Parting is such sweet sorrow......

So I have been spending the day getting ready for our trip tomorrow morning. We leave bright and early in the am. We need to be at the airport at no later than 5:30 for our 7 sm flight. It is going to take us four hours to get to Toronto and so we stocked up on toys and snacks for the flight. The only thing that I am in need of right now is a spliiter for their headphone so they can sit and watch Treehouse from one TV.
Right now the kids are napping and I am mostly done packing and I think that I have a couple minutes before I need to start cleaning. so I thought that I would drop in to say goodbye. I woun't be posting anything for awhile so I hope that you all have a great week and I will fill you in on all that went on and all the fun that was had when we get back next week.
But never fear I will be back.

VACATION TIME!!!!!!

So on Thursday morning the kids and I are up early (4:30 am) and will be heading to the airport for our 7 am flight to Toronto. Sean, unfortunately is unable to accompany us. We are off to see Sean's Dad and spend some quality time with him. We will be spending 3-4 days on his boat with some friends that we met and absolutely fell in love with the last time we were there 2 years ago. Then Grandpa is taking the kids to the Toronto Zoo. I am looking forward to taking some specatcular pictures there.
There are somethings that I am nervous about, but at the same time I am looking forward to the time I get to spend with my FIL and to watch him with the kids. He absolutely adores them and they have him wrapped around their fingers. So I will have lots of grandpa pictures to share when we get back.
So until then I have a lot to do to prepare for this adventure and I hope that I don't forget anything.
Wish me luck on our 4 hour flight just me and the kids I hope we all survive. I don't fly much so flying with the kids ALONE has me a tad nervous, but I WILL survive as I plan on being extra prepared. I HOPE

"GOOD MORNING BALTIMORE!!!!"

Last night my sister Lindsay and my friend Donna and I went to see the movie "Hairspray". Now I had seen the original with Ricki Lake many years ago and enjoyed that one so I knew that I would enjoy this version as well. Boy it blew me away. I have never laughed so hard in a movie before as there are many things that I just don't find tht worthy of a laugh. I am very picky about what I find funny.
It is a musical so I knew my husband would NOT be inclined to go so I am glad that I had two people who wanted to see it as well.
In my opinion John Travolta STOLE the show. Now we've all seen him sing and dance through "GREASE" and heat up the floor in "Saturday Night Fever", but that is NOTHING compared to seeing him dressed in drag and singing and dancing as a WOMAN!! He did a bang up job as the plus size Edna Turnblat.
This movie is thoroughly enjoyable and tackles some social issues in a way that is not preachy but at the same time makes you think about them in a whole new way.
So if you are looking for a good night out with some wholesome entertainment and a lot of good gut wrenching laughs (I felt as if I had done 500 sit ups at the end), then this movie is for you. Just remember to take it as light hearted fun and you will enjoy it too.

26 things challenge

I randomly found a blogspot that had a photgraphy challenge. I found it quite interesting so I thought that I would "borrow" the idea and try it myself.
Feel free to pop back and see how I interpret these 26 things and if you feel so inclined start doing this challenge yourself. I would LOVE to see how some of you interpret these things.

26 Things:
1 Angles
2 Shadows
3 Three's a Charm
4 After the rain
5 Looking up/Looking down
6 Comfort
7 Summertime
8 Patterns/repetition
9 Soft
10 Hole-y
11 Something Unique about where you live
12 Peek a boo
13 Patriotic
14 Seen better days
15 Underfoot
16 Delicate
17 Black and White
18 Perspective
19 Layered
20 Tangles
21 Path
22 I'd rather be here
23 Exotic
24 Best time of the day
25 Childhood Pleasures
26 Open and Shut

Some things we did last week.....

It has been a long time since I have been to Drumheller, but on Friday Sean got a day off work and so we packed the kids into the van and drove to the hotness that was Drumheller. We took the kids to the Royal Tyrell Museum. Michaela has alway has a fascination for dinasours and this trip just put her in heaven. She didn't want to stop she just went everywhere and took it all in. She was on the hunt fot a Myasourus (from Diego). I can't be sure if we even saw one, but she couldn't help but look and explore. We had a tough time keeping up with her she was so excited.
Then all to soon it was over and she had had enough and we took the kids home.

I also braved the heat and took the kids to the Airdrie splash park. Michaela needless to say, as she is secretly and fish, really had fun diving and splashing and running through the sprinklers. Logan, on the other had, has not been feeling well and so did not enjoy it as much as he usually enjoys swimming. I hope h gets out of that funk soon as we are heading off to Ontario to spend a few days on Sean's dad's boat. I hope that he will have fun in the lake and I won't be dealing with a cranky boy all week.

Our fun weekend...

So we went to Magrath this weekend to spend the weekend with our friends and we had a blast. So thanks to Patrick and Louise for putting up up in their house.
Saturday. Louise and I decided to brave 4 kids under 3 and take them to the Coaldale candy parade. Boy did the kids have a blast. They sure raked in the candy. They had a petting zoo and we again braved the crowds and took the kids in there as well. Micahela started to enjoy it, but got scared when a sheep came up to eat out of her hand. Keira, though was right up there petting all the animals. I think if it wasn't so crowed and she didn't have some big animal eating out of her hand she would have enjoyed it too. Then, if that wasn't enough, we took them swimming. Michaela has been swimming up a storm and I was tempted to let her jump off the diving board, but I chickened out. She is a little fish in the water. She found a floating toy and decided to use it as her own little private diving board.
While Sean and Patrick were at a wedding that night Louise and I put four kids to bed and had it all done by 7:30 YEAH for us, needless to say it was a small miracle. Then while it was quiet, we worked on the quilt that we decided to make for Michaela about 8 months back. It was fun, but ask Louise, it was a ton of work and she still has a lot do to on it (at least all the seams were ironed. hehe ;)
So we paked a lot into a weekend, but still it was fun. I've missed my best friend since they moved to Magrath, and it's nice to be able to have weekends that we can hang out and be together.
Love ya Weez.

OOOHHHH!!!! This I love!!!

You Are Dr. Pepper

You're very unique and funky, yet you still have a bit of traditionalism to you. People who like you think they have great taste... and they usually do. Your best soda match: Root Beer Stay away from: 7 Up

What Kind of Soda Are You?

It was a great Canada Day Long Weekend...

 

So we went to Raymond, as we do every year, for the Canada day long Weekend. It was a lot of fun. Michaela and Logan got to sit on Grandpa's Motorbike and then Grandpa took Michaela for a ride. I guess she held onto Grandpa for dear life and as soon as she saw me she started to cry. But she was a big girl and ended up really liking the ride.
We went to the parade and Michaela got a lot of candy (just what she needs-something to make her more hyper). She ws really cute waving at the floats and enticing them to throw candy at her. Logan just sat back and took in all the sights and sounds form the parade. Now each time Michaela hears and siren, she thinks that a parade is starting (so cute)
I posted a few pictures of the fun that they had.

I did it now it's your turn......

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know. You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems. Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green. Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test

Man...am I in trouble now.....

You know, I've always thought that my house was tidy, but boy was I wrong. I had a man from Kirby in here today to clean my carpets and the stuff the he pulled out of my carpet with his vaccum was unbelievable. I was so impressed that I bought the darn thing. It was way above our price range, but in order to show Sean what the vaccum can do I got a 3 month deferral so if he's not as impressed as I am then all we need to do is send it back. I think that will be my saving grace. I was able to work out a deal that got us some money off for our exsiting vaccum and the deferral. You know I may be thinking that he will react worse than he actually will, but again I am nervous about him coming home anyways. We made a promise that we wouldn't make big decisions like this without the other person and I broke that, so I hope that he will look at this 3 month deferral as a way for us to duscuss it further. I was incomfortable about doing this without him, but he actually needs to see it to believe it. So wish me luck that I won't be in too much trouble and that I can convince him of the benefits of this vaccum.
But for anyone of you that is in the market for an awesome vaccum, I highly reccommend that Kirby. It will blow you away. You do, however, need to wait for the sales person because they do not sell them in the stores. It is only by in home visits. You need to see the benefits right before your eyes!!!!

Ideas.....?

I am in the process of thinking of what to do with our house. I have decided that I am going to paint the whole house as I am not a big fan anymore of the colours that are in here right now. I need to make it my own. You know the feeling after you buy a house you need to change it to suite your taste. Well we've been living with it as is for a year now and I have made the decision to change it to what I like. So as I do this project I will post the befores and afters for your purusal. So let me know what you think. I am looking though for decorating ideas to do after the painting is done. So as I post these changes, if you have any ideas about decorating a house let me know. Right now this is the colour of my living room. After I paint it I will post that picture.

Did I sign up for this.....

So last night at bedtime we put the kids to bed. We followed our usual routine and settled down. I was about to start on my work that was due today when the chaos ensued. At about 7:30 last night Micha started coughing and I didn't like the sound of it, I went to check on her and to my surprise she was covered in vomit. It was all over her room, bed, clothes, hair and she was a mess. We took her to the bath and proceeded to clean her room, strip her bed and clean the carpet. Once we got her all cleaned up and bed remade and ready for bed yet again, Murphy's law kicked in and she vomited again. Luckily this time she was in the bathroom and we were prepared for this onslaught and there was not a mess to clean up this time. She then came to sleep in bed with me and every 20 minutes until 11:00pm was up puking her poor little guts out. Well, we finally got to sleep and then at 12:30 that morning I was awoken by poor little Logan vomiting. So that was our night from 12:30 to 6 that morning I had 2 kids being sick. They finally fell asleep for 2 hours at 6 am. So needless to say I have had quite the night and I am very exhausted. So now at 8:45 Monday night I am going to call it a night and try to catch up on the sleep that I was deprived of last night.

Excitement.....

So lately Michaela has been BUGGING us to get a bike helmet for her. (Thanks Elmo). Every morning until she goes to bed she asks for a helmet. Well we've been looking for one for her and every one that we've found has been too big for her head. Well I found one for her today. Let me tell you how happy she was to finally have a helmet that she can wear. She wants to wear it all day long.

We also have excited her by news that her and Mommy and Logan are going to take an airplane to see grandpa in Ontario and stay a few days on his boat. Well that has influenced a whole new series of questions....Like..."how do you cross down the river?...a boat....daddy needs to fix the boat...how do you fix the boat?.....sticky tape.... and so on and so on and so on. At first it was cute now after almost a month of the same question it's starting to wear on the nerves. But she is so excited that it won't stop until we are in the air on our way to Ontario.

I must say that I am nervous about the flight with 2 energetic toddlers. I will just have to be prepared and have "special toys" for the flight for them to paly with. Any ideas about what would be good for them to have on the flight?

Happy Fathers Day?

So I know that Father's Day is long since gone, I WAS going to post a whole Father's Day thing, but then Sean and I got distracted. No, it's NOT what you think....Michaela decided to have an art class in her room. Now I love that she was so creative, but it was the method of her creativity that upset us.
Picture this...
I was having a Sunday afternoon nap and then went into check on Michaela, well, I was assulted by a smell coming from her room and when I opened the door I understood why. There on her floor and on her wall she decided to have a poo finger painting class. Well, imagine what went through our heads as we encountered this "lovely"brown fingerpainting that she so lovingly painted for us.
Sean couldn't help but laugh..luckily out of sight from the little artist. But then the clean up commenced and it took awhile to get it all clean. Poor Logan was in his room and madder than a hatter, because we didn't get him up from his nap when HE wanted. So we were cleaning poo and listening to a boy screaming and all we could do was snicker at the situation.
So all I can say now is Happy Father's Day? Sean!!! we all love!!!

Temper, temper....

Where did my little angel go? Recently Michaela has been getting harder and harder to deal with. She gets her mind set on something and won't let it go.
Today while we were out getting Logan's shots done she noticed a bell on the Public Health Nurse's desk and the whole time we were there she demanded the bell. Then it turned to crying and shrieking and all out mayhem because we wouldn't give her the bell. I was at my wits end because today didn't start out good in the first place. I went to have a shower and Michaela came up with the salt shaker. I came downstairs to find that she had salted my entire Living room, dining room along with the chairs and the kitchen. I partially got that cleaned up as I would vacuum later, when she came up with her hands full of some kind of goop. I again came down to find that she had found a sample shampoo bottle and proceeded to pour it all over the living room floor and up the stairs. At this point I am getting angry. Then she told me that she was wet from her milk, which I discovered she poured all over one of the couch cushions. These mishaps happened between the hours of 10am to 11:30am. On top off all this I've had to deal with many temper tantrums and I am at a loss as to how to deal with it all.
Not only has Michaela been acting up, but Logan is too. His tantrums last a good 20-30 mins if not longer and it's not just one but 3-5 a day and I am having a hard time dealing with both of their tantrums. I just don't know what to do at times and I find myself loosing control far too often. I just hope that thigs get better from here because they certainly can't get any worse.
Any suggestions?

I'm NOT a girly girl.....

So this evening as I was getting the kids ready for their bath, I was combing Michaela's hair. Her hair is so knotty that I need to comb it to be able to wash it easier. Anyways, as I was combing it, she was screaming "I'm not a girly girl, I'm not a girly girl". I asked her if that meant that I couldn't comb her hair and she said that NO I couldn't.

Well that got me thinking, at what age do we really start having an understanding of the kind of person that we are. Do we have an early idea, or is that just the lucky few that start to realize who they are. I don't remember having that clear of an idea at 2.

For those of you who are lucky enough to know Michaela and how she acts, then you will know that there is NO doubt that she is NOT a girly girl. She is my rough and tumble kid who does not have any fear and will try almost anything.

She doesn't care what she looks like as long as she is having fun. She is always on the look for what would be the next fun thing that she could do. I hope that she always is looking for the next big adventure and never loses sight of the person that she is and will always have the same zest for life that she does now.

Singing in the rain.....

Last night there was an AMAZING thunder storm in Calgary/Airdrie area. I was loving it. It's been a long time since we had a really good thunder storm. I was just surprised that it didn't wake up the kids. There was one thunder blast that I swear lasted at least 30 seconds and the lightning just lit up the sky and was a beautiful sight to look at. I wish that I took my camera but alas I didn't think of it at the time and now I am kicking myself I could've taken some amazing pictures. Oh well I guess that I have to wait for the next really good thunder storm...whenever that will be.

Summer is here...maybe...

So the kids and I took advantage of this beautiful weather and went for a walk this morning. Usually when we go for a walk, Michaela has an arm band that connects her to me, because she has a tendency to just take off on me. Well I couldn't find it this mornign, so I took the chance and had her "armbandless". I thought that it would be a challege, but she proved me wrong and followed along quite nicely. We came upon some dandilions and then the white dandilions, Michaela had a blast trying to blow hard enough to blow all the seeds off. She proceeded to pick every last "seed style" dandilion and put them in the stroller. Oh what I would've given if I had only brought my camera with me. But walking is usually sucha chore that I never bring it with me. But now that she has grown up without my permission, I will have to bring it more often to capture those little moments that make me smile.

Bedtimes.....

Lately, it's been a struggle to put Michaela down for a nap (quiet time) or bedtime. She will fight it to the bitter end. How I long for the days that all I would have to do is put her in her crib and leave the room. Now she wants me to read every book that she has in her room (some more than once). I love reading her stories, but I don't like spending all night in there reading when I could be spending time either on my own or with Sean.
We put a doorknob lock on her door in hopes to keep her in her room, but it didn't take her very long to figure that out. So now we need to figure out how to keep her in her room. We've tried letting her stay up to tire her out, but as soon as we say it's bedtime, the fight ensues again. I wish that bedtimes could go back to the way they used to be, when it was a joy putting her to bed and she was ready for it. Now I fear that she is turning into be more and more like me and that scares me in a way. But her stubbornness will also serve her well in her life, as long as she learns to harness it. For my sake I hope that comes sooner rather than later.

Some of my Favourites......

I just thought that I would just share a couple pictures that I just took that I really like. Logan is enjoying his first slurpee and Michaela...well...she's just VERY picture friendly.