Lessons Learned

In the last couple of days I have learned a few important things. Firstly, being proactive on my cleaning is overrated. Second, being reactive on home upgrades is also overrated. Suffice it to say that, while vacuuming last night (one FULL day ahead of schedule) I learned that one cannot run the washing machine and vacuum in my basement at the same time. At least not for the length of time that it takes to vacuum the floor, the riser and half the stairs. At that point in time, it blows the circuit breaker (which, by the way, ALL important electronics - including the computer your husband just sat down at to start working - are plugged in to). If you have really old circuit breakers, it may even fry it for good. Sometimes you're lucky and find one of the no longer in production breakers in the basement but sometimes you're also not so sure if it's a new or dead one. So, evenings are now for quality time, rather than electronic time. Though, some mornings you are fortunate enough to find one of those people trained in this kind of situation with enough time to come and help you out. Then, you decide that the upgrade you've been putting off really should be done because that was your very last out of production breaker and if someone should get the urge to clean off schedule again, who knows what could happen.

Until next time...

The Last of January...

Here they are! The last photos of January. I just got through watching the Scotties on TV yesterday and can't wait for the Brier to start on Saturday (curling for those of you not in the know :) ). Otherwise, we're getting back into a busy week and our schedule again. I can't believe how fast time flies by and how it feels like I get nothing done! Well, what I did get done was the last batch of photos from January so, without further ado, here they are.

Jan 23 - It was garbage day. When I walk Xander out to the bus Monday mornings, I bring the garbage bin back in with me. I wanted to take a picture of it but it's kind of ugly so I thought this perspective and the pretty sunrise would help to perk this picture up. Our garbage truck driver even honks at the kids now since they are always watching out the window for him!

Jan 24 - Jonathan's mode of communication. He, very cutely, sticks his finger in his mouth and says "ahhhh" (like a cool drink on a hot summer's day) when he wants a drink. Without the sound effect, it means feed me.

Jan 25 - I'd forgotten how much Jonathan used to love stacking things until I caught him stacking blocks at his little table again.

Jan 26 - Xander's brand new piece of furniture. A fantastic find for only $10! It should fit him for a while, too. He wanted a desk to do his spelling homework at.

Jan 27 - Can you tell how much Jonathan loves the phone? He cradles it so possessively. The only problem is...he doesn't talk. He's now up to grunts but mostly it's just nodding and listening until Mom asks for the phone back and then it's "No."

Jan 28 - It was Jason's Christmas party and this was our team's (table's) basket. They did a bunch of "Minute to Win It" type games (I don't know what that is...it's just what they told us) and we won coins. We had to come up with a team name, too...this was it!

Jan 29 - FINALLY!! I finally finished Jordan's baby gift. Don't look at the birth date on there!

Jan 30 - Grandma and Grandpa were in town for a brief period and Jonathan was enjoying some Grandma time.

Jan 31 - Grandma left behind some mini-oranges. That is a regular sized grape beside them. They were so cute and sweet and Jonathan ate most of the box!

There. That takes us through the end of January. On to February...or is is March coming up? I gotta catch up one of these days!!

Until next time...

More January...

Well, I haven't been updating this as much as I had planned on but here I am. I have been getting a lot of stuff done around here...cross-stitch projects, scrapbook pages...just not the blog. In fact, I have my next cross-stitch baby afghan about 1/4 done. Maybe some of these kids will get theirs before they're old!

We're currently on a week off of school but I have barely gotten to see Xander. Seriously, he has been out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and will be out Friday. I was talking to him about it and telling him that I didn't even get to see him and he says to me "But Mom, there are things I want to do." Oh my, when did he grow up? It has been a relaxing week for me since other activities are also down.

I got to go skating last week, too! I was so excited to go with Xander and get back on the ice. It has been a VERY long time and I am so out of shape. I even almost fell a couple times. It did start to come back towards the end and it was fun to just take a spin around the rink. I really used to love figure skating. I miss it!

Anyway, here are some photos from me...

Jan 15 - Playing games, again...this time it's a game I got for my birthday and we are trying to teach Xander. It's called Bohnanza (the bean game to the rest of us) and I really like it. Xander's OK but needs to work on his strategy!

Jan 16 - Evan and his Cars 2 cars. The boys just love this movie. They will use these cars and reenact scenes from the movie - most notably, the cars getting shot with the camera on the casino bridge!

Jan 17 - I had an appointment with my opthamologist in the morning...of course, the only cold few days of the year and I have appointments!! Go figure. I met Jason for lunch afterwards at Viet Thai (one of his favourite restaurants for lunch, anyway). It was pretty good and I managed to get this picture before the battery in my camera died from the cold. It was about -30 at this point in time.

Jan 18 - My sweet Jonathan with that wonderful cream on his cheek. Far as we can figure, he must have childhood eczema. His cheeks get so bad and this prescription cream works. Hopefully, he'll outgrow it before too long.

Jan 19 - This is what my kitchen looks like at the end of the day. It's taken me many years to finally subscribe to my mother's theories that it really doesn't take that long to do the dishes and it's easier if you do it every day. Like usual, she's right and I love that my cupboards are clean and clear when I get up in the morning!

Jan 20 - This is what I use my kitchen counters for in the morning...making Xander's lunch. This is his lunchbox, filled with all the wonderful things my mom used to give us...a sandwich, juice, a fruit and a dessert. The perfect lunch :)

Jan 21 - Fun science experiments from Lowe's Build & Grow program. Xander built the holder for the bowl and test tubes and the project came with a bunch of cards with experiments on them. Of course, one of the favourites is the mini volcano. Doesn't every kid love that one?

Jan 22 - Netflix. We succumbed to the free trial and have actually been enjoying watching the shows and movies on demand. We can watch it on our big TV through our PS3 and it's great. There are tons of kids shows and we have even watched some CBC shows on it (shhh don't tell anyone...but the TV show Men With Brooms was cute, clean and funny...too bad there was only one season!)

There you go...I have updated this as far as I've edited my photos. Maybe I'll do some more later this week...it's hard to know :).

Until next time...

I'm Coming...

I promise...soon to come...more photos! I've actually just finished scrapping up until January 14th, so I'm caught up to everything that I've posted on my blog. That is very exciting to me. I also know which templates I'm going to use for the rest of January. I'm so excited to actually be putting this "onto paper" as I go so that maybe I'll print my (two) books for the year at some point in time. I actually did "A Day in the Life" in February so I think that will be a 2-page spread interrupting my regularly scheduled photos. It was a really interesting project but it was quite tiring to keep track of what I did all day! And I forgot to take at least one key photo...oh well.

Otherwise, it's been normal life around here. I've been trying to get off my computer more, use my time more productively and actually hit some of my goals. Sometimes it works...sometimes not so much. We were out in Southey yesterday for a baby shower for my little nephew and it was good to see people again but it was tiring for all of us. The kids went to bed so early that we actually watched a movie after they went to bed and it wasn't even late when it was over! They really impressed me with their attitudes, though, because they were really good, even though it was a crazy busy day! My kids are just growing up so fast!

Anyway, just thought I'd pop by and offer this up, since it's been a while since I blogged. So much for every week :). Maybe I'll work on that one, too.

Until next time...

More Daily Photos

Well, I've got some more photos for you. These are the ones that I've edited so far and I actually have most of them scrapped, too!

Jan 6 - Games are starting to be a much bigger thing in our house, especially since the kids are starting to be able to play more than their games. Xander wanted me to teach him crib so we've been playing that a fair bit...he even beats me...without me letting him (man I've gotten some bad hands :) ).

Jan 7 - My big helper. Jonathan likes to be just like his brothers so he wants to help out, too. Here he is helping clear off the supper table.

Jan 8 - As the time comes every year...the tree is down and the decorations are put away and I am glad to have the space back in my living room!

Jan 9 - Cleaning day...Mondays and/or Tuesdays. Xander decided he wanted to vacuum and there's no time like the present to teach them!

Jan 10 - More games...this time Toy Story Uno. Evan loves this game, in part because it has the Toy Story 3 characters on it but he's really a pretty good sport when he sometimes wins and sometimes loses.

Jan 11 - Here start the birthday celebrations! Since my birthday was on a Thursday and my friend's was on Tuesday and we have care group together on Wednesday...we got a pretty and yummy cake baked for us by one of the other sweet ladies at care group! She made the cute little banners with each of our names and the meaning on them.

Jan 12 - My actual birthday was a busy day. I started the section of my Thursday morning care group that I am leading (on anger) and I had an SCC meeting at school that night so we didn't really do anything. I figured I should at least have a picture of me on my birthday and I was in my jammies by that time so here it is.

Jan 13 - We went out for supper Friday to celebrate my birthday with my parents in-law. It was a good supper (I got steak AND ribs so how could it be bad) but the cake was harder to figure. Jason hadn't made one as he was going to get a DQ cake but my strange boys don't really like ice cream cake so I decided it's be better if we were ALL happy. I'm not a fan of store bakery cakes so we decided on donuts. Jason had to go to two shops before he found sprinkled ones (my favourite) but he managed!

Jan 14 - I went to a seminar put on by our church on organization. We played a little game and since our table seemed to be the least organized (or at least have the weirdest stuff in our purses) we won a prize! It was a label maker. I'd even been thinking that one of these might be nice but I have yet to get batteries for it.

Well, then, that takes us up to the middle of January on my pictures. I'm not "caught up" like I'd like to be but I'm definitely more progressed than I was last time I did this project so hopefully it will end up getting printed in a timely manner!

Until next time...

Back Again!!

Look, in just a couple days, I'm back again! I have a few more photos to post. This week was frigidly cold and I got to spend a lot of time at home. I think it was good because it got me back in the groove of doing the things that need to be done. I even managed to find my kids' birth certificates! Yay for finding stuff you lost! Now just to do some more organizing around the house and get things how I want them. One of these days it'll be done, I'm sure :). I know that chatter isn't what you all want so here are my photos!

Jan 2 - Evan's new set of drums - a Christmas gift from Grandma & Grandpa. The kids have all had a chance to play them but I think Jonathan is actually the most promising!


Jan 3 - The weather has been so gorgeous that we had to go sledding at Xander's school. He even got brave enough to take the jumps and get some air! I believe the photo after this is of him crashing off the saucer.


Jan 4 - Xander and Evan got to spend the day at Auntie's and Xander told me he was going to build something huge so Daddy or I had to bring the camera with us. Jason took the camera but this is what he had built...not really so huge :).


Jan 5 - How could I not include the weather in such a gorgeous winter!!


So, 2012 has begun. I've even got all of these photos scrapped so far. Now I just have to get the next batch off my camera.

Until next time...

I Just Gotta Do It...

or I never will.

Seriously, I have been trying to post on my blog for several days now. Something keeps being not quite perfect...I haven't decided which photos to put up...I want to get some other thing finished...now I should organize last year's photos...it never stops so now I will just post. It's a good thing I don't make new year's resolutions or I would have broken this one already!

Anyway, things have finally settled down on the home front. The Christmas craziness is over...we had a few fantastically relaxing days before school began again and the weather WAS gorgeous! Now, routine is here and so is the bitter cold. It hurts more this year since it was 3 and then -30 two days later!

I have decided to attempt Project 365 again this year...with the added caveat that I NEED to scrap the photos as I go. So far I have all the photos taken and none of them scrapped. Like I said, good thing I don't make resolutions. However, I have downloaded templates and a kit to scrap January with. I have decided that that will be the easiest way to go...use a set of templates and one kit per month to scrap the photos. I'm excited. I also got PhotoShop Elements 10 for Christmas and I've started using it to edit my photos...I can do some fun things in there. Here is my first P365 photo and one that I edited in PSE10. I will hopefully post more frequently now that I have my project to work on but don't always count on it!!

Happy New Year! This was taken just after midnight 2012. Xander and I watched Cars2 at Grandma & Grandpa's while Jason was at my brother Jason's house. Everyone else was in bed so it was quiet!


Until next time...