FIELD TRIP DAY... This morning I went on a field trip with Tiomthy's class to Save On Foods and then to a Veterinary Clinic. I really had a good time and am glad I made the effort to go even though I had to take Sharleen and Danielle with me.(Niessa went to the shop to "help" dad, but he could only take one "helper") Afterward, I was especially happy that I took Sharlleen, as next year she will be starting kindergarten. Made me realize again how she will have to advocate for herself. I spent a lot of time watching her in the group, and at one point we were standing beside some noisy refrigerators and she didn't seem to be paying attention (looking around and sucking her thumb- she did do a lot of that) and then I realized that she properly couldn't hear what the man was saying...I really had to pay attention myself. She was too far away from the speaker as well as the background noise. Things she will have to figure out next year.

I love this picture of her peeking behind the milk. She had such a good time today and had stories to tell Daddy at dinner.

Danielle LOVED all the dogs in the waiting room at the vet's office. She absolutely loves all animals. Everyone else in the family, that is everyone but mom would love to have some animals, but I have four monkeys and they take a lot of energy and they don't even poop all over the backyard -like a dog would. Sounds like more work for me.

After that, I picked some Kale at my mom's and then dried it. Quite a bit of work, but I then can add healthy dried kale to a lot of the food we eat and no one really notices. Great way to get a lot of power green food into our diet. The picture below is all the stages, fresh kale cut from the plant, kale that needs to be taken off the hard stem and then sliced, kale put on a tray to be dried in the oven and then I grind in with my Bamix and voila the end product in the green bowl.

It's hard to see in the picture but I added tons to our chili for dinner tonight and no one said a thing. I love making healthy meals for my family. sigh.

Yesterday Gramma and Grampa came over for Danille's birthday. At least I thought that yesterday was her birthday. Long story, first of all, I thought that yesterday was the 29 but it acually was the 30. Then my mom and sister said her birthday was on the 28, I got confused, I should know I was the mom, right? but what settled it was I knew I had her on a Friday afternoon and so that said it was her birthday this past Sunday, March 28. I will have to retrain my brain to get the right date. What can I say it was a VERY busy time.

During the day I had Irma T over. It was a while since she had been over( and she is a blog expert and I needed some help) and it was a really nice day. The kids played really well, a lot of creative play. This is just one shot of many I could have taken of all the neat things they set up. (can anyone guess what they were doing? ... the church of course... we have a service here regularly)

DANIELLE IS POTTY TRAINED!

Yes...Danielle is potty trained! yes, it's all done, Hip Hip Hooray!!! I can put away all my cloth diapers and diaper pails. Here she is jumping up and down after another successful #2 (notice the dribble around the mouth from the candy, motivation works great in this house. )

Auntie Theresa comes by at bedtime (7:15) with a birthday present for Danielle. She is just thrilled with her two porcelain bunny rabbits.

I am the maker and keeper of this home. A job that I am called to do and something for the most part I really enjoy doing. For me, my home must be clean and organized, or else I am not having a good day. I don't have a flair for decoration (at least not that I think so) and spend almost no time on that. I simply use what I have, find, or get given to me, and make the best of it. I also work on being content with not having the total Martha Stewart house. An incredible amount of time and money can be spent on something that is so material. Like today I went shopping with all the girls to get bedside table lamps for my bedroom. ( One broke a couple years ago and the other one a month ago, I know not a necessity but I hate getting out of my nice warm bed to turn off the light.) Spent a whole morning shopping, went to three major stores, and could not find anything. I don't like shopping.
So this afternoon gave the upstairs a good cleaning. Sigh! what a nice feeling, I actually got something done. (not a waste of time like this morning) This fall we started doing some painting around the house. The kid's two bedrooms and the bathroom are completely finished. I can't think of a single thing for Gerard to do. In the girl's bedroom the bookshelf and dresser Gerard made in high school. The bunk bed we just bought a couple months ago. Danielle still sleeps so well in her crib so I haven't bothered trying to move her over. I think sleeping in a crib must be nice for a child, it must feel secure and safe for them. I keep my kids in as long as possible.

And here are some pictures of the twin's room. When I was picking out colours it had to be something that would work for a boy and girl. I am happy with how it turned out because it is not the normal beige Gerard and I always tend to pick. The bulletin board is a great idea that I saw in a magazine. A place for them to put all their artwork and other important papers. And the coat hangers are another great thing that I have in both rooms, great for a quick clean-up.

Back to me being a maker and keeper, I want my home to be a warm place where my kids like being. They say fresh flowers in a room always make it warm and inviting not something I do, but then again I don't need to. My daughters do that. This was a quick picture I took right before they went to bed of the flowers they had been collecting this afternoon (from our neighbor's yards) complete with little dollies underneath, and a kitchen cloth lol. Maybe they will be the decorations. ( I can't seem to get the pictures done here, still learning how to do all this.)

Today my sister Melanie came by at 4:45 to pick up the huge garbage bag of "stuff" clothes, toys, etc. that I didn't need anymore. It's always so nice to get "stuff" out of the house. Since it was so close to dinner I insisted they stay and eat our gourmet dinner with us ( of soup and hot dogs) and the kids could spend some time together. Timothy enjoyed playing peek-a-boo with Cameron. What a cutie!

Gerard had been up to Deroche all day. This is a picture of the homecoming he gets, all his daughters giving him a hug. The whole family was going to go up and "help" but we got home too late last night (1:15) and then I decided I would not have enough energy and patience to run after the kids as well as get anything done at Deroche. Our old friends (old in long time but young in age) were down from Alberta and we all got together last night. There are five couples and we all go camping together every year so that got decided too. We are all going to Hicks Lake in August. Today Danielle locked herself in the minivan and what is she holding...the keys of course! Now where ARE those spare keys? She looks happy, maybe I'll get the garage cleaned first. lol

I had a birthday party for Danielle on Friday. She will be 2 already next week. I invited some friends and family over and it's amazing how quickly I have a house full of children. What a blessing to have so many people to celebrate another year with.

Making cupcakes

When the cat has her back turned the mice will play... and here is Danielle in the candy we used for making her cupcakes for her birthday party tomorrow. I went to Dickens to buy some coloring paste -I heard it was better than food coloring and while I was there I got a paper on a cake decorating course, something I have always wanted to do. It costs $45.00 or eight dollars an hour so not too bad when I break it up by the hour. But when I got home and tried to make my cupcakes all smooth and started decorating them I realized it is a very time-consuming finicky thing to do. Something that is not me. Thankfully Sharleen was very excited to do all the decorating and I thought it was for a two-year-old birthday party who cares, so Sharleen (and me) had a great time icing and decorating together. And I remembered that it's more about the experience together than the end product...but still anyone want to take a cake decorating class with me?

Some days I think my brain will not be able to handle any more silly talk. With two six-year-olds and a four-year-old, they all seem to be on the same humor wavelength. Today Timothy was going through his old Valentine cards and reading to Sharleen who they were from and rhyming some silly word with it, which she thought was totally hilarious, which of course kept Timothy reading more. It's amazing how long they can keep laughing over the sillest words...maybe I need to laugh more, after all, if you can't beat them you might as well join them.

Two days back at school and the kids have another day off for parent-teacher interviews....actually student-led conferences. We went on Tues. after school because that way Gerard could come and only take an hour off work and my whole day is not gone on Wed. Niessa and Timothy did really well in showing us all the stuff they had done in school so far. It's really neat to see them explain everything they have in their binders and show us the different things in their classroom. They both have really good teachers and it would have been nice to talk to them too (without the kids there) but there are not any concerns. They are just starting with learning sight words and sounding things out, it's so amazing and exciting, a whole new world will open up for them when they can read. And then maybe Mommy won't have to read stories all the time.lol

After the conferences we out for dinner at the Pantry, there was a special on, with every paying adult one kid's meal was free. I had a WONDERFUL time. Anytime I get "off" from dinner it is such a treat and the kids all behaved so well (well Danielle only had to go to the bathroom a thousand times, she is learning that that is one way to get out of her high chair and FAST. What a stinker! The waiter even

said we had such polite children and were so well behaved!!! What!! can I tape-record that? lol
I decided to do a lot of Mommy Kids stuff today since everyone was at home. Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming as there always seem to be so many things to "work" on with the kids. Niessa /Timothy sight words, Sharleen riding her bike, Danielle potty training...never mind basic kindness and manners. But today Wed. we went to the park. It was such nice weather I just had to take them even though I had wanted to get lots of other things done. Sharleen rode her bike there with no training wheels. We had taken them off last summer but then went to the zoo and put them back on b/c I did not want to have to help her, busy enough with all the other kids, and the training wheels never came off again. oops! but they are off now and she is doing great. She even said today"I can bike in the grass without my training wheels" It must be nice to b/c it is not so noisy for her with her hearing aids, the noise must be so intent

se and for me b/c maybe she will actually be able to hear me now when she is biking.
Carlyen came over at 12:00, she is Sharleen's speech therapist and so much more. She is only coming once a month instead of every other week. The center she works out of wants to cut back on the driving time, and Carylen says she is doing fine. She was here till 2:15 and then I did some painting with the kids we hung up the pictures and they all took turns telling a story and pointing at the pictures with the ruler. It was a real mommy day today. ( I think I already said that) We all claped when they were done and they got to do a bow. Then I STARTED cleaning up our craft cupboard but got sidetracked as the kids wanted to color in all the forgotten coloring books and exercise books so I ended up sitting down and coloring with them but said no to making all the crafts out of the Christmas craft book. The house was a total mess when Gerard came home or at least tons of little bits of paper all over the kitchen from all the snowflakes the kids were making. So I didn't get the craft cu board done...maybe tomorrow.

We had to get the kids in bed by 7:00 tonight b/c we had a meeting with Sharleen's hearing center. We used to have to be there by 7:00 but since we got Internet we do the whole meeting online. Very cool... everybody logs in ( about ten of us) and we listen to the presentation. I got all my mending done and cut Gerard's hair something that really needed to be done, while we listened. Now what is better than that. Then Gerard was off to a meeting at Jerry T. which started @ 8:30 to help organize the JCS bazaar. Life seems like there is so much going on all the time already but I know Gerard always enjoys helping out at things like that.

First Post (Spring Break)

Spring Break...



Spring break has started and what beautiful weather we are having. Gerard was at the office bearers conference and at the last minute I asked "Who would like to go to the Park for lunch?" of course the answer was a unanimous YES so I quickly packed a lunch and off we went to the park. It was one of those days when the best thing in the world was being a mom.

A picture of our yummy lunch. The picture of the weeping willow does not really show how big it is. It really is a big beautiful tree that is next to the park.

Niessa has been wanting to come to this park to practice getting across the swinging handles. She would try and fall down and try and fall down... and never made a sound about being hurt. It's amazing how nothing hurts when you don't want it to. I was so proud of her the day she made it all the way across. A big smile from ear to ear. The best part of being a mom is when one of them is able to do something that they have been trying and trying to do.

Danielle just loved the swing.