At Our House

So Proud!

2012-06-02T13:36:00.002-07:00

I recently entered my Dad into a contest on the HGTV.ca website. It was a DIY contest with the winner getting 1200.00 worth of tools from Canadian Tire. Before I go too far, he didn't win but he did get an honourable mention and a gift card for Canadian Tire. He has a huge long list of DIY projects including the mason jar pendant lights in the photos, but the most recent one is the concrete countertop for their kitchen. I have added a few photos here for you to see, but the link for the contest winners is http://www.hgtv.ca/blog/archive/2012/06/02/hgtv-s-may-2-4-diy-contest-honourable-mentions-part-i.aspx

This one above is taken before the epoxy was added.

Congrats Dad, I am proud of you!

Backyard Fun

2012-05-24T09:39:00.001-07:00

Last fall Aaron started building a sandbox from a blog that we found. He completed it last fall but we didn't get sand into it in time to use. Now that spring is here we finally went and rented a trailer and filled it with sand. Luke has been very patient and was thrilled when we finally were finished it. If you want the link to the blog click here .

We also purchased a cedar playhouse from Costco early in the year and we have also completed that and have it out. In my mind this should mean hours of entertainment outside without any boring (for me) trips to our small playground, as well as a chance for me to relax outside and drink a cup of coffee, we'll see, so far so good. We were able to catch a few pictures before it started raining.

A Hoot of a Party

2012-05-02T09:13:00.003-07:00

Today Sam turns 1! I say it with every birthday my kids have, but I can't believe it! It seems even more so with Sam. How can he be one? It feels like time has just escaped me. I guess this is a good reminder to enjoy every moment. Just an update on the boy himself. Sam weighed 9lbs 4 oz at birth and he is currently 26lbs and 2'6". I know this sounds huge and it is, but he has plateaued in growth. He was at this same stage at 8 months. He isn't walking yet, but could if he wanted to, it is all about confidence. He is overall very serious but as you can see, when he smiles it can light up the room. Finally, it is now apparent that he is not a quiet child either. Like his sister and brother he can make himself heard to everyone!

On Saturday we had a birthday party for him. We had a great time and he was a very spoiled bday boy. Happy Birthday Samuel. We love you!

This is a kiss by the way.

Sam, A Year in Pictures

2012-05-02T09:00:00.003-07:00

Luke is 3!

2012-04-12T09:52:00.004-07:00

Yesterday Luke officially turned 3. I cannot believe it. We celebrated with a construction themed birthday, or as he called it, "his digger party". It was rather fitting since we had the decorations inside as well as out. The town is putting playing fields behind our place so we have a huge construction site behind us to watch all day. Here are a few shots of the party. Just a note that Luke and Katie stayed at my parents over night the night before and Luke was officially shot before the party. He lay on the floor or couch for the first 30 minutes and just scowled at everyone. Gotta love 3 year olds!

Sadly, our crew photo was missing 2 of our little workers.

Easter

2012-04-12T09:51:00.002-07:00

Recent Times

2012-04-12T09:42:00.003-07:00

Spring has finally arrived "technically" and I am very quietly going to say I think it may actually be true. I am hoping the forecast of snow tomorrow is wrong. For me, not much is more springy than pussy willows. Thanks to my parents and Katie, I have 4 bundles around the house. They make me happy. It has been nice enough that we have been making a point of walking to pick up Katie from school. This has been good for the kids but I think maybe a little more so for me. It is a good walk and gets us out for about an hour walk each day.

Life as a whole has been going well. The kids are growing... so much and so quickly. It happens so gradually each day, but when you look back at photos from even a few months ago, it is amazing to see the changes. Here a few shots of the boys that we took recently.

Awwh!

2012-02-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

As a parent, there are those days that they just need to cry themselves to sleep... and you know that they need to do this is on order to learn or in this case relearn how to fall asleep without being held. Well, Sam did eventually fall asleep waiting and crying for me to come. He just didn't lay down before doing it. I so badly wanted to pick him up and cuddle him after seeing this. Oh and yes, I did lay him down.

Family Day Weekend

2012-02-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

One benefit to living in Alberta in February is the long weekend for family day. We definitely used to weekend to the fullest this year. The weather was beautiful (as it has been almost all winter) so we were able to spend time outside. On Saturday we went out to Sylvan with my cousin and his family and some good friends of ours here. We spent the first part of the afternoon skating on the lake and then drove across the lake back to Aarons parents. The guys walked out on the lake and spent a bit flying some airplanes and then we finished the eveing with supper and watched to fireworks put on by the town from the comforts of the living room. It was so nice to get out with friends and I had a great time as did everyone I think. We spent Sunday and Monday much the same. Unlike so much time lately, we had three days with no pressures and were able to truely relax and have fun.

Valentines Day

2012-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Katie was so excited this year for Valentines Day, and by that I mean just about bursting. Just a quick shot of her before she was allowed to dig into her stash from school.

Cooking, Cooking and more cooking!

2012-02-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my Mom and I prepared 51 meals to be frozen. Yup, you read that right. A few years ago I heard about the once a month cooking idea. At the time the work required did not seem like it was worth it. It wasn't that bad making supper each night (even though I don't really enjoy cooking). However, with 3 kids and the all too fun 4-5:30 time of the day, we were eating out more and more. It seemed that some weeks (or more) I just couldn't seem to get to the grocery store, naps overlapped or I was just too tired to cook. Living where we do, the options for eating out basically boiled down to fast food. I don't mind eating fast food once in a while, but I don't want it a staple. I want healthy food for our family. While killing way too much time on pinterest I was reminded of this idea. Long and short was that I came across the book The Big Cook. I was able to take it out of the local library and talked my Mom into doing it with me, since she is working again and doesn't always want to cook at the end of the day either. We (or actually I) chose 12 recipes to prepare. Each recipe makes 4 meals, although we made 5 out of 1 and 6 out of another since we had a bit extra of the ingredients. I will admit that this does take a bit of prep work with the grocery list and shopping. I purchased all the meat at costco and then shopped around for the best deals on the other items. It all adds up and initally you wonder if this is the best way to go. It came to about $270.00 for each of us, but divided up into 51 meals, it comes to about $10.50 per meal. Try feeding a family of 4 to 6 (what each meal serves or more) for that. Now, you do need to know that you need to add a vegetable or rice/potato to many of these meals, but that doesn't add a lot of cost and that is always the easy part. We began working about 10:15 and were done by 6:00 including meals for the kids, supper, running Katie into town to school and picking her up, taking care of the other 2 and septic problems with trades people coming by throughout the day. I will keep you posted on how they turn out, but from what we could taste they were amazing. As a whole the meals are uncooked and you bake them in the oven, slow cooker or BBQ.

So heading into the week, I no longer need to ask myself what I am going to make for supper, but what do we want to eat for supper. My freezer is full of my half of the meals and I am set for the next month. We had a blast doing this and I highly recommend trying this with some friends if you feel short on time or energy at the end of the day. Happy Cooking!

Crawling

2011-12-20T16:48:00.001-08:00

I don't have a photo or video proof to upload yet, but I promise it will follow. For the last 3 weeks Sam has been up on all fours rocking like they all do before crawling. He's not my first so I know what this means.... it won't be long till they crawl. However on Saturday when I looked up and saw him moving forwards to the tree, I thought I must have imagined it. This was supposed to be a long way off still right? I am excited that he can crawl, but after today I am already missing the stationary stage. Good Job Samuel!

Christmas is Coming

2011-12-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

Last night was our first school concert for many years to come. Due to size each grade got a seperate night, so last night was just the kindergarteners. Like the principle said, at the beginning of the year, just lining up and holding still is a feat. Last night the kids lined up and sang loud and clear for everyone to hear. It was short and sweet and very cute! The 3rd photo down is the french immersion classes with just a few extras in the shot. I personally thought they did the best.... of course. I still feel like I couldn't be prouder.

Tenting in December

2011-12-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Bring back memories to anyone? I used to love building tents and could kill a whole day in them. I am really hoping the kids can kill a whole day in this one too!

6 months old!

2011-11-15T13:01:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I still can't believe our "little" man is 6 months old. In 6 months Sam has reached a whopping 24lbs, and 29.5". He is currently wearing 18-24 month clothing, and can often swap Luke for tops (Luke is only 29lbs). As a whole he is a very, very happy little boy, but is at the frustrated age of wanting to join the fun of Katie and Luke but can't crawl, at least can't move forward. He tries very hard to move, but only succeds in pushing himself backward. It will come and I know when it does it will make me happy and sad. At six months the real baby days are past, but it is exciting to watch him and his huge personality growing.

On the farm...kinda

2011-11-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, Red Deer hosted the largest agricultural trade show is Canada. It is actually one of the biggest in North America. We decided to visit and let Luke soak up all the tractors and combines he could handle. Apparently we underestimated him. The adults got tired way before him... I am still not sure if he would have gotten tired of it actually. We all had a great time looking at the equipement and climbing on them and taking a look. Unfortunately you won't be able to really get a grasp of how big all this equipement is, but if you look at some of the photos, you will see that many of the wheels are as tall as most men. We weren't able to see much of the show due to size and time of day for little people, but it was enough to hopefully get us by until next year.

Halloween 2012

2011-11-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

Pretty self explanatory, but here is our little mechanic, spider (the only time I will say a spider is adorable) and a bride (I know don't say it).

Victoria Weekend and Race

2011-11-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

I know... I am really behind on my blogging. I would love to use the excuse that I am just really busy, and I am... but I'm not. I'm sure that will make no sense to some of you, but to the other moms it may make perfect sense.

For the thanksgiving weekend, my cousin Carmen and her family and our family packed up the cars and travelled to Vancouver and Victoria for the long weekend. Carmen and I had been training for the half marathon here while Andrea trained for it in Vancouver. We had a good trip out and were able to stay with the Breedveld family the night before we caught our ferry. It was a great evening in a full house since they also had family visiting. The evening was way too quick, actually on that note, the whole weekend was, but I'm glad we got what we did. We met up with Andrea and family the next morning and were on our way to Victoria. We had a great weekend. The weather was great, the kids had fun without any fighting and the husbands seemed to have a good time even with 7 kids combined! The race was beautiful, and I must note this is my favourite race of all the 13 I have now done. Time wasn't great, but the whole point of this race was to complete it, have fun, and most of all do it with Andrea and Carmen. I am getting choked up just thinking about racing with Andrea again. It had been a long time since we ran side by side in a race. Ladies, I had a wonderful time and look forward to doing it again. Next time though I am dragging Carolyne along too!!!

Princess and the Pea

2011-11-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I made a quilt for Katie. In short, she doesn't use it. She has a baby quilt that is flannel that I also made for her and that is what she slept with each night with the appropriate size quilt bunched up at the end of the bed. Her reason, it wasn't fuzzy! So a few weeks ago I made her a flannel duvet cover that I sewed felt flowers onto. The pattern for that is HERE. Finally Katie is using a quilt that fits and she loves her flowers. Just a note if you try this, I placed a button in the center of each flower with ribbon and tied that thru the duvet so I can remove them when I need to wash the duvet.

Katie's 5th Birthday

2011-09-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

Friday was Katie's 5th Birthday. Like so many of you, I can't quite believe that we are there already (as with a whole lot of other things). Yesterday we had an ice cream social for her party. We also had beautiful weather for it as well, high 20's. This was great since we were able to take things outside. I did cringe a little though when I came outside and there are all the little girls in their fancy dresses, playing in the dirt under our upper deck! Ahhh... at least it was dry. Looking back I realize that almost all the outdoor pictures have the lovely dirt backdrop to them. Oh, well. Thanks to everyone for all the great gifts, every gift she recieved was met with, "this is my favourite, it is just what I wanted!" and she meant it.

To give due credit where deserved, I got all my ideas from other blogs. If you ever want to do an Ice Cream Social, I got the free downloads for the printable invites, food labels and other printables from karaspartyideas.blogspot.com and the mini banana splits from livinglocurto.com. My only warning with an ice cream social is that you really can't leave a lot out to snack on. It is a bring the food out and eat...now! event.

Sam

2011-09-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Pouf... There it is.

2011-09-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

So, once again, I am goofing off doing things that don't need to be done rather than the things that I should be doing first. But, this was so much more fun! And yes, I know you should never start a sentance with the word but. I have wanted a pouf since I first saw them over a year ago, but I am too cheap to go and buy one. Recently I saw that Better Homes and Gardens had a link for a free pattern you could download to make one yourself. I used some outdoor fabric that I had leftover from another project, and then filled it with the help of my Mom's closet cleanout, and assorted fabric scraps. I will warn you if you decide to make one, it takes a lot of material to fill it, and it is incredibly heavy. This is good though since it can be used as a spare seat, footstool or side table. In the end it only took 2 evenings to make and I love the finished project. I really enjoyed doing this, and I don't regret doing it before the other list of to do's.

The First Day of Kindergarten

2011-09-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

As the heading states, today was the first official day of kindergarten. Yesterday we had an hour orientation to drop off school supplies, meet the teacher, tour the school, and get the whole rundown on what to do today. Katie was soooo excited.... and so was Luke. Much to Luke's dismay, he wasn't going to kindergarten. He had his backpack on and was all ready, and while kids were crying in the hall that they didn't want to go to kindergarten (not Katie by the way), Luke was crying in the hall because he didn't get to go. Her teacher this year is Madame Dahl (or as Katie called her "my dam doll")! Ooops. At the end of the day, Luke got to play in the pool at Grandma and Grandpa's and Katie had a great time at school, although extremely tired and grouchy by the end. I guess it will take some time getting used to everything. Oh, and I tried to get one normal picture, but she was only doing poses today.

A New Adventure

2011-08-23T21:18:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, my parents decided it was time to quit trucking and turned in their resignation. Tomorrow they will be driving to Calgary and dropping the trailer off with it's new owner. I stopped by tonight to take a few photos of the truck and trailer together. I must admit, I got a little teary. For so long I have wished they were home and weren't on the road so often, but I have always been proud of them and what they do (not that I'm not just proud of them in general). There are so many memories of mine associated with them and the truck. While in Vancouver, may parents and the truck were often my trip home, and that continued when Katie was born as well. She loved riding in the truck as did I. The smells (that may seem funny to some of you, but all I can say is pine air freshener and diesel exhaust), the sounds and the motion. I'm sad that it is ending and so excited that they won't be leaving every or most Sundays after only arriving home on Friday. I'm sure that once the snow flies, (sorry to mention that) they will be even more relieved that they don't have to leave home as will I. I'm happy for you and this new chapter Mom and Dad.

Airing out the Laundry Room

2011-08-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

My brother and sister in law recently went on a trip to Peru with a bunch of family and friends. A few days before leaving they took possession of their first house. As a house warming gift, my cousin Ali, her husband Ben, Jen's (my sister in law) sister Jody and Aaron and I decided that we would redo a room for them. We had originally thought we would do the kitchen with new tile, counter and hardware, but the laundry room as you can see was just crying out for some help. It ended up being a big job, but it looks amazing now. We painted the walls, cupboards, replaced the flooring, redid the lighting, and accesorized. Ben put up the wallpaper which was great. He is tall enough that he didn't need a step ladder like the rest of us. Looks great Ben.

It was a surprise, so they had no clue it was happening. Those of us who did it love the finished product and by the sounds of it, Travis and Jen are thrilled with it too. I had a great time working with everyone. Great Job everyone, it was a lot of fun doing this together. I wasn't able to be there for the final accesorizing of it all, but Ali and Jody, it looks amazing! Thanks Travis and Jen for leaving us a key. I guess we'll know what they really thought by whether they ever leave us a key again.