Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Pioneer Woman

My sister recommended reading this site when I got around to it. Her name has been coming up more and more in some of the other blogs I read so I finally took a look the other day. I went into her archives to read Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - and I was hooked. A few days later? What a great read (and she's right,

"Grab a cup of coffee. Curl up with a blanket. Have a box of kleenex and a fan handy. Here's the complete saga (to date) of the rip-roaring true story of how I met my husband, Marlboro Man, and how I went from spoiled city girl to domestic ranch wife in the blink of an eye").

I'm counting this as a book in my monthly recap!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

EC Update

We had a bit of a breakthrough today regarding Elimination Communication! Mitchell fell asleep feeding a few times but wouldn't transfer to another area. Finally I decided to try feeding him in the bed - it worked. He fell asleep within a few minutes and I was able to get away to spend some time making lunch and spend time with the other kids. He slept from 11:30-1:15 (1 hour and 45 minutes)! When I heard him stirring I went right up and he was playing with the blanket and doing a lot of wriggling. I started to change his diaper and realized it was dry so I quickly took him to the bathroom. He pooped! I took him back to bed and he was feeding and then asleep 10 minutes later. (And don't worry - the kids were on their Wii and Dora time and the monitor was on). He slept until 2:40 when we had to start getting ready to go to school. He was wet but he peed again!


On a related note, we've been catching probably 8 out of 10 poops a day! Pees? This kids pees a LOT! I manage to get him to go on the potty frequently but more often then not he is already wet. This is not doing a great job for our diaper service as we go through the diapers very quickly. Thank goodness I have a few extras as I used 15 of my own diapers by pickup today!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Memory Monday - lunches with dad

I'm using Mondays as a time to jot down those little memories of my childhood or past that crop up here and there...(and are sometimes prompted by other bloggers too)

I took my father out for lunch today (along with Mitchell and Cierra since they were home and had to come with me). This was part of his Father's Day gift as well as one of my intentions for my Gotta Do list. He chose A&W. We had a great chat - primarily about his counselling work these days and a bit about the parenting books I've been reading and life in general. It was reminiscent of the days when he rotated taking my brother, sister, mom and I out for lunches back in elementary and highschool. He would pick us up on a rotating basis from school and we'd go to the restaurant of our choice - with just him. It petered out sometime in highschool (we think) and have obviously been long out of practice. I think it would be a good idea to do it more frequently. How quickly time gets away from us!

I'd like to do this with our kids too. I originally thought of their birthdays but both Marlee and Matthew celebrate when school is out. Knowing me, I have to come up with an alternate date to remember for each of them and put it on the calendar. They don't get that long of a nutritional break so I don't think we can do it on a monthly basis. I'm thinking maybe a "6 month unbirthday"? That would make it February 26th for Marlee and June 22nd for Matt. Seeing how I just missed it for Matt and now school is over, we'll mark it on the calendar for next year!

End of the Year and Teacher Thank yous

She made it! Marlee has graduated from kindergarten and is officially in grade one. All day every day next year!
The school had a little ceremony which consisted of the kids singing a song (Together), each receiving a "diploma" and the principal relaying what they would like to be when they grow up. They ended with a good bye song with participation from the audience (Tony Chestnut). We met in the classroom afterwards for a few minutes before leaving them. We've had this particular teacher now for 4 years so it will be a bit of a change next year.


End of the school year also means teacher thank yous. I struggled with this for a few years before we have now settled into a routine. It can be somewhat expensive from year to year but we have really had such great teachers that it is certainly justified.

Basically we give gift certificates. Not extremely creative or original but hopefully useful and well, I like to give consumable gifts. To add a little personality we add some homemade goodies, which ideally, the kids help make. Skor bars have been very popular, as well as Mars Bar Squares. If I have time I make a little bag topper to spice it up.

This year our teachers got $20 gift cards for Michael's or Chapters and the EA in the classroom got $10 for Chapters. We recognized them at Christmas and at year end. They also got a Tim Horton's card back on Teacher Recognition Day. They have been exceptional teachers this year and all did lots of extras for the classroom. We hope they all have a great summer. Now we wait until the Friday before class starts in September to start it all over again. But for now, 2 months of ????

We'll be sitting down on Monday to brainstorm about what we'd like to do all summer. We are somewhat limited in that I don't have the space in the car to drive every day but we are again fortunate that there are lots of things to do around the neighbourhood. I have a few ideas of my own but it will be interesting to see what the kids come up with. We already have "ride the city bus" on the list.

Now I'm off to the leftover goodies...

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Sitting pretty at 3 Months old!




Three months has flown so quickly!

  • 14 lbs 11 oz +
  • eyes turning from blue to darker blue/brown
  • chubby arms and legs
  • wearing 3 month clothes
  • not on a real schedule yet - feeds on demand
  • EC-ing well - probably about 65% of the time (we catch 8/10 poops)
  • definitely a mama's boy
  • staying awake for majority of the day
  • sleeping well enough during the night (in bed with us)
  • has slept 2-5 hour stretches and a 7 hour stretch
  • smiles, laughs
  • discovering hands and likes to chew on them
  • not liking car seat or stroller - preferring sling
  • enjoys swing and floor mat for short stretches
  • enjoys outside - looking at sky
  • TOTALLY LOVABLE!!!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Dedication Day/ Father's Day

Mitchell was dedicated at church on Father's Day. At our church we do infant/ child dedication and then later, when an individual affirms their believe in Christ, they may participate in believer's immersion baptism. I grew up in the United Church and was baptised as an infant. As an early teen I wen tthrough confirmation and then when we changed churches, I took part in beleiver's baptism in July 1997. Drew was baptised in November 2001.



As usual, when we needed to be at church on time (I wanted to get there early so that I could feed Mitchell there rather then at home but that didn't work out) we got there just in time but I had to sit out for most of the morning to feed him. We did finish in time for our part. There were 3 families with dedications but we all went up together.

Drew and I read our prayer of dedication together (the same for both Matthew and Marlee) and then Dad came up to do a prayer over him as well. The kids behaved fairly well but all three couldn't keep their hands off him! I'm glad he was so tolerant!


Afterwards we had cake for everyone and Nana got to hold him for the duration. It was rather warm so we kept "airing" out his gown. I had one little girl come up and ask why he was wearing a dress. It was so cute. I explained that the "gown" as we call it, has been in our fmaily for several generations and it is a famiy tradition to wear it for dedications and baptisms. It was my mother's great grandfather's, which makes it 6 generations? Either way, Grandma wore, it mom wore it, Sarah, myself, Matthew, MArlee adn now Mitchell have worn it. Sean came into the fmaily at 10 months of age so he was too big to wear it. I will have to chekc and see which cousins wore it. I didn't get a chance to get a picture of just Mitchell in it. I'll have to remember to do that soon before mom passes it on to Sarah. It has a few yellowish areas which she hope to work on. Scary!



We came back to our house to have a celebratory bar bq with my parents and Don. It was a beautiful afternoon although we definitly missed Melissa (get well soon =)) and Nana.

And of course a Happy Father's Day shout out to Drew! We couldn't ask for a better dad. He s always there for me and the kids. I'm pretty lame at gift giving if not given ideas and this year was no exception. I do hope he knows how much he is appreciated though and that we would do anything for him. He has really been giving 100%+ these last few months since Mitchell was born. Dinner is usually prepped when he gets home but making it and serving it has fallen to him regularly as it seems as soon as the daycare kids go, Mitchell needs feeding and there is no point in starting dinner with the other kids there. Mitchell also seems to need feeding right at bedtime so Drew has been the sole doer in that area too. I'm glad that I can still snuggle although that tends to keep Marlee up just a little later. But kudos to Drew - you mean so much to our family and we couldn't ask for a better husband/dad. Thank you and WE LOVE YOU!

Friday, June 18, 2010

one year ago...


...we said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa.

Missing you guys!
(Photo June 2008)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Is it a Funk?

One of my favourite blogs to read is this one, and I think I could have written most of her post today. What a day!

Today was a daycare day and the kids were busy. Thank goodness it was beautiful out and we spent the majority of the day outside. They went swimming, played on the equipment and "hung out". Not so bad. And then Marlee got a sliver. Woah! Her screams brought about Mitchell's screams because I had to put him down to get it out. Then the boys shared all of their wound stories which really weren't helping the situation. I finally got her calmed down and distracted, removed the sliver effortlessly (b/c she was actually calm) and then she continued crying b/c it hurt. Really? It was out! Woah. Enough.

Back to the post though. As I was finally getting my long anticipated shower this evening, I too was thinking to myself "I'd really like to cut my hair. I am tired of wearing it up". When it is down it has no style and gets caught in Mitchell's hands or gets spit up in it. So up it goes. Makeup? I haven't worn anything other then lipgloss since Mitchell was born. And clothes? Well we'll just say it's casual and leave it at that. Did we mention the spit up and yes, with ECing I do get #1 and #2 on me. Frequently.

But this sounds more like complaining then I mean to. Just like Erin, our little guy is amazing. He is so enraptured with us! He is totally into his hands right now, learning to spend a little more time on his own but still definitely MY guy. I can't believe he is already 12 weeks (today!! - I had to look it up b/c I thought he was only 11 weeks -oops!) It's so hard to believe how much our lives have changed in such a short amount of time.

But I am craving time. Whoever says that "wearing baby" still lets you get everything done is wrong. I feel very behind. Marlee and I spent a good couple of hours on Saturday cleaning up her room and purging a great deal of clothes (Note - Drew was home and Kristy was visiting - good entertainer!). We managed to get 5 baskets together. We brought them downstairs for some friends to go through. Since they went through them on Saturday evening, they are STILL sitting on the pool table. I need some boxes which I haven't had a chance to go get.

But this will change - and I will be wishing for these days to come back again. But for now, I too have to wonder am I in a funk and how long will it last? I too hope that some organizing - no let's just make it CLEANING will work. And that will come tomorrow. I can't wait!

PS - we did end on a higher note. The kids' school had a movie night showing Bedtime Stories. We had a great time!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Digi help

I'm linking a few posts here so that I can come back to it at some point

this discusses how to change the colour of a doodle

this is post with links for video digital tutorials

and finally this review for printing photobooks.

They are in!

The plants that is. I FINALLY got the garden mostly in. I have a few more to grab at the nursery tonight (if they have any) but the majority of them are in the ground. This year I am planting the following:
- broccoli (4)
- celery (8)
- garden lettuce (4)
- mesclun mix lettuce (4)
- cauliflower (4)
- purple cauliflower (4)
- zucchini squash (4)
- tomato(1)
- beans (12)
- cucumber (12)
- sweet green pepper (4)
- sweet yellow pepper (4)
- basil
- dill
- parsley
- chives
- rosemary

Unfortunately I just didn't prioritize (I'm trying to avoid saying "have the time for") planting seeds again this year. Maybe next year? I hope to buy the PVC piping for the trellis in the next day or so for the bean section. This year I am primarily using the new garden bed as the old one is full of weeds, except for the beans and the asparagus (if I can figure out how they work??). Again with starting too late this year, I don't think I'll be able to manage that much produce. Poor Drew - after I made him get the second garden bed in for me. He won't be pleased.

Still to do:
- figure out about fertilizer
- set up trellis
- buy tomato plants
- figure out where to plant the basil
- get the soaker hose out and set up
- get out the tomato stands and set them up

Oh and did I mention I used the new water barrel to water the plants?

I really hope to get the kids more involved this year with the overall gardening process. Maybe they will be more apt to eat raw vegetables.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Annoying Orange!

The kids have been into these videos lately. Check them out - there are several variations. This one is my favourite so far!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Monthly Recaps!

I finally got around to getting my monthly recaps done for April and May. It feels so much better to get those done!

Now if I can find the time there is lots to talk about...

...LOAD is officially done and how did I do?
...Drew's half marathon
...our great weekend away at Great Wolf Lodge!

Hopefully I'll be back to tell you more!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Memory Monday - 80's movies


Does this remind you of anything? Think big producer/ actor movie. Think BIG!
We came across this at Great Wolf Lodge and I love how it jogged my memory. There are so many great movies from the eighties! The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles....

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

May 2010 Recap

Finally here - my monthly recap of all that's gone on around here.



  • Exercise – first mini jog at 6 weeks post partum; walking regularly to and from school again; Drew running regularly

  • Books, Magazines Read – The Sunflower by Richard Paul Evans; It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh; Attachment Parenting;

  • Entertainment (TV, Movies, Live events seen) – LOST finale, NCIS; Parenthood; 19 Kids and Counting; 30 Rock

  • Special Events – Matt in church play “GPS - God’s Plan of Salvation”; Drew’s birthday (38); Cierra’s birthday (20th); opened pool (22nd); Drew ran half marathon with G

  • Travel – visited Sean’s new house; Ottawa for ½ marathon

  • Significant/ unusual purchases, gifts / changes – gas barbq; new tires (3) – Odyssey; tile for backsplash;

  • Health – Mitchell hearing test passed;