Sugar shock

Another successful night of friends, food and trick or treating. Our cat and princess managed to collect about 10 lbs of candy, with Pookie doing the bulk of the trick or treating.

However, when we came home to our complex and visited our neighbours, they were so excited to have them come to the door, that they got handfuls of candy and full sized chocolate bars.

Yay for Mom and Dad!

Pumpkin carving

We enjoyed a little family time carving pumpkins. The girls drew their faces and I carved, Hubby took care of his own. Pookie really got into digging out the "guts" while Bear wanted 3 faces on hers. Bear was NOT interested in the guts or carving, but she has come a long away since she was little. If you need a little reminder, click here.

Drawing and carving

The finished products

I'm no professional but...

When someone shares a deep worry about health, it is probably best not to go with:

"Huh, that makes sense. You've been a pretty crappy mother lately." (my paraphrase)

Also,

When a doctor gives you a possible diagnosis and then tell you to Google it. DON'T. You'll only find horror stories.

Just sayin'

Random fact

In Costa Rica amidst miles and miles of low lying coffee bean plants, farmers plant single banana trees here and there to soak up all the potassium that the coffee beans plants produce.

For some reason that visual picture has been in my mind all day.

I am sure that there is a deep and meaningful parallel there somewhere.

Pretty

Slam Poetry is a unique art form. Some of the most powerful messages I've ever heard have been in and through this genre. This message of "Pretty" ranks in the top 3.

I think I resonate with this poem so strongly is because:

1). I'm a woman in this world
2). I am being entrusted with raising 2 daughters

By far, the line that struck me the hardest is when she says, "and now I haven't seen my face in 10 years" (after her mom makes her have plastic surgery).

Personally, I've never considered myself 'pretty or cute'. I'm sure there is a deep seated pysch issue there. Or it may be just the fact that the pretty girls didn't look like me, or me like them. I have attached other positive descriptor words to myself at times, but never pretty....I hear my girls ask me, when they dress up, "Mom, do I look pretty? or Mom, do you think I'm pretty".

From now on, I am going to say, "Yes, you are pretty beautiful. You are pretty smart. You are pretty Awesome!".

Because I want to raise, pretty intelligent, pretty tall, pretty funny, pretty beautiful, pretty wonderful women, who I will proudly call my daughters.

Harvest Carnival

Tonight was the Harvest Carnival at our church. It is probably the best community event this church puts on, as evidenced by the approximately 200+ kids and parents that attend. The whole church was turned into a fair with 35+ booths, a bouncy castle, popcorn and cotton candy and lots and lots of candy. Hubby and I each ran a booth as well as managing to scare legions of children with our costumes....Hubby, just by the virtue of his size and presence and me simply because kids get confused when a woman dresses like a pirate. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of my booth! Suffice to say, it involved a swinging toilet seat and throwing rolls of toilet paper.

Here is our family all dressed up!

Me and my dirt pile.

I have been blessed by a woman in our church who has a huge plot of land and needs help maintaining it. She has given me permission to "farm" a section of it, more than 1000+ sq. feet.

First order of business was to order some dirt/compost from the landfill. I ordered 6 yards, but when the dump truck arrived full to the brim....3 tons. We couldn't get it dumped directly where I was building the gardens, but 500 feet away.

It doesn't look like much, but this dirt pile kicked my a$$! It took 761 wheelbarrow trips to move it. Give or take 213. Thankfully I had helpers.

Hubby built some boxes for me, including personal ones for the girls. I also created a corn patch (blue tarp area) and tomato tires. Garlic is planted and now the beds are resting for the winter.

The goal is to build the garden with all recycled/free material. So far the boxes have been built with scavenged wood and the tires came off a friends truck. I hope to find trellis material, hoses and more tires and wood as we go along.

I can't wait till spring!

A 5 day solo parenting trip...

I made through Hubby's 5 day absence! I am not ashamed to admit that I need Hubby to parent with me. However, it was a bit of a breakthrough for me to realize that it is a lot easier now that the girls are school aged.

The last time I had an extended solo parenting gig was for most of a month when the girls were 2 1/2 and 4 1/2. That was about a thousand times harder than this time. Mostly because they were home all the time! But this time, with the girls at school for part of the day, it was totally do-able.

Not that I want Hubby to go away again anytime soon....

Pumpkin Patch

Between cloud bursts we went to Westham Island Herb Farm to grab some pumpkins with our good friends.

Pookie and her pumpkin

Lukas and the pumpkin he was determined to take home

Mikah during the hunt

Bear and the gourds

Janaya...just being cute.

The reliable wife

Today's book club book was "The Reliable Wife". I didn't care much for the book itself...I actually quite actively disliked it.

But the title got me thinking. What makes a reliable wife?

Is it a woman who can:

• Keep a clean house
• Procreates the amount of children you want
• Makes you laugh and laughs at your jokes
• Can cook
• Hold down a full time job and manage the house
• Wants sex whenever her husband/partner does
• Makes you chicken noodle soup when you are sick
• Watches football with you every Sunday
• Raises your children
• Knows you inside and out

Or is it something else?

A day of 2 birthdays.

One of weird things that bonds Hubby and I together is the fact that a couple of our family members share the same birthdays. Our dads share the same day in August and my mom and Hubby's second oldest brother share the same birthday...Today!

My mom is sixty (ish) and Steve turn 40!!!!! Forty!!!! The big 4-0!

Not that I am rubbing it in or anything.

A couple of months ago when Hubby and I were thinking on what to get Steve for his birthday, we came up with the ideal gift. Hubby. Yep, Hubby is back east celebrating with the rest of his clan for 5 days. He decorated his brother's front yard with a giant homemade sign and golf clubs, is attending a hockey game with the men of the family and partying this weekend.

I haven't heard yet, but I think Steve will like his gift. I hope Hubby likes it too, cause at this rate, he is never going to get his Flat Screen TV cause we just spent the equivalent cash on a jaunt to his family.

YOU ARE WELCOME STEVE!!!!

An early start to the day.

There is something disheartening about getting up when your clock shows a 4 as the first number in the time...

One the upside, one more day of work until I have a day off.

Can you tell I'm tired????

Music Literacy.

Music is something that I love. All different kinds for all different moods. I clearly remember debating as a teenager whether or not I could become a Christian because Christian music was SO HORRIBLE!

Really. For a while there it was Jesus or Hip Hop. Don't judge me, I was sixteen.

It took me a while to come to Jesus, but I've never lost my love of music. And I tried to incorporate Christian music by going cold turkey on all my other music. But there is only so long one can listen to Amy Grant, Petra or Michael W Smith crooning "Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them....." before one's ears start to bleed and you go into withdrawal.

I grew up listening to an assortment of music, everything from Harry Belafonte, to Bob Seger, to Crystal Gale and Bob Marley. My taste in music is just as eclectic. And this was never more evident than this weekend...

I had put my Ipod on while I was cleaning and the girls were playing. For a solid hour I listened as they sung along to the songs playing. Here is a sample of artists they sung with:

John Legend

Ingrid Michaelson

NeedtoBreathe

Sara and Tegan

Jesus Johnson

Sanctus Real

This Old Mountain

Gomez

Chris Tomlin

Young Artists for Haiti

Fisher

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Matt Redman

ABBA

And I realized just how much:

1) I love to hear my girls sing, especially Pookie. She has an amazing voice.

2) I value music literacy in my life and in my girls.

3) Better Christian music is now...thank God for His mercies to me...

Date night

We snuck away for a movie night since my mother in law is here. We saw RED: Retired Extremely Dangerous.

It was surprisingly really, really good. Bruce Willis is ex-CIA who is now being targeted. Mary-Lousie Parker as the unsuspecting girl, Helen Mirren as the ex-sniper, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich as the rest of the team.

Quite clever and had the laugh out loud parts. I give it a thumbs up!

Girls day out

A few weeks ago we had tossed around the idea of going to Bellingham for a day (read afternoon and evening) to hang out, shop and have dinner. Today was the day and it was great. We had sunshine, a relatively easy border crossing...although two of us had to "restrain" the other two when another woman decided to jump the queue in front of us after we had waited nearly 40 mins. We hit Target, the mall and object of our whole trip: Trader Joe's.

It was so good to go without any time restraints or worries; all our hubbies were enjoying kid time back at our respective homes. And let's be real, 90% of our shopping ended up being for our families. But, it was good to chat and laugh about life with 3 other women who I consider great friends.

Even if it means I only get 5 hours sleep tonight before I need to get up for work.

Survived!!!

We did crafts, took 8 kids bowling, fed them and their parents, ate cake and opened presents.

It was a great day.

A throwback to Oct 15, 2005

I woke up at my parents' house at 7 am, heaved me and my belly out of bed and into the bathroom. Noticed "the plug" in the toilet and knew what was coming.

Breakfast at 8 am and the pain hits fast.

By 8:15am Hubby and I are heading home to pick up my hospital bag, leaving Pookie with the grandparents.

9:30am tried to take a shower, but couldn't stand up, off to the hospital we go. By 11am we are into our room and doula and doctors are nowhere to be found.

Frantic nurses trying to slow down my labour, 11:30 Mary, my doula arrives. 11:45am, nurses have to take care of Hubby who is beginning to faint. Hubby, on the floor drinking my juice for strength.

Noon, my body starts trying to push the baby out, my doctor is still MIA.

12:15, the nurses discover I'm Strep positive, an ugly situation with trying to get an IV in.

12:30, doctor finally arrives, announces that the baby is huge and it's gonna hurt.

12:43, I decided to NOT have this baby...slight panic attack at how fast this is all happening.

12:51, a beautiful baby girl with black curly hair and bright blue eyes arrives

12:54, the anesthesiologist arrives to give me an epidural.

My beautiful baby Bear, my life has never been the same. I love you!

My To Do List

Tomorrow is the Bear's birthday and here is my To Do list for the days of celebration:

Get the girls up and fed and off to school

Make lunches

6 Loads of laundry

Vacuum the house

Make cupcakes for Bear's class to bring at 2 pm

Wash the floors

Clean the bathrooms

Make goody bags

Get my hair cut

Go veggie and fruit shopping

Start ribs in the slow cooker

Clean the kitchen

Make a birthday cake

Buy a birthday present for another girl

Pick up girls from school

Bring Pookie to a birthday party

Pick Pookie up from birthday party

Host a family dinner for Bear's birthday

And I'm sure that there is more, but it's been a long day and tomorrow is a new day!

Raising a Lefty.

Glitter glue + a 4 year old lefty = Gigantic mess

I have always wanted to be a Lefty. Just thought it looked cool and different. At best, I'm mildly ambidextrous. When Pookie started drawing, she would switch from right to left and got my hopes up. But she eventually became a strong righty. Bear is definitely a Lefty, if not a true ambidextrous. (My grandmother was a true ambidextrous).

Of course my excitement knew no bounds! Until I realized that until Bear truly got a grip on writing, drawing and painting, we are doomed to have the following scenarios:

1. A left hand perpetually dirty
2. Smudged paintings, drawings and printing
3. A very upset Bear due to point #2
4. Dirty shirt sleeves
5. And glitter glue disasters

But, as my good friend E said to me, "You are lucky, left handed people are really, really smart...Seriously, I never met a stupid left handed person"

It was his way of encouraging me through the mess! Thanks buddy.

Car Etiquette

In commuting everyday, I've observed all sorts of behaviour from both drivers, walkers and everyone in-between. Today I ran into a car etiquette roadblock...

I was minding my own business when I happened to glance over at the car next to me. Right in time to watch the guy pick his nose and eat it.

I know right??!!??

The worst part was that he glanced over at me at the exact same time! Now we were caught in this horrible position of Me: I saw you and Him: You just saw me. I quickly looked away, but we were locked in rush hour, side by side for a long time. I could feel him looking at me, so I did the whole sideways glance thing...back and forth and back and forth. Soon, I was trying to manoeuvre so that I was either a bit behind him or a bit in front of him.

I won't lie, the 12 year old boy inside me was dying to point and laugh "You ate a booger!!! You ate a booger!!! And I saw you!!!"

But the mom van driving, 36 year woman that is me just turned up the music and tried to blast the visual right out of her head...

Mia Famiglia

~Some photos taken on a beautiful walk today~

Pookie

Bear


Hubby


Cuties


My top 3 reasons I am thankful

Thanksgiving....

A Thanksgiving Prayer...

Almighty God,
Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you
for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world
by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray,
give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts
we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up ourselves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages.

Amen.
Book of Common Prayer/Book of Divine Worship

Holy Grapes Batman!

Last night a friend dropped off 1/2 a crate of homegrown table grapes...Despite my feeble protestations that it was too many grapes, I was left with 10 pounds of the tiniest, sweetest grapes I've ever tasted. But what am I going to do with all of them??? My friend called later and offered to turn them into juice for me if I wanted, but that sparked something in me.

If he could turn these grapes into juice, so could I. Since Google is my friend in such matters as these, I starting searching. When one of the first ways of making grape juice involved a 2x4, I figured that I could use my own system...involving bowls, a potato masher, a colander and after a last minute dash to the dollar store, a sieve.

A few of the grapes:


Mashing the grapes:


At first I was really meticulous about getting all the stems and bits off...then I realized that I'd be there forever. Hence the mad dash for a sieve!



Voila! A bottle of possibly the sweetest grape juice ever. So sweet that I might need to get some sparkling water to 'cut' the taste a bit. So sweet that my kids couldn't even drink it. And yet, I still have a ton of grapes left over!

IronMan 2

Definitely a guys' movie. Took one for the team tonight in our movie night date...

A bit of perspective....

Sometimes it helps to get a bit of perspective from others in regards to your children. Here is a beautiful poem from our caregiver/nanny/little sister/awesome friend JD.

Vander Kuties

Crayola crayons, paper, paint
Gold Fish crackers until we faint.

Packed lunches, snacks galore
These two girls I do adore.

Walk to school, rain or shine
A child's faith; it is divine.

Cheese and Crackers, jungle gyms
Running, jumping with every limb.

Wild adventures, a hiding spot
Bugging her sister until she gets caught.

Laugh, sing then dance, dance, dance
Yesterday I almost peed my pants!

Laugh, sing, hug, hug, hug
This job - I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

The Happiness Project

I am reading a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I'm at month 9, September and I am not quite sure how I feel about it.

However, the book is filled with lots of great quotes...Here is one that captured me today:

'Between the ages of 20 and 40 we are engaged in the process of discerning who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot tress with impunity'

I think as I come up to the age of 40, I am realizing more and more about who I am and what I can and cannot do....but I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I think the girls may have this disorder...

Do your kids have it??!!??

Youthful Tendency Disorder!!!

A few nights ago I was watching TV with a friend when a commercial came on about bras. The commercial was basically about how you could buy a bra in a box and just walked right out of the store. My friend started laughing and asked who the heck could ACTUALLY do that.

Ummm...me...I do that. Actually I just did that at Costco a month or so ago. I am a pretty standard size and like simple bras. So I grabbed 2 boxes, threw them into my cart and went on my merry little way. JD looked at me like I was an alien. An alien with boxed bra sized boobs. It was a pretty amusing conversation.

Can't wait till I get to have these conversations with the girls!***

***Please try and pretend that I wrote that last line without any sort of sarcasm.

A good way to spend a Sunday

A bit of a sleep in. Breakfast made by Hubby.

Church and lunch with good friends.

The ongoing moving of dirt and blisters.

Movie time with the girls, nachos, ice cream and gummy bears for dinner.

I think I'm ready to start the week now....

The 100 mile meal.

Today was finally THE night. The meal that was 100% made from within 100 miles. Actually, the chicken was raised 96 miles away by a good friend, and the rest I grew 1 mile away from my house.

The meal:

Edamame/Soyabeans

French Fingerling Potatoes

Beans and Carrots

Slow Roasted Chicken

We also had local wine and beer as well as a pie from a local farm using their berries. As I sit here in the afterglow of the meal, there is a deep sense of satisfaction. Could I feed my family all winter on what I grew? No. Could I incorporate something I grew in each meal? Yes. And that is pretty great to me.

A new month.

Today I worked outside moving dirt from here to there. Then I sat down, leaned back against a wall and dozed for 20 minutes.

Hello October. So far, I love you.