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The Waiting Game

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I am one week away from this baby's due date today.  I think I need to remind myself of this.  I've been playing the waiting game for about two weeks now, "..could be any day."  All of this waiting makes me feel like I should have had the baby by now.   Since my first two were late I'm sure I've still got another two weeks of waiting to go.  I've had my Christmas shopping done for weeks, my bags packed, clothes washed for baby, the essentials basically done.  I am ready and normally I'm a bit of a procrastinator.  I'm not sure I like this being prepared thing, it just makes me anxious.  Our house has been full of Christmas baking (& eating), Christmas crafts, Christmas decorating, all things to keep my mind off  my tightening abdomen or crampy feelings that might turn into labour.  All in all though there has been too much sitting at the computer, cross stiching in the rocking chair, napping on the couch.  I'm longing for a summer day when I can be working outside in the garden or a nice long walk but with the cold and snow it hasn't happened.  I guess I should just be enjoying the quiet time (not really quiet with my other two girls here but quieter I'm sure) before baby number 3 comes.  I'm still comfortable and only slightly irritable, so I'll just keep waiting.  Baby will come when it is ready.

Christmas Music

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I accidentally started listening to some Christmas Music today....and I liked it.  I really didn't intend to get Christmasy yet.   As a rule I don't pull out the decorations until December.  I wanted to listen to some music today so I opened ITunes, picked a Frank Sinatra song, clicked on the Genius button to make me a play list, then walked away.  After not to long the Christmas songs started to sneak in there and before you know it I was thinking about baking shortbread cookies, butter tarts & wrapping presents.  I think I am ready to start bringing out some more Christmas music and maybe even some decorations, after all it is only a week away from December.  Close enough.

Awesome Yesterday Dinner

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Tonight while getting ready for supper I started pulling containers out of the fridge and the conversation went something like this.

Me: We're just having leftovers so it will only take me a minute. 

Nollie:  No, I don't want leftovers

Me (thinking:  you don't even know what leftovers are):  Do you want the spagetti & meatballs or the cranberry chicken?

Nollie:  No, I don't like leftovers

Me (thinking too bad so sad, that's what you're getting):  Mmm the chicken has Craisins on it, do you want the chicken.

Nollie:  Not leftovers (starting to break down & cry)

Curt:  I don't want leftovers either I want Awesome Yesterday Dinner, who wants Awesome Yesterday Dinner, I do!

Nollie:  Yeah, Awesome Yesterday Dinner.  Mom I don't want leftovers I want Awesome Yesterday Dinner.

Me:  Great, that's what we're having then

Everyone ate heaping plates of Awesome Yesterday Dinner.  Sometimes at the end of the day when your brain is fried you just need someone with some fresh new ideas.  Curt to the rescue, saved us from a fight and a couple of breakdowns, me included.

So, if you're ever having a hard time selling leftovers try having "Awesome Yesterday Dinner"

Team Buchan Does The Impossible

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Curtis & I accomplish alot of things but last week we did something I never thought was possible.  We broke the KitchenAid Mixer!  This thing is supposed to last a life time, you are supposed to be able to pass this down to your Great Grandchildren or something. 

Curt was using the mixer to make the dough for his hand pulled noodles (this really deserves its own post) and the mixer started to sound like it was struggling.  I then heard an "oh no, that's not good".  The motor for the mixer was still running but the beater was not turning.  My first reaction was "I can't believe YOU broke MY KitchenAid Mixer!"  OK, we are married, everything is supposed to be OURS but that's MY mixer.  I use that mixer several times a week, it makes me bread every other week, cookies, cakes, I even used it to mash up my tomatoes during our tomato extravaganza this fall.

I am glad that it was Curt using the mixer when it decided to die because we immediately jumped into our roles.  Curt started to investigate & take apart the mixer while I jumped on the internet to look for possible problems & repairs.  I was able to find what we thought to be the issue and even a tutorial on how to disassemble the mixer and get the worn part out.  We had apparently blown the worm gear which is supposed to break to save the motor when it is under too much stress.  We found the gear inside the greasy mess that is inside the mixer and got it out.

Being that Curt is a purchaser for an oilfield supply store he knows how to get parts fast.  Those patch workers don't want to wait for anything, no matter the cost.  He gave me some tips on how to find the part and get it shipped out quick.  I was able to find my replacement worm gear and we had it in our hands the next day.  I could have gone a little longer without the mixer but Curt was worried that if we took too long to get the part he wouldn't remember how to reassemble the mixer properly.  So all in all I was without a mixer for 2 days and it was a $45 repair.  Sure beats the cost of a new mixer.

The lesson for everyone to learn.  If you mixer sounds like its struggling when you are mixing something, stop the mixer immediately (it actually says this in the manual).  The KitchenAid Mixer is not invincible.  However if you do break the worm gear, have no fear it can be fixed.

Happy Mixing!

Happy 2nd to Luca

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Today my baby, soon to be middle child is celebrating her 2nd Birthday.


 Born October 20th, 2007 at 3:30am



Luca likes to ride her "gike" (bike)

Luca is showing a very compassionate side and will jump off her bike to help Nollie if Nollie falls on hers or is quick to give a hug or kiss to Nollie when she is sad.

 

Luca loves to play with water, the spray bottle, the water cooler, climbing onto the counter & playing in the sink and of course she likes to go "bimin" (swimming).


 Luca is always up for whatever you offer, if you say we're going somewhere she has her coat on and is waiting at the door (quite the opposite from her older sister)


Luca has been practicing her 2 year old authoritative "NO" and and is completely ready.
She is also ready for the 2 year old out of control fits.


Happy Birthday to my Luca

End of Summer Randoms

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Well summer flew by, I can't believe there is only a little over a week left of September. 

Since my last post....


We spent the first week of September at the Buchan Condo in Sicamous.  We enjoyed a relaxing time of reading and putting our feet up.  The girls enjoyed swimming every day in the pool.  We got out on the boat a couple times and enjoyed being the only boat on all of Mara Lake.  Nollie loved being out on the boat and riding on the tube.  This excites Curt because he can see 10 years into his future when his kids want to be out boating and riding as much as he does.



 


We said farewell to my sister Shelby as she took off to travel Australia with a friend of hers.  I'm sure she is having a fantastic time and we will see her when she returns next spring.

Curtis & I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, OK, so we didn't really celebrate, we poured the cement pad for our shop that day and if it wasn't for calls from family we may have forgotten on the actual day.  We knew it was coming, I guess we're just not so good at staying on top of what calender day it is.

Baby #3 is growing well and kicks me all the time.  I'm 28 weeks now, 3 months to go.

The girls are fun, fun, fun.  Nollie started asking why to everything and I'm sure it was on her 3rd birthday that it started.  Luca started the why's shortly after so I have two girls that just question everything.  They are just learning, learning, learning.  They have both been enjoying riding around on their bikes and they both want to get outside even more now that they have figured them out.  Nollie has also figured out the teeder-totter on the swing set and gets it just rockin'.  It's great because both Nollie & Luca can get on and they don't need me to come push them every two minutes like on the swings.  They play together really well most of the time.  They have their spats but they also have times where they nicely use manners or techniques they've been taught to sort things out on their own.

My garden has been good to me, we've enjoyed the lettuce, onions, potatos, zuccini, beats, beans, peas and tomatos.  My strawberries have been producing but the grasshoppers get to them quicker than I can.  I've mad a couple batches of tomato sauce already and it has been fantastic.  There are still alot of green tomatos on the plants so as long as they don't freeze I will have quite a few more batches to make.

The Saskatoons, both wild and tame were plentiful this year and so I picked and froze, picked & ate, picked & froze, picked & ate.  We have tonns of wild bushes on our land but they are still young, in a couple of years they will be good producers, that and the 10 tame ones I planted this year.  I love saskatoons!


House Update
We covered the decks and put up railings on them so they are now usable & I don't have to worry about kids falling off and breaking their neck anymore.  I still have to paint the railings, maybe next week I can tackle that.



We built proper stairs off each deck, also a bonus since I no longer have to assist the girls in getting down the front stairs.

We finished the parging on the exterior of the house (the area just below the siding)

We have the cement pad poured for our shop and plan to push up the shop next weekend, hopefully.  The pad has been a great riding arena for the girls on their bikes in the mean time, they have both greatly improved their bike riding skills since we put it in.

Other than that we've just been living life, making our messes & cleaning them up.

Introducing.......

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...Baby Number Three.  Baby is growing well inside,  I am 23 weeks now, over half way there.  Baby is due to arrive mid December, but I'm always a bit late so I'm saying Christmas Day is the likely DOA.  I'm feeling great, I have had really easy pregnancies so far and I'm hoping this one continues that way.


Nollie is completely convinced that it is her baby brother.  Anytime we try to tell her that the baby could be a girl or that refer to the baby as a her she tells us that it is her brother and she doesn't want another sister, she wants a brother.  She is full of questions and stories about the new baby, I think the 4 months left is going to be a long wait for her.

We're looking forward to an eventfull Christmas Season and a busy 2010.

All Tied Up

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I've been finding little treasures like this all over the house.

Nollie has always loved to tie things up.  Initially if she found a belt or a watch that wasn't attached to a person she would wrap it around and through itself so many times that it looked like a ball.  She's now moved on to tying anything she can find.

I have started giving her a shoelace to play with and she will sit quietly for half an hour or more and just tie it up.

If there are beads about she will add them.

Look at this little diddy she did on her dress strings.
 
I'm happy to encourage anything that will keep the kids busy. This doesn't seem to be a fleeting obsession so I'm on the look out for ways to keep her excited with knots.  She's a bit young for a knot tying book so I guess I just keep her occupied with an assortment of items to tie up.

July Randoms

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Sorry I've been so bad with the posts lately, I guess it's lazy summer mode.  I've got some ideas for posts floating around in my head but they just haven't made it onto the computer yet.  Here are a few tidbits to keep you up to date.

  1. Our current house project has been the parging (the area outside your house between the siding and the ground).  I didn't realize how much it would finish off the exterior of our house, it looks great.  I can no longer see any sign of foam basement or Home Hardware paper just a finished exterior.  As with nearly every other project this one has involved some hurdles and taken much longer than we imagined but we should have it finished up by the weekend.
  2. Our grass is coming in well, there are lots of weed throughout but with it all cut it looks like a lawn.  There are some patches of just thick grass and no weeds.  The girls & I have even started running around in our bare feet with no shoes on outside, its like Heaven.
  3. We've finalized our mortgage & worked out all of that business.  We ended up saying goodbye to the bank that didn't think we were 97% complete and wanted to see all the trim done first and have switched over to our home bank and have a regular old mortgage instead of a builders mortgage.  It is so nice to finally start paying off the money we have spent rather than just paying interest and now we can leave our baseboards unfinished forever if we choose.
  4. We've been enjoying lots of visiting lately with close friends and extended family.  It is so nice to get together.  Sometimes the hermit in me is just so happy to hang out at home that I don't make an effort to get out and visit and I should, I enjoy it. 
  5. The girls just continue to grow and play.  I'm so happy that they are so close in age and have eachother to play with every day.  I love to hear them running around and giggling or to see them sitting and playing together and my heart almost skips a beat when I hear them in another room using nice manners with eachother without any reminders.
  6. The garden is doing great, well except for the carrots, I think I have two growing carrots, boo.  We've been eating lettuce like crazy to keep up with it before it bolts and it tastes good, a lot of time with home grown lettuce it tastes really bitter or just like grass but this stuff tastes OK.  This weekend I dug around and we ate our first bit of baby potatoes, they were amazing, ...amazing.  We have grasshoppers like crazy but so far they haven't eaten too much of the garden, I hope they stay away.  Tomatoes, they're coming, still green but I have lots on the plants and many more plants flowering, looking forward to a tomato extravaganza this fall.
  7. Curt has been swimming 1 mile atleast twice a week at lunch time  for the last 4 months and I'm so proud of him for keeping it up.  He started with whatever he could, maybe 10 laps stopping between each one to catch his breath before going on to the next and each time he went he kept adding one lap until he was up to a mile, now he's just working on getting that mile a little faster.  He's my hero.
  8. Me, I'm just doing my regular thing, reading, laundry, keeping the girls entertained, baking, thinking about but not actually sewing, on ocasion knitting, watching movies, playing in my garden.....regular stuff.
  9. Just watched a deer walk through our back yard,... I love this place.
  10. I've added a link on the left side to subscribe by email.  If you wish to sign up you can receive Ranch on Relaxo posts right to your inbox each day that I post them.  That way you won't miss any of this exciting business going on at the Ranch.

Back From The Sun

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We returned from our first family holiday in two years a week and a half ago and it has taken me this long to post because I was having a hard time getting out of holiday mode. 

We spent just over a week at Mama & Papa Buchan's Condo in Sicamous, BC, it was glorious.  The weather was a nice sunny 25 nearly every day with a couple 30 days near the end.  30's are a bit hot for me but with a pool close by, air conditioning, ice water and lots of frozen treats I handled them just fine.  We invited some friends of ours to come stay with us and I'm happy to report that after the week we are all still friends, it went very well.  It was so nice to have the company for both the adults and the kids.  As soon as we left the condo to drive home Nollie was asking when are we going back to see A & T?  I think they all had lots of fun together.  The condo was really a great environment for the kids.  The building is a u-shape and all the patios open onto a central courtyard, we were on the main level so the kids could just go out the back door and play on the nice grassy area.  There were lots of kids in the building and they would all just meet in the courtyard and play together.  With 5 kids under 5 plannings outings became a bit of a challenge but we just went with the flow.  We enjoyed a few trips out on the boat, time at the beach, walks to the grocery store, a small kid friendly hike to see a waterfall, a trip to Enchanted Forest, lots of time in the pool.  We celebrated two birthdays, Curt's 29th and Nollie's 3rd (OMG). We ate lots of fruit & ice cream, the boys did some golfing, Curt & Linda went on a high ropes course, I did some reading and on top of all that we just generally relaxed and had a great vacation, with no thoughts of the house back home.  We enjoyed it all so much that we hope to go back in September, this vacation thing is good!

Here are some pics
 
  


Gardening

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My garden view from the tub

There's only one place from inside my house that I can see my garden and it involves standing in the jet tub in my ensuite.  This doesn't stop me though, several times a day I step into my tub and lean on the unfinished windowsill and admire my garden.  I love this part of the season where all the little plants start to pop out of the ground.  When I'm outside I just make laps around my garden noticing any changes since my last visit.  Within 24 hours I saw the zucchini, corn, beans, potatos, and peas all start to peak out.  At this point nearly everything has made an appearance, it makes me oh so happy.

 First sign of Onions

Rather than a traditional row garden I opted for a plan that is modeled on the square foot garden (Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space With Less Work).  The garden is separated into various sized quadrants with a few different types of plant in each section.  The individual areas are separated by various pieces of scrap board that we had lying around.  The boards serve as a walking path so that you don't have to walk on the dirt, although both Simon and Luca don't get this and I'm continually hollering at them to get off the dirt. Not an easy concept when the whole yard is dirt.  Most of the areas are no more than 4 feet wide so that the entire square can be reached from the outside boards. The square foot garden is supposed to allow you to fit more plants in a smaller space with less work.  You don't have all of the wasted space between each row where weeds can grow up.  This style of gardening also makes it easier for companion planting so two or more plants can work together to mutually benifit one another.  Another concept of the square foot gardening is that you plant exactly the number of seeds you want rather than planting extra & then thinning down at a later date.  This is a little tricky for carrots, with their small seeds but I made an attempt.  It's a trial year for the garden, I was reading about it and liked the idea.  I thought I would give it a try because you will never know how something works unless you do.  I must say, so far I really enjoy the boards to walk on, rather than the dirt and its very eye pleasing to see all the little separate squares rather than just one large area of black dirt. In my garden I planted zucchini, corn, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, beats, carrots, cucumber, pumpkin, potatos, onions, garlic, and of course tomatos.



I got my shipment of plants from the Saskatoon Farm on Friday and got them all planted this weekend.  Saskatoons, raspberries, strawberries, asparigus & rhubarb for the garden and a few trees & shrubs for the yard.  I'm not sure that I will get any fruit or vegies off these plants this year but next year they will be producers.  I was a little nervous about getting plants shipped on the Greyhound but they all look great, very healthy and they threw in a few extra of each of the fruit plants.  I guess they know what they are doing, they do make a business of it.  If you are in the market for fruit plants I would highly recommend you check out the Saskatoon Farm, good prices and nice looking plants.

Newly planted Strawberries & Rhubarb

In closing I have another Tomato confessional, I wasn't going to say anything, kind of embarassing.  The  Tomato plants I was talking about in a previous post, I let them freeze.  Agh, the one night I didn't pull them in.  As soon as I woke up in the morning I knew and as the day went on they all wilted and died.  So again I went out to buy some more Tomato plants, I'm sure I'm up over $50 worth of Tomato plants this year. Gardening saves you money, you know.  I planted the new Tomatos in the garden after the weather forcast was showing no sign of frost like evening tempersatures.  Now you may know that I have a hard time throwing anything away so the "dead" tomato plants were still sitting on my deck.  I was watching them and it looks like some of them, most of them may survive. They have new little leaves coming out of the v's of the plant.  I cut off the dead spots & planted them in the garden too.  My garden is basically a tomato garden with a few extra plants.  Maybe I'll get a booth at the Farmers Market in the fall.  That's how Louis Hole got started you know, she just started selling the excess produce from her farm.

 Garden view from the back deck

Big Girls Sleeping

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This week the girls room got a bit of a makeover.  We took down the crib and split the bunk bed into two single beds.  Luca was making the move to a big girl bed.  We were anticipating a week or so of long nights putting her back into her bed several times, having her crying at the door, etc.  Well I guess she was ready because there was no such thing, the transition has been really smooth.  We know she has been off her bed because there are some extra books on her bed when we check on her but she makes it back to her bed and goes to sleep so I'm OK with that.  I think it helps that the girls share a room and she can see that Nollie is also in her bed going to sleep.  We didn't change anything else about the bedtime routine so that made the transition easier I'm sure.  The two twin beds with matching bedspreads look so cute in the room together and Luca is so proud of her new bed.  I'd post a photo but their room is a disaster.

The same night that we were introducing the new bed to Luca, Nollie announced that she wanted to wear panties to bed like Mom.  Up until this point she was wearing a pull-up stype diaper at night time.  I had been  making an effort lately to be sure she goes pee right before bed and as soon as she wakes up rather than letting doddle around and pee in her diaper.  Some mornings she was dry but others she was not so I hadn't introduced the idea of ditching the pull-ups yet.  I knew this transition would likely mean more laundry for me to do but if she says she is ready we will go for it.  She was immediately wondering what we would do with all the extra diapers for her, determined that she would never wear them again.  This week has gone quite well, I've had a couple extra loads of laundry but she's had some dry nights too.  I love when the transitions just happen.  Two girls moving on to a new stage of night time sleeping in one week.

Petting Zoo

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We went to the newly opened Mama Noah's Petting Zoo this week in Lodgepole.  We had such a great time,  so many animals to enjoy. 

We had a tour of all the animals,


enjoyed a picnic lunch 

and then went back for another look
I just wanted to take the animals home with me, or open my own petting zoo.  Maybe it's best if I just go back for another visit.
Does anyone else ever feel the need to get a goat, I love goats!

Grass

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From this angle, it this lighting, it almost looks like we have a lawn.

Tomato Crazy

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Normally at this point in the growing season I would be looking at my skinny, weak looking tomato plants that I planted from seed and wondering why they don't look as nice or a s healthy as the ones that professional greenhouses grow to sell in stores.  I would be feeling sorry for myself, wondering why I'm not perfect after only a few years of gardening, not even realizing that they will grow to huge, mega producing tomato plants in their own time.  This year I was singing a different song.  Why didn't I just plant some tomato seeds, was I so busy that I couldn't throw a few seeds in some dirt & water them, now I have to go buy tomato plants and spend 40x more than I would if I just planted my own seeds.  Next year I'm definitely back on the seed train.

I'd been holding off on buying tomatos this year, I wasn't quite ready for them in my garden yet.  Saturday I was at Home Hardware and there were only 5 tomato plants left, so I bought them all and planted them that night.  Monday the last thing I did before going inside for the night was to spread some wood chip mulch around my tomatos.  Tuesday when I checked them, they were all dead!!  Agh, the mulch killed my tomatos, maybe I let the soil dry out, what on Earth happened.  I was doing internet searches and thinking about it all day, totally forgetting about the ice that I dumped out of Simons bowl first thing in the morning.  Finally it hit me in the evening, they froze you dingbat, it wasn't the mulch that killed them.  It was so nice Monday evening I didn't even think about frost and I'm not much of a weather checker.  I guess I learned my lesson, for this year anyway. 

Wednesday I set off to buy another round of Tomato plants, Farmers Market day anyway I'm sure I could get some there.  I had a worry in my head that maybe I was too late and there would be no tomato plants left in all of Drayton Valley.  What would I do if I couldn't buy tomatos, I knew I should have planted seeds, tomatos, I need tomatos.  I made sure I was at the Farmers Market as soon as it started, I couldn't risk not getting any.  OK, so I overreacted, of course there were tomato plants.  Those Hutterites sure know what they are doing, their plants look great and only $2 each.  I think I need to go visit the Hutterites so they can teach me their tricks.  I got one of each type, 4 plants.  I planned to plant more than that but I was going to check out a couple of other places in town too.  I grabbed a hanging basket of Tomatos too, expensive, but ready to produce and a pepper plant, excited try that out.  Next to Canadian Tire, I picked out some herbs (I am totally addicted to herbs this year, even if I don't use them to cook it is worth it just to smell them).  I picked out 3 more tomato plants, ok that's 8 tomato plants total.  Next Curt needed me to grab something from Walmart for him, since I was there I better check out the garden section, I was still looking for a couple herbs.  Well they had 4 packs of tomatos for $0.97, the plants were small, about what mine would look like if I planted some and 4 for $0.97, cheap, so I grabbed 2 of the 4 packs and then I threw in another bigger plant just for good measure.  So that's 9 more plants making 17 total.  Oh don't let me forget to tell you I have another 3 plants at home that were given to me so the grand total is 20 tomato plants.  Do you have any idea how many tomatos we will have off of 20 tomato plants?!?  We will be able to take a bath in them.  I am going to be so busy in the the fall.  I'm quite sure we will be able to make enough tomato sauce to last us the winter.  Curt wanted lots of tomato sauce and boy will he get it.  I just hope he's willing to help make & can it all.  So if you are out of tomatos in a couple months please do not go to the store, just come visit me.

Things I'm Loving

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  • Sunny days
  • Being outside
  • Planting seeds and plants and trees
  • Reading gardening books
  • Watching my hummingbirds

  • Drinking suntea

  • Waiting for more grass sprigs to grow
  • Dirty girls
  • Listening to Ida Maria
  • 5 minutes of clean floor
  • Sleeping

Using ashy dirt for my garden.....

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= Dirty Kids

 
 

The Garage Sale

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Danna & I had our garage sale this weekend.

  • I haven't eaten lunch or dinner at home since Wednesday.
  • My house is a dissaster (not too unusual but I'll blame it on the garage sale)
  • It was so much work for the set-up and pricing everything
  • I am still exhausted
  • The weather was beautiful this weekend
  • Danna & I enjoyed the quiet moments where we could sit outside in the old furnature that was for sale and drink our coffee or eat our lunch in the sunshine while the kids were elsewhere with their Dads or Grandparents, peacefull.
  • The traffic came in spurts, it wasn't constant.
  • Everyone that came by commented on the ridiculous amount of stuff that was there "is this all your stuff" "um, not completely but, yes".  It almost got embarrassing, we wanted to say "oh no, this is an 8 family garage sale, this is just our shift working it"
  • I enjoyed watching the seasoned garage sale shoppers come through, they noticed everything and found some interesting treasures.
  • The things you expect to go don't and the things you think no one would ever buy, someone does.
  • I sold 3 old textbooks for $2 each, you can't give those things away.  My advice to anyone in school, sell your textbooks as soon as you are done when they are worth something.  As much as you think you will, you will never look at them again, you will just move the rediculously heavy boxes 5 or 6 times and then when you realize you havn't looked at them once in 7 years, they will be worth nothing and you paid $100-$200 a piece.
  • As time went on some prices got reduced and more items got moved to the Free bin.
  • We tried really hard not to pick through and keep any of eachother's or even our own stuff.
  • We basically decided that at the end there were a few of things that we may take if they don't sell. 
  • Every time we said we were going to keep an item, it sold
  • So we tried saying we were going to keep everything, but it didn't work
  • We made over $400 combined.
  • There is so much stuff left you probably wouldn't think we sold anything
  • We're going to open the doors again in a couple of weeks and give it another go, it's all set up already anyways
  • Believe it or not we've both got more to add
  • Prices will be slashed

Another Weekly Update

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  • We finally called for our final electrical inspection and other than a couple small things to fix up that is complete.
  • 94%.  That's what the bank says we are right now, they can't just give us the extra 3% so we can close our effin mortgage.  Friday was not a good day when we heard this and we were about ready to just quit everything.  Still a touchy subject in this house.
  • Curt got his first golf game of the year in and the girls and I got to visit with friends.  This helped us not to think about the above on Saturday.
  • We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday & Sunday working outside in the yard.
  • We got our lawn all seeded Sunday just before it started to rain & snow.
  • We took a giant, double load of garbage to the dump, including the crate of garbage that has been in our back yard since fall.
  • What would May long be without snow.

  • The snow allowed us to burn the growing pile of scrap wood in our back yard.
  • Curtis told me to look the other way while he threw a number of items I would not normally allow him to burn on the fire.  Although I didn't like the pumes of black smoke I was relived to see the stuff go.
  • We spent Sunday evening and Monday organizing and sorting through the garage and basement.  It is so nice to have all the tools in one place, why couldn't we have done this earlier.  Now maybe we will be able to find what we are looking for.
  • I'm busy prepping for our garage sale this weekend, so much to do for tomorrow.
  • The basement is looking really good, I'm finally getting somewhere, much better than this.  I'll try to post some photos next week when I finish getting it cleaned up and all the garage sale stuff is out of there.
  • I had my first shower in our bathroom since we finally got the shower fixture installed.
  • Of course the girls are doing great, they play together so well and they love to be outside.  The snow, wind, rain it doesn't bother them, just let them out the door.  By the end of the day they are grubby, grubby, grubby, but I know they had fun.

10 Randoms From the Week

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  1. I've been keeping my window open a crack at all times so that I can hear the birds singing.  Oh I love spring.
  2. Curt has been busy in the skid steer every night moving dirt around the yard.  Landscaping has begun.  At this point I don't hear birds singing but more of a grumble, brum, brum, beep, beep, beep.
  3. I have a gigantic pile of beautiful back dirt waiting to become a garden, really it is massive.  I am getting excited!
  4. I did my first double trip to the grocery store on coupon day.  Two $100 trips saved me $30. One $200 trip would have only saved me $15.
  5. I have now brought out the sunscreen & hats since all 4 of us got too much sun this weekend.  My poor red head girl got it the worst with little red cheeks, arms & part line on her head.
  6. Nollie has a Dr. apt today late in the afternoon.  I am hoping for less than 2 hours in the Dr office with 2 girls, yikes.
  7. We've been going swimming every Thursday evening with the girls, they are both getting much more comfortable in the water.  Anyone in the area is welcome to join us starting around 7 or 7:30.
  8. I've put nearly all the toys away in our house (well at least half) because I got tired of cleaning it all up or "hearing its too much for me to clean up myself".  No one has missed anything that I put away.
  9. "Bead Dat Me" (read that to me) are the words that I hear most from Luca.  With a close second going to "Nose Bunnin" (nose running).
  10. Lots of time spent outside in the sandbox enjoying the warmer weather.

Ladybug Craft

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Here's a simple little craft that I did with the girls the other day at home.

On white paper draw a large oval with a line down the middle using a felt marker. Cut out a half circle for the ladybugs head and a bunch of small circles from black construction paper. Have the child glue on the head and spots onto the lady bug. You could also use black stickers if you have some.

While they are busy gluing place corn syrup into a container and mix in a couple drops of red food colouring.

Let the kids paint away with the coloured corn syrup.

Finished Products.

The corn syrup will give the pictures a shiny textured look when it dries. These take a long time to dry completely, I would recommend leaving them for atleast 24 hours before touching the painted areas.
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