Daddy's Home!

Murray had a rather sudden business trip & left on Wednesday afternoon. We took him to the airport and the girls had a bit of a hard time saying goodbye but didn't have any major breakdowns until we got outside & they actually saw the plane fly off. Then the waterworks started. They cried for awhile in the car but settled down after a few minutes. They made sure to comment how much the missed him fairly regularly though.

That night at dinner I was thinking to myself how strange it was not to have him in his usual spot and how lonely it was without him. Honey saw me staring off into space and asked what I was looking at & I said it was nothing really. She looked at me and nodded wisely and said "you miss Daddy too, don't you Mumma?" That girl has been observant since she was only a few months old! I remember many of our volunteers who came during that first 6 months would often comment that Honey was the 'watcher' who was always paying attention to everything going on and that she was like a mother hen keeping an eye on everyone!

I thought bedtime might be a bit rough but they didn't get too emotional and fell asleep nicely. Our busy day yesterday made for a quick drop off last night too and then I got a message from Murray that their meetings had gone well & they got everything covered in one day. He was able to bump his flight up to arrive this morning instead of tomorrow morning. Good thing I got all that housework done yesterday! (not that you could tell after the dog got into some candy and left crumbs all over the place ugh!)

This morning I got the girls to school on time (small miracle single handed!) and whipped through the grocery store, ran home, put everything away & got back to the school & picked them up early and then we picked up Murray! The girls cheered when they saw him waiting for us at the airport.

We got to have lunch with him at home which is highly unusual and Sweetie wanted to show off how she can now eat scrambled eggs (major hurdle for ages) so she & Honey had that for lunch. Lovey wasn't interested in proving anything and refused the eggs as we'd already had them once this week so she made herself a pb & j and ate that. Murray was suitably impressed with the egg eating though. He didn't last long after lunch and looked like he might pass out from exhaustion at any moment so I sent him to bed.

Grammie stopped by to do manicures & pedicures so I went to do some birthday shopping. April is a busy month in our families!

By the time I got home, Andrew & Mr. Bojangles had arrived. Andrew's here for a hockey tournament and has recruited Murray to play on their team. Mr Bojangles came along for the ride & will be hanging out with us girls while the daddies are out playing. We may try to catch one of the early games tomorrow, we'll see what kind of humour everyone's in!

We bbq'd tonight for supper, first one of the year so that was exciting! After supper the girls wanted to go for another bike ride and Andrew & Mr Bojangles came along. Someone was a little overly fond of the puddles and Andrew had to employ some manhandling!

We're all glad to have Murray home safe & sound again and looking forward to a weekend with the boys! :)

After we got the Wii for Christmas, Murray got interested in Guitar Hero! His birthday's coming up so his parents bought it for him. He just got it today but couldn't stay awake long enough to try it out but I'm sure he & Andrew will give it a shot tomorrow.

Yay for Days with Plans!!

I dropped the kids off this morning & then came home to do some housework as we have more company coming this weekend and the last guests were soooooooooo rowdy and they trashed their room again. I'm not sure why Murray lets them get away with that.... ;)))

When I got there, the girls were ramped up like you wouldn't believe. They were looking forward to our McD's lunchdate with Boo & Cheech. The 5 of them were just wild with anticipation. Pretty funny to see them so worked up. They could hardly concentrate to get their boots on they were so busy running around being goofs. Walking out the door they kept telling each other "No! you don't have to say goodbye to me! Just "see you LATER!" because we're going for LUNCH AT MCDONALD'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Cheech's little sister & her mom were supposed to come too but the youner girl was sick. Cheech started crying when her mom said she wouldn't be able to go afterall but Teena & I fixed that. Her mom dropped her off & I took her home afterwards while Teena stayed with the rest in the play thing. They had a blast at the restaurant and were really good!

Once I got back from Cheech's, we got our kids packed up & went to the library. We had books to return so we decided to make a group trip and get some more. The girls were excited to show Daddy their "new" books :)

On the way home I remembered we needed bread so we stopped at the store & I let them pick out some cotton candy for dessert. Did you know it comes in different flavours?!?!?! It was quite a discussion. Honey wanted the purple kind, although she likes nothing else that is grape flavoured. It took awhile for them to come to a consensus. I just walked away and told them we weren't getting any if they couldn't agree on one kind. Boy did that get settled in a hurry! LOL

They thought it was completely scandalous to eat such blatantly sugary junk at the table!!!!!! Supper was fuss free and good portions were actually consumed. I might get more cotton candy if they're going to eat vegetables without a fight :)

After supper we went for a bike ride to give Murphy a bit of exercise and we went all the way to the main road and back. We picked up a follower along the way & he accompanied us & helped me corral the kids. He's so good with them! He was watching for cars & he kept up with whoever was in the lead, helped them up if they tipped, gave them a push if they got stuck etc. He's almost 16 & takes the time to hang out with us, isn't that sweet???????

The girls were tired out from the bike ride but they still had energy for stories so they got some of their new books read to them & then it was bedtime.

How's that for action packed??????

Crazy Day!

Oh man! did anyone else get overrun with escapees from Camp Ridiculous today?? The morning started off rough and just seemed intense the whole day long. First of all, I woke up at 6 am & couldn't get back to sleep so that was super annoying right off the bat. Wasting perfectly good sleeping time for no good reason is just plain dumb! I should have just gotten up & done something productive but I was still hoping I'd drift back off. So much for that plan.

They were not cooperative getting ready this moring. Sweetie wouldn't get dressed, Lovey took 15 minutes to get one sock on and Honey was lolly gagging with the best of them. Finally I got everyone out the door but we were late for school. However, we were among the earliest to arrive! There are 10 kids in the class and 4 more arrived just after we did! Something in the air today I think!

I had a nice morning & went to hang out at Shooter Shelley's while the kids were at school. We talk a mile a minute and even after 2 hours, we have a hard time wrapping it up! I showed her my new toys from Christmas, my awesome R strap, the girls' pettiskirts and my new lights! We had a good chat & she gave me some couscous to try out so I'll have to make that sometime. It's supposed to be much better than rice but I'm not sure how it'll go over with the little fuss budgets!

After school we zipped home to have some lunch before going over to Nicolle's for the afternoon. Had to nag like the dickens to get them out the door and then we ended up arriving early, before she was even home. No problem, we just hopped the fence & played in the backyard for awhile. Her kids didn't want to come outside so we didn't stay out much longer and went inside to play. I'd prepped some of the supper stuff but not enough. Making meatballs is too complicated with 6 little kids underfoot. Lesson learned & 'nuff said. I got home late but since supper was already made I just had to zap some broccoli to go with it.

At supper the kids were still wacky and loud and just about enough to shed some light on how alcohol might be appealing to some people! I resorted to what I can tolerate in the way of hard stuff. Pepsi. I was so glad to leave for circuit class and unwind! How sad is that?!?!?!?

Lights!

I've been collecting camera toys for awhile, I save up birthday money & the like and every once in awhile I get something new. I've been wanting a studio lighting kit for awhile but anything half decent is around a grand. Or so I thought! When Rick & Nancy were here, she brought out this mysterious long rectangular case that her Uncle Gerald had. Guess what's in it?!?!?!? LIGHTS!!!!!!!!!! As she told me, very bright lights! How exciting is that???? Ok, more so for me I guess but hooray!!! It takes up to 4 sortof floodlight type bulbs and has a little stand to prop it up on or you can attach a handle to hold it in your free hand (or I think that's what it's for, I'll have to play some more & figure all this out). I use the living room often when I'm doing portraits & the window light is great when they're facing that direction & camera right always looks ok because the light can bounce back off the white walls. Camera left is always a bit shadowed so I've been toying with the idea of looking for a reflector but now I have lights that can fill that gap!

The girls wanted pictures with their animals after supper & since it was still light out, the living room was fine but I knew I could use a little fill light on that shadow side & ta da! I plugged in my new lights. This is just my first attempt and I still need to learn to adjust my settings more to compensate for this newfound wealth of brightness so bear with me. These are a little overexposed but not a bad beginning!

The girls also wanted to each take pictures of their own & here are there chosen subjects.

Honey wanted a picture of Toosfairy:

Sweetie chose Bunny & Beige Bunny (Bunny originally was the same as Beige Bunny except for colour, poor BB is sooooooo unloved!)

Lovey, in the ultimate suck up move, picked me!

I'm not sure what was wrong with my face here. It was all red & blotchy in the picture, then I tried to fix it a little in photoshop & then gave up. Despite appearances, I didn't cry all day & then get a beating. Honest.