Day Two

I wasn't really looking forward to today b/c Rich wrecked his knee on Tuesday and I didn't think he would be able to go out and walk around any type of Canada Day festivities. Up until Tuesday I was thinking that we could bike around Stanley Park BUT since then I figured maybe I would take the kids out by myself. Well, Rich surprised me and decided last night that he could get around the Fort at Fort Langley. SO, the day started out with sleeping in (you'll notice a trend here I'm sure) and then finishing up the house while Rich worked on our deck. We ate a early lunch and then went off to the fort.

Today was the opposite of yesterday - I thought the day would be blah with us not going out as a family but instead we had a great time. We went to the fort - the kids panned for gold and Aiden found a little piece. They had a great time "building" a fort and of course loved feeding the animals. We then moved onto the langley centennial museum and they loved that b/c there were more animals to pet, races to be raced, balloons to be given and a yummy FREE candy stick. We stopped for slushies for the kids and frappicinos for Rich and I. So good. We bbqed salmon burgers and the kids ended the night with a watergun fight. Of course they had have a quick shower at the end to warm up b/f pjs. Now Rich and I are going to watch the Social Network. A great second day.

Day One

Summer vacation has been greatly anticipated in this household. By the time June rolls around I'm done with activities, lunches, schedules, and gettting up and out the door in time for school.

Ahh, so today was our first day off and well it didn't go quite as expected. I had it all planned out - the kids would get to watch some morning cartoons and then play double computer/wii time (big deal in our home)as I cleaned the house. I had made sure the grocery shopping was all done b/f school let out but the house didn't have a chance to get clean. It started off great - I got to sleep in, the kids got to relax and then it was time for a bath. Three kids were in the bath - I go to wash them when the youngest one tells me that one of her brothers peed on the side of the tub. Well, that just put a bit of a damper on the day - the boy wouldn't say why he did it and then when he did I he told me two different stories. It doesn't go over well in this house when I know one of the kids is lying to me. Anyhow we got that eventually sorted out and moved on - we go to the library and one boy decides that one of his brothers is annoying him so he slaps him in the face. Not hard but that's still another big nono in our house. Fortunately the day slowly improved and ended on a high note.

We had decided earlier to go see Cars 2. We have airmile coupons so since it cost us nothing to go as a treat we bought burgers and pizza for dinner at the theatre. We all thoroughly enjoyed the movie - even Callia, who is three, sat thru this one way better than Kung Fu Panda. The boys loved the action and there was some humour in it too for us adults. It didn't resemble the first one at all but we still enjoyed it. Christian asked if we could buy it. I think we will.

Day one didn't go quite as expected - who expects their school aged child to pee on the side of the tub? He did do a great job a of washing all the toys that could have been near pee. I didn't get the house cleaned fully - that's what tomorrow is for BUT we did have a great family night out.

Livin' in a big kid world but....

I have to remember that I have little kids too. Today was one of those rare days when I had nothing to do or at least no where to go. I was wondering what to do so that Christian wouldn't get bored when I thought of going for a walk. This was after we watched Backyardigans (free right now on Nick.) and painted a couple of snow pictures. So we bundled up and off we went. It was as he was riding and Callia was in the stroller that I started thinking about how our life is so geared for the older two. Our schedule revolves around driving to and from school and their activities - Callia's nap must fit in b/w lunch and school pick up. I realized that I need to make more time for walks with the younger two and instead of just breathing a sigh of relief when I don't have to take them out shopping I could take them to the park to play with all the other little ones. We go to the park tons in the summer and spring but I forget that moms who don't run to and from school still take their kids out in the cooler months so that they can get out of the house. However, saying all that I feel like I do play more with C and C at home b/c I realize that all too quickly they are off and running to kindergarten. Life is so calm with the two little ones home - it's as they get bigger that life gets so hectic - too bad I didn't realize that when I only had two in total!:)

Looking back

Hey there - are you out there???? Anyone???? I wasn't thinking too much about the coming year until I read someones blog about it being the end of a decade and that got me thinking. I can still remember 1999 and the whole Y2K thing. It has been a fantastic decade - with many surprises and life changing events. Let's see what happened:
2000 - Rich and I were married - went to Disney for our honeymoon
2001 - Rich and I lead a missions trip to Russia. We bought our first house and Ethan was born
2003- Aiden was born and I was officially done any type of work outside of our home
2004- Visited family in San Antonio Texas
2005- Christian was born
2007- Went on a road trip to Edmonton, went to England
2008- Callia was born, went to Disneyland
2009- We bought our second home
Phew - it was a decade of major events and talking with Rich we figure that the coming decade will just be life - it'll be busy with the four kids but as far as we can see no major events. Though, we totally realize that there will be major things happening but we just don't know about them again. I'm excited to see what God has in store for us as our family grows up over the next ten years. It's weird to think that when another decade is done we'll have kids who are 18, 16, 14 and 11 and I'll be past the forty mark. One of our dreams is to take the kids to Uganda when they're teens and that's always seemed so far off but I guess we better start planning b/c it's going to take place in the next decade! So, here's to another decade and to a new year. May yours be full of delightful surprises and when the not so delightful ones pop up may you find strength thru Jesus!

We're Moving!

It finally happened at the end of June - we sold. We said that we would give our place till the end of June to sell and I think that the sale went thru June 25th- if it had fallen thru like our previous deals we would have been finished but it didn't!! We refused to go looking for houses until everything on our place went thru - it sold on a Friday and we went looking Saturday morning. There were only two houses in our area that we could see - one we were hoping would work out but it would have required too much money to do what needed to be done so we went off to the second one. Actually at the second one the lady wouldn't let us in b/c she didn't know we had an appointment and asked us to come back on Sunday(not a good move, just do a five minute tidy and let people in or they may never come back) so we went off to the third. I wasn't sure of it at first b/c I could see that behind the house was stores and since one of our biggest problems about selling our place was that you could see IGA right behind us I wasn't interested in more stores - I wanted green space ideally or at least other houses. Anyways, while waiting for the other realtor to let us in we walked to the backyard and LOVED it. There were tall trees on the other side of the fence so you couldn't see the buildings right behind (plus they are apartments, so houses), we loved the size of the yard - the biggest one we had seen in our area since looking in September. It had a trampoline and a play centre. The outside of the house looked nice - except for the roof that looked ready to leak at any moment so we weren't sure what to expect on the inside. We were pleasantly surprised when we walked in - the people had updated the main floor wonderfully - it didn't look 21 years old. It had a family room, living room, dining room, bathroom and laundry room on the main floor and then three bedrooms and a games room upstairs. One of the houses we had put an offer on back in Feb. had a games room upstairs and we loved that idea but hadn't seen a house like that since. So we knew that the house had had an offer on Wed. and that they had two or three more people coming to see it later that day so we wrote an offer on it right away and it was ACCEPTED!! We were so excited as houses in our area were starting to go in one day, have bidding wars and go above asking price.

That brings us up to today. We have been busy decluttering and packing over the last few weeks and tomorrow morning we get the keys!!!! We CANNOT wait!! Tomorrow we are cleaning the carpets upstairs and painting Callia's room. The boys room is a Canucks room with a very well done hockey mural on it so it's going to be left. We'll paint the rest of the house as needed but the colours are perfectly fine for right now.

I am so excited to have a yard for the kids to play in and for a quiet dead end street for them to ride their bikes on. I am most excited that their toys will not have a permanent home in my kitchen but in the toy room upstairs - I know that they'll spill over into the rest of the house but at least my kitchen isn't their permanent home. I'm looking forward to having an extra eating area (however, it may be bare for quite awhile). I'm looking forward to having friends over and the kids playing on a different floor. I'm looking forward to making our own decisions regarding our home and not having strata telling us what we can and cannot do. I'm just looking forward to more space!

However, there are some things I'm a little sad about. The biggest one is not being able to walk to school. I think it's great to be able to walk to school - gets energy out, fresh air, good for the old environment, nice to chat with moms waiting at the door but there was not one house within walking distance for sale. Weird, since that was something we prayed about so I guess it wasn't meant to be. I am happy that when it is pouring rain I can just dump them off at the curb and we don't all have to get soaking wet and on snow days we'll just stay home! On sunny days we may park at our old complex and walk with our friends. I'm also sad about leaving some of our neighbours. Who am I going to call up when I'm half way done a recipe and have run out of something? Who will the kids play with when they go outside? We've had tonnes of good memories in our home - all of our kids have been born here (not literally here but you get my point), we've made so many memories. I get little sad when I think that Christian and Callia won't even remember this place - oh well, we'll make lots of new memories in the new house.

Anyways, that's the reason I haven't written on this blog - been busy packing either for holidays or for moving. Gotta run and get ready for the day!

Busy, Busy!

So two mornings ago I woke up and decided to check our freezer b/c our fridge had been making a funny noise. I discovered that our freezer had defrosted and everything was thawed. So, I got dressed and by 7:10am I was barb bqueing 16 chicken thighs. After that I bbqed 12 pork chops and made taco meat out of 1 lb of beef. Oh, I also cleaned everything out of the freezer, got myself and four kids ready for school and out the door by 8:30. I got home from dropping two kids off and made a curry out of stewing beef and stuck that in the crock pot. By 10 am all the meat was cooked, packed up and put away in our downstairs freezer. Thankfully the Sears dude came out and was gone by just after 10am. Then me and the two kids went to a local farm to pick up a yummy strawberry pie for my mom's bday (thankfully hubby was able to pick up my mom's present, since the appliance man delayed me). At the farm I asked if the strawberries would be around till next week - nope, I asked if they would at least be here till the weekend and they said, "we hope but not sure" - so I ended up buying 15 lbs of strawberries. I went to a store and bought stuff to make jam and a pie and then went to pick up Aiden fr. kindergarten. Came home fed three kids and a half hour later walked back to get Ethan. Phew! The afternoon was supposed to be spent cleaning the house since we had a home inspection the next day but instead I was cutting up strawberries and the kids were mushing them. I made jam, washed a lot to freeze and stuck some in the fridge just to eat - I think the pies are not going to happen. Went out for dinner with my family - YUM! and then they all came back for a game and pie. When they left I tidied up and cleaned the kitchen.
Day two - of busy,busy. B/c I bought those stinken strawberries, which really are stinken but very yummy I had to clean everything else by noon. So, with Callia down for a morning nap and the boys either watching a movie or playing computer games I cleaned. All I could think about was whether or not this deal goes thru on the house this is the LAST time I have to clean my place for someone coming to look at my home! By noon, the house was cleaned, the kids were dressed (so was I), picnic lunch packed and we were on our way to the zoo. Ahhh, the insanity was over. We had great time at the zoo - there for about three hours. Came home read, played outside, Rich got dinner together (not too hard since all the meat is precooked) and life was good. Oh, after dinner I then went out to Costco to shop and on the way home from that found out that our house sold!!!! YIPPEEEEE
Now, today we get to go and look at houses and there is no more "IF we sell our place" it is sold. We can go and buy whatever we love. So, fingers crossed and more importantly a lot of prayer later we are hoping to find the perfect house for us!! Exciting!!

It is finished!

Well, it's all done folks -I have officially finished nursing my last bambino. Out of the last 7years and 8 months I have been nursing for four years and almost 2months and I am now done. It's not something I've totally loved doing - it was so hard with the first babe and for the first few days hard with each of the others - I never fully knew if any of them were getting enough, or when they were done (newborn stage) but they somehow all did get enough. Sometimes it was inconvenient, sometimes painful and sometimes never ending. BUT those are four years I would never do differently - the "drunk" look each one gives when completely satisfied, touching my cheek with their little hands, looking up at me and smiling as milk dribbled out of their mouths, holding my fingers, knowing this was what was best for the babies and really best for me made it all so worth it. As I think of having no more babies I often think but "oh, when I have grandkids I'll have a baby to cuddle, spoil, change, walk, sooth but I'll never ever nurse again - it really is finished. Callia was the best nurser - she never went thru a "didn't want to nurse stage" - she loved it right to the end. In fact she was the longest nurser at almost 14 months - she was hard to ween, she threw tantrums in the afternoon when it was time to nurse, she was miserable until I did nurse her again but over this past week we've gone from two feeds to one to now none and she is now fine - no tantrums, she gladly accepts her sippy cup. I already miss the cuddles b/c with busy mornings it's much easier to give her the cup then to sit and cuddle her. But we'll cuddle at other times. She was so funny with her nursing over the last couple of months - she would try to sit up, and she would lay in any position possible and hey unlike Ethan she never bit me! At 12 months I was sad thinking about nursing ending, even though I didn't love it but at 14 months I'm fine with it. I looking forward to dumping the nursing bras (maybe I'll keep one), buying something new and being able to get away for a night or two with a baby!! YAHOO!