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Hi Mom

Posted by on July 9, 2008 5 Comments

I really need to work at kicking my own butt. I skipped my spin class today, again. I missed Monday too. I shouldn’t because I still pay if I don’t go and because I know its good for me. Summer is just so hard to keep on track with exercising and eating healthy. That and ICE CREAM. brutal I know. Why does ice cream belong in summer. or in my freezer. Mmm Cotton Candy Oreo Blizzards! Thanks Roxy! I sometimes wish I had someone like Emily has to be in charge. So even when I whine they could say “I’m sorry sweetie, that’s not good for you” “You need to eat your vegetables” Do you want an apple for dessert!?!!!YAY!” I think I’d do a lot better with that. I think I need a personal Salad Chef. I like salads, but I usually keep myself to busy to make them. I did have a leaf of my butter lettuce that I’m growing though. mmm tasty!

The big girl is still sleeping in her big girl bed. This morning , 20 minutes before my alarm would normally go off, Emily walked by our room and said “Hi Mom!” and headed for the stairs. AHH. I snatched her up and brought her back into our room for some snuggles. I was definitely not ready to get up yet. And when did she start calling me “Mom”. The name is “Mommy!”Silly little monkey!

I have Leah to thank for the ridiculous song stuck in my head today. Thank you for suggesting I let Em watch the wiggles on youtube. WHY! Cold spaghetti Cold Spaghetti!!! At least Emily loves to sing and dance right?

I’m kinda sad today because I found out that another one of the kids I went to school with passed away. His name was Jamie and we were good friends in Jr. High and fellow Percussionists in band too. He was a really nice guy. Stupid Cancer. It’s pretty hard to have people your age die. You expect that because you are young you have loads of time to worry about that kind of stuff later, but I guess that’s why the bible describes this life as “but a breath”(psalm 39). I can’t possibly know how many days and moments I have left to live, but I know that I plan on using them to the fullest. I truly want to see as many people as I can come to know Jesus before it’s too late.

Well before I spend to much of my day feeling melancholy, here’s some picks from the last week.

oh and I miss you already Coco. And Danielle, Come home soon!

Emily Loves the creek at the Park and it’s stinky mud!

Oooo Cold

Headed for the Swings!

Emily and Auntie Coco

Emily Loves her new Big Girl Bed

Cheese!

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A Week of Summer

Posted by on June 19, 2008 2 Comments

Our renos are coming along nicely, but taking much longer than I’d anticipated. I was just going to paint, but we’ve ended up doing dry walling and we are doing flooring now too. It’s going to look great when we are done, but I’m already bored of all the extra work. oh. That’s in our office at the church. I forgot to mention that. So anyways, thats why I havent been around much in the blogosphere. I’ll post some pics when we are all done the renos. Then we’ll start on our house.

I guess reason 2 for being too busy to blog was actually that my computer had a sleepover in Kamloops at future shop to get fixed up. Something odd about it needing a tattoo. haha. Who’d have thought I’d have a punk computer. Even my computer has a tatoo. Maybe it needs a piercing to go along with that.

I had a great time on the weekend with Leah, Silas, and Ikey and Juliet. And Mark and Shannon too. Leah chopped off half my hair! I don’t have any pics of it yet, which is good because my flat iron just doesn’t cut it for doing my hair. Leah is sending me one soon. Hurry Leah! But its super awesome. No one recognized me at church. So that was cool.

Today we were driving home for the 108 and Emily was about to melt down and she growled and said “I’m feeling really really bad right now. I’m sooo frust-er-ate”. Morgan and I had such a hard time not laughing at her cuteness.  She showed off last night at the Russ Rosen and Graham Ord concert. She stayed up late and while the band was packing up, she said hi to Graham Ord. This is what she said to him

Em: I’m Emily. E…M…I…L…Y…

Graham: you can spell. How old are you?

Emily: abcd fghijklmno…that’s it!

Graham: wow you are smart. Can you count too.

Emily:1

Graham:2

Emily: 3 (etc. all the way to 10)

It was soo beyond perfect. I love when she shows off. It, of course is never ever when I ask her too. haha. typical. Well. I’m tired already cause I’ve actually made it to spin class this week. Three times next week! There I said it and I signed up so I’m going! I did great today. double time! Here’s some pics from last weekends day at the wild life park. It was soo much fun. Emily loved the animals and the spray park. How great is it to watch an Eagle tear apart a bunny in front of 10, 2-4 year olds. Talk about great timing for the bird exhibit. eww. oh and when we rode the train by this moose Morgan said “Emily, that’s a Moose” and she looked up at him and said “No daddy, that’s a fox”.

Emily’s Wagon

Emily Crashed out

Morgan and Baby Lochlan

Emily’s Train Ride

Emily at the Spray Park in her “babin suit”

My Bike Guy!

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The Baronet's Song

Posted by on June 9, 2008 2 Comments

Its made, it’s made! Jennie from Bags for Zaza made me a custom bag. Its suits me so perfect. And Leah from The Informal Matriarch helped pick colours for my Bag and a matching ipod case too. Jennie names all her bags after books. Mine is called “The Baronet’s Song” by George Macdonald. Its a great book. I read it a couple of summers ago and just pulled it out yesterday to read it again. If you haven’t read it, you need too.

Emily was sitting in her highchair, where the great wealth of stories comes from, and she looked at Morgan and asked him “Do you want to see a trick Daddy?” Morgan said sure. Emily clapped her hands together and said “WOW!!!”. Obviously someone showed Emily a slight of hand trick or something because it was so cute to see her try to recreate that without actually doing anything. She showed the trick again later in the day but added one thing to it. She put her hands behind her back and said “WOW!!!Its all gone!!!”. She’s making us laugh way to much.

On Saturday we are going with Jr. Glory House to Kamloops to the wildlife park. We’ve taken Emily to little petting zoos before, but not a real big Zoo. It should be so much fun. We have the church’s new camera and our Still camera to take clips and pics with while we are there. There will be alot of other little kids there too from her class so there should be some great pics.

I just realized that in the midst of switching over my computer I hadn’t put up some of the pictures I meant too. So heres a couple from the ladies retreat that I go to with My mom and sister every year. Note: if you get the chance, stop at Ella’s Pizza bakery in Cache creek. It’s worth it! Mmm

My new Shades

My Cousin Cydney Running in the Background.

Emily’s playing in the sink – Yay my dirty kitchen.

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Conversations with Emily

Posted by on May 30, 2008 1 Comment

Occasionally Emily looks up at me with her big blue eyes and says ” don’t teach her that”. And I think you myself “why did you teach her that?” My busy little girl seems to come up with some of the strangest things to say, and she does her best to say them right infront of random people. Here’s some examples, or as my Mom would call it “Payback”!

As our landlord is walking by infront of our house:
Emily: “don’t walk by my house!!”

To her Daddy in the morning after he taught her to say disneyland burned down.
Emily “Oh no, Gilda’s house burned down”

To Daddy while Mommy is having a shower.
Emily “Mommy’s washing her ankles”

To her Mommy while reaching for coffee
Me: Dont’ touch that please.
Em: But I want to. I need coffee.

While looking at a wedding picture
Em: Mommy is a princess
Me: And Daddy is Mommy’s Prince Charming
Em: I have a prince Charming. He’s in my toy box

This one’s my fault:
Em: “Oh Crap! Oh Crap! Oh Crap!”

I keep trying to remember because daily she says things that make me die laughing. Yesterday I ran up the stairs to get something before I left for work. Then Morgan came into the office. And then Emily came into the office too. Clearly the gate at the bottom of the stairs hadn’t been shut. Emily waltzed into the room and said “Hi. I came up!” At least she’s really good at stairs now. But the best part is that my lunch was sitting on the stairs and when I went to eat it later in the day, there were 2 tiny teeth marks in  my apple. Emily had walked up the stairs and stopped for a snack before continuing up. I haven’t had a chance to post any pictures this week, but I’ll get there. Here comes another busy weekend. Fun Fun!
 

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Ear Infection

Posted by on May 9, 2008 Leave a Comment

Smoochey has an ear infection. 3 points to Hiedi who called it like a month ago! We’ve been having a rough go with Emily for the last couple of months. She complains that her tummy hurts. I hadn’t seen her pull at her ears until yesterday. She was all whiny last night and an hour after I put her to bed she woke up screaming. Emily loves her sleep and doesn’t often do things like that, so I didn’t really know what to do. After a good snuggle we put her back to bed. She slept for a couple more hours and then woke up screaming again. From that point on she slept and woke up ever hour or so, and from about 5am on, she slept in our bed. It’s weird to have her in our bed because from the 4th day we had her at home she’s slept in her own room. Her noises made it so no one could sleep, so she’s very used to her own room. We all basically snoozed and cuddled with Emily until we decided that was enough screaming and took her to the ER at 7am. We waited an hour and a half to see the doctor. It’s never that long, but I guess there were 2 ladies having babies and thats a problem for huncity hospital. Emily fell asleep shortly after we got there and laid on the bed all sprawled out. She certainly didn’t look like a sick baby. I was worried that they would just send us home again and Emily would continue to complain about her tummy and we would be no further ahead. We ended up getting a doctor I’ve seen before, and I really like him. He thinks outside the box and is a bit oldschool, but sometimes that’s needed.

So antibiotics are go. I’m not a big fan, but I can’t see my muffin sick like this anymore. Poor little sunshine. Ear drops are her favorite too. *Insert sarcasm here*. So here begins the next couple of days of meds and cuddles.

On a lighter note, the spirit comes with power conference at our church this weekend is going well. I’m looking forward to tomorrow because I’ll be able to stay longer. AND, I think Marie baked some of her cookies for tomorrows snack! Yay my favorite. I’ll try to limit myself to 1 or 2, but it won’t be easy.  Well, I’m getting tired and I’m not sure where yesterday started and today ended, so I should go to sleep.

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Grad/Teacher Hockey Game.

Posted by on January 23, 2008 Leave a Comment

I’m skipping school today. This is something I’ve never done before. Ever! Seriously I haven’t. Not once. I’m skipping school because my next assignments aren’t due until next week and I really need to get some stuff done around my house. I’m still really liking Flylady’s system and keeping on track with the baby steps to keeping your house clean. I let little things slide every once in a while, but overall I’m super happy with how clean my house has been lately. It never stresses me out anymore and I think Emily is even calmer because of it. She isn’t calmer lately though because she’s getting 4 more teeth again. OW! thats got to be super painful. Poor little muffin. Totally explains why she’s been so grumpy and testy lately. I know part of that is that she’ll be 2 in a couple months, but I’m hoping to push that back just a bit. A minor bloody nose from a head butting today make me a bit more anxious about having a toddler. I’m really happy Emily can communicate so well, because Im sure many toddlers get really frustrated about communicating what they want or don’t want. Speaking of communication…

“Donny the Retard!!” Thank you to everyone who sings song like this around my daughter!!!That is what she was yelling at the top of her lungs across the parkinglot on the way to the Grad/Teacher hockey game last night. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even carry her. Morgan had to take her. It made it worse because every time I laughed she would sing it again. Another strange thing about last night was my 21 month old daughters LOVE of hockey. AHHHH screams her mother and runs away!!!We took her to the game just before eight. This, for those of you who don’t have toddlers, is the worst time of the day to try and get a toddler to behave. The hour before bed time is usually the hour you seriously think about joining a convent or becoming a monk and living in total silence for the rest of your natural life. In the car on the way to the game we taught Emily to sing “We will, we will rock you”. Super cute. She then proceeded to sit on Morgans lap for ever and just watch. Then my mom came by and she went with Gramma and just sat on her lap and watched for the rest of the game. it was after her bed time when the game ended, but she wasn’t owly or anything. She was inviting random people over to our house though. “You come to my house!” I think it’s be funny if someone showed up just cause Emily invited them over.

My dad was playing in the game. He kinda looked like a 70′s hockey star. It’s really too bad he didn’t have his mullet or it would have been perfect. Lizzi took some pictures so I’ll get one to post later. Emily kept saying “Bubba fell down. uh oh. He needs a sucky”. Coco and I cheered so loudly for both sides it was so fun. Her husband Dustin played in the game too. We were cheering for him and my dad cause neither of them can really skate. Several of the youth were playing too, so we were just cheering for everyone. My “Other Dad” Mark was playing with the teachers and made up for the “slightly less powerful line” that my dad and Dustin were on. It was a good game. The teachers got creamed, but it was still fun to watch. I’m even more excited for the Canucks alumni vs. conservation officer game thats coming here next month. I think I’m even getting closer toward convincing Morgan that we need to play hockey. They have a beginners league thats just drop in. Anyone have any used gear they don’t want?? Thats gonna be the big one to find for both of us…not a fat joke…haha. well I’d better not let skipping school be in vain. House work…here I come!

hockey
Hockey Fans!!! Crazy!

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January Goal Update!

Posted by on January 2, 2008 Leave a Comment

Well I was mistaken on my blogiversary date. I thought it was at the beginning of January, but its at the end so you’ll have to wait longer for the special celebration. It has been a year since I started working hard core at my goals. So today you get an over all goal up date. I’m afraid it’s gonna be a real date and I’m going to own my stuff, instead of telling you that I made it 100 percent. I have to look back on the last years goals so I can work towards setting this years goals. Statistically most people don’t complete there goals, but statistically those that set them do better than those that don’t. So here is my update:

Goal 1: “I am going to get healthy.” – Rough percentage of goal completed…64%. (I used a calculator) I started the year at 214 pounds….AHHHH. I worked my butt off (Literally) until April. I worked less hard at eating goo in the summer, but Emily and I put some serious miles on the stroller so that worked out ok. The fall wasn’t so good so I hit a plateau. Followed by a rough Christmas season. I’m a sucker for guacamole and chocolate. Today I went to the gym and did a weigh in and although I am up almost 12 pounds…Today I weigh 182 lb. Yay! Total loss of 32 pounds! I’m feeling a bit crappy about the disaster called December, but I’m already working away at it again. I won some battles and lost some. My gym, that I loved, closed. I join a gym I don’t love, but kept going. I won an inches lost competition at my new gym. I ate alot of guacamole. I ate alot of salad. I learned lots, and I haven’t quit yet! I decided I’d rather fight this battle at the low end than the high end of the scale, so There is more work to be done. I am now officially 22 pounds away from my goal weight. So this goal carries over into 08. I think this is a lifelong goal.

Goal 2: “I am going to grow in my relationship with Jesus.” Rough Percentage completed…How do you measure something like that?? I guess the bible says you can measure things by their fruit. There have been alot of good things that have happened this year. I think it was a good year for doing things. Lots of preaching and worship and traveling with crazy youth. I still don’t feel like I’m growing to the place I want to be yet. I think it’s ok to be frustrated with a lack of spiritual growth. I think it causes you to seek to grow. I love the paradox or opposites of not needing to strive to be good enough, but wanting to be at the same time. I think this years goal is going to have to include learning to BE with Jesus not just DO stuff for Him. Confusing yes! Exciting YES!

Goal 3: “I am going to get my house organized.” Rough Percentage of goal completed…75%. I think I did pretty good on this one. The only cardboard boxes in my house are ones that Christmas ornaments came in that are easier to put them away in. I de-cluttered all the rooms in the house. Currently my basement is a disaster because Christmas is only shoved down there. It needs to be tetris-ed back into the shelving units. I got new shelving units and clear bins and did a pretty good job of organizing everything down there. I even had a laundry station there for a while, until “Somebody” decided we needed another table in the office. So overall I think I did a pretty good job. I’ve still got a few ideas up my sleeve that will finish the job off, but we have made huge progress.

SO… overall I think it was a pretty great goal year. I did all that and I have a toddler. Crazy I know. Hopefully by next week I’ll have my new goals up. and we can look forward to another productive year. Cheers!

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Parenting is…

Posted by on December 2, 2007 2 Comments

Parenting has got to be one of life’s toughest challenges. What works with each child can be so different. It’s like trying to absorb other peoples Ideas while not thinking you are doing everything wrong just because you do things different. It’s not judging someone else’s parenting, but learning from they’re mistakes and successes. It’s trying to be consistent no matter what. It’s trying to show a small person how to grow into a well rounded adult who can think for themselves. It’s caring too much. It’s trying too hard. Its failure. Its smiles and icky bodily fluids. It’s having the buck stop with you and having someone be so dependent on you for everything. It’s letting little things slide but tackling big things head on. It’s making appointments and trying your best to get there on time no matter your circumstances. It’s taking ownership of your actions. It’s letting go, but holding on fiercely. It’s being a protector. Its being a teacher, a nurse, an advocate, a chef, a janitor, a personal assistant and a mom. It’s saying no and taking the harder road because in the long run it will benefit your child. It’s an uphill battle and that not just describing the laundry. It’s being selfless. It’s kissing owy’s. It’s changing bums. It’s real life. It’s really hard. It’s the best thing ever!

emily
At loon Lake.

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Angel Party

Posted by on December 1, 2007 1 Comment

Every year our church has this thing called Angel Party. Its for 2-5 year olds. Which basically translates into pandemonium! This year they made an exception for Emily(cause she’s so cute) and let her go even though she isn’t 2 yet. All the kids wear wings and a little halo. It’s pretty much just a good photo op. They tell stories and play games and do crafts. Emily did so good considering she can’t sit still ever and she got up almost 3 hours early to get there on time. At one point during the story she yelled out “I love baby Jesus!” it was so cute. Way to make your mommy proud. She didn’t do so good with the crafts. So Mostly I made them, but I’m excited for many more years of strangely ugly, yet adorable crafts Emily brings home at Christmas.

I remember one year at AWANA I made this little drum ornament out of a tuna can. We hot glued some plaid ribbon on it and some zig zag string and there was my first drum. It has long been one of my favorite ornaments to hang up at my parents. Also a reindeer I made out of Clothes peg, a stained glass candle we made in grade six, and this beaded candy cane that is oh so hideous.

Christmas is probably my favorite time of year. So I’m afraid you are going to get some good walk down memory lane stories out of me for the rest of December. Here is the first:

“When I was at Jesus school I cooked my first Christmas dinner. Turkey, Stuffing, brussel sprouts, you name it… I had to phone my mom because I had no Idea what to do with the turkey. All I remember from that conversation is “You want me to put my hand WHERE???”

We also spend alot of time making our own decorations for our tree. College students seldom have oodles of money to buy ornaments. So we spent forever making popcorn strings to wrap around our tree. At one point when we were almost done making the string, one of the guys in our house was actually doing his chores for a change and decided to vacuum. He started to get pretty close to our precious popcorn sting and about the time I said “Hey Clayton, not so close to our…” He sucked the whole thing into the vacuum. It made this loud bang and shot popcorn everywhere. I think we were laughing way to hard to be upset about it.”

*I decided to save my rant until tomorrow. And I updated Emily’s page too.*

Angel Party 1
Pointing at Baby Jesus
angel party 2
“I love baby Jesus”
angel party 3
Joy to the World

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Swimmin in Dare

Posted by on November 30, 2007 Leave a Comment

“They Swimmin in dare?” That what Emily thinks of my snow globes. She thinks I have an entire nativity thats drowning. keen observation I might add. I would have never thought about it that way. I decorated more in my kitchen that in the living room so meal times are more of a show and tell than anything else. Em sits in her high chair and asks to look at everything on all the shelves. She especially loves “Baby Jesus, so cute, I love it, I have it, soft, mine”. Most people don’t pray much more than that to get saved. haha. More understanding is needed yet on that one. It’s neat because I bring her the ornament to look at, but she’s not allowed to touch it. It’s going to be a good thing to teach her now before she ends up like her daddy and needs to see everything in her hands. I am foreseeing shopping trips being easier in the future. Also she loves the Jingle bell dancing guys we got last Christmas. She makes me push the button about a million times during the meal. I’m going to have to go over and apologize to my neighbors for musically assaulting them. If you want to know what is a worse noise for your neighbors to wake up to read Leahs blog from today.

Emily’s favorite toy right now is a nativity scene puzzle that my Gramma sent for her to play with before Christmas. I think I may have already done it about 100 times. She loves to throw the pieces everywhere and then collect them one at a time and help me put them together. I thought the puzzle would be way to advanced for her, but she loves it and she’s not really that far off being able to do it. I’m going to have to get her some puzzles for Christmas.

I can’t decide what to get her for Christmas. There is so much to choose from for kids. I don’t just want to get her some misc toys. I want learning things and creativity things and books. I don’t really think all those “learning things” they sell in the store are really that helpful. I’m sure some of them are great, but seriously like a video game is really going to help a toddler. Emily doesn’t even watch T.V. ok well she does sometimes at a friends house, but it’s not part of her routine. We read books all day. I know I want to get her more books. Mostly so mommy doesn’t go crazy reading the same ones over and over. There is a newer series kinda like veggie tales that’s called Boz. You can get a whole pack of their board books for pretty reasonable. Or Robert Munsch books or Dr. Seuss. Or oodles of other things. Don’t get me started on Ebay. But would she even care…probably not. She has oodles of toys already. I wish we had a busier freecycle here. I would totally get more stuff from there for her and not spend a dime. Christmas is just one of those dilemmas hey. I just know I want to beat the statistic and not go into debt just so Christmas morning is fun.

I think my rants of late are mostly caused by emotional eating. haha. Emily is teething so bad right now she is making her momma crazy. If only we had some gypsies living near by. For the cutie she is Em has been so bad lately. It’s one of the hardest things I find as a parent to not respond in anger, but to discipline fairly and with mercy. I started a new thing this week and so far it’s working pretty good. Em has been royally grumpy lately and so for no reason she is being really whiny. I’m afraid this mommy doesn’t do so well with a whiner. So instead of giving her 500 time outs in a day just so she will calm down we started giving “quiet times”. I ask her is she needs a quite time and I take her hand and we choose a book and she sits in her little chair and reads to her self while looking at me and saying “Shhhhh”. She seems to calm down right away. I’m sure it wont work perfect every time, but I think it’s a good thing to start now and then when she gets older it will be good for her to have some down time and some peace and quite for mommy. It’s alot better than punishing her just because she’s in a bad mood. I started to write out how it made me feel but I decided it was too long for today so I’ll set it up for tomorrow. g’day.

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