Something different

With all the stress lately, mainly of moving, packing, school, and morning sickness which lasts all day, sick kids, cold weather, drunk drivers crashing onto our lawn, and new lawyer stress, the kids have been feeling a little "lost". A lot of their toys and things are packed and the house is full of boxes and its just a mess. They needed something different - a distraction. So, from the Frugal Family Fun Blog, I got an idea.

Today, I took the boys to the bulk barn and we bought 3 big bags of instant oats/oatmeal. Only about 2 bucks each so it was very frugal! Then, when we got home, we put all 3 bags in the big containers we have (empty from the move/packing). They have lids so once the kids are finished playing with it, then you can just sweep the oatmeal up from the floor, and close it all up.

The boys got their tractors and trailers and some shovels and pails out and have been playing with the "indoor sandbox" for an hour now. They are absolutely loving it. It's different - something that was much needed around here.

Heart ache

Isn't it just heart breaking when you can't take your daughter's pain away? Don't you just want to take over and make it all better by telling the "mean girls" to stop it.

Megan's had such a hard time adjusting to school, since Junior Kindergarten. She had a great Senior Kindergarten year, was in a class with some wonderful kids, including her really great friend M, who used to come to my daycare. However, M is one class lower than Megan so this year, when Megan is in grade 1, M is still in Senior Kindergarten.

Megan has an absolutely wonderful teacher. She's so dedicated and works so hard. Megan adores her. However, there are only 6 girls or so in Megan's class and the rest are all boys. It's been difficult for Megan to become friends with some of the other girls in her class because they don't have the same interests. Megan is still into playing with dolls and very much a little girl still. Some of the other girls in her class are a bit more mature in their taste and prefer "Hannah Montana" and barbies. Therefore, Megan is usually alone at recess and plays by herself.

It just breaks my heart when I think about it. She wants to play with the girls so badly and be part of their "club". The fact that she's off by herself, making snow angels in the snow, all by herself, flashes back to my own childhood, around grade 6.

My family had just moved to Canada and I was placed in grade 6. While the academic part, especially math, came easily (aside from the language barrier), the social aspect was more challenging. I made a friend after awhile, pretty quickly, but after a few weeks my family had to travel back to Holland for my grandparents' big wedding anniversary. Therefore, I missed some school. Upon my return, the friend I had made had made other friends and wanted nothing to do with me anymore. It felt like a slap in the face. I was so lonely. Not being able to speak English well and now being "shunned", I spent my recesses by myself.

Now that my own daughter is going through the same thing, I feel for her. It's easy to identify with her. And it's so hard not to "live her life for her". I try to think about the fact that she's a strong little girl, that she's getting her friend M back in her yard soon so that they can play together again, but my heart still aches when I think about her by herself.

Anyone else feel this way or has gone through anything similar with their child?

Sledding hill

So we have this HUGE sledding hill in our front yard. It's awesome. It's the one thing I am reeeaaallllly going to be missing when we move to our new house. It's the one thing I've been having trouble with letting go. It's so awesome to be able to take the kids out and go sledding for a half an hour, without having to go out in the car and drive to an actual sledding or tubing hill. Usually, if it's not too cold, we're out in the afternoon (in the winter) sledding down on our tubes, toboggans, or crazy carpets.

So I thought I'd really miss the hill until today at 1:30.

We were getting ready to go out to a skating birthday party. Ian was getting the kids dressed in their snowsuits in the kitchen and I was just grabbing something from Mason's room. All of a sudden I heard a huge rumble and thought that the sleds were crashing down outside (the sleds are on the outside wall of Mason's room). I went back out to the kitchen to ask Ian if he had heard that sound. He hadn't but then saw that we had no power. He ran downstairs to check the panel but saw all was fine. I told him that it might be a good idea to check outside since I heard something out by Mason's room (the hydro meter is there too). He went out and this is what he saw.

A silver Honda Civic had crashed into our front yard, onto the sledding hill. He was trying to back out of the snow.

Ian ran down the hill to check if the driver was OK. Ian said the man (around 50) seemed completely out of it - drunk.

Ian came back in to call 911 (and lock the door - hey, you never know!). 911 told him to write down the license plate and they'd send a cop out. Then, Ian went back to the man to tell him the cops were on their way. The man told Ian to call him a tow truck on his (the man's) cell phone. Ian's like "Uh no, I'll call from the house, thanks".

Meanwhile, I left with the kids for the birthday party (which we were totally late for at that point). Ian called me just 2 minutes later and told me the man left. He totally fled the scene.

The cops showed up and said they'd go to the man's house to see if he was there. Meanwhile, hydro came to fix the power outage, and a tow truck to pull the car out. A while later, the cop pulled up and asked Ian to "identify the suspect". Ian told the cop it was the same man.

All in all, quite an experience.

I can't tell you how thankful we are that our kids weren't sledding down that hill at 1:30 this afternoon. That today was a Saturday and I had no daycare kids sledding down the hill. Thank God no one was hurt in the accident. It's a miracle.

The man was obviously drunk. He didn't know what was going on and fled the scene on a guilty conscience. He was going fast enough to crash through the guywires of the hydro pole and to end up on our sledding hill. Who gets drunk at 1:30 in the afternoon, seriously!

I guess I won't be missing the sledding hill as much anymore.

Amazing Grace - Rhema Marvanne 7 yr Gospel singer

Absolutely amazing...only 7 years old. Just listen...

Baby Names

The interesting thing that comes along with expecting a new baby and having children old enough to understand that there will be a new baby around, is the idea of what the new baby will be called.

Megan, of course, would LOVE a sister. Daily she tells us girl names she likes. Today she thought "Samantha" was a great name. Then we asked her what her favourite boy's name would be. "Carlos". Somehow I don't think the baby will be Hispanic.

Austen had his own thoughts too. "Caillou" for a boy (you know, in case he's French) and "Rosie" for a girl. Because that's his realm of understanding. Treehouse TV shows.

Mason just shakes his head the entire time and screams NO!.

I think we might have a small situation on our hands. I can just see it now. Megan will be dressing up the baby in a dress whether it's a boy or a girl, speaking Spanish (aka "Dora") ("Vamanos, Let's Go!)", Austen will be talking French to the babe, and Mason just runs around screaming "NO". I think our troops will be noisy, but they'll love the new baby to bits. It's going to be interesting with four kids, age 6 and under!

Happy Birthday to my little sis!

Wishing my favourite sister a wonderful 26th birthday!!! I love you Pet! Have a great day!

NEWS!

For anyone who hasn't yet heard, we have great news!

We're expecting a baby early September!

We're all verrrrryyy excited and the kids are thrilled about a baby brother or sister!

Happy Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MAIN SQUEEZE....

LOVE YOU HON!

Changes

We are embarking upon many changes in our family this new year. While change is sometimes good, sometimes not so good, sometimes filled with anxiety, and sometimes filled with joy, we are experiencing all those at the moment.

One of the biggest changes we are undertaking is moving. It took Ian and I a long time to decide that a move is the best for our family. We put our jobs aside and the decision was easy. While the commute will be a longer one for Ian and I won't be running the daycare here anymore, the benefits are huge for us as a family. For one, we will have SPACE. We have outgrown our 3 bedroom bungalow we are currently in and even our plans to build an addition would not have brought the space we gained by buying our new house. We will have all this and more at our new house. Also, we will be closer to Ian's family and friends, and our church. We especially look forward to that (being closer to church). The half an hour commute we do now is just not fun with little kids. Trying to keep them awake on the way home from church so that they'll have a decent afternoon nap was not fun. We'll be much closer now and we will actually be able to partake in more church activities. That's important to us.
As well, being closer to friends is going to be great. With little children, our social life is at a standstill. We moved to our current house for good reasons but had no friends close by. While we've made friends through Ian and my work, it's not the same. We'd love to get together with our friends more often and being at our new house will allow us to do that more.
Lastly, we'll be closer to Ian's family. I grew up with my grandparents close by and always wanted that for my kids. Now, we can have that. Ian's parents are great grandparents and the kids adore them. Ian's dad is getting older too and it will be so good to spend more time with them now, instead of once a week or once every two weeks.
I am glad that most people around us were supportive of our move. When I needed to hear it most, J, a neighbour and a friend, said some very touching words, as in "it will all work itself out" and I really needed to hear this. Even though she was very inconvenienced and saddened by our move, she saw that for our family, it was the best, and that was most important. I really appreciated her support.
It took a lot of stress to make the decision to move. Megan's schooling might have been affected, Ian's commute to work, and mostly, my ending daycare. Many sleepless nights and stressful days followed and J's words meant a lot to me at the time I needed to hear it most.

So, now we start to pack. We have roughly a month before our move to pack up our ENTIRE house. With three children constantly pulling everything out, shouting "Oh! I've been looking for THAT!" it's a tough job. I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to sort and organize, but I can see now that in the end, I'm just going to be throwing everything in boxes to be 'dealt with later'.
We started tackling our first room today, the storage room - the toughest room. Onward and upwards from here on out!

Christmas 2010

Here are a few Christmas photos from 2010.

This is the photo we used on our Christmas cards this year. It took alooooong time to get this photo because Mason just wouldn't sit still.


The kids all dressed up for Christmas Eve. First to Aunt Ali's house for a wonderful Christmas dinner, then to church, and then to Grandma and Grandpa's to see if Santa came!

A good pic of our family minus me, of course. It was the best of the bunch, and I'll sacrifice myself :)

The grandkids on Ian's side. Our kids plus Idalee, Ali and Terry's little one.


We spent Christmas Day at home and then on Boxing Day celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. Here's Petra with the kids.

Cute shot of Mason at Opa and Oma's house, looking at the Christmas tree.

Goofing around...




Family shot of most of my side of the family... Us, Petra, and Opa and Oma.

My sis and me. Don't we look cute? LOL

We had a wonderful relaxing holiday...great time with family and lots of laughs. Played the game Quelf with Ian's side of the family, an awesome fun game, and then Monopoly with my side of the family. We had a great time. Although we missed some family members who weren't there, we still had a good time. Hopefully next year we'll all be together again! Merry Christmas to you!