Newness

I have two new things in my life today: bangs and boots.

Here are the bangs

It only took about 5 tries to get a photo that was sort of centred, mostly clear, with no cleavage taking over the screen.  But isn't Leigh super cute?!

I love my new bangs.  I had a few before, but they were wispy and tended to mostly look greasy and lonely.  My friend cut them for me and at first I was needing a little adjustment time but now I am in love.  How did I live before?  I think I look so much better.  I pity my previous self for looking so pathetic.  :-)

And the boots

A photo on might show them off better, but meh.  I bought these throw a Facebook buy and sell group.  These again were an adjustment, but now I love them.  Though I don't think I have many clothes that are worthy to be paired with them.  And I have a desire now to try to wear them with a skirt but I think that might be too daring for me.  We'll see.

I got lots of compliments on my boots.  Okay, by lots I mean two people, but still!  It's two of my friends so that means lots to me.

New things just jazz life up a little and I was needing that.  I was contemplating trying to rearrange the furniture in my room but I don't think my hubs wants me to do that.  Plus I don't know if all the stuff would fit in the room any other way.  

I have lots of ideas for organization in my house, but I don't have all my items to do that, so I kind of feel stuck in that area.  Like I want to organize all our craft supplies, and my scrapbooking stuff.  I was planning on buying a cabinet at Christmas, but that fell through when we needed to fix our truck tire.  But I still hold onto that idea.  I have decided that I might be able to put supplies in boxes or baskets or something and use my baby change table as a shelf, since I'm not using it for babies currently.  But then I need more boxes or whatever.  And I don't want to buy them here, since they're like expensive, I think $5 at Extra Foods.  There is a Dollar Tree (which is pretty much my favourite non-secondhand store) just an hour south of me in Idaho, but I have to get my passport renewal sent off before I can go down again.

So those are my thoughts tonight.  Glad you were able to share them with me!

Of Headaches and Julia Roberts

This day sure got away from me.  I had our Ladies'/Moms' Group this morning at my house and it was a nice refreshing time for my spirit.  Encouraging me to keep it up and seek God.

But after lunch my head started to KILL me.  I had gone to bed late last night, so I attributed it to that.  I am not much of a napper, but I figured it was worth a try since the headache wasn't going anywhere.  I locked the door, threw the Netflix on the Wii (since the kids can work that remote and not the XBox one) and went to my room to lie down.

An hour and a half later I had yet to even doze.  ARGH!

So I just gave up and vegged on the couch all afternoon.  I texted my husband to see if he could come home early since the kids were driving me nuts and I was responding very poorly but he couldn't.  Can't his boss see that I am a poor, sick woman who needs a break from needy children? (Did I sound pathetic enough?  haha, his boss is actually mostly good if I'm seriously ill and can't deal on my own, which isn't often)

And then hubby had to go to youth tonight, so he wasn't home very long before he left again.  So now I'm on my own.  But my head isn't quite as bad as it was before so that's a bit of a relief.  I am going to go watch some nice, light chick flick soon and possibly eat some popcorn for supper.

And while doing this I am not going to stress and worry about the state my house is in.  The dishes aren't done, no laundry is done, the toy room is a sort of mess (it's actually usually worse) and my floor needs to be mopped, for the second time this week.  When I get my own house, I am so making sure I have a floor that does NOT show every little speck on it.  So annoying.

So here's to Friday nights at home alone.  And not in a lonely way. In a I-can-watch-a-cheesy-rom-com-without-sarcastic-commentary kind of way.

Cheers!

The Currently On-Going Saga of the Potty

I wonder how many litres of pee I have cleaned off my floor in the past few months?  I guess when I think of it, it won't be many litre wise, but it might be lots cup wise.  What a delightful thought.

Potty training is not high on my list of thrills.  I think I'm just watching and waiting for Leigh to train herself.  I know in theory how we trained Abby, but I actually don't remember the specifics.  Though parts of it come back as this goes on.  Like the hours I spent sitting on the edge of the tub.  

Leigh is different though.  She likes to "use" the little kid's potty, not the big toilet.  Abby never used the little one, she always used the big one.  Maybe there's just more going on, Leigh doesn't want to miss it.

But Leigh still hates to use the potty.  I can get her on there for about 10 seconds and then she's jumping up and around and ready to go, and not 2 minutes later has peed on the floor.  

At home we are always wearing panties now, no diapers unless we are leaving the house.  I think that it is sort of cluing through her brain that when she pees, she gets wet.  

And the other day, I think it was Monday, I found half a poop in the potty!!!!!  (Insert celebratory trumpet band here)  Abby alerted me that Leigh smelled like poop and sure enough, she had some poop on her bum, but I couldn't find it anywhere!  Finally I looked in the potty and there it was.  

Though she proceeded to finish her business on the bedroom floor.  But it's a start!  It's the first we've got.  I gave her a Lindor chocolate.  Hopefully that encourages her to do it again.

Nothing Really Important to Say, Just Blabbering About My Offspring's Cuteness

I'm sitting here, wishing that I had a cup of tea but am feeling a little too lazy to go make one, listening to my girls play together and hearing them say things like, "More water!" "10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, BOOM!" "The flowers" "Quuaaaaack, quuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaack"

One of my favourite things is to watch and listen to them play together.  The things that they imagine are sometimes so funny.  And a lot of the time, they don't even need toys to play.  One of their favourite things is to take all the condiments out of the fridge door.  Leigh likes to line them all in a row and count them over and over, while Abby likes to play with them.  The salad dressing might turn into a super hero, while the BBQ sauce is an animal in trouble.  Apparently all the toys in the play room are over rated.

I'm thankful that they like to play together, but am also constantly reminded that they definitely aren't perfect.  Just now they started a loud whining "Nooooo, No, No."  I think Leigh wanted the toy Abby had, or something.     

One cute thing that my girls do is switch places.  They seem to have their system worked out perfectly.  Like the other night they were both sitting in a laundry basket listening to Daddy play the guitar and sing songs to them.  And after each song, one of them would get up and say "OK" and move to switch spots.  And the other girl would get right up and move.  Then it would happen again.  They do this with colouring books, or playdough too.  It's pretty cute.

My Newest Inamimate Object Love

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!  Wheeeeeeeeeee!

That is me laughing and doing a very happy dance.  I used my new laminator for the first time tonight and it works woooooooooooooooooonderful.

I had previously had a different laminator, a Sircle Lam something or other.  It worked alright...sometimes.  If you didn't put too many things in the pouch and if it was heated up enough between times and if you crossed all your fingers and toes and held your breath while it was running.

It drove me nuts because of the amount of things I had to redo.  Probably over 50%.  I was so frustrated.  But I figured that it was my own fault for cheaping out.  I don't remember exactly how much it was, but not much.  Finally after another night of me practically throwing all my papers on the floor because of it, my hubby suggested buying a different one, one that worked and didn't give me the twitches.

So I bought a Scotch TL901 Thermal Laminator, and as you can tell it works.  And bonus for me, I paid less for this one than the other one because it was on sale on Amazon, like somewhere around 80% off I think!  Dude!

I picked it because Carisa from 1+1+1=1 uses it, and I'm sure she does way more laminating than I do, so if she uses it it probably works great.

So tonight I finally got my calendar pieces fixed.  Hurrah!   I would do calendar time with them, but it was difficult, to say the least, when we didn't have the month, or the day.  So I would be like, "Well, today is the 12th, but we don't have that number, so we'll use 23."  Doesn't seem to have quite the same effect.

Creating a Memorable New Year's Weekend

First off, can anyone else wrap their minds around the fact that it's 2012?  I certainly can't.  I'm pretty sure that it should still be something like 2007.

We headed up to Edmonton last Thursday to meet my parents (Dad and Step-mom) and brother who were flying back in from Arizona.  I used to scorn the idea of spending Christmas, the winter holiday, in a warm climate, but lately I've decided that it's not a bad idea.  I could use a little warm.  Not that it has been all that cold, mind you.  It's actually been really warm.  But it can always get warmer.  I'm ready for Spring already.

Anyways, off the bunny trail.  We were going to meet them at the hotel in the evening.  The plan was that we would probably be there a few hours before them since their plane didn't get in until 7:30 and they would have to get their luggage and van and then drive to the hotel, which was a little ways away.  Our drive was about 9 hours, not super long, so even if we didn't leave until 10 (which is exactly what we did) we should still get there somewhere around 7-7:30, depending on gas and food stops.

Well, the first delay, or maybe I should call it the second since the first could technically be sleeping in until 9, was when my dear oldest daughter Abby said she had to puke.  So we quickly pulled over to the side of the road, and I'm opening the door while putting on my shoes at the same time (I like to travel barefoot, with my feet usually on the dash which irritates the snot out of dear ole hubs because it leaves toeprints all over the windshield).  I open her door in the back and quickly unbuckle her and proceed to help her "puke" on the ground.  But it was to no avail, she didn't puke.

Our kids have a history of car sickness on long trips (only the long ones, never the short ones.  Somehow, they know) so I didn't want her to get back in the car and then throw up.  But nothing was happening so we started off again.  Only 10 minutes down the road, Leigh starts to hold her mouth.  But there was no time for intervention.  She started and right away so did Abby.  Oh Happy Day.

That took a fair amount of time to clean up.  While on the side of the road.  With baby wipes.  And the wind was blowing.  My poor children's bare bottoms that were waiting for some clean clothes.

So we were on our way again, stopped in the next town for some much needed Gravol (why could we never remember at the BEGINNING!).  We were about forty minutes out of this city when suddenly our truck is shaking and the front wheel is wobbling.  Enter delay number 3.

Couldn't figure out what was wrong, so we turned around to hobble back to the previous city, Edmonton trip cancelled.  But God sent a highway maintenance man to help us.  He pulled over in front of us and diagnosed that our lugnuts(?) were loose.  Brilliant.  Tightened those and then we continued heading back to town so we could get to a tire shop to fix the tire.

(Wow, this is getting long.  I'll shorten up here. Sorry!)

This was around 12:30.  We didn't leave town again until 4:30.  Did I mention we were just one hour from home?  Eight hours of driving still ahead of us!  I really didn't want to give up my weekend, so I convinced Mark to drive to Calgary, which was only about 4 hours away, and spend the night and drive the remainder the next morning.

It was so nice to see my family and spend the time with them.  We went to the waterpark at the West Ed Mall, and the kids had a BLAST there.  We did some shopping, which was alright, nothing spectacular.  It was just so nice to be around them, especially since it will be 5 more months before we see them again.

But on Saturday, Abby got sick while Mark and I were shopping.  My parents were watching the girls while we went alone.  Poor kid.  And once we got back, Mark started feeling ill.  And then he was sick all night.  And in the middle of the night, I was lying there, feeling perfectly fine (well, I did have a cold, but no nausea) when my stomach tweaked and started to feel just a little off.  Wonderful.  We were supposed to leave the next day.

We did leave, and Mark was well enough to drive, which was good because I was NOT.  I didn't actually throw up, just felt generally terrible.  Abby seemed fine, but Leigh threw up a few times.

So that was our weekend away.  Could this post have been any longer?!