Super Saturday

Well we really like to pack a lot into our days and we may have outdone ourselves today! I got up with the kids... which by the way, they have an incredibly annoying habit of doing extra early on SATURDAYS! Every other day this week, I had to drag them out of bed at 7:30 or so. Each time, they moaned and groaned "I'm tired! I want to sleep some more!!!!!!!!!!" or just flat out refused to come out from underneath the blankets (Sweetie). However, almost without fail, on a weekend or a storm day, they're up and at 'em extra early. Do they have some sort of internal "day off "sensor that alerts them of the difference so they don't miss any more of it than they have to?? And if so, how do you turn the *^#% thing OFF?!??!??! but I digress....

So we got up & had breakfast and I got ready to go to my circuit class and they had all their jobs done and were watching cartoons while Murray got a little extra shut eye. He's been busy working on his sideline job and up late last night so I thought he could use a little more rest before I took off on him again :)

When I got home he had the kids ready & waiting at the door to go to a birthday party. They were very excited about it. Lily (Tulip's older sister) turned 14 today and their mum thought it would be nice if the girls came to play with Tulip in the play climber while the older girls played laser tag. They kept saying how they couldn't believe they were going to a "BIG kid's" birthday!!! They felt pretty special & had a great time while we were there. I think Sweetie's on another growth spurt. She had 2 pieces of pizza for lunch, a piece of ice cream cake and was still hungry. When we stopped at our house, she ate a good portion of a large pear. We were all invited to go over to their house so we did that & they had another ice cream cake there and she had another piece of that. On the way home, she finished the pear. At supper she ate all her potatoes & green beans & a bit of fish. Then she had 3 fruit nappies of strawberries, a yoghurt and a granola bar for dessert. She didn't have a huge breakfast but this still seemed like a lot of food for that little tummy!

The girls had a ball playing at Tulip's and they got into her My Little Pony collection (there are over 100, her mother used to collect them, then Lily added to it and now she's got them). We haven't been down to visit in ages so they've been wanting to go for quite awhile. After a bit, I got them all into their snowsuits and took them outside to play until I had to go home to start supper. They hadn't had enough playtime yet so Tulip came home with us and stayed for supper and almost til bedtime. Her dad is working on the house they're building & her mum was resting up for her night shift at the hospital so she was quite content to hang out with us for a few hours.

I thought they played quite well together, especially considering they were all together from 11:30am til 7:30pm. There was some issue about one of the ponies but since there were 99 or so others to choose from, the squabble was short lived and no one got upset. They played outside here for another hour or so before coming in so it was another busy day for us.

While we were gone, Murray got some work done, took Murphy for a run in the woods and enjoyed some peace & quiet. I think he missed his girls though! As soon as I mentioned that Honey was outside & wanted to play, he was in his snow gear in no time flat & out there with her. He stayed with them while I got dinner ready and they had a great time out in the snow.

He's gotten some nice feedback lately from work customers and the fellow he's doing the work for on the side. One guy told Murray "Thanks for the work. You continue to amaze me with your ability to pull these off." and there was a customer from his day job who told him he was a "legend". So he continues to dazzle them in the programming world!

and.... I've been holding out on you. These are from Thursday when they went outside & built this "snowgirl" all by themselves. They were incredibly proud of themselves and picked out her accessories and everything.

Unfortunately it rained and she's just a lump in the driveway now :(

Mail Call!

Well, Princess Pamela scored some major points today! Every day when we come home from wherever we've been, we stop & check the mailbox. Every single blessed day, they ask "is there anything for US??!??!?!?!? awwwwwwww, how come we NEVER get any mail????????"

Well not today! Today the answer was "yes! there's a parcel here for you to share!" and I passed it to them in the backseat to look at while I put the car in the driveway. Lovey looked at it & immediately said "I think it's a dress!" (very flat, square dress?). I said I didn't think it was a dress. Then she picked it up and held it and decided "it's a book".

We got it inside & they tore into it and sure enough, Lovey was right. Except it was actuallly THREE books! I tensed up a bit when I noticed one of the books came with paint & crayons and I braced myself for the fight to break out. There wasn't any. They sorted it out themselves & Honey got that one & Lovey & Sweetie took the other two. I almost fell over! They were very excited when they realized they were Dick & Jane workbooks and immediately wanted to do a few pages. They worked on that for a bit as I made lunch.

Thank you soooooooo much for thinking of them and giving them so much excitement and joy. Getting mail is a really big deal for them and the books are a huge hit. Princess Pamela, your generosity is greatly appreciated *hugs*.

Stink Sisters

Oh MY LAND! the stuff they come up with when they're playing!!!!!!!!!!!! Sweetie decided to cash in some beans for a bath by herself. Ok no problem. Tub filled, colour of your choice, here you go. She is insistent that she wants to wear her bathing suit in. Welllll, not the norm but, no harm, so go for it. In she goes. She floats, she spins around and enjoys doing whatever the heck she feels like doing without being crowded or bumped. After awhile, Lovey comes peeking in. She manages to convince Sweetie that it would be more fun if they were BOTH in there. Sweetie agrees so in goes Lovey sans bathing suit. I go to check on Honey and she's still watching TV, then she runs in to see what's going on in the bathroom. She's pretty sure Lovey's up to something. She comes back to report that Sweetie let Lovey in the tub too but doesn't want her in there. I tell her that she can go in with them. She goes back in to tell them but is back really quickly.

Honey: Mumma!!!!!! omigosh, they're playing STINK SISTERS in THERE!
Me (trying to keep a straight face): well what is THAT????
Honey: they stick their bums up in the air and show each other
Me (abandoning all pretense of seriousness and giggling madly): well that sounds kind of silly!
Honey: and then they pretend to make fart noises!!!!!!!!!!

This I have to see. I go back in & sure enough, Stink Sisters are hard at work. They're on their hands & feet and tiny pale little bottoms sticking up as high as they can. They are SOOOOOOOO lucky I didn't take the camera in there. Some day they will thank me for the incredible restraint I have shown today.

Apparently, Honey isn't in the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em camp", as she decided to just sit & play in the water like a normal child. :)

Popsicles!

Beautiful weather!!!!!!!!!! The girls had school this morning & I decided to skip my early workout at the gym & just do the one class tonight so I had no real plans and just drifted around leisurely checking stuff out. I looked for a dual monitor DVD player because our old one is broken. Walmart has some but they don't look as sturdy as the ones at Crappy T's but those are sold out & discontinued of course! Then I went & browsed around Bulk Barn and I still had some time so I went to Value Village & found some snowpants and lucky for me, all winterwear is half price so although they were initially a bit steep at $6.99, I could handle them at $3.50 :) and the Columbia ones I found on EBay arrived today too so everyone now has decent snowpants to play in and I can ditch the ripped ones and say good riddance and still have a spare pair. The Value Village ones are 6X so they're a bit long in the legs but Lovey had them on today and managed ok but the Ebay ones might be better. I'll get her to try them tomorrow and see. They've got a reinforced seat, knees and cuffs so should be able to hold up to some rugged snow play action!

After school we came home for lunch and I waited for my friend Nicolle to return my call. It's a busy time of year at church and her head is just swimming with to do lists and not enough time to get anything checked off. I offered to bring my kids over to play with her kids & let her go get some stuff done and she thought that would be helpful so we jumped in the car & headed over. I also thought it would be nice if when she got home, supper was ready so I brought some ingredients and supplies. As we pulled in the driveway, someone else was already there! Another friend brought her kids over to play so Nicolle didn't actually get to go anywhere but I did have everyone outside to play for an hour or so and that was enough time for her to get a bunch of her paperwork & email done so she said it was still a big help.

The weather was so nice outside that the kids all got really warm & started taking off hats & mitts & jackets as they got too hot. For a snack they asked for popsicles to cool off and they all devoured them easily! Not very often we find ourselves wanting a frozen treat outdoors this time of year and they sure enjoyed it :)

They also really enjoyed the fort & monkey bars they had there. They were constantly trying them but with slippery wet mitts, it was tricky and they kept throwing them off. This didn't seem to improve their technique much as kept falling off. Luckily the snow is pretty high & there's not much of a drop anymore!

We got home a bit late but Murray decided to let me off easy this time since I showed up with supper already made :) (I brought half of what I'd prepared at Nicolle's home for us).

I went to my circuit class tonight & it was brutal! I'm still having trouble catching my breath & if I inhale too deeply, it sets off a coughing fit so I have to be careful. The regular instructor is away building a school or something in Belize and the gym manager guy filled in. Apparently he must not have been too happy about it & took out his frustration on us. Normally the exercises are a minute at a time. They're usually hard but a minute is tolerable. This guy decides everything should be 2½ minutes and waaaaaaaaaay harder stuff. I'm pretty sure sitting is going to be a problem tomorrow! and I'm exhausted now so gooooooooooooooooooooodnight!

School's In!

With all the sickness & storm days etc, it feels like the kids haven't been in school in ages! Today, however, they all went to preschool & I went to the gym! I haven't been there for almost 2 weeks so it was good to get back into the routine. I didn't go all out and my cardio left a little to be desired but you gotta start somewhere!

The kids were happy to see their friends again and had a good day. On the way home, we phoned GG to see what her schedule was like for the day and she was footloose and fancy free! I told her to grab her coat, we were coming to get her :) Luckily she's a low maintenance gal & doesn't require much prep. We came home for lunch here & GG read the girls some stories before I took them outside to play.

They almost always initially protest any talk of going outside. "I don't want to! I'm staying in! I want to watch tv" blah blah blah. Then I get them out there & they have a blast. They climbed the trees, the slid on the icy hills and making snowballs. When I wanted them to come in for a bath, I eventually had to threaten a time out to get them inside. GG had a rest while we were out there and finished their fairy story while I got the bath started. Then she kept them company while I baked a cake & started supper.

My cousin Matthew joined us for the meal & it was nice to have a full table. He & Sweetie had a great time playing "guess what animal I am" as she acted out "worm", "jelly fish" and I don't know what else. He must have played this before because he got them all right & I think she was quite impressed!

The kids were great all day, no fussing or whining (other than the we don't want to go out!/ we don't want to go in!) and were ready for bed before I left for bible study tonight. GG came along & went home with Aunt Cathy afterwards. Our get togethers had been cancelled the last two weeks due to weather so everyone was very excited to be back together again! Murray had hockey tonight so I had to scoot out early but I enjoyed being out at all!

Murray's drugs seem to be doing the trick, his headaches are overpowered by the niiiiiice codeine and the slime production has decreased significantly. He was a bit tired & was planning to grab a nap after the kids went to bed but he was awake when I got home so I'm not sure if that happened or not.

Weird Weather!

We woke up to beautiful snow falling (unless you ask my cousin Ryan, who's in the plowing business and a little sick of the stuff) and making everything all fluffy white & purty. By the time I got home from church it had stopped and things were warming up slightly.



The girls stayed home with Murray this morning as they're still verrrrrrrrrry tired by the end of the day & we had an outing planned and didn't want them all wiped out & cranky before we went.



Yesterday was an interesting day. Honey was up in the middle of the night, sick to her stomach again. This is her 4th time since mid January, poor thing! So i was up with her several times and Murray got her some too. By 7am I was wiped and barely even registered the other two waking up. Murray got up with them, despite being somewhat exhausted himself. I dozed on, totally out of it for another couple of hours. When I dragged my butt out to the kitchen, Murray looked like he felt AWFUL. His headache was still raging and he was tiiiiiiiiiiiiiired. I sent him back to bed and phoned his mum to get some "talk Murray into going to a doctor" strategy tips. She wasn't home but phoned me back a couple of hours later (Murray was still asleep!) and she agreed he should get some medical attention. Now to convince him of that! When he finally woke up around 1pm, I told him his mother thought he should see someone. He said "yeah. ok." I almost fell over. This guy hasn't gone to a doctor since we had to have physicals done when we were applying for adoption in 2003 (that I can remember, and going for stitches from hockey incidents doesn't count). We got ready to drive him to the walk in clinic but when we got there, they were full & not taking anyone else. Instead we dropped him off at the ER.

We were supposed to go for supper at my parents' but I had no idea when Murray would be finished and we couldn't go today because of our outing and Dad hadn't seen the kids for a couple weeks with all the sickness going on so I decided to take the kids up there & come back for Murray & then planned to take him up once he got done. The kids found this arrangement very strange but very appealing! Dad met me at the highway exit & saved me a bit of driving and the kids piled into his car quite happily and off they went.

With no one at home, I took advantage and slept for 2 hours. NOT. I was actually super productive! I vacuumed everywhere upstairs, mopped the kitchen, bathroom, entryway and the downstairs bathroom and cleaned the rest of the bathroom too. I don't know the last time I got so much done in one day and I am certain this is the first time my floors have EVER been mopped twice within the span of one week. (I know Kate from Jon & Kate +8 used to do hers a couple times a day at least but that ain't my style!) I had also opened all the windows to get some fresh air in and hopefully lots of germs out! I was so excited about my fresh clean house! Murray got done a little after 5 at the hospital and went across the street to get his prescriptions filled (mmmmm codeine & antibiotics! or "happy pills" as he calls them now).

The kids were doing fine at M&D's and they offered to bring the kids back since Murray & I weren't going to make it to supper so that was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge help. Thank heaven for my parents' willingness to go the extra mile for us. You guys are tooooooooooooooo good to us! :) You should get a prize or something. (let me check with my sponsors and see what I can come up with....) The kids were pretty wiped & we tucked them into bed in a hurry and they zonked out in no time.




Murray didn't get any kind of diagnosis at the hospital but they took a swab of his throat gunk and ordered blood work so we'll see that that says in a couple days. His meds are agreeing with him though and he's been off to bed early each night. Without the headaches, he's sleeping much better and that's got to help! He's also coughing a lot less and that's an improvement for both of us. Getting a full blast of that in the face in the middle of the night is nowhere man.




This afternoon we took the kids to a live show at the theatre downtown and they enjoyed it! Honey was the most into it, out of her seat and dancing along etc. Lovey followed along a bit but kept asking when we could leave. Honey's face just shone with the excitement of it all. Sweetie sat in her seat and watched the whole thing and didn't start asking to go home until almost the end so that was good! LOL



After supper it was still nice & fairly warm out so we all went outside for some sunshine and fresh air. It feels like we have barely seen the sun in weeks so this was a nice treat. Murray felt so good that he did a little driveway clean up (don't worry, only a bit of slush near the road). Everyone enjoyed the time outside and they came in & got ready for bed without incident. I didn't want to push it as tomorrow's a school day!

It was raining a bit when we got home and the kids were excited to be able to use their umbrellas but by the time we finished supper, the rain had stopped. They had their hearts set on using them though so they took them out anyway. They had a blast holding these & sliding down the snowbanks on their bums.