Sleeping Baby = Pictures as promised!

The cool Halloween Wreath the girls made with my best friend a couple weeks ago. It looks so great!


Our Jack O'Lantern carved last night by Chris. He's not happy with the eyes, they were supposed to be spookier. I'm going to try a picture of it all lit up tonight.


The front yard. The hanging spooky ghost lights up. Well it did. We noticed last night he was not glowing and were not sure why. I looked at him this morning and the cord that connects his plug to the pumpkin lights is severed (how appropriate). The pumpkins still work even though there is a loose wire end, so we'll have to put some electrical tape on it or something so we don't start a fire or anything.



A fire would be scary and all, but not quite the effect we're going for. Burning down our house and the neighborhood would not be a good first Halloween impression to make on all our neighbors.

Happy Halloween to me!

I didn't think it was possible.

The morning girl at the gym was even more annoying than usual this morning. She was giddy and silly, more so than usual. It's not really the silliness that annoys me about her, it's the unending trail of questions she asks the clients. And they are inappropriate. Not in a bad way, really. She just has the social skills of a twelve year old. Rather than making pleasant conversation she grills us and it gets ridiculous.

How was your weekend?
What did you do?
Do you like doing that?
Who went with you?
Do you like them?
How many kids do they have?
All boys? Are they cute?
Do they have girlfriends?
What's their last names?
Are they virgins?

Okay, I've never actually heard her ask if someone was a virgin before, but if we let her keep talking, I'm sure she'd get to it. Luckily the trick to get to stop asking you questions is to somehow turn the conversation to get her to talk about herself.

She, like, has so much fun. Her friends are so awesome and, yeah, it was cool.

I, like a few of the other morning people, just avoid making eye contact with her. I concentrate really hard on breathing properly and look as busy as I can while on a machine or jogging on the spot, which is not an easy job. I've had my fair share of questions, but purposefully my answers make my life appear so incredibly drab (who am I kidding, it's not that hard to make it appear that way), that usually she moves on to more exciting women.

Good news for me though, today was her last day! Probably the reason for her being so much more giddy today I'm sure. She talked about her new job where she does nothing. She answered the phone twice yesterday and once it was her mom and once it was daddy (who got her the job). Then she went online and was on facebook for a couple hours, then she read 2 magazines. Seriously. And she was so excited that she gets paid sooo much to do nothing (of course she told us her wage as well, she doesn't keep anything private). It's not wage to brag about that's for sure. Granted it's more than I make babysitting, but still.

I've spent too much time on her now complaining about the poor girl, and my kids' school lunches are going to suffer, so I gotta run.

A little catch up

It's been a few days, so here's what's been going on.

Our backyard is all done. It's seeded and ready for the grass to grow in the spring. All the bikes are put away in anticipation of snow that lasts, and the lawn chairs and things are put away with them.

The Girl Guide cookies have arrived and all the pre-ordered ones have been delivered. I asked for an extra case and there are 8 left in it, so I sent them to work with Chris today so I don't accidentally buy myself a box. Those mint cookies are sooooo good!

Halloween candy has been bought (finally) and the girls have their costumes all sorted out. They are so excited for tomorrow. I have to somehow come up with some willpower by then so that I don't steal all the little chocolate bars.

Chris has discovered his love for Halloween baking. He's always loved Christmas baking. Before you get too excited and think he's some weird guy who loves to bake, remember that the only way he gets baking is if he bakes it himself, so it's pretty much do or die at our house. That and he is a weird guy who bakes, but I love him anyways. I am NOT a baker. I can bake, I just don't really like to do it. I have enough fun cleaning up after Chris ;) This year he made witches fingers, which he's done before, and he attempted popcorn balls with gummy worms in them. Are they ever sticky! I tried to eat one a few minutes ago (it's snack time...cheerios, raisins and popcorn balls) and they are just too chewy for my teeth. So my back up plan if the willpower doesn't come through is to try to eat a popcorn ball while the kids are sorting their Halloween candy and glue my mouth shut semi-permanently.

I still have no pictures of our yard and I have not downloaded the wreath picture yet. It will happen....by Christmas for sure.

Maybe.

It snowed today

I took some pictures but they are still on my camera, along with the picture of the Halloween wreath I promised. Maybe I'll get around to posting them tomorrow. Maybe not, depends how lazy I am. I want to sleep in til noon, but I'll settle for 9:30am. Last Saturday I couldn't sleep in because we all had dentists appointments (which went amazingly well). This is MY Saturday.

Anna and Jesus...good buddies.

Anna and "J", the 4 year old girl I babysit, were just arguing over growing. Anna's decided that J is not going to grow anymore and she's decided only she will grow taller.

They argue over silly stuff like this all the time. As usual I tell Anna not to say things to hurt other people's feelings and for them both not to fight about silly things.

Anna then asks me if I know who knows everything. I ask her who and she tells me it's Jesus. She then proceeds to tell me that Jesus told her that she was going to keep growing taller than J, and he knows everything, so she knows it.

Yesterday we decorated for Halloween. It's Chris's favorite holiday to decorate. On our new street though we have some competition. In our old town hardly anyone put out decorations, but now the decorations we have look pitiful compared to others. Chris went out to buy some more pumpkin lights this morning, and he plans on buying a few more items each year to add to our collection. A staple of decorating used to be various kinds of leaf bags, but there are hardly any trees here since the neighborhood is pretty new. We couldn't fill a Ziploc baggie much less a giant pumpkin leaf bag!

My friend was here over the weekend as well. She is so creative and crafty and together with the girls she made a Halloween wreath for our door. I'll have to take a picture and post it later so you can see how cute it is! The girls had a blast doing crafts. They also made some pumpkin and ghost candles. I don't my friend could believe how painty a 4 year old can get in less than 20 minutes, lol.

Help!

Three kids.
One mom.
One dental hygienist.

I think it might equal disaster.

Beth and Anna say they are going to be good and open their mouths for the lady, but Beth said that last time too and she most definitely did NOT open her mouth. This time I bribed them, said I would buy them a treat if they cooperated. What does Anna want as a treat for being at the dentist? Smarties, well actually she said she wanted Farties, but I know what she means. I wonder if they'll brag to the hygienist that mum is going to buy them sugar in a box when we leave?

Cheerios and Raisins

Maybe that should be the name of my blog now since it's during snack time that I get to sit and type while seated between two babies, a bowl of cheerios and a box of raisins. However looking at these babies I should probably call it Cheerios, Raisins and a box of Kleenex, as we've had some pretty drippy noses around my house this week and snack time is no exception. They are happy when I had them a cheerio and ticked off when I wipe the noses....but luckily a cheerio comes right after the tissue.

In other news...

Our backyard is done for the fall. Yesterday Chris finished spreading topsoil and rototilling. He bought a bag of grass seed and started spreading it out by hand (I know, I was thinking there has to be a more even way to distribute grass seed to make for an even lawn) and then ran out of seed after only a third of the yard. So I guess the yard is not completely done, we still need a couple of bags of grass seed. Our winter project will be finishing the basement, that I will say right now, scares the heck out of me. I want it to look really nice, like it was done by a professional, yet most of the work Chris will do himself. It just worries me. I don't know where we will start. We have the rough plan of where the walls will go all drawn out so I guess the inside framing should be started first. It's going to be a long project that we're both excited, yet anxious to start. I'll keep the blog updated as work gets completed. I'll have to remember to take some before pictures.

Wednesday

Just middle of the week boring stuff going on today.

I've got all the kids at the table eating a snack. The big girls are pretty independent and the babies are strapped into their seats. Luckily between handing out cheerios and raisins I can sneak in some computer time.

Half our girl guide cookies were delivered yesterday and luckily I was able to snag a case of regular cookies in place of one mint chocolate case. Originally I was told we had to sell 4 cases of mint cookies, 48 boxes, and we presold some but I had a bunch that still needed to be sold. However my brother in law loves the regular cookies so when we phoned him to tell him we had a case of regular he changed his order and bought the whole case! He wasn't kidding when said how much he loved them Hopefully when the other boxes are delivered I can get some more regular ones as a few people prefer those to the mint. Personally I LOVE the mint ones and we devoured a box last night within minutes of the drop off! Currently we have only one box left to sell....pretty darn good I think!

I might have to auction the last box off and see how much money we can make!

Which is funny because when Chris picked up Beth from Sparks the other day the leader said something about selling the cookies to relatives and friends and Chris being the witty fellow he is said "Not me, I'm going to sell them all on eBay for $10 a box!" She sorta laughed and then got all serious and told him he couldn't do that, it definitely wasn't allowed. Like he was really going to list girl guide cookies on eBay. Simmer down lady.

And this one's for Barb...

Can you imagine never having ever eaten bologna? Or how about never having tried a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Wow, some people lead very sheltered lives I tell ya.

The little girl I am babysitting LOVES bologna. The first day I offered it to her she said she had never had it before now that's all she asks for at lunch time. She does call it pepperoni though, which is kinda funny. Poor kid's going to grow up and cringe at the thought of a pepperoni pizza.

As for bologna and hot dogs and all those random meat products, I think the Arrogant Worms say it best in their music.


The Hot Dog Song

Everybody loves hot dogs
Even pasty Hippies
'Cause its hard to beat a tube of meat
But now a question hits me

What the hell's in
A hotdog
I shouldn't ask maybe
'Cause i don't know any animals that grow cylindrically

So have a hotdog on me my friends
It's made out of animal odds and ends
Have a hotdog on me my friends
It's the particle board of meat

Its good to reuse and recycle
The unpopular pieces of meat
That are quite gross
Yet after they're processed
Are such a Delicious treat

That the children eat them 'til they're queasy
Because they love the taste
Of sodium phosphate
And iridorbate
Soy protein
And Sodium nitrate

So have a hotdog on me my friends
It's made out of animal odds and ends
Have a hotdog on me my friends
Its the particle board of meat

May or may not contain
Chicken and, or
Pork and, or
Meat

So have a hotdog on me my friends
Don't think 'bout the parts from the pigs rear end
Have a hotdog on me my friends
Its the particle board
The particle board
The board particle
Off mmmmmeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaat

This one's for you Steph!

We went to church today. For a few weeks we've been church shopping and the last church we went to was 'the one'. As soon as we walked in the door it felt like home. We were then busy for a couple weeks and couldn't get back, but today we went again, and it was an even better feeling than last time. Maybe because we had made the decision that it would be our church? Many people remembered us and they seemed genuinely happy that we had come back. It was nice.

After church we headed out for lunch. We thought that would be a nice tradition for Sundays. We need to find somewhere good, yet still cheap though. We may have found our church, but we're still shopping around for our restaurant, lol.

The restaurant brings me to a gripe though. Why the heck can people not flush toilets in public washrooms? It's just gross and unnecessary, don't you think? I can understand if it didn't flush all the way or something, but most of the surprises I've found in that one empty stall are definitely not cases of 'oops, it didn't all go down". Come on people, you sat your butt on the seat, flip the handle and go wash your hands. Ewwwwww.

Three Things

Three things I hate today:
1. Crappy, crappy Bell ExpressVu Customer service
2. Slimy, sneaky, conniving ExpressVu Business Habits
3. Bell ExpressVu in general.

Three things I love today:
1. Cell phones
2. Sasktel Customer Service
3. Sugar Snap Peas

Rainy Day

Of course it's raining today. It would have to be raining since we just had a load of gravel delivered into our driveway. That's our luck of course. When we ordered it they gave us a delivery time of between 7am and 6pm. You'd think they could have narrowed it down to a smaller time range than 11 hrs. It's like waiting for the cable guy. We honestly thought they would arrive around 10am, but sure enough we never heard from them all day. Finally at about 5pm they called to say they were on their way, just as I was leaving to go register the girls for Girl Guides and Sparks. When I got home we had company over for my birthday supper and they stayed to visit until just about the kids' bedtimes so our evening could not be used to shovel gravel. And today, it's raining.

So now we have a pile of wet, muddy gravel on our driveway. Maybe we'll be really lucky and it will snow on the pile before we can shovel it.

I shouldn't have even said that.

I deserve a cookie

Not only did I get up and go work out at 6:30am when I really felt like staying in bed, I got up at 6:30am and went to work out on MY BIRTHDAY! That surely deserves a cookie right?

So it's September 11th. It used to just be my birthday, but since 6 years ago it's been so much more than that. It's kind of weird actually, when people ask when your birthday is and you say September 11th, they get a surprised, sad look on their face, like they feel sorry for me. Yes, a terrible thing happened on this day in 2001, but it's still my birthday, it's still a happy day for me. And I think that's what we have to remember for not only September 11th, but all those days that something bad happened. It's just a day. Bad things happen but so do good things. Beth started crawling on this day in 2001, I was born on this day 32 years ago. We will never forget the bad things, but we should try to remember all the good things as well.

Reality TV

Why am I so much smarter than the people on reality tv? It couldn't possibly be because I get to see everyone's secret thoughts and secret plans could it?

Chillin out, maxin', relaxin' all cool

Sundays are meant for exactly this. The kids and I are just laying around. Katie and I are still in our jammies and Beth and Anna are in the clothes they wore yesterday and fell asleep in. I've puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up a bit, things that should have been done yesterday. The girls are watching a movie and playing with the kitties.

We really should have gone to church, but we haven't found the one that fits us yet and I didn't really want to go churching without Chris, who unfortunately doesn't get to join in the laziness as he had to work today. Ironically he is at church today. His job takes him everywhere, lol.

I really should go get dressed for the day though. We already had one neighbor stop by to talk to Chris and I think he was surprised to find us in our jammies. That must not be how they do Sunday mornings in this neighborhood. They don't know what they're missing!

I'm in a Jam

Berries and Jars and Certo, Oh My!

Actually I am in a kitchen that smells like jam and is full of jam making 'stuff'. Now before you get all proud of me and my domestic jam making skills, I have to admit that my mom has been here for two days making the jam. I'm just an innocent bystander really. A bystander who gets to help her sister cut the tops off 6 flats of strawberries. A bystander who gets to wash dishes and try to keep things semi clean. A bystander who points out the jam splatters on the pretty new walls to her mother and who thinks her mother might actually prefer using the bystander's kitchen all alone. So not really a bystander at all, more like a sarcastic pain in the ass helper. Whatever. I have 70 jars of jam to choose from now, and more will be coming tomorrow on day 3 of the jam marathon.

It's kind of a give and take venture. I give my kitchen and storage space for the jam and I take whatever amount of jam I can use in a year. It's a win-win situation I think. My kids LOVE my mom's Nanking cherry jelly! They probably go through a jar every week or two. Beth helped pick the cherries this year. Of course by help I mean she picked about 7 and then went and played with the dogs and the kitties while grandma and grandpa picked enough to make, hopefully, a years worth of jelly. Katie picked a bucket at her other grandma's house this year as well and these were delivered to my mom for freezing for future jam use.

A fun, hot, sticky, tiring time was had by all.

That's my mom on the end. The rest of the ladies just came with the Certo.

Well, not really.

Community Association

We're new to the community. Tonight was my first registration for fall programming. They schedule registration immediately following the annual general meeting. The meeting where they elect new board members. The meeting where they beg and beg and then beg some more for people to volunteer for vacant board positions. I've never lived in a city before with young children so this community association thing is new to me. This group plans children and adult programs for the year. For a very small registration fee ($10) your family can join, and then you can enroll your children or yourselves for different activities, mostly sports. The fees for the sports and activities are very minimal. For example 6 weeks of jazz class is $25. However in order for the programs to run, they have to have a board. And to have a board they have to have volunteers.

I had no idea it would be so crazy at the registration. I arrived early to get my registration form and then waited for the meeting to start. There were hundreds of people there and half of them sat at the back of the gym and couldn't even keep their mouths shut for more than 5 minutes while the meeting was going on and they visited with their neighbors. Come on people.

So it's 'election' time. Do you think 10 positions could be filled in less than 45 minutes? It was like pulling teeth for the poor board president to get anyone to volunteer. Sure, I wasn't a volunteer, but I've lived here for all of 2 weeks, I'm not quite ready for that. We saw the financial report for last year, this association has a lot, I mean A LOT of money. Most of the vacant positions were simply people needed to take charge of an area and get contracts on the work that needed to be done. The money is there, there is no fundraising needed. In fact each year the association has to decide what to do with their excess funds as they are a non-profit. This year they bought defibrillators for the schools and bought some community signs for the schools at the cost of over $10,000 each! The money is there.

I admittedly live in quite a wealthy area of the city. Our kids already have many more opportunities than the kids in some of the other areas of the city. Our community association does not have the trouble with funds that some of the other associations do (hmmmm....maybe somewhere to spend the money next year?), so why can't the parents be grateful for what is being offered at very realistic prices? Volunteer for a position, if you can't do it alone, get a friend and volunteer together. It shouldn't be so hard for them to fill the positions. Again, I know I didn't volunteer, and I do feel some guilt for that, but many of these people have been enjoying these activities for years, and not only couldn't bring themselves to volunteer they couldn't even shut up long enough for the interested people to hear the meeting.

It was a zoo.

And then the meeting was over and the actual registration began. It was worse than a zoo. Luckily I had arrived early and they called people in to register in the order they got their registration forms. My number was called within 20 minutes and I was able to get in and out quite quickly as I only registered one child for one activity. And the best part...I get to do it all again in a couple months, well sans the meeting and volunteer extraction.

I'm tired

I'm trying to get into a new schedule. One where I am out of bed before any sane person I know. 6:30am. If that sounds like sleeping in to you, I guess you know where you fall on my sanity scale. So my alarm goes off at 6:25am and I hit snooze and then try to beat my snooze alarm to the bathroom. I lost today. I did get up when the snooze alarm went off though, so I wasn't late or anything.

I wake up and the house is still. A few minutes after my alarm goes off the first thing I hear is the bread machine beeping. Everything else is quiet. The kids are all asleep and so is Chris. Usually Anna has already snuck into our bed and is sound asleep in between Chris and I. Even the cats who have been banished to the garage are not scratching at the door to come in. So I drag self out of bed and into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. Why is it that even though I brushed my teeth less than 8 hrs earlier and all I did was sleep, that my mouth can feel way yuckier than it did after a whole day of being awake? Must be all the drooling I do in my sleep, lol.

After getting dressed into some sweats and a t-shirt I take the bread out of the breadmaker and gather my stuff. Car keys, house keys (yes I have them on separate key chains), water bottle, apple, shoes, cell phone. Lately I have to go back into the bedroom and search through Chris's pants to find my car keys as he's misplaced his, and seems in no hurry to find them as mine are so easy to steal. Then off to the gym I go. Yep, I said gym. And it's still only 6:45am!

I joined Curves (again) last week. I know I have to get myself there as early as possible and with kids to get ready for school, one still at home, and babysitting, my only options are before the world wakes up and the evening. I know that by the time the evening rolls around I'll have thrown around every excuse as to why I can skip a day, or I'll be too tired to go, or I'll forget and then it will too late, so really the evening workout is really a no go for me. Pre-dawn is my only option.

When I get home from the gym it's just in time to wake the kids up, make breakfasts and lunches and get them off to the bus and even get some housework done. I actually feel really great in the morning, but boy am I starting to drag by late afternoon! I have to work on the getting to bed earlier thing, or 6:30am may just kill me. Today though, I am tired in the morning, which can't be a great sign of things to come.

Time to get back to blogging business!

It's been forever, but it's time for me to get back into my blog. We're moved and generally settled, so I have no more excuses. I need the outlet too, a place to write down the crazy, silly, funny, boring, whatever, parts of my day. I guess I find it relaxing to sit down at the end of the day and write out my thoughts.

So what's been keeping me busy?

We moved a couple weeks ago. We were pretty much unpacked right away since out move covered everything from packing to unpacking. However getting things organized the way you want them always takes time. You think you want it one way only to discover that you don't really like it and have to organize it all over again. In between the organizing you still have to keep the house clean and the laundry done, because that just never ends. I will say that this house is much less dusty than either house I lived in in our old town. I guess I was right that the gravel roads there added to the dust in my house and it wasn't simply poor housekeeping. I did give up dusting there eventually so in part it was poor housekeeping, but when it's dusty 5 minutes after you wipe, you realize how futile your attempts are, lol.

This weekend was great. Chris was home from work and we had no real plans. That's rare lately. We spent Saturday tuning up our bikes and the girls bikes and then we spent quite a few hours just out walking and biking the neighborhood. We have some parks nearby with great trails that we are getting to know. The girls put at least 10km on their bikes on Saturday. I was so impressed that they did so well, especially Anna. She did get tired and have to stop for a few breaks but she pushed her own bike when she was on a break. She was a real little trooper. Beth's bike seized up on us though, so we have to get the bearings in her pedals fixed. I'd like to get her bike into the shop this week to get that taken care of so we can do some more biking in the evenings or next weekend.

Sunday we tried out a new church. I don't think it's quite the right fit for us, but I did really enjoy the service and the people. We'll find the right church for us though, it just may take a few weeks and some church shopping.

Today was spent on the house. I did housework and Chris worked in the yard. He built a sandbox for the girls and I shovelled the sand from the centre of the yard into the wheelbarrow and then dumped it into the sandbox. It was three wheelbarrow loads, and I'm impressed I didn't give up on the shovelling, lol. The sandbox is great, although I don't know how much the kids will actually use it. Then Chris measured out the area we are going to keep the trampoline. We priced out the cost of enough pea gravel to cover the ground under the trampoline and we plan to have some delivered this week sometime. It will be dumped into our driveway and we'll have to shovel it into the wheelbarrow which I think might take forever since it'll be way more gravel than we had sand. Chris edged the trampoline area tonight with some landscaping stuff left behind by the old owner, but he couldn't finish since the mosquitos started eating him alive. If we plug away at it day after day, we're hoping the backyard will be ready for grass seed before the snow falls and that we'll have good luck with the grass growing in the spring.

Of course as soon as the yard is done I think the basement renovations will start, so it really is never ending, lol.

I also started working out at Curves last week. My goal is to make it there mon-fri before the kids are up for school and get my workout in. I should be home in time to get them up, fed, dressed and off to school. Hopefully I can keep up the early rising. I know the key will be getting to bed at a decent hour, something I haven't been great at in the past. I timed out how long it takes me to ride my bike to Curves tonight. Twelve minutes. That's not bad, but at the moment I am not in good enough shape to get there in twelve minutes and have the energy to work out for half an hour. And I'm very sure I would not have the energy to bike myself back home! I have to be able to get there and back in decent time though in order to make sure the kids are awake in time to get to school, so for now I'll have to drive every morning. Maybe once the snow has come and gone I'll be fit enough to bike there every morning.