life is fun

My Valentine

2012-02-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in forever - let's just skip over Christmas....and the rest of December and January, shall we (for now at least)?

Today, I want to share 14 reasons why I love my Valentine. I'll try not to sound too cheesy.:

1. He loves our kids - and would do ANYTHING to make them laugh, like letting Brian shoot him with silly string - or going down a cold waterslide on a windy day. He seriously is the funnest Dad around.

2. He is kind. He never raises his voice and treats everyone with respect.
3. He is a hard worker. He works full-time, has 2 part-time jobs, and still makes time to be in the town play.

4. He is humble and willing to serve others.
5. He is probably the smartest person I know. He can figure anything out and is a whiz at math.

6. He is handy - (because of #5 - he can fix almost anything - or can at least figure out what's wrong).
7. He loves to cook - I LOVE this about him, cause I'm not a huge fan of making food. John will cook supper whenever he is home. LOVE.

8. He is dedicated to doing what's right.

9. He is funny. He loves making anyone laugh and still makes me laugh daily after 7 years of marriage.
10. He is cute. I find him pretty attractive......

11. He loves me and supports me in my goals.
12. He is sincere and honest.

13. He can talk to anyone about anything and loves making people laugh (especially old ladies)
14. He is my husband and takes that role seriously - he is committed to making our relationship not only work, but enjoyable. We can discuss our differences and work through them. Things aren't perfect, but they are pretty darn good.

I sure love John - (and I think we need some more pictures of us together!)

Hadley is 6!

2011-12-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Another birthday post. I need to get these in before Christmas hits!

Hadley turned 6 a couple weeks ago.On he birthday we went shopping with the money from Grandma Freeze and Great-Grandma Ellingson. Hadley had fun picking out clothes and shoes and then we went to the food court to eat. Hadley's choice was Chinese food.

After hearing about a "Hadley" Barbie (that she got for her birthday) and playing on the Barbie website, Hadley decided she wanted to have a Barbie party. Other than the invitation having the Barbie logo on it, the party was not much different than any girl birthday party.

We started off colouring Barbie colouring pages - I think they would have been happy doing this for the whole 2 hours, then we did a little dress-up relay race. Next up was making bracelets with my vast bead collection from the days of "Cute Like Me." While I finished up the bracelets, my Mom helped the girls play a little game with nail polish. Next was cake, then presents, then home time. Fun.

Hadley:
- informed me that she doesn't really like toys, so she just wants clothes for Christmas
- doesn't like Barbies, but does like the ones named Hadley
- likes to be in control and gets upset when things don't go how she wants.
- does not like getting her hair brushed.
- loves to make "crafts" - that she thinks up and makes
- doesn't like to clean up messes from her creations
- loves to colour and paint
- loves to read and does it well.
- loves to sing and perform on stage. She is going to be Gretyl in the upcoming town play of "The Sound of Music"
- is very cautious - she takes her time learning new things. John talked her into riding a two-wheeler this summer and she can do it, but is scared - especially after taking a nasty fall.
- is very social and loves talking to people
- enjoys being involved and in the center of what's going on.
- gets excited about the simplest things - like learning something new at school and telling me about it.
- is in skating and can now skate on her own and get up on her own.
- is kind and good at solving problems that arise with having siblings.
- loves wearing make-up - but I only let her when she needs it on stage.
- tries to be nice and help others be happy.

Happy Birthday Hadley! I love you!

Brian and Elijah are 4!

2011-12-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

Wow. I can't believe Brian and Elijah are 4 now. They are so fun and have so much fun playing with each other every day. So much so, that I hardly see them it seems - they just go downstairs and play play play.

They had their birthday just 5 days after Sam. Show Choir choreography was in full swing, and John had to work all day, so we had a little "party" during the High School football game break. We had hot dogs and chips (by request) and I attempted to make them a cake to their specifications. They wanted a white cake with strawberries on it. Luckily they were thrilled with their little party and had a great day. It might have helped that they had Uncle Michael to play with that morning.

Brian:
- loves Spiderman - he'll dress up as him almost daily.
- still loves Diego
- is super sweet and loves to share.
- loves dark blue and has to use the dark blue ikea plastic dishes if they are clean.
- dresses himself everyday. His favourite outfit is his "motorcycle pants" (dark blue jeans with a motorcycle on the pocket - they have humoungous holes in the knees now but I don't have the heart to chuck them quite yet) and spiderman shirt
- also prefers to wear his cream colored wind-breaker "white jacket". I'll let him if it's not too cold.
- has a favourite pair of shoes too - black pumas that I got from a friend. I guess he's quite particular about his attire!
- loves macaroni and frequently asks for it for breakfast - I make him wait till lunch
- loves hockey and can now skate well enough to hit a puck with his stick.
- loves motorcycles and asked for one for Christmas - "a real one that kids can ride"
- likes coloring and cutting anything with scissors.
- has an infectious laugh and likes to make people laugh
- has a special stuffed cat and blankie

Elijah:
- loves cars - anything to do with cars. He loves the Cars movies and anything to do with them too.
- loves playing car racing games on the xbox and usually beats me.
- often will let Brian win a race on the xbox without telling him.
- loves the color yellow and uses the yellow ikea dishes to eat as often as possible.
- learned how to ride a two-wheeler this summer and loves it.
- loves chips and could easily eat a whole bag on his own.
- loves his blankie
- has a loud cry and a tender heart
- loves babies - especially Sam
- loves Ironman and Spiderman - but because Spiderman is more of Brian's domain, Elijah has claimed Ironman as his "thing"
- loves hockey and was excited to skate on his own.
- asked Santa for a yellow Ferrari race car for Christmas
- can recognize most makes of cars - at least most of the "cool" ones.

I love these boys so much and am so happy that I was blessed with twins. Now that they sleep through the night and are potty-trained, I would say twins are easier than a single because they just entertain themselves - there are probably more fights to break up though......

Happy 4th Birthday to you boys!

Sam is 1!

2011-12-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

It's been birthday central over here. All of our kids were born in November and December. Kind of crazy.

I'll start with Sam's cause he was first at the beginning of November. We let him open his present the day before his birthday cause we were at John's parents house and weren't sure what kind of "party" Sam would be getting on his birthday because of Show Choir choreo. He loved his little train. One-year-old's are sure easy to please.

On his birthday, I must have gotten a wave of ambition (or guilt from being busy with Show Choir), so I found a printable banner and cupcake toppers and had some fun. No one was coming for the celebration, but it was still fun to make it special for Sam - even though he has no clue what a birthday is.

My parents did come over before bedtime to give Sam his present.

Here's a little Sam update:
- he is such a goof. He loves to laugh and has a super fun personality.
- he now walks - he took a few steps here and there when he was 12 months, but now at 13 months he is walking about 50% of the time.
- he is still nursing just for bedtime and naptime .....and whenever he wakes up at night. I tried weaning around Show Choir performance time, he was doing well, but then revolted. We'll try again sometime.....maybe after Christmas......
- he "says" - "hi Dad", "bye", "mom mom", "dad da", and signs "more" - he might be saying more things, but I'm always slow to agree that what he's saying are actual words. I'm a skeptic I guess.
- he does not like to sit still at church - or anywhere really. Sacrament meeting is in the challenging - how can we distract Sam for one hour - stage.
- Sam loves sweets. He can down a pack of fruit snacks in about 30 seconds. He must be my son.
- he can go down and up stairs with no problems. Yeah!
- he loves animals and likes to give Oma's dog kisses. Cute, but kind of gross.
- he loves to be outside and cries whenever he sees someone leave without him.
- he loves playing with cars and pushes them around making a noise.
- he has 7 teeth. 4 on top and 3 on the bottom. Not sure where the 4th bottom one is.....
- he loves his Dad and loves to greet him when he comes home from work.
- he has one 1-2 hour nap in the middle of the day and goes to bed between 7 and 8.
- he is very easy going and happy most of the time - unless he's tired, poopy, or hungry.

I sure love Sam and have been way more relaxed with child #4. I think the more kids you have, the more rules and expectations you throw out the window.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Sam! (over a month ago).

Christmas/New Year's Card

2011-12-07T16:50:00.001-07:00

I just made our yearly "card". I made it a New Year's card in case I don't get them sent out in time for Christmas. I love it and Shutterfly had LOTS of different templates to choose from. I love it.

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas printable

2011-12-05T08:47:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to use/print/create things that I've found on pinterest. That way I don't feel like I'm wasting my time as much.

I found this the other day and tried to go to the link, but it was to a blog that was private. Bummer.

So, I decided to make my own.

And then I even printed it off and framed it. I love it.

If you love it too, click here to download your own to print

Merry Christmas!

Halloween......a little late

2011-11-27T15:08:00.001-07:00

I'm going to attempt to catch up a bit so.....here's our Halloween!

Brian loves Spiderman and wanted to be him for Halloween. Elijah wanted to be a car. We were going to make them costumes, but John found costumes on sale, so he just bought some. Luckily Elijah was happy to be Ironman. Hadley changed her mind several times for what she wanted to be. She dressed up as a Mom for school, and then a giraffe for trick-or-treating. Sam was a dragon. He loved it I'm sure.

We let the kids go trick-or-treating by themselves on our street, but soon John followed them around to take pictures. They loved it.

After going up and down our street, we stopped at my parent's house and then went to Stirling to John's parents. The kids had a great Halloween and all the candy is finally gone!

ten on tuesday

2011-11-08T21:26:00.002-07:00

1. Oh my heck! Life has been a little crazy around here. Show Choir practice is in full force with choreo every day. I taught my first song and it went a lot better than I expected. Just one more to teach on Friday - hopefully it turns out ok.

2. Hadley has decided that she would like to shower every morning. Fine by me. She does it all herself, I just have to get the temperature right. It's fun seeing her growing up and becoming more independent.

3. Sam turned 1 yesterday. I will post that sometime soon with an update about him. I'm weaning him and it is going a lot better than I thought. Yeah!

4. It is Brian and Elijah's birthday on Saturday. Luckily there is a show choir break for the football game, so we should be able to squeeze a little party in there somewhere.

5. Last week I got an email about a buy 1 get 2 photobooks free code. So, I decided to finally take advantage of one of these deals. I just did the last year for all the boys, then I'm going to do Hadley's last year with a coupon for Shutterfly from my sister. Thanks Jo! The books came together relatively quickly, and I had to try to curb my perfectionism so I could actually get it done before the code expired, but I think they turned out cute.

6. We finally did family pictures. We hadn't done them for 3 years, so we desperately needed an update. Luckily we made friends with a new family in our ward who has a nice camera and we took each other's pictures. Unfortunately it was a very windy chilly day, so it didn't go as well as hoped. We didn't get individuals of the kids done there because the kids were all crying from coldness, so after a little break at home I snapped a few with our not-as-fancy camera - I just had to bribe the kids with chocolate milk. I knew that if I didn't take the pictures right then when they were all dressed up for it, the picture-less frames on our wall would remain picture-less for who knows how long - and they actually turned out ok.

7. I'm tired.

8. life is crazy.

9. I'm going to go to bed soon

10. just after I watch some "Modern Family" and chillax.......good night!

thrifty clothes

2011-10-19T17:24:00.001-06:00

I am extremely frugal when it comes to clothing. It is so easy to find inexpensive clothes, that I can't bring myself to spend more than $10 on any one item. Just for fun (and because I was curious.....and a nerd), I calculated how much my entire wardrobe cost. I didn't add in my pjs, underwear, or my 2 grad dresses and wedding dress (although I was pretty cheap there too). I also didn't add in one skirt and shirt and one hoodie because John bought me them and I don't know how much they cost (more than I would spend of course).

The grand total was........$350.

35 shirts
6 jeans
1 dress pants
3 shorts
5skirts

Now, I had to guess on some of the stuff, but knowing myself and that everything was either on sale or free, I pretty much knew how much everything was.

I probably shouldn't be proud of this number, but I am. I love finding good deals and seeing how much I've saved makes me happy.

We live on a pretty tight budget, so I need to be like this out of necessity, but it is also the way I was raised. My mom always shopped at the thrift stores for clothes. When asked where she got something that she was wearing, she would say, "from my store." She still shops there for clothes even though her budget can afford otherwise.

I may not be the most stylish person around, but I don't care much about being fashionable.....hence, I am happy about having a $350 wardrobe.....

Anyway, here are some things I do to cut costs of dressing me and my family:

1. I buy all my jeans used (unless they are on sale for a reasonable (<$10) price). They are usually between $4 and $7 a pair and if I think to shop on the 50% off days, I could save even more. I don't usually buy other clothes at thrift stores unless it is a 50% off day because I find that I can get stuff new for close to the same prices.

2. I watch for sales at Old Navy and anywhere else online. Shipping is free if you spend over $50 and you can get stuff for pretty cheap.

3. Sometimes when I'm in Calgary I check Old Navy (now we have on here too, yipee!) and H&M, cause they both have cute cheap clothes. I also check Children's Place in the mall sometimes too - they have good end of season sales.

4. I check the sales racks at superstore whenever I get groceries (if I have time and the kids are happy.) Superstore often has clothes on sale and at really good prices (<$10 - I wait until t-shirts are under $5) and their kids' stuff is super cute.

5. I check garage sales/used clothing sales/community clothing exchanges/kijiji/freecycle for free or super cheap cute clothes.

This weekend there is a used clothing/toys sale put on by the Twins and Triplets Club in Lethbridge. I have always found great deals there and love that everything is organized together instead of separate tables for each vendor. It's from 9-1 on Sat at the Boys and Girls Club in Lethbridge.

Do you have any other tips?

mock raspberry green tomato jam

2011-10-10T23:07:00.000-06:00

I found this recipe a while ago and was very curious about it. We have a slew of green tomatoes, so there wasn't much to lose. Here is the recipe I found from this blog:

2 1/2 cups green tomatoes, grated or chopped well in a blender
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 (3 oz.) package of raspberry or strawberry Jello

Cook tomatoes and sugar on medium heat for 20 minutes uncovered. Turn down heat. Add Jello and cook until Jello is dissolved. Pour in sterilized jars or freezer containers. Stores in the fridge a couple of weeks and in the freezer about 6 months. Makes 2-3 pints.

Here's my documentation of my jam production.....


cast of characters (I'm feeling very Pioneer Woman-ish today).....very complex, I know...


blend/chop some green tomatoes - I did around 2.5 cups

then it looks like this:

mmmmm.....

heat on medium heat for 20 min

I heated it for 20 min, but then it started boiling, so I cooked it for about 2 more min....just in case it was supposed to boil....but I don't know if that's necessary....

It smelled kind of weird, and looked very gross...

pour in the jello packet and stir until dissolved.

now it's looking (and smelling) a little better...

pour into sterilized jars

and enjoy

I tried really hard to like this jam. I just couldn't do it. I think that if I didn't make it, I could eat it though. I could taste the smell of what it smelled like when it was green mushy stuff boiling on the stove. Nasty. It was a minor aftertaste, but there was enough of it that it almost made me gag.

John and all of the kids thought it was yummy though, and Hadley now asks for "the jam that you made" on her toast.

I won't ever make it again just cause we don't eat a ton of jam and I don't like it....but if you are not a picky jam eater and have a bunch of green tomatoes, it's worth a shot!

fake ideals

2011-10-07T22:48:00.000-06:00

My brother posted a link to this video on our family facebook group and asked us for our thoughts. It's about the portrayal of women in the media and how it affects us. I thought it was very interesting and made me think a lot about how I feel about myself and my appearance. There are two parts to the video and it's about 40min total - definitely worth the watch.

This portrayal of women is everywhere. It really is impossible to escape. While watching this, I was reminded how happy I am that we don't have tv - we just have netflix. I'm by no means anti-tv, but I am grateful that we don't have commercials playing in our home every day. Too bad we can't just live in a bubble.

I might write more about my thoughts on this later......it's late and my brain isn't working.

For those of you with working brains, what are your thoughts?

zoo day

2011-10-05T23:12:00.001-06:00

John had another follow-up appointment in Calgary with his shoulder surgeon. He's back to full-time work and everything looks good. Yeah!

We decided to take advantage of him getting a day off and mileage paid for, so we hit up the zoo. We cashed in some airmiles to get the tickets, so the expedition was almost free.....except for the overpriced food at the zoo.

It was super cold

So we went to the butterfly conservatory and rainforest first

the lens kept fogging up

The kids were getting tired, so John led them on a dinosaur hunt.

explaining that she was just pretending to get bitten by the dinosaur

luckily we found this cart - we wouldn't have seen everything if we didn't

John enjoyed the cart a little too much maybe - he rode it down a few hills (with 3 kids in there somewhere too)

back to looking at animals...

gorillas

hippo

looking down at gorillas


giraffes

park pit-stops...

look Mom - no hands! - haha

navigating

she's got her hands full.....er....I mean pouch

Sadly, this is the only photo graphical evidence of my existence on this zoo trip......

messy house

2011-10-02T22:06:00.003-06:00

We ate at a neighbours house tonight and toured their lovely home before dinner. As I was touring, the whole time I was thinking "I wonder if their house is always this clean?" Am I the only one that struggles with a clean house? I doubt it, but sometimes I feel like it.

Here are some of my theories as to why I struggle with keeping our house clean/tidy:

1. We have 4 kids under 6 years old. Enough said.

2. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. You would think that would make me have a clean house, but it actually is a de-motivating thing for me. I only feel satisfied with the state of my house when it is ALL clean. This means no clutter and everything in it's place. This is obviously impossible. Just typing this I realize how ridiculous it is. I need to really internalize how ridiculous this is and be happy with being able to tidy up here and there and be satisfied with that.

3. I also feel like I need to want a tidy home for the right reason. It should not be because I want to fulfill this illusion of a perfect mother and wife who always has a clean home, kids perfectly groomed, and a healthy homecooked meal on the table. I need to want to be orderly because of the spirit that it invites into our home. Things are more peaceful. Children are more content. I need to find joy in this aspect of motherhood and help our children learn to work. I also need to care more about our children's state of being, than our house's. There will be plenty of days after the kids are gone that the house will stay clean and organized. I just googled for this poem. I've never heard the whole thing before. I love it.

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

The end..........not sure if any of this made sense.......but whatev..........

today

2011-09-28T21:23:00.001-06:00

1. Our car is dead. Pretty awesome. John called halfway to work and the car was burning white smoke again (it happened yesterday too...probably should have driven the van). Anyway, he's pretty sure that best case scenario, it would cost $1000 to fix, which is about as much as the car is worth.....so we're in the market for a new (to us) car. Awesome. Luckily he has a nice boss who picked him up and let him drive his work van home until we figure out the car scenario.

2. We went to Hadley's school for the Terry Fox run. It was kind of crazy, and in hindsight, I should have just watched them run, instead of actually taking part whilst pushing Sam in a crappy stroller and flip-flops. I walked most of the way, and jogged a little with Hadley and Brian here and there. Elijah took off at the beginning, and luckily some friends of ours stopped him at the school to wait for me.

3. Brian found a small skateboard at the thrift store yesterday, so he and Elijah have been having fun going on it down our driveway.

oreo face

5. Hadley told me what books she wants from the book order at school. ha.

6. I taught Hadley piano. Too bad I can't get mad at her parents for not getting her to practice.....oi.

7. Finished off the day with bath time.

corn

2011-09-26T21:51:00.000-06:00

This is what we did on our Friday afternoon last week.

We husked 113 cobs and froze 35 bags.

Thanks to Nancy for the corn!

forget not

2011-09-25T23:06:00.000-06:00

After attending the Relief Society General Broadcast, I decided I needed to have a visual reminder of Pres. Uchtdorf's talk, so I made this. I plan on printing it out and hanging it in our bedroom.

His talk was wonderful and helped me remember what is really important in life. The gospel is so simple. I'm looking forward to General Conference this weekend and hearing more inspiring words from our church leaders.

If you missed the broadcast, here's a summary of his talk. It should be available in full text soon. Love it.

Click here to download the image

thursday

2011-09-22T08:25:00.002-06:00

Here's the picture from the fall fair that I talked about here

I love it. Too bad I didn't roll Hadley's jeans up though....and I had to crop it so that you couldn't see John's shoes. Pretty fun though.

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Last year John fried up some zucchini with squash from his Mom's garden for me. It was delicious. I never thought I liked zucchini until I tasted it. So, naturally this has become a favorite thing for us to make with our zucchini from the garden.

This was my lunch yesterday. I would say that it was healthy, but with the amount of oil and margarine I fried it in, I may have to forgo that comment. I guess the healthy vegetable stuff is still there, right?

To make it, just sautee cut up zucchini in oil/margarine/butter on med-high to high heat until it is a little translucent and browned. Add salt and pepper. So yummy.

wednesday

2011-09-21T09:55:00.001-06:00

Today is feeling like a lazy day. I'm sitting on the couch watching the boys play with cars on the floor. Sam included. He loves cars and even drives them around making a car sound. Pretty cute. He throws a fit when the kids all go downstairs to play and I stop him from going with them. He always wants in on the action.

Hadley was really grumpy this morning. She was so reactive to everything!

I lay out her clothes every night before she goes to bed. Last night I laid them out after she was asleep and she didn't want to wear what I picked. NOT GOOD! Oh man. She was not happy, and wanted me to pick out new clothes RIGHT NOW! Not happening......but after a discussion about how she needs to talk to me nicely....blah blah, I helped her decide on what to wear.

Last night we ate supper at a friends house.....which resulted in a late bedtime......which resulted in the fun morning today......so I can't really blame Hadley much.

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Does anyone need a website made for them? My husband's friend (whose house we went to last night) designs websites and is looking for more business. He also is doing a workshop where he will guide you in building your own, and it's only $199 - a very good deal (coming from someone who paid a lady way too much money to make a simple website and then ditch us and ended up having to finish it on my own) - anyway, if you are interested, let me know and I'll hook you up!

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I've been listening to show choir music nonstop. I'm turning into my mother. I remember my mom would never listen to the radio, always show choir music. I understand why now! I've got to get those creative juices flowing. This idea of coming up with choreography is kind of freaking me out.

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Source

Happy Wednesday!

fall fair

2011-09-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

Our church puts on a family fall fair every year for everyone in the town to attend.

There were a bunch of pioneer games that kids could play and get coupons to use at the "trading post" for toys.

After the games, we headed to the "photo emporium" where the town Playhouse Society used their costumes to dress us in old west garb and then took photos of us. It was pretty fun and once we get the picture emailed to us I will post it here.

By the time we were done there, we were starving and headed to the big gym to eat. We filled up on hotdogs, chips, and pop, with ice cream for dessert. The kids ate and danced on the stage and then we headed home.

A great night had by all! - although we did miss out on the hayride, pony-pulled buggy rides, and calf roping - oh well, there's always next year!

choreography

2011-09-15T22:41:00.000-06:00

I recently started helping with the local Show Choir. My mom started it way back in 1990. I was raised listening to show choir music and hanging out at the school or theatre during practices. It was our life. My mom helps with the show choir still, and I decided I could help too.

I just got back from the first choreography meeting, where we just talked about how to choreograph a song. I'm not a choreographer. I was in the High School Show Choir. That's my only experience. SO. This should be interesting.

Anyway, I hope I can be like this guy someday.......

plethora of pins

2011-09-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

Some of my favorite pinterest finds.....

etsy

this would be cute in a wall collage - I will do one some day.....I have all the frames, just need to spray paint them.....


couldn't find the source...

cute idea - we've got a big pile of reclaimed wood!

whatever

love this - I need to get some crayons while they're still on sale - this would look great in they playroom or craftroom

southernliving

so lovely

seven thirty three

this would be great for church

source

this is practically free to make - my kind of craft!

source

another practically free project!

source

I really need to either buy this or make one before my kids are grown!

Follow me on pinterest here
*warning - if you haven't checked out pinterest before, use caution, it is VERY addicting!

a good reminder

2011-09-14T05:00:00.000-06:00

from mbartstudios on etsy

boy do I wish I had this quote fresh in my mind last night at bedtime.........

babywhispering

2011-09-13T05:00:00.000-06:00

There are SO many different ideas out there about how to get your baby to sleep.

With Hadley, I was determined to get her to be a good sleeper (whatever that means). Someone recommended the book "The Baby Whisperer". I tried it...and tried it.....and tried it. Man did I ever stress out about that stuff. So dumb. I was kind of impatient so it didn't work out so well. I couldn't handle her crying so in the end she slept in the swing until she was too big for it, and then I bounced her to sleep until she was around a year old. By then I think she would go to sleep relatively well on her own....I can't really remember actually....foggy mom brain.

With Brian and Elijah, I was pretty much in survival mode. They slept in their swings or in their bouncy chairs. We would swaddle them and then bounce the chairs with our feet while reading or on the computer. It worked well for us, until the week where both swings and bouncy chairs broke! Awesome. Elijah slept well on his own, but I ended up bouncing on an exercise ball to put Brian to sleep. Majorly bouncing! Besides the bonus of getting a workout, it was way lame and would take forever. Enter baby whisperer tactics. It kind of worked, but not really. I would still give in and bounce him to sleep every once in a while. By the time they were about 14 months old, John decided to take matters into his own hands and just laid them both down and walked out and closed the door(this was after doing the baby whisperer for a couple weeks). They did great and didn't cry. They just jabbered for a bit and went to sleep. I think having each other in the room together helped for sure, AND they were old enough to sooth themselves.

With Sam I figured I would do whatever to help him sleep. They are only babies for a short while, right? And, I only had one this time! So, I would nurse him, and if he was still awake I would bounce him in his bouncy chair until he fell asleep......until last week. While John was bouncing Sam to sleep, our $3 used bouncy chair broke. I was planning on just bouncing him to sleep until he was around a year old and then figured he'd be old enough to withstand the baby whisperer deal. Close enough, I guess. He's 10 months old now and is actually doing alright without mr. bouncy chair.

This is how I do my own version of "the baby whisperer" for Sam:
1. Nurse him and hope he falls asleep.(btw - the real "Baby Whisperer" says NOT to do this.....whatev)
2. Lay him down if he fell asleep nursing.
3. Exit the room as quietly as possible, trying to avoid the floor creaks (which is pretty much impossible)
4. If he doesn't fall asleep while nursing, I lay him in his playpen
5. Sit by his playpen where he can see me.
6. He cries/plays around
7. When he stands up and is crying, I pick him up and the second he stops crying, I lay him back down.
8. Sometimes I leave my hand on him so he knows I'm there
9. repeat steps 6-8 until he falls asleep
10. sneak away and do a happy dance

There are few reasons behind the method of our put-to-sleep madness. I've always had an issue with the "cry yourself to sleep" method. The issue mainly being.....I can't handle it. So we've adopted the "doing whatever you can to help them sleep with minimal crying" method, which usually results in a LOT of bouncing......

After reading the book "The Science of Parenting", I felt good about my new found "method". Here's an excerpt from this book:

"Earlier generations of parents let their babies cry because it "exercised their lungs," having no idea how vulnerable the infant brain is to stress. In a crying baby, the stress hormone cortisol is released by the adrenal glands. If the child is soothed and comforted, the level of cortisol goes down again, but if the child is left to cry and cry, the level of cortisol remains high. This is a potentially dangerous situation, because over a prolonged period, cortisol can reach toxic levels that may damage key structures and systems in a developing brain. Cortisol is a slow-acting chemical that can stay in the brain at high levels for hours, and in clinically depressed people for days or even weeks."

"--it is not crying itself that can affect a child's developing brain....It is prolonged, uncomforted distress. So I'm not advocating rushing to your child as soon as her bottom lip starts to wobble or after a short burst of protest crying that lasts a few minutes....Prolonged crying is the crying that any sensitive parent...will be able to recognize as a desperate calling for help. It is the type of crying that goes on and on and on, and eventually stops when the child is either completely exhausted and falls asleep or, in a hopeless state, realizes that help is not going to come."

Now, I'm not claiming to be a baby expert. I'm far from that. I've let my babies cry before. Sometimes I just can't handle it and need to let them cry for a few minutes while I relax or else I might do something I regret. Obviously, that is the best thing for me to do at that time. However, this book has opened my eyes a little bit and has fortified my ideal of comforting my babies to sleep.

grade one

2011-09-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

Hadley started grade one last week. Weird. I'm still debating on whether I like her to have a lunch or not. Lunch break is only a half hour so she's only home for about 15 min. Since we live so close to the school, I think I will have her come home at least until it gets too cold for her to walk. I sure miss that girl during the day!

Brian and Elijah have been playing really well and differently together, and it's been fun to watch though.

She was ready for me to leave, but I had to snap one picture of her in her desk

Hadley loves her teacher and is reading up a storm. It's so fun to listen to her read and get excited about it. Her last take home reading phrase was "No Lad. No Jill. Is Lad here? No. Is Jill here? No."
She kept cracking up while reading it because of the question intonation she would do. After reading it the required 10 times, she was practically peeing herself laughing. It may have been getting late......

restart

2011-09-10T15:36:00.001-06:00

So, I'm wanting to kind of change up th'old blog a bit. I don't know about you, but I like to read blogs. Especially blogs written by real moms, about real stuff. Throw in a few tutorials, before and afters, organizational tips, and you've got a blog that I subscribe to!

I have been writing my imaginary blog in my mind for quite some time, but have been reluctant to take the plunge. Who needs another blog written by a stay-at-home mom anyway?

I do.

I need somewhere to record my life. Somewhere to share my creations. Somewhere to write ideas and things I'm learning.

So. Here is my new blog. Same place. Different name. And hopefully more consistent.

Life is fun!

Hadley

2011-06-06T13:34:00.000-06:00

Hadley's update:
- Hadley is 5 and in Kindergarten. She loves school and is doing great. She informed me that she is going to marry Owen (a boy in her class).

- she loves to sing and has been in a musical theatre class here in town. She sure is fun to watch on stage. She will likely go in dance again this year too.

- Hadley is a very particular and determined little girl. She likes to have rules and everything organized when she plays. She gets a little frustrated when her brothers don't follow her instructions, but is often quick to come up with a creative solution.

- she is afraid of a lot of things. Namely - cats, dogs, bad guys coming into our house, taking medicine, needles.....that's all I can think of at the moment. She says a lot of prayers so that she can be brave and stop thinking about scary things. Poor girl! - this actually reminds me a lot of myself as a kid

- she loves to make stuff with paper, glue, scissors, and whatever else she can find and wants to save ALL of her creations. She wants to be an artist when she grows up.

- she is in soccer and loves it, although she doesn't kick the ball much. She prefers to play defense and runs from side to side in line with the ball in case it comes back to her. I think she's just a little too nice and lets the other kids kick the ball before her.

- she is a funny kid and loves to tell jokes and make people laugh.

- Love this kid -

she was so scared to brush the horse - I was impressed with how brave she was being

Musical Theatre performance

she's the one with the pink shin-pads

Brian

2011-05-28T22:41:00.000-06:00

Brian's turn for an update:

- Brian loves to share treats. He always asks for 3 so he can give one to Hadley and Elijah.

- he loves motorcycles, spiderman, ironman and diego - he is always pretending to be some sort of superhero or cat or something.

- both he and Elijah have special blankies that they have to sleep with every night. They are getting kind of big for them though.....we'll need to do some blanket shopping soon, I guess

- Brian has a stuffed cat named "Marie" from the "Aristocats" - it is his special stuffed animal for some reason

- he loves hockey, soccer, riding his bike, and playing his toy guitar

- Brian reminds me of myself when I was a kid. He is a little more soft-spoken than Elijah and gets embarrassed when he does something silly or when someone notices him dancing or something.

- He is a super goofy kid and loves to make us laugh. He loves playing with his Dad (as do all the kids)

here's some pics of our cute - I mean COOL Brian (he always corrects me when I call him cute)

Elijah

2011-05-03T20:03:00.000-06:00

A little update about Elijah

- he is a little obsessed with cars. He asks what any car he sees is called, unless he knows it already. He's mostly interested in "cool cars" like Lamborghini, Corvette, Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Maserati, and his favourite: Bugatti Veryon. I didn't know half of these cars existed 2 years ago!

- he is 3 and a half and must be going through a growth spurt or something. He is always hungry.

- he is a sweet little boy and always gets dressed by himself right when he wakes up. He's a great helper and enjoys cleaning stuff up by himself.

- he has a very loud cry and has a very tender heart - so we hear his cry often....

- Elijah loves riding his bike and asks to do it daily

- he's a speedy little runner and loves to jump

- he LOVES Sam, and is always so concerned about him.

- he loves playing car racing games on the xbox and is actually getting pretty good. I don't know if that's something I should be proud of.......hmmm.

here are some pics of Elijah Boy:

Sam

2011-04-29T19:43:00.000-06:00

Sam is almost 6 months old. Crazy! Here's an update about Mr. Sammer-pants:

Sleeping/Eating
I've been way more patient and relaxed about Sam's sleeping/eating schedules. With Hadley I tried to do the whole "Baby Whisperer" routine, with Brian and Elijah.......I just tried to survive - but did try the "Baby Whisperer" stuff to get Brian to go to sleep on his own.....didn't work out very well until they were about 14 months old though. So with Sam, I kind of just go with the flow. It much less stressful for me. He eats when I think he's hungry, and sleeps when I think he's tired. His sleep is somewhat structured at least. He usually has 2 "bigger" naps - which range from 1-2hours each, and then has a little nap around 5pm for about 30min - 1 hour. He goes to sleep for the night anywhere from 7-8:30, depending on when he is tired, or when I can put him to sleep. I nurse him to sleep, or I nurse him, then put him in the bouncy chair and bounce him to sleep. I still swaddle him, cause I think he sleeps better that way - although I haven't done any experiments with it really. I usually leave one arm out of the swaddle so that he doesn't fight it as much. I don't keep track of his night wakings really. Sometimes he only wakes up once around 4, but usually he wakes up multiple times. When I'm really tired, I nurse him in bed, but after about an hour he wakes up - not because he's hungry, but because he just doesn't like sleeping next to me I guess, so I actually get more sleep if I nurse him in his room in the rocking chair - but that bed is just so tempting at 3am!

Moving
Sam has been rolling over for about a month and now rolls all over. He doesn't go forwards at all, but sometimes scoots backwards somehow. Here he is rolling over from tummy to back to tummy. Time to start baby-proofing!

Temperament
Sam is a pretty happy baby. He's only sad when he's hungry, tired, or poopy - or if he has an ear infection.....or 2.....He doesn't like to sleep anywhere that is exciting - which is basically anywhere but home, so that makes trips to the Parent Link Centre, or shopping a little more crazy - but he's pretty easily distracted by the excitement. He reminds me a lot of Hadley when she was a baby. He is very smiley and loves looking at John. If John is in the same room, Sam is usually staring at him waiting for John to look back - and once contact is made, Sam gives a big smile.

We sure love our Sammers!

Easter happenings

2011-04-26T21:20:00.000-06:00

1. Town Easter Egg hunt

John showing Hadley wear the prize-winning plastic eggs were and telling her to run and get one first

she got distracted by the millions of chocolate eggs in the grass

2. Dyeing eggs

3. Easter morning - the Easter bunny hid everyone's "baskets" and the eggs

Hadley was very excited for her "cowgirl" magazine - she has decided that she is going to be a cowgirl.

4. Easter egg hunt after church.

yes that is a weight bench......it's gone now.....it was our landlord's

5. Egg wars - this is the first year we've done this. We always did this when I was a kid and I finally made it happen with our family. The kids were a little unsure about it...

The results - Brian's "Sally" egg won!

Brian with "Sally"

Elijah with "Lightening"

Hadley with "The Smashesest Egg", and "The Green Egg"

Happy Easter!

more craft stuff

2011-04-15T14:26:00.001-06:00

Some new craft kits are available. If you want any of them, let me know. If you live in the US and want some, I can get them shipped to you instead, you may need to pay a little for shipping though.

this one's my new favourite!

I just posted a photo album on my facebook profile if you want to see all of the available kits, or just look at http://makiacreations.com/shop - although there are 3 new kits that aren't on there yet (like the chalkboard one pictured)

Here's the link to my album if you aren't on facebook....hopefully this link works

I'll be placing an order on Monday - so let me know asap!

crafting blah blah blah

2011-04-13T11:32:00.001-06:00

I really don't like sounding like a salesperson. So I'm not going to.

I used to be a Craft Group Leader for Makia Creations. Craft Group Leaders got 20% off and then made a 20% commission. I thought it would be a fun way to make a little extra money. The only problem is that it costs a TON to ship to Canada, but since they had free shipping, I figured I could ship to Sweetgrass and pick it up and still make some money.

A couple weeks ago they changed everything. They no longer have craft group leaders, they just allow people to buy kits at wholesale and then resell them. Since I signed up with them before the change, I don't have to order the minimum of $50 to get the wholesale rate. They also lowered there prices and got rid of free shipping. So, I was a little let down and thought I might just quit it altogether. But I actually like doing crafts (at least I think I do....I haven't done much of anything), so I decided I'd just keep doing my own craft group and not try to make money at it. The price of the kits will cover my time and gas and duty and gst and shipping. It's just for fun now! I'm actually glad about that because I hate feeling like I'm annoying people, and I felt annoying with all my updates and stuff about buying craft kits from me. Anyway, I will still update about stuff on facebook, but I won't feel annoying, because I don't have some alterior motive.....makes sense to me at least.

SO, if you'd like to join my craft group, or just order stuff from Makia, let me know! If more people are interested than can fit in my house, then other people could start their own groups or just do the kits on their own. I will be picking up kits for my group anyway, so I don't have a problem picking up more for others.

This month, we will be doing it on Thursday the 28th at 8:30pm. Then, my kids will be in bed (hopefully), and we can have a fun time chatting and crafting. I realize that is Easter holidays, but I just don't want to put it off any longer. We will be doing the "few of my favorite things" sign, but you can order and do whatever you want. Or just bring your own craft or project you are working in and come socialize.....or just come socialize. Orders need to be paid for by the 18th by paypal, cash or cheque.

Just comment here if you want more info, or check out my facebook event that I made for it today.

That is all.

Hadley sings

2011-04-11T11:04:00.001-06:00

Hadley was in the Kiwanis Festival this year. She's been taking musical theatre with Tekarra Roach and loves it. Tekarra suggested that Hadley should sing in the festival, so she picked a couple songs and away we went. Hadley loves to perform for people. Here are the videos of her performances:

First, she sang "Bluddle-um-dum" from Snow White, for the musical theatre category. She tied for 2nd.

A few days later she sang "The Teddy Bear Picnic", for the girls under 6 solo category. She got first. with a mark of 86. All the other girls did so great, I was actually surprised that Hadley was picked for 1st. I think the adjudicator just had a hard time choosing one. Everyone else tied for 2nd and got a mark of 85. Pretty fun.:

Then she got asked to sing "Bluddle-um-dum" for the Musical Theatre Showcase on Saturday night. She had a mike so you can hear her better, but she skipped the first verse. I don't think she noticed, so we didn't tell her. She had so much fun performing. I was super nervous for this one because it was a big audience, but she did great. I was worried it would be too stressful for her too, but she seemed happy and fine with it all. Must not have gotten my performing genes!

13 on Thursday

2011-03-31T22:19:00.000-06:00

1. I'm ready for the play "Annie Get Your Gun" to be done, so that I can have my husband back. It gets pretty boring around here from 8pm to 11pm! On the plus side though, I've been blogging more!

2. The cleaning schedule is going kind of well, but I'm sitting here now staring at a messy livingroom and kitchen that I have no desire to clean, and THAT"S OKAY!! Breaks are good.

3. I had the last Positive Parenting class tonight at the Parent Link Centre. It was good. I have always hated "time-outs", until this class. I still only use them if someone hits though. I guess I'm still not completely sold on the idea.

4. Sam is teething....at least I think he is. He's had a slight fever and is a little more fussy.

5. I've been shedding like crazy! Every time I shower, I swear I lose 5000 hairs. So gross.

6. I need a haircut. I'm thinking of something like this, but I would need to learn how to do my hair like that first. Hmmm.

or maybe this one that my sister might do too

7. I had a conference call with Makia Creations. I'm a craft group leader - I've only had one craft night though, and it was with my 3 SILs. They are changing things up a bit, so I need to reconfigure things.....not that things were very configured yet.....Anyway, if you want to join my craft group or want to start your own in your home let me know! I can hook you up.

8. I am loving the warmth. Sure it's still only about 8-10 C, but the kids can play outside! They ride their bikes up and down our street as much as possible. I only caught them throwing rocks at a trailer parked on the street once.....yikes.

9. I am loving pinterest. You can see my board here. It's kind of fun to find other people and see what their favorite things on the web are. It's a great time-waster. Right up there with stumbleupon.

10. I'm finally getting the basement somewhat organized. Only one room left to go through.....kind of. I just keep moving messes from one room to the other.....at least the craft room is pretty much done! Yes, I have a craft room!!......maybe I'll do some crafts one day. I think Hadley is more excited about it than me. She asks to do a craft daily....or maybe hourly. Here's one that she got the idea from an episode of "Cake" that's on Netflix.

11. Hadley is singing in the Festival next week. I am excited for her. She loves performing.....definitely didn't get that from me!

12. I started wearing earrings again about a week ago, but after a couple days I remembered why I stopped. My ears are super sensitive and like to gunkify (get crusty and pussy). Pretty gross. Hopefully it's just because the earrings I had weren't sterling silver....I thought they were though, so we'll see. I ordered some cute ones here, hopefully my ears like them.

13. Sam does this a lot. He plays with his hair with one hand and sucks on the other. And he's got a LOT of hair to play with. Is it bad to give a 5 month old a haircut??

THE END

realistic cleaning

2011-03-27T21:55:00.000-06:00

I finally came to a realization today.

I am a list-maker (no, that's not the realization I made...). I make lists all the time. They help me organize my scattered brain, and help me feel like some sort of progress is being made. They keep me sane.

A clean and organized house keeps me sane too. Unfortunately, as hard as I try (ok, maybe I don't try THAT hard), and as many lists as I make, this house just does not stay clean. I'm starting to accept that.

When I was a kid, I remember that our house wasn't always clean. I didn't care. My room was a mess. I would just shove all my clothes and junk in my closet and close the door. I remember doing Saturday chores, and our house was always cleaned up for Sunday, but during the week, we were allowed to make messes. My mom would let us create things, play freely, and even make cookies on our own. My cousin's mom wasn't the same. Her house was very tidy and we were not allowed to open the fridge. I always thought that was weird.

Anyway, I guess after thinking about this recently, I have realized that I need and want to be more like my mom was. I want our kids to feel like they can make messes without me getting mad. I want them to create and learn and have fun in our home. Messes can always be cleaned up.

A few weeks ago, my mom showed me a little cleaning schedule that my Grandma made and used. I tried to implement it. It didn't work. I guess with 4 little kids, there is little extra time in the day for "cleaning".

This is where my realization came in. Instead of making unobtainable lists and charts of how to keep our house clean and organized, maybe I should make a REALISTIC one that I might actually be successful at. Or I could just scrap the whole idea of making a cleaning list and just clean something when it needs it. Ha. No. That makes me antsy just thinking about it.

So, here is my "realistic cleaning" list (don't judge):

Daily: * kitchen & livingroom tidy at end of day
           * 10 min. tidy with the kids before bed
           * 1 load of laundry

Monday: * tidy office
                * sweep kitchen

Tuesday: * main bathroom sink & toilet
                * 1st & 3rd week clean all bathrooms thoroughly

Wednesday: * tidy craft room
                     * sweep kitchen
                     * 2nd & 4th week mop kitchen

Thursday: * tidy exercise room

Friday: * tidy laundry room
             * all laundry put away
   * sweep kitchen

Saturday: * tidy bedrooms
                 * vacuum living room and hall
                 * vacuum tv room and down hall
                 * 1st & 3rd week vacuum all rooms

So, that's that. I'm hoping that this will ease a lot of stress off of me. I won't be feeling like I should be doing something else all the time.

Do you have a cleaning routine? I'm curious how others do it.....

Caught one!

2011-03-17T09:37:00.000-06:00

Hadley was supposed to make a Leprechaun trap to show at school, so I helped her make hers. She came up with the idea. It's just a box wrapped in paper with rainbow coloured steps leading inside where a thread is attached to some "gold". When the Leprechaun pulls on the gold, the lid comes down and traps him inside.
Well, I guess Hadley's a great engineer, because she trapped one. Too bad Leprechauns these days have cell phones, cause he called the Boss Leprechaun to come get him out.
The Leprechaun (let's call him John) got some gold nuggets from the gas station last night on his way home from play practice, and then made muddy footprints in our dining room. What a trickster...

march

2011-03-16T11:28:00.000-06:00

We love our new (to us) house. The kids are loving the space. And I'm loving that the kids can play downstairs and mostly keep the major messes contained therein. Our house is not big by any means, but it is at least twice as big as the last one we were in.

John had surgery on his shoulder last week. Because both my mom and John's parent's weren't around (too busy taking care of other grandkids), and I didn't feel like getting anyone to babysit kids for us at 5 in the morning, we ALL went up to Calgary for the event. It was actually a very enjoyable day.

We dropped of John then headed to IKEA for their $1 breakfast. Then I attempted to drop of the 3 oldest at Smaland (the play place there), but Brian was 1/2" too short. So dumb. Anyway, after lots of tears, the boys and I shopped/played on furniture while Hadley played at Smaland. We had been there long enough that it was about lunchtime when we were done, so we had their $.50 hot dogs and $1 icecream. Man I love IKEA. I got a lot of "boy, you have your arms full" comments. Gotta love 'em.

After that, we stopped by the Ferrari/Maserati dealership. No, we are not in the market to buy one. I wish. Most of you know of Elijah's obsession with "cool cars". I took them there for him. I am pretty proud of myself. I felt very silly walking in there with 4 kids....but eventually the guy there was nice to us and it turned out ok. I didn't bring my camera...only a phone shot, but I don't have a memory card in my phone, so the picture of the kids by the Ferrari is stuck there.

Next up was Old Navy. I was hoping Sam would stay asleep in his carseat, but he woke up as soon as we got in the store. So I carried him around trying to keep track of 3 other kids who were by this point ready to run around. Soon Sam started crying so I took him out and used the carseat as our shopping bag. I got even more "boy, you have your arms full" comments there......but we survived. I got the call when I was checking out that John was ready to be picked up. Perfect timing.

We picked up John. He was starving as he wasn't allowed to eat or drink at all before surgery, so we stopped at Arby's. We hit the road right at rush hour, so it took a long time getting out of Calgary.

We got home at about 8:00. A long day, but kind of fun....for me and the kids at least.

Surgery went well. It was pretty routine.He is in a lot of pain, but is doing pretty good. His main complaint is how hard it is to put his socks on, but won't take me up on my offer to help him.

Here are some random pictures that have nothing to do with this post. I need to get pictures off my camera....sometime.

Sunday dance party...

Stole this idea from a friend - the kids loved it.

Valentine loot...

a super cute idea!

2011-02-04T23:41:00.001-07:00

I spend a lot of my time looking through blogs searching for the next "cute idea" to make my house look nicer. There are lots of women out there who have a crafting blog or home decor blog. They just seem to have it all together. There are tutorials where they say, "oh, I just pulled out some scrapbook paper I had lying around, and this hunk of wood, and then printed out the vinyl and stuck it all together to make THIS!"

Because I don't have a "silhouette", "cricut", saws, or cupboards full of crafting supplies, I would have to run around to several stores looking for items, getting wood cut, and finding the perfect paper to match. Not fun. Especially while lugging 4 kids with me! When I get home, I would realize that this "cute" craft cost me over $50! This is why I was SO happy when I discovered Makia Creations.

They make kits that include everything you need to complete a SUPER cute craft. Genius! They buy everything in bulk, which means big savings for us! The company was founded by Allison and Missy - two ladies who also started "How Does She" (a very popular crafting/mothering/etc blog).

I wanted to order kits right away! Being in Canada there were some issues with shipping (mainly price), so I decided to become a Craft Group Leader to make the kits more available in this area. I am going to hold a monthly craft night and we will do 1 or 2 craft kits. If you live near me (Raymond,AB), I would love for you to come. If you don't live near me, or you would rather do the craft on your own, you can order kits directly from Makia Creations (make sure to use the code "052Megan" to get a 20% discount), or order through me and pick it up from my house.

Anyway - if you want more info on this and about the craft group, visit my facebook fan page "Makia Creations - Megan Hillyer" (remember to click "like") or blog
Ok, I think that's all.
P.S. This is for anyone in the U.S. or Canada (although I don't think they've set up shipping options to Canada yet - if you live near me you can pick stuff up from me)

Makia Creations!

2011-02-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

Whew! I got this all set up today. I'm super excited about it. Makia Creations is a company that sells craft kits with all the things you need. I just became a Craft Group Leader. Check out my blog and facebook page for more info. We'll be having a craft night on Feb 23rd at my mom's house.

Goings on

2011-01-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

1. We had Christmas and were very blessed:

2. We celebrated New Year's:

3. Sam had his baby blessing:

4. The kids "helped" me shovel the snow:

5. I made this blanket for Sam for Christmas (but didn't take a picture of him with it till last week):

6. John dislocated his shoulder by slipping on the ice. Luckily it was at work, so he is getting worker's compensation.

7. I started an infant massage class at the Parent Link Centre.

8. John and I will be taking a Positive Parenting course at the Parent Link Centre starting next week.

9. I swept the floor.

Stocking stuffer idea

2010-12-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

I just made Hadley these super cute lace-up dolls. I used contact paper from the dollar store instead of laminating, so in total, they cost me $1...and a few cents for cardstock and ink....pretty cheap and cute Christmas present!

These are the winter dolls

And the summer dolls

I love finding stuff like this while looking through blogs. I've been spending a lot more time sitting on the couch lately (nursing and holding little Sam), so I've found some great blogs and sites with some fun stuff.

Christmas card and letter

2010-12-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas Family and Friends,

This year brought a few changes, (of course). We moved from a bigger house on the West side of Lethbridge with a small yard, to a tiny house in Raymond with a huge yard. Being in our 13^th house since we got married 6 years ago, the move itself hardly constitutes a change. The big adjustment has been living in such tight quarters, but it will help us move more quickly towards owning or building our own home, and finally staying put.

John started as an apprentice to become an Appliance Repair Technician. It is a three year trade; 10 months of work, and 2 months of school each year. Schooling is only offered in Calgary at SAIT so John decided to challenge the first year exam, and with his physics background, thankfully passed. He'll challenge the second year too. He work's for Ron's Appliance in Lethbridge. He loves his job and says he's never had a better boss. He will be classified as a 2^nd year apprentice next month. So things are looking up in the employment department.

Megan keeps busy with the kids and keeping the family organized. Busy, or crazy or whatever best describes the typical mother's day to day activities, she wouldn't change it for anything. She enjoyed a Cruise to Mexico in February with her Mom and 2 sisters as a reward for training for/running a 5K on Catalina Island. Winning for your age group while pregnant deserves a little vacation. She enjoys reading books on parenting and child development, digital scrapbooking, and is attempting to get into family history.

Hadley is 5 and started Kindergarten this fall. She loves it and is doing well. She has always loved to sing and dance, so we put her in a musical theatre class this year. Her Christmas performance was great and she definitely enjoys being on stage. Even with the most tongue-twisting solo in “Mr Grinch”, she didn't miss a beat. Hadley is a very helpful older sister and enjoys keeping her 3 younger brothers in line.

Brian is 3. He loves Diego and Ironman (as he called him, “fireman”) and spends most of his time pretending he is one of them. He loves hockey and was very excited about earning skates for getting potty-trained. He is kind and always shares. You can't ever give him just one treat, he always needs three so that Elijah and Hadley can have one too. He gets this from Dad.

Elijah is 3 and LOVES cars! Don't underestimate the Capital Letters and exclamation mark! Apart from knowing all his Hotwheels cars, he's good at identifying new ones from commercials, he can sometimes tell before we can. He knows what cars people drive and what cars are missing from driveways when we go for walks. Should it be embarrassing to be corrected by someone who can't even say, “Cadillac?” (Cady-Yak).

Sam was born at the beginning of November and is a super cute little boy. The kids all love him and think he's the best. It's amazing that just by being here he can bring us so much joy. Hard to have imagined how entertaining just sitting and watching a little baby could be, but apparently we're hooked.

We've had a great year and hope that you have too!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Love,

The Hillyers

John, Megan, Hadley, Brian, Elijah, and Sam

Little Performer

2010-12-11T21:18:00.001-07:00

Hadley is in a Musical Theatre class. She loves it. Here is her class number in the Christmas show. Her line is at the beginning (after the first girl). The song doesn't start until about 1:50, so you can skip to that if you want. It's kind of long.

November in pictures

2010-12-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

November seemed to fly by!

The kids like to give Sam toys to make him happy....

Elijah thinks Sam is "a cute baby" and always wants to be right close to him - which may be why Sam now has the cold that everyone else had.....

Brian and Elijah turned 3 on the 12th! Here they are opening presents before John left for work...

Brian dresses up like Diego almost daily, and when he is in his Diego duds, he must be referred to as "Diego"

John decorated their cake. Brian wanted a spiderman cake, and Elijah wanted a yellow corvette.

Elijah likes to share his cars with Sam

The hair!

Our Anniversary was on the 27th. John made us an appetizer feast. My parents were gone to Mike's football game so we raided their house

The kids joined us too.....so romantic

Hadley took our pic.....yikes.

Samuel David Hillyer

2010-11-09T11:46:00.001-07:00

Don't mind my lack of grammatical correctness and coherence....I'm a little tired and don't feel like editing.

I was due to have a baby on Oct. 29th (at least that was the last due date I was given). I was early with Hadley and the boys obviously, so I just expected that it would happen. It didn't Nothing happened....at all, until Saturday, the 6th.

I started having minor contractions in the late afternoon. They didn't hurt much and were around 15min apart. John went to play hockey that night and we decided to come watch because we wanted the kids to see John play sometime this season and figured this would be the easiest without having a little baby too. By the time the first hour of hockey was over, I had had a couple contractions that were 3 minutes apart, so John left hockey early and we went home. The contractions slowed to about 15-20 min apart and were nothing major. We watched a lame movie and then went to bed. At about 3:30am I had a couple contractions that woke me up, but were still 15 min apart. Then at 5am, I had 2 that hurt more and were 3 min. apart.

We didn't want to wait too long to go to the hospital because I had decided that I wanted to try an epidural. I had wanted one with Hadley and the twins, but was too late both times. Well, actually, I wanted to try without for both labours, but once I was in labour, i wanted one. With Hadley, I had morphine because I was panicky and in pain obviously. With the twins, I had laughing gas while I was pushing. So, with both deliveries, I was very out of it when they were born. I didn't like feeling like that and wanted to remember Sam's birth better and feel like I was actually present. That is why I decided that I wanted to have an epidural. I didn't want to get desperate and try morphine or laughing gas again.

So, we called my mom at 5am and asked her to come over so that we could go to the hospital. By the time we got there the contractions slowed to 10 min apart and I was only 1-2cm dilated. So we went and had breakfast and then walked around Walmart for an hour to see if things would speed up. They didn't, so we decided to go home so I could get in the shower. We have hot-water on demand, so once we were home, I laid in the shower for about an hour. The contractions were getting harder, but were still irregular and far apart. This is how labour was with the twins, but once my water broke, I had them an hour and 20minutes later. We went to my mom's once they were done church and had lunch and I walked around their house trying to get things moving. The contractions hurt a lot more. Enough that I couldn't talk during them, so we decided to get checked at the Raymond Hospital before going to Lethbridge again. I was checked and I was still 1-2cm dilated. Argh! Yvonne Baines was the nurse there and after seeing me go through a contraction (mind you, it was while lying on my back) told me that I needed to relax my whole body to let the cervix open up. We went home and I got in the shower again. This was at about 3:30...I think. The contractions got a lot harder and were soon around 5-6 minutes apart. John said that we should go to the hospital. I didn't want to get out of the shower because I was scared that the contractions would slow again, but they hurt a lot, so I agreed that we should go. It was 6pm when we left. They continued to be from 4-6 min apart. When we got to the hospital I was 6 cm dilated. Yeah! I told them I wanted an epidural. The contractions were coming quickly now. I was doing really well through them. I would just breath slowly and calmly and relax my whole body and let the cervix do its thing. I went to the delivery room and laid on the bed to get monitored for a bit. I laid on my side because on my back was way too uncomfortable. Contractions continued to progress. I feared that the epidural wasn't going to happen because things were just going too fast. I stayed relaxed though and continued to be calm through the contractions. I knew that if I lost my focus during the contractions, that it would be awful....so I didn't. Dr. Gibb was on his way and I was at 9cm. I felt that I would soon need to push. Dr. Gibb got there and I was very close to 10cm. He said I could push if I wanted to. It was so weird feeling coherent and present at this time. It almost annoyed me. Between contractions, I felt almost weird laying there with everyone watching me, waiting for another contraction to come. Dr. Gibb broke my water with the next contraction and then I started pushing. Pushing was stupid. I kept saying "this is dumb", "I can do this", "I'm mad". I wanted to be in a different position. I was on my back John and the nurse would pull my legs in to my chest while pushing. I asked if I could go in a different position and they said no. I wasn't really sure what position I would have tried, but I just wanted off of the bed! I stayed and just kept pushing. I wanted that baby out as soon as possible! John kept giving me motivation, saying things like "I can see him", and telling me when to push and keep pushing. It helped a lot to keep up my motivation. Finally by 8:19pm, he was born! Yeah! I pushed for 25 minutes. He was born posterior and had a huge conehead. It was nice being aware of things at this point. I loved watching them assess him and then being able to nurse and hold him.

I broke like all the blood vessels in my face and chest. It looks awesome. I tore some, so while I got stitched up, they cleaned up Sam and weighed him, etc. He weighed 7lbs 15oz. and is 20.5 inches long. I was bleeding lots, so I had to get medication in my iv and then some other meds. The same thing happened with the twins. I nursed Sam soon hoping that that would help stop some bleeding. He took to it quickly and has a very strong latch.

The bleeding slowed and I went to the maternity ward. My Dad and Mom visited for a bit. I was very tired and a little faint-ish. I tried to sleep, but it didn't happen much. John stayed overnight, which was very nice. I had a hard time moving, so he helped me a lot. The kids and my mom came in the morning to visit. They were so excited. After they left, I showered and slept a bit. John and I were so bored! So we asked the nurse if we could try to go home. She called Dr. Gibb and he said ok. John's parents came just before we left. The kids were so happy when we got home. John put them to bed and then I fed Sam and went to sleep. John took Sam when I was done and got him to sleep. It felt so nice to sleep in a comfortable bed without the sound of two LOUD ticking clocks!

Welcome to our family Sam!

Here's some pics:

Cool Cars

2010-11-03T18:49:00.001-06:00

Elijah loves cars. We've been giving the boys hot wheel cars when they fill up a potty chart page. Elijah loved getting cars, but there were a lot of tears when he couldn't get one right away. Brian is pretty much trained now though, and Elijah is very close. Anyway, we got them "real" hot wheels cars. Some are models of real cars and we love teaching the boys the names of cars because we think it's fun hearing them identify them as Ferrari's or Corvette's and the like. John was quizzing Elijah today and I took a video. We video-ed Hadley and Brian too, and I was surprised at how much better Elijah knew the names. I don't get it. What is it about boys and cars?? Here's the video of Elijah:

In other news.....I'm overdue. I hope this guy comes soon.

Oh, and Halloween was fun. I put pictures on facebook. Hadley was a "ladybug fairy or ladybug fairy godmother", Brian was Diego (I found a Diego vest at the Salvation Army for 50 cents and he fell in love), and Elijah was a skeleton.

I think that's all for now....hopefully we'll have a new addition in the next day or so!

Starting again

2010-10-16T17:38:00.000-06:00

I'm back! Not much of an excuse for my absence....just no internet for 2 months and then moving. We live in Raymond now. We are renting a little house in hopes to save some money so we can eventually buy or build a house. It's in a great location and it is working for us so far. The house is for sale though, so moving is inevitable at some point.

Anyway. After reading this post on a blog I read somewhat regularly, I decided that I can start scrapbooking again. The term scrapbooking is used very loosely. I started scrapbooking after Hadley was born, but only did like 5 pages. It was very time consuming and costly. After the boys were born, I decided to switch to digital scrapbooking and was going to do a page/month for each child. I found some 8.5 x 11 landscape oriented scrapbooks, so that I could use our laser printer to print off the pages. I did about 2 months for each kid....and then quit.

Well, I started up again, and am doing it much like Sarah from Cloverlane. I've done 9 pages this week. I'm getting faster though. I don't have to try every single font now before I make a decision....awesome.

Here are a few that I've done. I'm starting with Hadley, so she's the only one that has any done so far. I will print them off on our printer (once our black toner comes in the mail)

corn braids

2010-07-08T21:33:00.000-06:00

I started corn braiding Hadley's hair last night. I'm not a great hair-stylist, but it turned out better than I was expecting. I only french-braided about 5 braids on the top of her head. The first one was pretty bad, but considering I have only french-braided hair like 5 times (and I just found out yesterday while looking at how to do corn braids, that my self-taught method of french-braiding was wrong!).....so I was happy with the outcome. Hadley did great sitting still for me......despite being sick (she came down with a fever last night. Weird.).......Anyway, here are some more pics.

Scentsy

2010-06-30T10:54:00.000-06:00

As some of you may know, I used to run this little website Cute Like Me, with my friend Hailey. Last year, I quit, cause I wasn't loving it so much anymore. Hailey has continued doing a fabulous job keeping up with it all, including running a giveaways and reviews blog Cute Like Me Giveaways and Reviews.

Anyway, she is doing a fabulous giveaway right now for a Scentsy warmer and fragrance bars. I would love to win. I've been wanting to try out Scentsy for a while. Check it out here

fun morning

2010-05-21T15:03:00.000-06:00

Today was the ultrasound, so John came home about 15 min. before the appointment to go there. Just as we were getting ready to leave, Brian fell off a chair in the kitchen and hit his ear on another chair on the way down. It was bleeding like crazy and John thought it may need stitches. Awesome. John cleaned him up and I put a steri strip on his ear hoping that it would keep the wound together enough to not need stitches. When we got to the radiology clinic, I asked if they had a nurse there who could look at Brian's ear to see if it needed stitches. They said, no, but that the radiologist could look at it and to just ask the ultrasound technician when I went in. I went in for the ultrasound (about ready to pee my pants because of the full bladder), only to discover that I was only 16.5 weeks along. Weird. I guess I missed a period or something, which is not too surprising. So, I'm due Oct. 31 now. It was too early to check everything that he needed to check, so he brought John and the kids in so that they could see the baby and I will need to get another ultrasound on June 11. I asked if the radiologist could look at Brian's ear, so he went to get him. The radiologist said that since we taped it up well enough, we could just clean it up and tape it again and keep the tape on until it falls off.

So, I was kind of bummed that I'm only 16 weeks along, but whatev. It's really only 10 days later than I had thought, but my Dr. had said I was 19 weeks along. Oh well. I'm just glad the baby looks healthy and that Brian didn't need stitches. Crazy morning.

writing-on-stone campout

2010-05-20T14:08:00.000-06:00

On Friday John called from work and suggested going camping at Writing-on-Stone, so I packed stuff up and we were off about an hour later. We got there around 8pm and I quickly set up the tent while John made a fire (with some super wet wood). The kids loved it. They slept pretty well......John and I-not so much. We were crammed in our 2 man tent. Luckily we brought our memory foam mattress, but I guess I'm a wuss now or something. In the morning we walked around the campsite and snacked on food waiting for Brian to wake up. He slept until 9:30! Weird. The rest of the day we played around on the hoodoos and at the park. On the way out we went to the new visitor centre and looked at indian artifacts and such. Pretty cool!

On the way home, we stopped by the dinosaur in Milk River. The visitor centre was closed, but the dinosaur was enough excitement for us. Brian and Elijah were pretty scared at first, but by the end they were friends with Mr. T. Rex.

Digging for worms

2010-05-07T09:41:00.000-06:00

I hate worms. And bugs. I'm trying not to pass that fear onto my children. Worms actually don't bother me too much, but I don't think you'd ever catch me holding one. I discovered the kids digging for worms a couple weeks ago after the snow/rain. They had fun and it kept them busy for a long time. So fun!

Yes

2010-04-06T13:07:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to wait until I was 12 weeks along before I share the news with everyone.......I'm basically there, so..........I'm PREGNANT!

It's taken me a while to feel ready to have another baby, but we are super excited for our family to grow some more. I'm due Oct. 21.

I feel like I'm ginormous, and I have to eat at least every 2 hours in order to not feel nauseous, but other than that, all is good. I think I'm nearing the end of the nausea stage though. It's definitely not as bad as it was with the 2 previous pregnancies.

Anyway.......there, now you all know.

Today

2010-03-26T11:59:00.000-06:00

What's on my mind today

1. I'm making donuts. Just waiting for them to rise........I hope they're good! I'm using this recipe from The Pioneer Woman

2. John's boss bought him 22 pounds of chocolates. He knows someone who owns a bulk food store or something and got it for $15 because they were overstocked. I'm just glad the kids haven't found them.

3. Brian cut his hair today....again. I guess he can open the craft closet now......and the door to outside......yikes

4. I've been wanting to do a post about the fabulous vacation that I went on with my sisters and mom, but I've been kind of lazy lately......so, I'm going to steal from my sister. Go visit her blog if you're interested. She's blogged 3 days of our 10 day trip so far. Catalina Gold, and LA

5. John is in the Raymond Play "Cinderella". He volunteered to fill in because 5 guys quit. He is having fun with it, and I'm glad he is in it, but I will be happy when it is over so that he can be home for more than 1 waking hour each day!........ Hadley thinks it's funny that he has to wear makeup. Me too.

6. I'm sick of feeling nauseous.........

Knock-off Wood

2010-02-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

I found this blog Knock-off Wood a couple months ago, and one day will make some stuff from it.....once we have a garage or a space to make it. She designs plans for furniture and gets her inspiration from Pottery Barn and other name brand stuff. And she shares her plans for FREE! So nice. Anyway....

She is doing a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to Home Depot or Lowe's. If you write in your comment to enter that I referred you (including my email address: johannesmegan@gmail.com), we could both win if you get picked.....so come on.....show me some love.

Enter here

I think this is what I would make first.....maybe.....

or this

with this

and I might as well make this too

or maybe just this

Oh to dream.....

30 meal plan

2010-02-10T15:29:00.003-07:00

I'm a little obsessed about this today. I haven't really done much else other than feed kids and work on the computer.....needless to say, the house is a bit of a disaster and my kids are still in their jammies. Oh well.

Anyway. I saw this idea on nannygoat and am really excited about doing it for our family. I don't mind cooking, but hate thinking of something to make. I usually make a weekly menu and grocery list, but I think this will help me a lot to streamline it a bit. I really like the idea of having a master list of all the recipes with all the ingredients I need for all of them. That way, when I go shopping, if something is on sale, I can plan my meals accordingly.

So, this morning I started writing out all the meals that we normally have. We eat pretty basic meals, so they aren't really "recipes", but whatev. I came up with 16 and then added 2 that my sister sent me. I'll add to it as I think of more or get recipes from people that I think will work for us.

On nannygoat, they used these free downloadable recipe cards, but I wasn't in love with them and I couldn't really get them to work right, so I decided to make my own. First I found these free scrapbooking packets. I used the happy go lucky packet. Then with Picasa, I made them.

Here are the two that I've made so far. The recipes are definitely not fancy.....I don't really even need recipes for these meals, but they just looked so cute, I couldn't help myself.....they are cute.....right??......

Can you find the typo?

And here's a blank one in case you feel like using it.

I just printed them out as 4x6 on cardstock. Then I printed the red paper from the same scrapbook packet on the back just cause I wanted to....and it looks cute.....

Now I just need to find some more recipes...anyone have some gooders? I don't need anything fancy....as you might have noticed.....

The gift of an ordinary day

2010-02-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

I saw this posted on Cloverlane, and thought I would share.

After it was over, Hadley asked me what it was about.

Me: It was about how kids grow up. They grow up and move away and then get married.
Hadley: It was a girl and boy?
Me: No, it was about two boys, they'll find other girls to marry.
Hadley: Oh. Ok.
Me (seeing that Hadley wasn't quite understanding): You're 4 years old now, right?
Hadley: Yup
Me: When you are 18 years old, you will move away and not live with Mom and Dad anymore.
Hadley (getting super sad and crying): But I don't want to live without you. I will be sad!
Me (feeling very bad that I brought this tender subject up): It's ok, you can live with us then still....it's up to you. It's not going to be for a really long time.
Hadley: I know. I just want to live with you.
Me: Ok. You can live with us for as long as you want.

Sad.

stuff megan likes

2010-02-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

In my bookmarks, I have a folder named "stuff megan likes". I was browsing through there today and thought I'd share some of the things I like. These are mostly things I want to make and I keep the folder so I can find them....I still haven't made anything off the list though....

from Blog n Tell

from Mod Podge Rocks

love the cork board wainscoting inserts - featured on Tutus and Turtles

diy shimmer candles from Remodeling this life

from all things thrifty

from MADE

Now I just need to get started on some of these projects.......soon......

Yummy food

2010-02-01T20:45:00.001-07:00

When I was first married, I would always use recipes to cook supper. Often there would be something that I didn't like with the food.....too salty...not salty enough.....too spicy....etc. John never uses a recipe....to an extent. For baking, he uses recipes as a guideline, but often tweaks things a little. He taught me how to cook without a recipe. Some things don't turn out quite how I want, but usually it turns out great. Here are a couple "no recipe" things we've made recently that were de-lic-ious.

Apple Crisp

some flour

some quick oats

some brown sugar

some apples
some margarine (melted - he didn't make it with melted margarine, but it would be better that way)
some cinnamon

1. peel and slice apples and put in a pan

2. mix flour, oats, and sugar together and sprinkle on top of apples

3. bake @ 350 for about an hour

4. eat with vanilla ice cream (of course)

It looks a little gross here.....I didn't think to take a picture until it was half-eaten...

Chicken Wings

We don't normally buy wings, but I got them for free when I spent a certain amount at Superstore...bonus!

1. prepare 3 separate "dipping" bowls

1st: 2 c. flour and sprinkle some garlic powder and salt or whatever spices you like in. mix

2nd: eggs. beat. add some salt and pepper (or whatever seasonings you want)

3rd: 1.5 c. flour, seasonings (I used garlic powder and some "garlic plus" spice mix, and of course salt....I love salt), 1 c. cornflakes (crushed), 1 c. saltines (crushed). mix.

2. get oil ready. We inherited a deep fryer, but you could fry them in a pot of oil, or just bake them (probably healthier, but not as crispy).

3. dip thawed chicken wings in the 3 bowls of stuff (1st, then 2nd, then 3rd), then place in hot oil. I did 10 at a time.

4. make sauce. I don't remember exactly how much of everything I put in, so you can just taste it or smell it to fit your liking. It's a sweet and sour type sauce.

about 1/2 c. ketchup

2 T lemon juice

2 T vinegar

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. soy sauce

These measurements are all guesstimates. I just dumped stuff in straight from the bottles.....so they are probably a bit off. Just add as much or as little of each as you like.

5. put cooked wings into a baking pan and cover them with the sauce. I put them in the oven for a little bit, just cause, but you don't need to. It just helped warm up the sauce a bit I guess.....I was improvising here. I only put them in for about 5 minutes at 350.

6. Dig in. I made 20 wings.

These were seriously delicious. John said they were the best wings he's ever had. I loved them too. The kids even loved them. Needless to say, they were gone in a few minutes.

We watched "Julie & Julia" on Saturday night. I recommend it to any who have not seen it. It was really inspiring for both me and John to do what we love. John really wants to try some recipes out of Julia Child's cookbook now.....maybe recipes are useful sometimes......

Dance Class and Potty-training

2010-01-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Clever title, eh?

A couple things to share:

First, Brian has decided that the potty is cool, and goes pee on it whenever I tell him, and has even started telling me on his own when he needs to go. He even poos on the potty! This is very exciting for me because I thought the boys would be harder to train than Hadley. Elijah still has little interest so I'm just going to wait until he is more ready. I think I tried too early with Hadley, which resulted in a lot of frustration and it took a long time for her to be trained.

Second, we got to watch Hadley in her dance class this week. She was really fun to watch and definitely loves to dance.

Christmas Celebrations

2010-01-09T20:41:00.002-07:00

I finally downloaded our Christmas pics, so here are a few highlights:

1. Skating/Hockey with the Turcatos (my Aunt Anne's family) in Taber on Christmas Eve
- Elijah was not a fan of the cold or wearing his gloves. Not a good combo
- Brian loved it
- Hadley skated (sort of) for the first time

Hadley playing hockey with uncle Mike and Gramma Freeze

Brian's sporting Hadley's 2007 snowpants......he doesn't seem to mind

The Brians

We were about to leave and Hadley was sad that she didn't get to go on the sled (pulled by a quad), so John asked my uncle for a ride. He's so nice. Hadley and Brian loved it. Elijah was not a fan so he didn't join the fun.

2. A visit from Santa (aka Grampa Santa) at John's parent's house.

3. Nativity and Star Birthday cake at my parent's house
- Elijah was not a fan of dressing up like a shepherd so he is MIA once again

They were so reverent. Brian almost sat there the whole time. I was impressed.

4. Christmas morning at our house

John (aka Santa's helper) made this cute little giraffe for Hadley. He carved it and the plan was to have Grampa Santa give it to Hadley on Christmas Eve, but I forgot about it and left it safely hidden at home, so Grampa Santa just told Hadley to look for it in her stocking...whoops.....

Cute Nativity for Kids

2009-12-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

I found this linked on a blog yesterday and because we don't have a nativity, I figured we could whip it up. Hadley had fun colouring it for the first little while, but it took FOREVER to colour everything. She coloured baby Jesus (notice the brown face). I tried hard to just let her colour it how she wanted......after all, it's for the kids, right?

The instructions call for 13 toilet paper rolls, but I tend to throw those away.....so I didn't have 13 just lying around, so I just printed it out on cardstock and then cut it out and stapled it together instead of using glue. I did use a paper towel roll for the nativity though, because it doesn't work really without something to staple it to.

Anyway, here it is. We may have to make it again next year.....the angel is already missing a wing.....why do kids like to rip paper so much? Or is it just my kids? They rip everything! Books....especially with the lift-a-flaps....and most recently, my piano music that I'm supposed to play in church tomorrow......oh well...luckily someone invented tape.

Hadley's B-day

2009-12-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

Hadley's birthday was on the 8th. I was thinking about doing a "real" party for her, but she doesn't really have any little friends yet, besides her cousins. We were at my parent's house because John has been working in Raymond with his brother Dan, so Dan just brought his 2 oldest daughters with him to Raymond and we had a party all day. Hadley wanted it to be a My little pony party and requested a "Toola Roola" pinata, a "Rainbow Dash" cake, and a "Starsong" pin-the-tail on the pony. I put my artistic abilities to work......or lack thereof......and threw this little shin-dig together. They had lots of fun!

Don't laugh too hard....

Santa Lives!

2009-12-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

Make a video from Santa for your kids. Hadley thought this was so cool. Enjoy!

Here's the one I made for Hadley

Or you can make your own here.

5 years

2009-11-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

We've been married now for 5 years! Craziness. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but then when I think of all that's happened since then, I'm surprised that it's ONLY been 5 years.

1. We've moved 11 times....with a bunch of mini moves mixed in there

2. We've lived in 2 provinces and 3 states

3. We've had 3 children

Loads of fun. But, now we're somewhat settled and will probably be staying here for a few more years.

I love John so much and am amazed at how well two people can get along. I love our life.

Extreme Makeover: John edition

2009-11-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Want some free Christmas gifts?

2009-11-21T14:14:00.001-07:00

I started a review/giveaway blog a few months ago with my "Cute Like Me" business partner (sounds so official....). It is super fun, but lately our number of entries into the giveaways has depleted. This has its benefits though for those who enter.....more chances to win! There is a giveaway ending tonight for your choice of T-shirt from Crazy Dog Tees. Currently there are 24 comments.....not very many..... SO, if you want to win some stuff, go enter. Even if you are my sister.....or mom....you can still win......

Check it out HERE

Christmas List Collage

2009-11-19T12:35:00.001-07:00

The other day Hadley wanted to do a "craft". She wanted to do one with me....hmmm. After giving a few suggestions, I came up with the perfect idea. She loves cutting and gluing, and she has been talking A LOT lately about what she wants for her birthday and Christmas. So, naturally, this is what I came up with.

Step 1: Draw a large outline of a Christmas Tree, complete with star.
Step 2: Gather flyers and magazines
Step 3: Cut out what you want for Chrismas

Step 4: Glue to the Tree - or put around the tree if you run out of room (we both did....I guess we're a little greedy....)

Here's mine - I don't really know what I ACTUALLY want for Christmas....but here are some things on my eventual wishlist....or things that I like....not that I would mind getting all these things.....especially the new laptop - ours is dying!

When I showed John my masterpiece, he said "why do you want that ugly green sweater"....

Anyway, it's not the most beautiful craft in the world, but it may keep your child busy and then you can get rid of all the Christmas flyers that have been overtaking your house!

Graduation

2009-11-15T14:20:00.001-07:00

Yikes......the boys are in real beds now.... They've been in playpens since they were born but Elijah has been climbing out of his for about a month. Brian climbed out a few times, but I think he stopped because he fell and hurt himself once. In the past few weeks Elijah would climb out of his playpen and then push a little table in their room over to his playpen and climb back in. I figured he was ready for a bed.....and naturally, Brian joined in the fun. Last night wasn't too bad. Brian just fell out once. Today for their nap we just had to put them back in bed about 10 times. They think their beds are super cool, so that helps a bit....

Birthday Boys!

2009-11-12T23:15:00.005-07:00

The boys had a birthday today. I can't believe it's only been 2 years. It seems like they were born eons ago.....probably because we've moved 5 times since then.......

Enjoy some pics!

About 2 years ago.....

We filled their room with balloons......

I was going to forgo the whole cake decorating thing, but I decided to add some food colouring and make a makeshift road on the cake. It was pretty awesome.....

It was a fun day! I love my boys and it is so fun to see how they are growing. They are so different from each other. Elijah LOVES his cars. Brian likes them, but he LOVES hockey more. Whenever he sees a hockey stick, he has to have it, and then goes looking for a ball. So fun.....

I love these cards!

2009-11-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Win a $20 gift card for some super cute christmas cards! I love them.

Halloween

2009-11-01T15:48:00.001-07:00

Our kids loved Halloween this year. Hadley was a great trick or treater. Brian kept saying "choo choo" for "trick or treat". Elijah kept getting scared.

Hadley wanted to be a pirate, and Brian and Elijah were Mario and Luigi. All I had to buy was Hadley's hat for $1. Not bad.

Fabulous Friday

2009-10-09T09:24:00.002-06:00

I entered the giveaway on Today's Creative Blog today.....how about you?

Halloween Printables

2009-10-08T17:21:00.000-06:00

I've been in the mood to decorate for Halloween and picked up a couple things at the dollar store, but it seemed a little sparse once I put it up.....really all I got were the fake cobwebs and spiders and a door hanging....that's probably why it seemed bare.......

So, I found free printables on Skip to my Lou. I love that blog. Hadley and John even helped me out. So now we have some more fun decorations! They may be a little tacky, but we don't ever have visitors, so whatev.....

Here they are:
Candy Corn Garland
Paper Ghost Garland
Skeleton Printable

My favourite is the skeleton. Hadley insisted on us making 5 skeletons because there are 5 people in our family. I strung them up on some twine in front of our living room window. I probably should have taken pictures....but I'm kind of lazy......

Anyway. Enjoy!

Bed Frame Makeover

2009-09-23T10:42:00.001-06:00

Hadley was in need of a bigger bed, so I kept an eye out on Freecycle and came across this bed frame. Then I found a boxspring also on Freecycle. I just needed a mattress, so I put a want ad on kijiji and someone gave us one for free! I love free!

Here's the bedframe before:

I sanded it a bit and then painted it antique white. Then I sanded the edges and a few scuffs, and then antiqued it with walnut stain. I just grabbed a rag and put a tiny bit of stain on it and carefully rubbed it on the sanded areas. It's kind of hard to tell the difference in the pictures.

Here's the after:

Hadley LOVES her new bed. Next on the list: paint her dresser and side table the same colour, and make her a duvet cover and bedskirt! Fun, fun!

How to feed a family of 5 for $1

2009-09-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

My husband is awesome. He loves a good deal, and loves to share his findings with everyone, so I thought I would share with all of you! If you live in the Lethbridge area you might even be able to benefit. Last week he was at Liquidation World (by the courthouse in Lethbridge), and noticed that they had cases of Heinz vegetable and chicken soup for $7 (for 24 cans). We went there yesterday to get some and they had been reduced to $6, so $.25/can! I went in and got 3 cases. I had to dig 3 rows down to get the "Princess" shaped ones, but it was totally worth it. When I got back to the van with them, we decided to get more and get some for John's brother too. Good for food storage! So, all in all, we came out with 8 cases of soup.

Tonight, John wanted to try some out, so we heated up 4 cans of the "Dora" vegetable variety and all got filled up.....for $1! Take that Hamburger Helper!(says John) I was surprised at the amount of veggies in them. Peas, carrots, potatoes, beans, and corn!

Anyway, if you live around Lethbridge, I would recommend getting some; your kids will love it! And it tastes pretty good. It comes in Dora, SpongeBob, Princess, Winnie the Pooh, Shrek, and Alphagetti. Half are chicken noodle, and half are vegetable.

We're Back

2009-09-03T13:40:00.001-06:00

Not only am I back to the blogging world, we are back to Lethbridge! We have been since July, but I've been putting off posting because I didn't like my blog layout and wanted to change it before I posted. I finally took time to change it, so I guess I should write something! Hmmm. I guess a lot has happened since I last wrote, but I don't really feel like writing about absolutely everything, so I'll give you the quick story.....

We live in Lethbridge and John has a temporary job and is looking for something more permanent. He will probably be starting work at a bank in October and will be taking one class at the U of L. He is still trying to figure out what career he wants, but has a few ideas, and just needs to do a little more research.

I am still "working"(it doesn't really feel or pay like work...but whatev) with my friend at Cute Like Me. We recently started a giveaway/review blog, and are loving that. I have started a new hobby, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I love the look of painted old furniture, and I am attempting to paint a few different items, namely, a coffee table, bed frame, and 2 dressers. I will post more about those when they are done.

We are loving the house that we're renting and we are getting to know more people in our ward. We are planning on staying here for a while. At least until we have a definite plan of what John wants to do for school/work and such. Probably 2 years or something.

Well, I think that's all....I'll try updating this more regularly now....I don't know how many people actually read this, but whatev. It's still fun.

Here are some pics that are totally unrelated....besides the fact that they are my children....

Hadley modelling her new haircut by John

Brian with his loot from the Stirling parade.

Elijah pointing at something (descriptive, I know) at the Stirling parade

A crazy clown

Lucky

2009-05-11T08:27:00.000-06:00

I've been adding a playlist for my blog, and just to have to listen to whenever and I found this song (actually John did). I love it! We printed off the sheet music for it. Now we just need a guitar and John and I can sing it sometime. Hmmm. Maybe Russell's wedding?? You better find a girl soon Russ!

Easter Madness.

2009-04-16T23:40:00.000-06:00

Well, we live in Edmonton now. You'd think moving would get old or something.....well, it does. Yup. We have most things organized (not really, but the livingroom and kitchen are at least!) I really should be organizing our bedroom, it's pretty crazy, but we don't have curtains up yet and I don't want the whole world looking in as I put our room together. It kind of creeps me out. Anyway. Enough about moving.

I decided to make Hadley a dress for Easter over a month ago. I started making it right away but decided there was no rush. Then we had to go to Saskatoon for a week. By the time we got back I had one week to finish the dress. And I had to practice songs for Easter Sunday (I play the organ and for choir). On Thursday (just before Easter) we found out that we were going to be moving on Tuesday! Craziness! So, I was a little stressed. I stayed up most nights until 1am-ish making Hadley's dress and practicing and packing when I had time. Loads of fun. I did finish her dress in time and if I actually knew what I was doing I would have finished it a lot sooner.

Here's the dress.

Sorry for ranting.

Moving again.

2009-04-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Here's an update:

This summer John is planning on working for Pinnacle still. I'm going to be the office manager (do paperwork and set up installs). We are going to be doing that in Edmonton. We were planning on moving on the 25th because they weren't going to start working up there until the 1st of May, but there's been a change. We are starting on the 16th.....yes in 5 days! Yikes.

We will be moving on Tuesday!

So.....I better get packing!

Family Nester

2009-04-01T08:29:00.000-06:00

Check out this site my brother and his wife started. There will be information for families (couponing, gardening, and life).

Also, my sisters have a couponing site

And, my sister has a website for race and training info in Pittsburgh.

My family's so cool.

Crazy House

2009-03-27T10:40:00.001-06:00

We are staying at Dan and Nicole's house this week (John's brother). We were supposed to get a hotel, but they couldn't get one until Sunday. Needless to say, all the kids are going crazy! Dan and Nicole have 4 kids (M: 3 years old, G: 2 years old, E & B: 7 months old)....and then our 3 kids. This morning all the kids were crying because of a rough night. It was awesome.......

We're moving to Edmonton at the end of April. John is going to be selling there and I'm going to be doing the office secretary type stuff. We're going to be living close to West Ed Mall and will be in a townhome, so I'm happy about that. Well, I should go help some screaming kids.

Enter to win a bracelet asap!

2009-03-20T07:51:00.000-06:00

Go check out the Cute Like Me blog to enter to win a bracelet made by yours truly. It ends tonight at 9pm, so you better hurry.

I love these

2009-03-08T21:32:00.001-06:00

I love these hand-stamped necklaces. Take a look for your chance to win!

Fun and Games

2009-03-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

I don't really feel like writing much, so here are some videos that I think are cute. I am a little biased though.

Brian figured out how to press the button on the quad so he decided to take Elijah for a spin. I like how they aren't smiling at all....do they like this even?

John had to go to Edmonton for work on Monday, so the kids and I decided to visit. We went to the mall and had so much fun. Hadley wanted to go on this ride so John took her on it. The lady almost didn't let her on even though Hadley was an inch taller than the line. She didn't really know how to measure I guess, but John made sure Hadley got on. She said it was her favourite ride.

Elijah loved the ball pit. He thought this kid was funny too.

John's awesome

2009-02-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

John took the PARE test for the RCMP application process yesterday. It consists of three stations. The first station is an obstacle course that is supposed to simulate a foot chase. He had to jump over things, run up and down stairs, and fall and get up. He had to do it 6 times. Then he had to go to station 2 where he had to push on this machine thing and when he pushed it pulled up a weight and he had to push it 180 degrees back and forth 6 times followed by falling onto his chest and back 6 times. Then he did the same thing but pulled it. Those 2 stations were timed. He had to complete it in 4:45, and he did it in 4:08!!!! So happy. He did station 1 pretty fast, but he had a harder time with the weights section. He did station 1 in 2:39. Then for station 3 he had to carry an 80 lb. bag 15 metres. He did that fine. Soooo, in the end, he passed!

We're not sure what the next step is, but he's still in the running!

Here's a good description. I think John looked exactly like that guy probably.

Valentine Cookies

2009-02-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hadley had been asking for cookies for just about every meal, so we finally made some last Friday. They were delicious. We used a recipe from my sister. They are the best sugar cookies ever (according to John). I think they're good too, but I'm no sugar cookie connoisseur like he is.

Hadley got so messy. She was a fan of the little red sprinkles....I wasn't.

John did all the fancy white icing.

Here's the recipe:
1 1/4 c butter
2 1/4 c sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp almond extract
5 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and extracts (You can use 3 tsp of vanilla if you don't have lemon or almond available.), beat well. Add dry ingredients, mix. Chill one hour. Roll out on lightly floured surface, and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 400 for 4-6 min., do not brown.

In other news. Last Friday (the same day we made these cookies, so at least this is somewhat related), I decided we needed to change how the boys went to sleep. I had been rocking them to sleep separately one after the other, and it was taking too long. I'd heard about other people with twins just putting them both down at the same time and letting them cry it out. I don't like the idea of letting them cry to sleep (hence the rocking), but we decided we would just use "The Baby Whisperer" method and just lay them back down when they cry and stand up until they fell asleep. John and I took the boys to bed, laid them down with sippy cups and let them drink for a bit, put in their soothers, and then the fun began. It didn't take too long. Elijah was just being a goof and laughing and Brian was crying like crazy. I think it took 20 minutes. For their nap on Saturday, John was gone. I put the boys in their beds with sippy cups and soothers and just left. I went in a couple times because one was crying (I just laid him back down and gave him his soother). It worked wonderfully. Saturday night I was gone to the adult session of Stake Conference (with Elder Perry!) so John put them to sleep. He said it was simp! We've been doing the same thing since, and it is amazing how well it's working. I just lay them down and leave now and they are fine! Weird. Who knew it would be so easy! .....sorry for the long post...I'm just so excited about this new development, you have no idea how much stress it relieves!

Sharing

2009-02-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

Brian is happily playing the recorder
Yikes
All is well again.

Unfortunately this happens all too often. There's a fine line between, "ok, I'm done with it so it's ok that you just ripped it out of my hands" and "wahhhh, what are you thinking?? I wasn't finished with that!" It's all good.

Macaroni Taste Test

2009-02-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

I have always been interested in food. I love eating it, and like getting the best for my buck. Sometimes I'm too chicken to try the cheaper brands, so I just never have. I've always wondered though if they're just as good, or maybe even better than the "brand name" foods. A while ago we needed some more Kraft Dinner (mac & cheese for you americans), I decided to try out a few varieties of the store brand counterpart at Superstore. Here's the rundown in order of preference. (This was a while ago, so it's based a lot on memory....so it may not be completely accurate...also, I didn't use exact amounts of milk/butter, so it's not completely scientific...but you'll get the idea)

1. Kraft Dinner
Price: I think it was around $1.10
Taste: Superb. I don't add as much milk as it asks for because it's always too "soupy" when I do.

2. PC Deluxe Cheddar
Price: Around $0.90-ish I think
Taste: Good. Not as good as Kraft Dinner, but good enough to enjoy eating it.

I might buy this kind again if it is on sale.

3. PC Mini Chefs cha-cha-cheesy mac & cheese
Price: I think it was around $0.90....I really should have documented this!
Taste: Pretty good, the kids liked it.

I wouldn't buy this kind again

4. No Name Macaroni & Cheese (from Superstore)
I couldn't find a picture...sorry...
Price: I think it was $0.69
Taste: Super gross. I was surprised how gross it was .It tasted like cardboard...gross! I couldn't even finish it...the kids still ate most of their portion though.

I was really hoping that this one would taste good just cause it's so cheap, but alas.....

Conclusion: In this test, price and brand definitely was the determiner of what was the best. Too bad. I think I'll just stick with Kraft Dinner, but buy a box of it from Costco to save money.

Cute Like Me Giveaway!

2009-02-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

Go check out the Cute Like Me blog for a chance to win 1 0f 2 super cute scrabble tile necklaces. Be sure to spread the word for more chances to win! You have until Friday the 13th to enter. Good luck!

Yeah, John Passed the first test!!

2009-01-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

So we finally heard back yesterday from the RCMP. John wrote the first test in December and we were anxious to hear back, we were pretty sure he passed, but we wanted to know so that we could start the next step. We really want this to work out, and want to get in as soon as possible!

Well, we got the letter and they referred him to a weblink with all the forms that he has to complete. Holy cow, there is a lot of info that they want! He needs a whole bunch of references, job info, past addresses. Basically a history of everything for the past 10 years. And since we've moved around a tonne, it may take a while to complete, but they set a deadline. It has to be done in 21 days! Yikes! He also has to get ready for the PARE. It's the physical test - it's basically an obstacle course that he has to complete in a certain time. He's doing that on February 26th. Fun, fun.

Anywho. We decided that that was reason enough to not make supper. We got Joey's Only because we had a 2 for 1 coupon. It wasn't as good as it normally is, but it still hit the spot...and no making supper!

Well, I should go feed some kids breakfast.

If you didn't notice, I'm getting a little addicted to this whole blogging thing, so I'll probably be posting more often now. Sorry....just kidding....hopefully it's not too boring!

Twin Stroller Giveaway

2009-01-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

This stroller is awesome...and I want to win it! It has loads of fun features...dual reclining seats, extendable sunshades, and comes in great colours. I love it. Check it out

Hopefully Canadians can win too!

Seeking new template

2009-01-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

So, as you can see I've changed my template. I don't really like it, but it was one of the best I could find. Does anyone know of good sites for blog templates? I want to change mine soon!

Kids at Play!

2009-01-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been in search of places to take the kids where they can run around and get out of the house. I found out about a play area at the Market Mall. They had covered, heated parking too, so we didn't even have to drag our coats around in the mall. We went to a couple stores and then to "Kids at Play". They have a bunch of squishy plastic toys for kids to climb and slide on. It was fun to watch them run around. Hadley had a blast, and I didn't have to watch her too closely because I knew she would be all right. The boys though....I had to watch a little closer. They kept running in the opposite direction. Well, I guess they don't really "run" yet, they just walk as fast as they can. Luckily the area was gated and there was only one exit. It was interesting to see how differently Brian and Elijah play. Elijah was much more interested in the puzzle toys on the walls. Brian kept wanting to climb up everything, but he was a little to small to climb up most things(and they were all slippery), so I would have to lift him up, and then he would slide down and then want to do it again. Elijah liked to climb up things too...but not repeatedly...thank goodness! I think I had the most kids there though. You have to be under 42" to play, so I guess most people don't have 3 kids under that height. There was another mom there with 3 though. She had a 3 yr. old boy, and 15 month old twin girls. Just opposite of us. Weird.

It was a fun day, but Elijah hasn't had a nap, and Brian only slept a bit in the car, so I might be regretting this decision in about an hour...oh well!

How to "distress" a bench

2008-12-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

I made this deacon's bench in Grade 9. It was in pretty rough shape so I decided to paint it. Because it was already dented and scratched I thought it would work well to "distress" it. I called my sis-in-law Heidi to figure out how to do it. It was quite easy and a lot of fun. I started after I got the kids to bed and cleaned up, so I didn't finish until about 2am, but it's done!
Here's the steps I used to make it:
1. I rubbed liquid sandpaper all over the bench. It cleaned and supposedly roughed it up, but it still seemed pretty smooth so I sandpapered it a little more.
2. I painted it apple red with latex paint and let it dry for about an hourish.
3. I sanded all the edges and sanded a few areas on the wood to make it look more antique-y.
4. I rubbed walnut stain all over with a rag and let it dry for a couple hours.
5. I put just one layer of clear varathane on (it could probably use more)
6. All done!

Here's the finished product! It looks better in real life.

Hadley took these pictures of the couches we got, so I thought I'd put them on. We are getting reimbursed for them. I found them on Kijiji for $850, but we ended up getting the set for $750. They are black leather. I love them!

Hadley turned 3!

2008-12-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

We moved to Calgary on Hadley's birthday. John is installing alarms for a security company. His brother Dan is the manager here. We'll be in Calgary until John gets into the RCMP. He takes the first test on Monday. Anyway.

Hadley's birthday was kind of crazy. We packed up on the 6th and drove through the night and got to Stirling at about 11am. We stayed there for a bit then went to Raymond and spent the night at my parents'. We left for Calgary Monday morning after breakfast. Hadley was so excited that it was her birthday, so we felt like we had to throw some kind of party together. We quickly unloaded the trailer and van while the kids were at Dan and Nicole's. Dan helped us unload too. I quickly found our swimsuits and we went swimming with Dan and Nicole and their 4 girls (they have twins to0). It was a lot of fun, but since we haven't been swimming in a year, Hadley was a little nervous. They had fun kid waterslides, but we practically had to force Hadley to go on it. She liked it, but wouldn't go again.
I took Elijah down the waterslide and he was like this for the rest of the time - sad.

We went back to Dan and Nicole's after and had a DQ cake. Hadley wanted a "princess cake", luckily they had some there! The girls were a little excited about the cake. Hence the purple faces BEFORE we even blew out candles.

Hadley loved getting presents too! Here she is with her loot.

Christmas Fun

2008-12-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Hillyer Look-alike Meter

2008-12-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

I found this little fun thing on my cousin-in-law's blog. It seems that the picture you choose has a lot to do with it. The first picture of Hadley was 5% more like me but it wasn't the best picture (obviously).

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology software - Ancestory

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Genealogy software - Family reunion

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

I don't know how the twins look equally like us but look so different....hmmm. Maybe our genes got split up equally and oppositely....I'm not sure how that works exactly.

Silly things people say

2008-10-04T18:59:00.000-06:00

So my sister Jodie commented on her blog about comments people make to her while shopping with her 3 kids, so I thought I'd follow suit.

With twins we get a lot of comments, but mostly stares. The other day at Costco we got a lot of funny comments. Well, I just remember 2 actually.

1. A lady (probably in her 50's) said that she had twins too, and we chatted for a bit then when she was leaving said "You're not going to stay that skinny forever!". I thought that was a weird thing to say. Nothing like moral support!

2. The boys were wearing dark green matching outfits. A lady said "Are they both boys?" I thought about saying, "no, I just like them to dress the same", but maybe that's actually what she was thinking.

Ok, so maybe those comments aren't that silly. What I like the most about people commenting on the twins is when they say something like "oh they're so cute!", and Hadley says "look at me! I'm cute too!".

That's all.

Run

2008-09-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

I started running today. I've decided I'm going to become a runner. I've run about 5 times since I had the boys. I'm a little out of shape. I was supposed to get a wii fit for my birthday, but we never found one...until about 3 weeks ago. John found one and got it for me. It has a lot of good strength and yoga exercises, but not much cardio. So, I decided I should run. I'm going to run 3 times a week and then do the wii the other 3 days. I'm trying to find a race to run here for extra motivation, but I haven't found any that are soon. Maybe I should get tips from my bro-in-law. De Novo Pittsburgh.

In other news.....we moved to Utah. John's going to BYU and doing really well. He's majoring in Psychology. I keep busy going to the park and taking care of the kidlings. Here's some pics of our park adventures.