pottery painting

We just returned from our Easter Vacation. One of the days we were away, CO's Nana took us to paint pottery. The boys did AMAZING! They were quite focused and loved it. We have yet to see our final product but will get to see it next time we visit with CO's grandparents.

there is a lid for every pot

I was watching a movie at work this past month and someone said the line 'there is a lid for every pot' in reference to people and thier mates.
I like the concept. But I am not sure I agree with it.

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Easter is just around the corner. I have done maybe 2% of all the things I wanted to do leading up to Easter with the boys. I hope to fit in a couple of things tomorrow afternoon.

Tomorrow morning we are due at the dentist bright and early. CO is getting a 'robot' put in. (story behind the robot: a couple of weeks ago, CO was WAILING because he had a piece of carrot stuck between his molars, I flossed it out and the wailing con't. After 3 days of putting a teething gel on it, we made it to the dentist only to discover that the tooth was broken and a chunk missing. SO, we ended up having to get it pulled as it wasn't worth saving. And tomorrow they are putting a spacer in to keep the space open for when his new molar is due to grow in sometime around age 11...sigh). The robot's name is 'spacer' and it's job is to not let his teeth be lonely and try to grow closer together because if they do, there will be no room for his new tooth. When you are four, calling it a robot is WAY cooler and less scary than a bunch of wire and brackets.

Here is CO with his bubblegum smelling nose just before the tooth got pulled.

After the dentist, we are due to swing by the dr. so J can get his needle that he didn't have to get because he had a cold the last time he was at the doctors. (cute story for that day...we were in the truck driving the the app't and CO says to J 'you are going to get a needle J, but just be brave like Daniel and it will be ok because God is with you!'. It made this mama's heart swell with pride.)

After the doctor, we need to run a bunch of errands to pick up a few last minute things needed for our trip to the nation's capital. We leave Tuesday morning and will be gone just over one week. I am SO excited to get away. I am hoping the travel with the two little ones goes smoothly.  We will travel in the morning. Travelling at night with CO doesn't seem to work as he doesn't sleep in the truck when I want him to, only when it is just before nap time and I am rushing to get home so he can go to sleep :)
The plan is to take our time, stop lots, bring lots of snacky foods and try to not go insane. It would have been nice to have a new 'adventures in odessey' but I didn't get it ordered in time. Luckily the boys love to listen to the first two of the series that we have over and over again.

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Our family has grown!!!

meet

chicky stew (black) and chicky soup (white)

CO was very excited about our recent addition. He even temporarily changed his name to 'chicken farmer'.

 It is his job to let the in and out of the house each day, and to make sure they have food and water. The added bonus is that we have gotten two eggs already!

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last week's lesson learned:

don't pee in the wind!!!!!!!!!   

 :)

crazy friday!

Friday morning, I cut the grass. In the afternoon it snowed. In the evening I was scrambling in the semi-dark garage to look for my window scraper as my truck was covered in a thick coat of ice...

what a crazy Friday!

a boy and a bag

CO was bugging for me to take him out kite flying. Both boys are loving the nice weather and are spending LOTS of time outdoors. I was cooking supper and had to go to my finace class afterwards so dropping what I was doing to go fly kites wasn't really an option.
Next best thing...

a plastic bag on a kite string :)
I wish I had captured the delight on his face when the bag started flying. He spent lots of time running around flying the bag :)

the stomach flu...a blessing in disguise?

Our house has been a crazy one this past week. A little bug entered and I think it has finally left. Both boys came down with it in the middle of the night Thursday. It lasted all through next day so I called in sick for the weekend. I was thinking that it was only moments before I came down with it myself and I didn't think the boys would want babysitters when they were feeling so now well (plus I want to keep my babysitters and I am not sure that would be likely after a weekend of stomach flu clean-up duty).
I brought out a small tv/vcr and set it up in the livingroom and the boys layed on the couch spending most of Friday watching 5 episodes of 'blue's clues' over and over again while resting on and off. Friday afternoon the sitter called and said that there was a death in the family and she wouldn't be able to work. (which fortunately I had already called into work to have my shift covered so that worked out well). Saturday the illness had slowed down but the energy level in the boys was still low so there was some playing but still lots of resting. I was feeling ok and considering heading back to work as the second sitter hadn't been canceled yet, boy am I glad I didn't .... Saturday evening it hit...hard. It was one of the moments in my life that I wish I had a partner in parenting...because having the stomach flu is much easier without having to look after two boys at the same time. It is also the pits to have no privacy while sick. At one point I was using a bowl and both boys were hovering into my personal space...ug.

Sunday....is a blurr. I had borrowed some VHS movies from the neighbour Friday night and so Sunday I layed on the couch, CO was better and was rotating between playing, resting and enjoying outside with my dad. J, was still not feeling the greatest. So the two of us spent a lot of time on the couch resting. The boys were finally interested in food and spent the day munching on cheerios and applesauce.

By Monday I was feeling better. I ached all over and had a HUGE headache but was much better than Sunday.  By Monday at 11 (new time) both boys were asking to head to bed. Due to the fact they both rested all weekend and slept lots because they weren't feeling well, daylight savings time seems to have gone by without any transition issues...blessing in disguise??? not sure I am willing to cast my vote one way or the other.

Both boys were symptom free all of Monday. J had problems Monday night, but that seemed to be the end of it.
Sunday my mother came down with the flu and Monday my sister. Today...nobody was down and everyone was feeling good...so I think the bug has left the building. Two family members have made it through without catching the bug.






I have taken total advantage of the beautiful weather these last couple of days and opened all the windows to blow the germs away!!

big boys in underwear

I love boys in boxers...now I have two boys full time in underwear! Yeah J! To celebrate I got the boys matching dinosaur underwear. It isn't easy finding underwear small enough for him...he is wearing size 2's in the photo.

tired and an update

When I spend half the night with a boy in my arms while he coughs and cries, makes me very tired the next day. He got to sleep in until 930. I had to be up at 630 with the other one. My eyes are at half mass and the world is a little on the foggy side. CO is happy because he is happy to play reader rabbit while his brother watches in the beanbag chair and mom sits and half dozes and half reads. J is giggling at parts of the game and it is nice to hear him laugh after he has been SO miserable this week. He seems to run a fever easily when he has a cold. My mother is a nurse she invested in some bed pads when my sister K was little in case she wet the bed...well let me tell you that was a great investment my mother made. They have saved K's mattress, CO's mattress, many mattresses at the cottage and now...CO's beanbag chair. J has spent most of the last couple of days just sitting in it. He doesn't want to wear a diaper as he is too hot and he just threw up all over the chair. Easy clean up by throwing the pad into the washer! :) I hate vomit!! I know most people probably do. J vomits lots. He has a sensitive gag reflex and being flemmy, so much more sensitive. I have become immune to cleaning up vomit these last months...J is a professional vomitter :)

I have started taking a Dave Ramsey financial course....I WISH I had learned this stuff as a late teen. I would have been SO much smarter with my money! Better late than never. I have had in my goal for the last couple of years to be debt free (not that I have much debt) but this course will enable me to have the tools to not only be debt free but to be debt free forever. I am very much enjoying it. It makes SO much more sense. I on the most part live pay cheque to pay cheque. I do save some of my cheque weekly and save up for large expenses but I rarely think twice about using my credit card for something I want. I tend to buy things on sale anyway. I am excited to see where this course takes me!

CO's grandparents are arriving tomorrow for a few days! He is SO SO SO much missing them. The last couple of weeks he calls them regularly asking them to pack thier bags :) I don't think he could have lasted until Easter (we are going to visit them) to see them. He is having a hard time this week even lasting until Thursday :) I am looking forward to them coming too!! I have missed them. They are such a blessing to my life. I am going to get to bed early tonight and hope that J sleeps better so that I can stay up later tomorrow night so we can play cards.

Early December I ordered two cupboards from Sears. I was wanting them so I can organize the craft supplies and school resources better. One was available right away when I ordered and the other was backordered. They wouldn't let me select a pick up date until the end of February so I assumed that was because the one item was backordered. I went to pick up the cupboards, only one was there. I called Sears and the other one is still backordered and maybe will be available the middle of March...sigh. I was so looking forward to finally sorting out things and everything fitting. So here is to hoping that it will come in by the middle of March and the delays won't be even longer. The boys love the new cupboard and it was a lot of convincing on my part to tell them it was mine and not for them to play hide and seek in...sigh

The childcare is working MUCH better. CO is much better at following the direction of the new sitters. I think he thought if he was bad in the begining, that I would just stay home from work...not so much buttercup!

CO is into writing things out big time. It is funny all the notes he writes. He mastered writing the dog's name before his own (he struggled with the letter S) and has mine and his grandparent's down pat. At valentines time I was trying to get him to draw a heart so he could write that he loved everyone. I am loving that I get to be the one that fills his head with all this information and watch him understand it and then love to use what he is learning! Often I will catch him 'teaching' his brother or the dog. Next step...reading (a little scary especially since I know that his bio family had members that very much struggled with reading...his BM can't read outloud) and mastering the numbers 6-10 (he has 0-5 down great).

I added fish oil and folic acid suppliments to CO's days. This seems to have really helped with his behaviours and mood swings. I sometimes wondered in the begining if things were really improving or if it was all in my head. But if I look back at the last week, it has gone amazingly well. He is still a strong willed child and a brute on his brother at some moments, but overall...I think we are thriving more days rather than just surviving

muffin monday

Mondays are days that I get to spend putting things away from the weekend and taking stock of what is in my cupboards and think ahead as to what I am going to cook and freeze for meals for the boys for the upcoming weekend. 

Mondays are also muffin mondays :) CO and I spend the early hours of the morning choosing and baking muffins. By the time they are ready to come out of the oven, J will be awake and ready to join us. Last weekend CO and I baked blueberry oatmeal muffins and this morning it was morning glory (or carrot as CO refers to them). Then I can use the leftovers for traveling snacks all week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are days we have something to attend in the morning and I will pack the boys a 'lunch' of snacks that they can eat either in the truck or at the location.

I want to tweak the morning glory muffin recipe to decrease the oil and sugar.

This week I find out if there is still room in the homeschool gymnastics class for CO to join. If so then we will have something to the town south of us from 930-11 on Tuesdays and then have to drive 45 minutes to another town for gymnastics from 12-1. It puts a lot in his day but I think it will be good for him. It will throw J's sleep schedule for a loop but either I'll see if he can nap at a friend's house or he will just have to be later in going down for his nap.

I have invited a friend to join me at my biblestudy group. She is going to try it out this Monday to see if she is interested in attending more often. The book we are studying is 'the Eve Factor'.

It is a beautiful sunny day outside. I noticed at work this weekend that the tulips and daffodils are starting to come up...crazy weather. What happened to winter?