). My days fill up and they fly by. And I make my own baby food.

Why did I find it so hard before? It's so simple. And so cheap. I also find I'm just letting her try random solids more - like a piece of bread, apple, noodles, etc...

I just need to say my life is so full and so blessed. Although Bill is off for his eye (which sucks b/c he severely limits what he can do - he can't read, can't use his computer, light bothers is really badly, it gives him headaches... ) it's super wonderful having him home.

But that's not about baby food.

Datebook January 18, 2009

2010-01-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

Today…

Outside my window: It’s dark.

I am hearing: The dishwasher. Bill typing. Music.

I am thinking: it’s bed time

I am hoping: Duncan stop goofing around at bed time and starts going to sleep properly again. I’m also hoping Bill’s eye gets better soon.

I am reading: I’ve picked up Echo again.

I am creating: Nothing.

I am wearing: Black t-shirt and my pj pants

In the kitchen: Last night was rustic pasta, tonight was KD Italiano. Also on the menu this week are tacos, unfried buttermilk chicken, spaghetti pie, and left over meat loaf.

Plans for the week: Well Bill is off work for at least a week as his iritis has flared up again. So today I put him to work. Real nice of me ‘eh? Sorry you’re sick, now go earn your keep *grin*. Anyhow, tomorrow our bed is being delivered, Wednesday I’ve got MOPS – I haven’t been since the beginning of Dec, so that will be good, and Thursday Duncan has his 3-year check up, Cordie is getting flu shots, and Bill has a follow up appointment with the specialist. On Friday Duncan’s school is having a fund raiser at Jungle Jacs (and indoor play place). Saturday is Sportball.

A few of my favourite things: Duncan was singing “Round and Round the garden, like a teddy bear” to himself last night. Cordie getting her 1^st tooth. Sleep. I wish I got more of it.

A picture thought:

Adjusting to a king sized bed

2010-01-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Oh, the hassles of life - adjusting to a king sized bed.

Let's step back about 9.5 years when Bill and I 1st got married. I'd been sleeping alone in a queen sized bed for quite some time, and it took a while for both of us to adjust to actually sharing a bed. I'd been sleeping sprawled in the middle of a bed for quite some time, and now I could only sleep on half of it? ha! And sharing blankets...well truth be told we slept under separate blankets after 1st got married because I had a hard time getting used to sharing the blankets. I think Bill might argue I never did get used to it :)

Bill has a bad back. I won't get into the medical side of things, but that bad back isn't going away. We decided, as we could feel the springs in our current mattress that despite the fact that we didn't have the money (bad, I know, but it is what it is) that we would go ahead and upgrade to a king sized bed.

That bed came on Wednesday. It's beautiful. We're still waiting for the actual bed (headboard, base board, side rails) but that actual mattress is here.

What's funny is that it's actually taking a bit for us to adjust to such a freaking large bed! After years of sleeping within 2" of the side of the bed to keep from bumping into each other with elbows and knees etc, we're still doing that, despite the 3 feet of space that now lies between us. You know, it's something willing to learn to live with :) And oh boy is this thing comfortable!! I was napping today and frankly did not want to get up when one of my kids needed me.

And here is Cordelia modeling our new bed: