What's Two More????

The girls have made a friend at school, and have been over to play at her place a couple of times already. Then they were away for a loooooooooooong time over Christmas (over a month!) and poor Sweetie could hardly stand it. She just loooooves A and every day asked if she was going to be at school today, did I think that A missed her? Couldn't A just come back for school & go back out west each day at lunch? Same questions every day.



Well, now that she's back, we invited her & her sister, E, over to play for the afternoon. They played really well together! They shared well & I don't think there were any squabbles over anything. They got dressed up, they played legos & rodsters and even cleaned up each thing as they went.

I cleaned the windows in the kitchen, livingroom & entryway, baked some dessert and got supper together while they were here. Pretty low maintenance bunch! We should have company every day!

I love how little E (not quite 3 yrs old) is just barely peeking out! Too cute!

best buddies!

Snow day Schmo day

Ahhhh to be a kid on a snow day! I remember the days of waking up early, listening to the radio and smiling happily as they announced "District XYZ- CLOSED today", rolling over and going back to sleep for however long I felt like or until Dad came up to tell me I'd slept half the day away already. (hardy har har)

Now that same sort of announcement makes me groan with dread as I realize the kids won't be going to school and I won't be accomplishing any of the stuff I had planned.

The driveway was insanely packed with snow today. With the intentions of taking the kids out somewhere after lunch, I dragged them outside to start working on clearing a path from the garage to the road. Then I decided to start working on the mailbox area first as they won't deliver anything if there isn't the proper clearance. The plow had already been on our road so I thought it was safe. Ha ha. I should have known better. I had no sooner cleared a decent run in front of the mailbox than Mr Plowdriver comes again. To have our road plowed even once on a storm day is impressive. Twice before noon is practically unheard of so I decided to just be happy our street would be nice & clear. I told the kids to smile & wave at him as he was doing important work to keep our roads safe for us. He must have been the nicest plow guy on earth. He stopped the plow a bit before the mailbox, swivelled the blade so he could push everything off the road, across the ditch and into the field. Then he drove carefully by the actual mailbox, stopped again and did the same thing on the other side, leaving a huge clearance and the snowbank was pushed back several feet from the road so I had somewhere to dump all snow I was removing from the driveway. I couldn't believe it! He must have figured that if I was out there with 3 little kids, attacking that mountain of snow on my own, that I deserved a little break. The kids & I applauded & waved again and he smiled back & was off! (we were the only ones to receive this special mailbox clearing service!) If anyone knows how to send a note to plowdrivers here, please email me!

The snow in the driveway was thick & deeeeeeeeeeep! After over 2 hours, I'd only cleared from the street to the garbage box (maybe 6 feet?) The kids were having fits about all sorts of stuff, Sweetie couldn't get the garage door open to get a sled out (too much snow in front of the door and she didn't want to move any of it) then Honey didn't want to share the sled she was using (only 2 are usable at the moment), Lovey was cold and whine whine whine. After 2 hours I'd had enough of the noise & took them in for lunch, warning them that we were going back out after they ate. They were thrilled with this idea of course but oh well. Stuff's got to get done. I highly doubt Charles Ingalls put up with this crap from Mary & Laura!

I gave them an hour or so indoors while I baked some cookies and put supper together so it'd be all prepped & ready to pop in the oven once we got back inside. Then I gave them a 5 minute warning, "when the timer beeps WE ARE GOING OUTSIDE!". The timer is way more official than I and once it went off, they all trooped down & got their gear on with minimal fuss & we were back outside. After another hour of shovelling, I reached my garage. They played sooooo well for this portion & weren't really all that keen on going in but I'd had enough and when they asked for hot chocolate I was willing to give them whatever it took to go in! They got their drink & then I popped them in the tub and we were just about ready for supper when Murray got home.

Whew! anybody tired just from reading this??????

Picture Party!

It never fails. Anytime I get my camera out just to examine it or try to figure out a feature or play with it just by myself. The girls are all over me, wanting their pictures taken. Maybe I'll have ot use this tactic sometime when I actually want to do a real photoshoot with them :)

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to set the custom white balance so that colours will look more accurate. Depending on what kind of lighting you're in, the camera will interpret things differently. Ever take pictures in a hockey rink & have everything look wonky? These settings help avoid that by compensating for the fact that fluorescent lights can throw a blue cast on everything. BUT the automatic settings aren't always right so you can supposedly take a picture of a something pure white and then tell your camera that THAT is white and it will adjust itself to make subsequent pictures show white as white.


Since Lovey was wearing a white bodysuit, I thought I'd play around with this as I spend hours and hours after a session, trying to adjust things in Photoshop so whites are white & skin looks like skin etc. If I can figure this out "in camera" it will save loads of time later!



As I was sitting there minding my own business, they of course became fascinated! Take my picture, take my picture! (things I never hear when I actually want them to sit for me lol)

They get a kick out of seeing themselves on the screen afterwards so that's the appeal I think.

Lately though, they've been getting more interested in using the camera themselves and this is a bit nerve wracking. One slip could mean the death of the ol' Pentax! and the body & lens are pretty heavy for little hands.

They're always really good about holding onto it & letting me wrap the strap tightly around their neck so even if they lose that grip, it won't fall all the way to the floor. (ok the strap is just looped around the neck, I've so far been able to resist the urge to wrap it around two or three times for safety's sake... of the camera of course ;))).

Quite often the pictures turn out blurry as they jiggle while holding down the shutter but some turn out and this means I actually get to exist in the family archives now & then.

They all took a turn holding the camera & were content to snap off a few frames and let the next girl have a shot. They seem to know better than to squabble amongst themselves or argue with me for more time. I'm all for sharing but I do have my limits!!!

Boo Time!

Boo came over after lunch yesterday for some playtime! Teena had just gotten back from a conference late Sunday & I figured she could use some free time to catch up on stuff. I also had an ulterior motive as I wanted her evening free to come to our latest book study. Sneaky huh? ;)

The girls had a great time playing around and they showed Boo how to play their new video game, Gulpin' Gators and then they watched a bit of our home videos as I was making a duplicate copy.

After watching the movie for awhile, they decided that the baby years were so much fun, they wanted to relive them. So they all put on undershirts or bodysuits and started crawling around and jabbering like they did back in the day. Fun for them but gave me the heebie jeebies! LOL

The "babies" posed for me and gave each other kisses and everything.

You just never know what fun & games they're going to dream up!

Benched!

We got benched but we're verrrrrrrrrrrry happy about it! Mum & Dad had this wonderful, perfect sized bench made for us for Christmas 2007! At that time, our entryway was just plywood and not sealed so we thought we'd better wait til it was finished. This took longer than expected but I finally got around to finishing off the trim last week. I was still holding out hope that our contractor would appear over the holidays to wrap this project up but it didn't happen. I still need to figure out the closet doors but for now we're going with Murray's "open concept" idea. :)

The bench fits wonderfully in its spot and the lid lifts up for extra storage & it's just wide enough for 3 little bums to sit on!

Invited to "Crunch" at the boss' place

Murray's company had a social function for the whole family for the first time since before the girls were born. To say I was excited about this event would be just a slight understatement! My current employers aren't much on celebrations or dinners out or any form of entertaining :)

This morning I got up, fed the kids a bit while Murray tried to sleep in (he'd been up many times in the night with Sweetie who's got a cold & needs frequent kleenex runs!). We had a bit of breakfast & headed out for "crunch" as Honey called it. They have a great place on the water, (we think we canoe'd past here last summer!) and it's soooooo bright inside, I loved all the windows! I find our house so dark so anytime I go anywhere with lots of windows, I really notice it! The girls were a bit shy at first & Sweetie was complaining about a sore tummy which had us a little nervous but then I remembed she'd refused all breakfast so no wonder her stomach was complaining. They put on quite a spread for the brunch and we ate our fill. I was able to eat a bit but decided not to push it with the dessert, although everything looked soooooo tempting.

My turn AGAIN???

Ack! the flu got me again! I can't believe I got the flu TWICE in one month. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, my tummy feeling those rumbles that you HOPE are not what you think.
But nope. So another day in bed out of commission for me although it seemed to be a milder case than last time and I didn't sleep the whole day but I didn't have energy to do much or eat more than a handful of crackers & a few grapes.




On a positive note, this radical new "diet" has helped me make some progress on my weightloss battle! I've been stuck at 176 pounds since last August and have occasionally crept up to 178 which is just sooooooooooo stupid of me since I had it down to 165 about 2 years ago. How I let this happen, I can't even tell you except to say that I am weak when it comes to chips and other nighttime snacks!

I've been very diligent about going to the gym and I have a sneaking suspicion, although the horror of it will keep me denying it for awhile yet, that I'm turning into one of those "gym" people. You know, the kind that actually LIKE to go there??? I realized this yesterday morning when I'm laying in bed with stomach churning, sure to barf any minute while at the same time wondering if maybe it's not that bed & I'll still be able to make it to my circuit class in a few hours??? I've never liked exercise so I have no idea how this could be happening, therefore, it must not be.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've been putting a lot of effort in burning calories! I shovelled for an hour on Monday, then spent an hour or so at the gym. Tuesday I went for 2 hours in the morning & another hour and a half that evening (whoah! who said that???), another hour on Wednesday, Honey was home sick on Thursday so I skipped that but did 2 hours on Friday, not to mention the running around after kids that I do the rest of the time! and for what? nooooooooo change on the scale. I know there are lots of other things you're supposed to consider and that muscle weighs more than fat but blah blah blah. I want something tangible on the scale readout darnit! I can wear my pre-pregnancy jeans again (almost comfortably even! lol) so that's a good sign but somewhere along the way shouldn't I have seen something slightly better than 176bls or more??????? Nope! Not until I got on the flu flush plan! Yep, on this new system I'm suddenly down to 171. So as long as I keep getting sick every other week or so, I should be back down to 165 in no time! Ok, ok, ok, I know it's not a good long term plan and that 171 is only temporary but I can see how this method would have an appeal for some.

It's 10:30 now and Murray's been in bed for an hour. He's incredibly tired and had a wicked long nap at my parents' place today, right in the midst of the kids playing, running around hollering and Dad reading 47 stories to Honey. He's pretty sure he's next on the flu hit list. Pfffft. Like HE needs to lose weight! ;)