Sniif, Hiccup, Sigh

I am overcome today with 5 years of memories and emotions. I dropped my little bear off to school today and his baby sister off to pre-school. Seriously, they were JUST born!! I remember it, I was there, and I am telling you it was not that long ago....definitely not long enough ago that I am ready to send them off to be molded by strangers (aka kind and loving teachers). I am plagued by the feeling that I didn't teach them enough, tell them enough, give them enough for them to be ready to go out into the world without me.

How can it be that I am already done with being the biggest influence in at least one of their lives?

From here on out, Max will hear what I say and judge it with the echoes of other voices in his head. He will hear his teacher and his peers and decide for himself who's advice he will listen to for each defining moment to come.
And that irritates me!! I am the one who carried him, nurtured him, grunted and groaned through 19 hours of labour and almost 5 years of child rearing. My voice should matter for longer.
I can hope, and I will, that my voice will echo louder then the others...at least for a little while longer. I can also hope, and I will, that my voice over the last 5 years sunk in there somewhere and that decisions that he makes on his own are made with the values and morals that we tried so hard to instill in him. He and his darling sister have already made me the proudest Mama to walk this earth and any other, but for tonight I am also sad. I missed him today, I'll miss him tomorrow and a tiny part of me hopes he is missing me too...at least a little.

Come on Irene!

I know I know it's "come on Eileen"...but it sounded cute as a title. With Mark away, storm prep was up to me and the kiddos. I told them to gather all the toys they still wanted to play with and get them into the garden shed. Not surprisingly Max ran around like a mad man cleaning and Maddie watched. Anyhow we are all storm ready with the exception of garbage cans that I couldn't fit into the shed and refuse to bring into the house unless the I absolutely have to. So now I figure all the wind and rain they are calling for should be pretty tame. Every time we have prepared for one of these things, nothing has happened. It's when the wind storms come without warning that we get burned. Stay tuned! I'll post some pics if anything exciting hits us here in Greenwood :)

Shared photo book from Leanne

Click here to view this photo book larger

Dexter

OMG my butt is killing me! My husband took our laptop with him to Afghanistan and until my new one arrives, I am sitting in a wooden child-sized chair in our playroom watching Dexter starting at season 1. I am addicted and therefore watching episode after episode in the evenings...my poor poor butt!!

Sunday Baking

There is something about baking on Sunday morning that makes me feel like a proper housewife. Like a housewife from days gone by, baking goodies for my children to munch on all week long. I mean, I know the reality won`t play out the way I imagine it....in my imagined space the children come inside from playing and call a pleasant greeting. They sit at a tidy table, in a tidy dining room and eat their cookies and milk. The reality is more likely to go...."Mom!! I`m hungry" in the whiniest possible voice, "what can I eat?" and I call back in an exasperated tone, "You are NOT having another cookie!! Go back outside!!" But for those sweet moments while I'm baking I daydream *sigh*
Anyhow, so yeah, we baked today. We bake alot! They do love to bake and it is an activity I love to do with them because everyone is so happy! Today we made what has turned out to be a new favourite: Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Cookies. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. In fact, if I write about something we made, it is safe to assume that is where I got the recipe. if you search there and can't find it, msg me and I'll send you the link. I love that site! I love it so much, I'm scared to use recipes from other sites because I can't read the comments and reviews to make sure the recipe is amazing before I even make it! Browsing the recipes is a favourite pastime of mine....in fact I think I'll go take a peek right now ;)

Babies Babies Babies

AHHH!! Will I ever stop wanting another baby? I mean seriously? Will I?
My husband and I made the decision after our daughter was born to go for the permanent birth control option (him, not me...I ♥ him). One quick trip to the Dr and a couple bags of frozen peas later we were officially done having kids. Most days I am still completely at peace with our choice. But last night snuggling the few day old baby of a friend I once again yearned for a new baby.
Part of the problem for me is that I had children before many of my close friends. Now that they are all starting their families I want to re-experience it all with them...with my own babies. I also hate the fact that money played a role in our decision. We had the so called "millionaire family" a boy and a girl, we would need to buy a new car to have another child, I would likely have to go to work at least part time, family passes everywhere are for families of 4!! the list of "reasonable" reason to stop having kids goes on and on.
But there will, I really believe, always be a part of me that wishes I was going to have another baby...and another....and maybe just one more Can you blame me when the ones I have are so darn cute?!

Camping with Kids

So I have always enjoyed camping....always meaning since high school which was when I started camping because my parents were definitely hotel people! That being said my husband seems to have lost his love of camping right around the time we took our first child camping in beautiful Banff National park at the age of about 20months. The trip was filled with beautiful sites and crazy "did that really happen?" moments. Like the "what is the smell?" moment when we discover that our darling 20 month old have crapped himself from armpits to ankles and then peed all over me and the floor while I tried in vain to clean him in the "rest stop" that didn't have paper towels. I kept telling myself while I smeared poop up and down his legs and tried to rinse him in a teeny sink, that I would find this funny someday....and you know what? I do! Never the less my husband never really found his way back to camping after that and has been shrugging off my pleas for the last two years.
Anyhow, now that husband is overseas I jumped back on the camping band wagon and joined a group of friends on a trip out to Rissers Provincial park here in Nova Scotia. The kids and I left early in the morning so as not to waste the beautiful day. We spent the first little while on the beach where my little lady found her first sand dollar. Once check in time arrived we set up camp and that's where the "fun" times began.
It was windy....really windy. Our site was just meters from the ocean and simply beautiful, but I could not get the fly onto the tent without the whole tent caving in. After several attempts with me directing my foud year old who was on the other end of our giant fly-kite, I decided to wait for back up (my poor wounded pride!) which came in the form of husbands. They got my tent turned and secured (see photographic evidence)and I knew my tent would not take flight that night. So off we went to explore our own beautiful beach with our buddies...oh what a time they had and of course three moms and no camera :(
We headed back to camp for supper time only to discover the straw that almost broke this momma's back. One of my little campers had been playing in the car while I set up camp and they left the lights on! My battery was as dead as could be and I needed to turn the cooler fridge on or risk losing our food for the next two meals, nevermind how was I gonna drive home! Once again I was "saved" by a kind husband who charged me up and got my car running. This was not going so smoothly. Thankfully after one more close call (an interior light was discovered to be one once the sun went down) that was it for downs on our trip and I can say with a bit of pride that I will gladly take my babes camping again. We had an amazing time sitting around the fire with friends, snuggling up and telling stories in the tent ("is that story real Mama?" asked a nervous little boy-o) and running through the waves. I really hope we can do it more often next year and with Daddy back by then there are sure to be more ups then downs.

Market Madness

Well, this whole Farmer's Market gig has turned out to be a great thing for business. In fact so good that sometimes I kick myself for accepting custom orders! That being said I am hardly raking in my millions. I think this qualifies as a labour of love because if we are looking at an hourly wage....I make pennies an hour :) But I still get a little thrill each time someone buys something I have made. As our business grows, we'll start looking at ways to increase our profits but still keep prices within a range that our small town can bear.
Today at the Market we had a new vendor selling gluten and wheat free cupcakes. Her icing was adorable and I wish I had taken a picture of her table...so cute!

My computer troubles will soon be solved! I am going to the darkside....APPLE!! I ordered the new MacBook Air and I really have to admit that I am giddy with excitment. We'll see if that excitment lasts when I can't figure out how to use it :)

I really suck at this blogging business!

Okay so I keep making promises that I'm going to get a blog up and running. Can't seem to keep them, Can't seem to figure out how to make my blog as cute and adorable as all the amazing blogs I like to follow.....BUT I'm going to give it another go. My Friend and I have been getting or business/craftyness on this summer. We've been sewing and knitting and basically neglecting our households to run a table (Sew Knitty Creations fin d us on FB herehttps://www.facebook.com/pages/Sew-Knitty-Creations-by-Liz-and-Leanne/182037325187899) at our local farmers' market (The Greenwood Mall Farmer's Market find it here https://www.facebook.com/GreenwoodMallFarmersMarket) Since school is starting and we both have kids going full time, for the first time (sniff) we realize that running our table will no longer be possible. The thing is her husband is a police officer and mine is in the airforce and leaving Friday for a tour in Afghanistan, therefore we are kinda stuck for assistance with the childcare/chauffeuring etc. All this is a round about way of getting to my point: I am going to get this blog thing going so I can keep get my craftyness on!

Get fit plan 2011 Financially and physically!

OMG! I start every year in the same place 5lbs heavier then I was in November and 15 lbs heavier than I should be ....according to Wii Fit ;) I am however committed this year to getting year to getting my body to a place that makes me happy. We are headed to Vancouver this summer for a wedding and it is my goal to be down to 120 lbs by then. I hope that writing this blog will help me to stick to my plan. There it is now out in cyber space!
Now fitness plan started and financial plan underway. Mark and I have sat down to make a strict budget in order to make this Vancouver trip happen. We have a wedding to attend there and after much discussion and chatter, we figured that REALLY?! if we have to go for a wedding, we might as well make a family vacation out of it. Nanny being the amazing Nanny she is stepped up to offer to pay for the kids flights and she will fly with us too! She has arranged for us to stay some of the time with friends of hers which will save us a ton of cash and without which we wouldn't even be able to go! We are so grateful and now it falls on us to get our S-H-I-T together and save, save, save so we can get there! I hate worrying about money all the time and sadly it embarrasses me that we have to be so careful.We are both still paying of student loans and not a day goes by that I don't think about those loans and how they hang over me unpaid still almost 10 years after graduation. We pay over $700/month in student loan payments!!! It is crazy! What a wonderful day it will be when they are paid off. I know I am lucky to be able to stay home with the kids, because at least Mark IS making enough to support that.....But I still search for jobs every now and then and constantly weigh the options of joining myself so we can finally relax a little about our spending.....sigh....nighty nighty Back to our regular jobs tomorrow. Day 2 of Fitness/Financial plan complete