Friday, December 26, 2008

Still Alive

I haven't forgotten about my blog.
Life has become, as you can imagine, very busy now that baby #3 is here.
She was born December 8th.
Now that we've sort of gotten used to this organized chaos, I will be working on getting some pictures up. Sorry family and friends. :)

Oh and Merry Christmas (belated) and a Happy New Year!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Ok so no baby yet. I am now 38 weeks and counting. So I thought it was about time I just got back on this blogging bandwagon and got you all caught up.

As I have mentioned before, in light of a certain rodent in our house, we ended up gutting our kitchen and installing new cabinets.

Here are some pictures of the progress:


The right side of the kitchen BEFORE. We got a little demo happy before I remembered to take a picture.
right side.
Right side bottom done.

The tile went up too high so we started to tear it off. Only it took the wall with it. Hence the big hole.
Hole fixed.

Almost there!
Yay! Don't mind the dishes. It didn't take me long to move back in.
The right side is done. Just have the painting and tiling to finish. My husband did a great job.

The left side of the kitchen BEFORE.
All gutted.
Man I love the color of these cabinets!
My favorite section. We had zero drawers before. And we were able to miraculously find an already pre-cut section of counter top that just happened to match the counter on the other side.
And the finished product. Still have handles and painting to do but at least I have my kitchen back!!

Plus ...I haven't seen traces of or heard a mouse since! All worth it just for this reason alone.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Blah

no baby and no desire to post anything right now.

definitely not for lack of things going on.

i'm just plain tuckered out right now and have been using my energy stores for things like getting food on the table and hauling myself up and down my stairs every time i have to pee.

pray for me that this baby comes healthy and if God willing soon. i'm 37 weeks and considered term. so anytime would be nice.

sigh.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Going to continue to be away from the computer for awhile. Had a very nice week back home visiting family. Now we have visitors at our house for a week. My sister-in-law and her two kids are staying with us while she is a hunting widow. 'Tis that time of year.

Will post again when life settles down ~ at least we should get a break before the baby comes.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Bubble Wrap





If anyone wants an idea for my son for Christmas. Here it is.
:)

Friday, October 24, 2008

Anyone?

Some one want to explain the rational behind this?
I'm thinking it has something to do with "super powers".
Another phase.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Fall Fever

I'm always on the look-out for fun things we can do together as a family. So I picked up a pumpkin the other day for real cheap and decided that since we won't actually be home for halloween we should carve it now.

I can't remember if we carved one last year or not but I do know that my son most likely didn't remember. This year both kids were very excited about cracking it open and seeing what was inside. Although, neither of them, were too fond of the "goo".

Check out the face on my son. We gave my daughter her own little bowl. She was very intent on finding all the little seeds.


I let the kids draw their own faces on the pumpkin with washable markers. It was looking like a face until my daughter had her turn.

Eventually my husband and I had our turns. Thus the end result.

My son was very excited with the end result. He wanted to leave all the lights off for the rest of the night. My daughter on the other hand became very leary and cautious of the pumpkin once it was lit up and dark. A transformation I don't think she quite understood.

Another fun, family night for the books. Cheap, simple and memorable. Good times.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Kind of a crappy day here. The weather is gloomy and dark and cold and rainy. The kids are more irritable than normal (most likely overtired from our busy weekend). And its my late sister's birthday today. Just a lot of ugly mood affecting stuff going on here.

So I was flipping through my photo's I just put on the computer and thought i'd share some that made me smile.



Hope your day was more sunny than ours.

Friday, October 17, 2008


Two months ago I lost a set of keys for a couple of homes (mine included). I figured my daughter had taken them out of my purse, since she goes in there all the time, and left them somewhere in my grandparents house where we were visiting almost 4 hours away at the time.

It wasn't a really big deal. I was disappointed more about the actual key chain than the keys. So imagine my surprise when I received a call from our local OPP detachment letting me know they had a set of keys that belonged to me.

Turns out they were found somewhere on the main drag in our town by some guy who turned them in because they had an M&M meat shop tag on them. He figured they would be able to trace the keys back to the owner.

I was pretty excited to get my key chain back. Only, as you can see, my keys were no longer in one piece. I must have lost them somewhere in a parking lot because those three pieces you see used to be attached.

Never the less, I am thankful for that gentlemen that decided to turn them in and I am thankful to have my key chain back so I can stop blaming my daughter for "hiding" them somewhere.

I am not sure what has overcome my son's tastebuds, but for the last couple of nights he's been asking for carrots and dip before bed.

This is also one of the only ways he will eat carrots at present, so who am I to complain.

It's just weird some of the phases kids will go through.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

To Do List

I had my regular midwife appointment yesterday. We discovered that the baby is currently in a breach position. Nothing to worry about but it did get me thinking. We discussed the plan of action if the baby is still in that position in another month. If she is still breach then, depending on a few factors, she will most likely be born early.

This made me think that maybe I should get a head start on my to do list sooner than later.

1- do the official switch over of dressers and clothes to their respective rooms (my son and daughter will be sharing and the baby will have her own room)

2- spend more time/energy/patience getting my daughter used to her new bed in my sons room. This means having her actually sleep in it more than once.

3- figure out a way to get a nightlight in the hall so that the bathroom door can be kept closed at night time for safety.

4- spend more time getting my daughter 100% proficient at going up and down the stairs by herself (this way I will no longer need to carry her or spot her while holding a new born).

5- find a crib mattress to replace the one I stole out of the baby's bed to put in the toddler bed for my daughter.

6- stock up on little activities the kids can do by themselves while I am nursing and am the only adult in the house.

I am sure there is more, like packing the bags and stuff but for now these are some things I want to work on in case the baby comes early.

Eight more weeks to go!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

So it appears that we have managed to somehow be rid of all squeaks. The van miraculously fixed itself. We changed a fuel filter and now the van is running a million times better and after a few days decided it didn't want to make noise anymore. So strange. We at least have the part in our possession if it should decide to start up again.

I can hardly believe 10 days have gone by since I last posted. In those ten days we managed to tear apart the kitchen and install new kitchen cabinets that we bought for a phenomenal price (otherwise I fear we would have no cabinets right now). While the walls were bare and the holes where we believe the mouse to have entered our house were open, we did NOT see any sign of our mouse. I set traps every night and caught nothing! So we sealed the poor sucker in there unless it decided it preferred living at our neighbors and is plaguing her with its presence.

We are still waiting for one last cupboard to arrive and when the kitchen is complete I will post our fun before and after pictures.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

So I bought the traps but forgot to set them up last night. Talk about frustrating. I set them up this morning and so far nothing. Not even that same scratching sound. On top of it all we have for sure confirmed that the mouse was in the wall behind the cupboards underneath the sink. This means that it must be traveling between condo's which supports our theory about them not entering via somewhere in our unit.

I talked to our neighbor we share a kitchen wall with and sure enough she has had mouse problems this past week. I'm hoping that if we both set traps and catch the little bugger we'll both be better off. The only things is that she doesn't think its entering via her unit. I'm hoping to catch the guy beside her sometime and see if he has any mouse sightings in his place.

Anyways, in the process of tearing things apart to figure out where the mouse was coming from we re-discovered and realized just how badly warped and old our cupboards are. Things were crumbling as my husband was prying to get a closer look with a screwdriver. So now we have another project on our hands.

Oh and the van still squeaks. We spent so much of our time ripping apart the kitchen and figuring out solutions to this problem that we never made it to our friend's house to change the fuel pump in the van.

Only so much we can do in one day.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Squeaking

This week has been a little crazy. It actually kinda all started at the end of last week. Friday past we took a trip an hour away to drive our old car, which we sold, to its new owners. This meant taking our new van (new to us anyways) for its first real spin on the highway. We also decided to make the trip more worthwhile so we called up my husband's dad (since they live in the same town) to see if they would be around for a visit.

All went well until we started hearing a strange squeaking noise from the back of the van. Turns out that the van's fuel pump was beginning to go. Thankfully, praise the Lord, we made it home that night after contemplating turning around and crashing at my father-in-law's so as to avoid a break down on the side of the highway.

Saturday and Sunday were long days since we dared not venture out with the van in case things decided to die on us. But then Monday rolled around. We had already ordered the part that we needed, only to discover Monday morning that this part was coming from British Columbia, not Toronto, like we had thought. Who knows when it would come in.

As I have mentioned several times before, one of the best things about fall is that our family has things that go on during the week. Things that require transportation. On top of that Monday morning I had my midwife appointment that I hated to cancel. So we decided to chance it and use the van this past week to get to the things we absolutely needed to be at.

Monday was my midwife appointment and our bible study. Tuesday we had gymnastics and another appointment that I had made to sell some kids clothes. Wednesday I had my health/nutrition class. By Thursday we had gotten so used to the van's noises and figured if it had survived this long surely we'd be ok to do other miscellaneous errands.

And here we are on Friday night. The UPS guy dropped off the parts this afternoon and our van is still working (praise the Lord!). So now we just have to be able to get my husband to a friend's house to help him move tomorrow morning and then over to another friend's house to use his garage so we can change the part. Barring any unforeseen trips to the store (more to come)

So this is the first reason this week has been busy.

Secondly, beginning Tuesday night my son began running a fever for no apparent reason. He continued to spike high fevers up until last night at around midnight. Today he is finally back to himself, although he still doesn't have as much energy as usual, he is eating now and has started to pick on his sister. So we've had fun nursing him back to health as well as wiping my daughter's ever dripping nose which also began Wednesday morning. I'm hoping whatever this is will be their big 'sickness' for the winter. My kids are usually pretty healthy.

Finally, as if there wasn't enough going on, last night while I was on the phone with my sister-in-law I witnessed a mouse running across my dining room floor and into our entry-way closet. Ughghg! We've had one previous incident with a mouse and it somehow showed up in front of the patio door, so we had figured it had squeezed its way in somehow.

The little bugger last night, however, appeared to come out of nowhere! I tend to obsess about these kinds of things. I love nature and am happy to have animals, pests, rodents galore OUTSIDE my house but not in it.

Last night I tore that closet apart only to have scared the mouse in behind the double jogging stroller, which now that I am pregnant, is a little hard to maneuver. Especially while one is trying to hold on to a broom with which to swat this mouse with. I ended up barricading the mouse in the closet overnight so my husband could take care of it this morning since he was working late last night.

This morning, though, the mouse was nowhere to be found! That stinkin' little contortion mouse must of made it through the tiniest crack between the closet door and the wall that I had actually contemplated duct taping shut, but didn't.

This afternoon while the kids were napping, my husband and I were in the dining room and we began to hear these little scratching noises coming from the kitchen cupboard under the sink. I swear this mouse isn't very smart. First the closet, then under the kitchen sink- we have no food there at all!

So we tore apart the kitchen only to find that it must be in the wall somewhere (how it got there baffles me again). This mouse is a little too evasive for my liking.

All I can say is thank goodness for a van that squeaks but still works because tonight I took a trip to Canadian Tire and bought ourselves some mouse traps!

One squeak down and one more to go! Well at least i'm hopefull that tomorrow morning we'll have taken care of that problem.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

My Cutie

With the cooler weather comes all the cute little outfits that have been passed down for my daughter.

Here she's helping me take the recycling to the road.
I wish I could remember what she was concentrating on.
She's a handful, but I still love her.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Every year the town we live in has a Scottish/Irish festival. And since that is my primary heritage I like to show my support and venture out to see the bagpipes and fellow scottishmen/irishmen or woman in their kilts.




It's also an excuse to dress my kids up in their "kilts" (not our real tartan or even a real kilt for that matter but it's all I could find at value village- the real thing is expensive). Fun fun.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My son is very good at dressing himself. But sometimes he misses the mark. And other times he really misses it.
Just thought this might humor you a bit on this sunny beautiful day.


Both legs are through one hole, meanwhile creating holes in other spots.


Sunday, September 21, 2008

Randomness

Time is flying.
But the kids are still themselves and cute as ever- most days.
I just love these two pictures.
Definitely insight into their characters. One at the computer and the other with pen on her hand and face.


Look like something daddy does much?


Friday, September 12, 2008

Fishing

We've been slowly using up the remainder of my son's birthday money that he got in May. We couldn't think of anything at the time. Just recently it occurred to my husband that a fishing rod would be something fun for our son to have. It would also be a great bonding time for the two of them.


Fish #1- my husband knew of a great spot!


Fish #2


Reeling in fish #3


Reeling in fish #4...or was this number 6...I lost count.
I swear it was the same greedy little fish trying to eat all the worms.


Casting on his own....notice how there is no one close by...it looks like he's swinging a baseball bat.



This was also my son's first real experience with worms.
I'm ashamed to admit that. Man I can't wait until we live more in the country.
At first he didn't want any on his hook.
Then one escaped and so we told him he had to put it back.
His response was "my hands are going to get dirty!"
What a kid.
Anyways, he picked it up and put it back.....only after we told him we had some baby wipes.

My devotions today we're about making family memories. How appropriate. I know it is the little things that I cherish as memories from my childhood. May this be a constant reminder that its not about going somewhere grand or spending lots of money but its about who you're with and the quality time you have together.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008



The kids have been playing pretty nicely together this week.
So nice.
Two of their favorite things are making picnics and making beds.