Saturday, February 28, 2009

"If you want your child to get the best education possible, it's actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school."
Bill Gates

Milestones

It seems like over the past few days the kids have been doing certain things that are "ones for the books" as the expression goes.

First born:

I know it is hard to make out if you don't know what his first name is but this is the closest ever that he has come to writing his name.
This is a day later. Oh and I forgot to mention that both of these times he did these all by himself without anyone monitoring or coaching. He simply came to me with his paper and said "look mom, my name!"
This one he had help with the 'M'.
This is just so darn cute- the great smile and the deer in headlight eyes!

Our middle child:
I thought i'd try potty training. I've been putting it off for various reasons.
She was more than willing to go on the potty and we've had several successes and only two accidents!
I couldn't help myself. Her little bum just looks so cute in girlie panties.
She also discovered her tummy last night with markers.
This picture was taken today after a 30 minute bath and after rubbing some off on her pj's.
I wish I had remembered to take a picture when it happened.
Makes we wonder if tattoos are in her future.


The baby:
She's really taken to finding her hands and sucking them to death.

She's also doing quite well on her tummy time and love to sit up looking around
(trying to help her do it on her own)

We also got her ears pierced with her birth money from Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Rei.
So cute.

I started this post first thing this morning during my computer time and it has taken me all day to get it finished. It's just one of those days when things move very slowly. Sigh. How many hours until bedtime?

Friday, February 27, 2009

The New Doo

It seems that after any monumental landmarks in my life, I go and chop off my hair and try something new. After I got married, after my firstborn, after my second born and now after my third born.

This time though I had been inspired by an old high school acquaintance to donate my locks to charity. This led me to the Angel Hair for Kids network. I wanted to donate locally and after asking around I learned about this great organization.

So I lopped off 10 inches of long virgin hair. And so now I look like this:


For those of you that know me well, I am not a big "hair" person. This new do has taken me on the new adventure of introducing a blow dryer to my hair AND a flat iron so that I don't have wings by the end of the day (trust me I tried seeing if I could do without it). These pictures were taken on such day. :)

I love my new hair cut. My scalp loves my new hair cut (my hair was heavy!). NO more going through an elastic a day (a weight thing I think). NO more super long showers washing and rinsing my mop. NO more ponytail in the way when I am sleeping. And NO more dandruff (something I get in the winter and during pregnancy). Sorry if that's too much information but who knew less hair (well for me) equals less dandruff. I suppose it has something to do with things being able to move more freely....I don't know.

My heads happy, I'm happy which means were all happy right?

In this house anyways.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I had this plant a poppy in a kit thing kicking around our house. You know the ones with the meshed up soil that you add water too and then you just pour in the seeds. The kids and I did that "activity" the other day. It got me thinking about the summer and how nice it would be to have some of our own vegetables growing in our backyard. I'm thinking maybe we might start some tomatoes and lettuce and maybe something else (not sure what though). I hope to put these thoughts into actions sometime soon. I'm not a gardener but I think I've heard this is the time to do these things.

I need to do some more research. Any tips?

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Note: I started this post late November, but then life got the better of me and then we had a baby. So here it is in case anyone was wondering what we ended up doing.

The basement has been an ongoing project even before we thought of even touching the kitchen. It all started one day because our condo was paying to have a big dumpster come and take away trash for a late spring clean-up (June). So we thought we should capitalize on this free service and ended up tearing down one wall of old paneling and the whole ceiling in the basement (which pretty much fell down once that one wall was gone and no longer supporting a part of it).

Then came the multiple trips to Home Depot picking up huge sheets of drywall that we anchored to our little Volkswagon Jetta at the time. It was an adventure trying to get this stuff home.

Anyways we did it. Well, my husband did most of it. I'm a good support staff. :)

So here we are with more before and after pics.


We tore down all of one wall and ALL of the ceiling.

That light was the only light we had in the basement when we moved in.
My husband quickly wired up a second light so it wasn't so dark but it was very roughly done.

Below is a picture of part of the ceiling with the NEW pot lights installed!
What a difference.


The other side all drywalled and ready to be primed. And more pot lights!


The idea we had for the basement was to keep it our rec/play room for the kids but make it appealing for future owners as a den/office space. So we went with a more mature color scheme (although I did like the green, red and yellow myself).

So this is the final product minus a few touch ups:


So there we go. Just one more step towards increasing the value of our home for our future sell someday. And the kids have their playroom back! You should of seen their faces when they saw all the toys that had been put away. We were also able to purge some in the process in light of Christmas being just around the corner at that point.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

My brother decided to show up and surprise us the day before New Years Eve. He brought with him some gifts from the Great-Grandparents on my mom's side. Did I mention the kids got spoiled?
My kids LOVE LOVE books. Especially P. She is our avid reader. L loves to read too but he is more into games. He thinks he can read when he sees numbers and can tell us how many things are on the page. It's quite cute.

These books are perfect! Thanks Great Grandma and Grandpa!

Cooking

I interrupt this Christmas reminiscing with my latest discovery!

It was my husband's birthday on the 6th. He requested his favorite meal and his mom's chocolate cake. So we got the recipe from his mom and I made the cake.

WOW! Amazing!

I don't think I had ever tried this cake before. If I had I am sure I would have remembered! It was soooo delicious!!
Soooo delicious in fact that I devoured almost the whole thing myself over the course of the next three days (hey at least it took me that long!).
Sooo delicious in fact that I had to make the cake again....yesterday!

Sooo delicious in fact that I started to devour this cake and HAVE to get it out my house SOON! So far I have managed to pawn some off on a friend that lives close by and I think i'll send the rest to work with my husband tomorrow. I just have NO self-control when it comes to this chocolate cake. I even left the glaze off this time in hopes that it wouldn't taste AS good and it would last longer. But no.

Anyways, I was feeling pretty good in the cooking department and decided to retry my husband's favorite meal (my Aunt Jennie's Chicken Delight for those who may be wondering). But I thought I would do some things differently this time .....and....wellll.....

It Bombed.

It just didn't taste right. My husband got me so paranoid about it not being cooked properly that we threw it out and decided to order in pizza.

Sigh.

I guess I can't expect to get it all right.

:)

Saturday, February 14, 2009



Finger paints and markers from my mom's friend Liz. She's an artist and is encouraging our kids' creativity. I love it!
(pictured are my husband's aunt and uncle)

Grandma S. sent up some gifts for the kids to open on Christmas. So spoiled. We opened gifts a day early on Christmas eve day with my husbands Aunt and Uncle. It was so nice to have them with us to share Christmas with in our home.

Opening H's gift.

A lovely Christmas outfit!

She sat here for a good two hours while we opened gifts and tested them out.

So cute.

A family book: Robert Munsch collection!


This new dolly uses all of H's things. P is such a little mommy.


We all had fun playing with the new remote control "Cars" cars. (My husband Aunt here).




Thanks Grandma S.!

I'm not sure why but we did wait until closer to Christmas to let the kids open their gifts from my mom whom they call 'Ellie-Ma'.


Perfect considering all the snow we've gotten so far this year.


Many a tea party we've had with these dishes.

A Backyardigan magic coloring book and some paints.

Many people have been receiving various artwork from the kids.

Thanks Ellie-Ma!