Saturday, May 31, 2014

Happy

Sometimes I get frustrated.  I lose my patience.  I use my cranky voice.  Over little things.  Like when it's time to leave in the morning and Lexi is searching the house for something to take with her and I say, "come on, we're going to be late.  Hurry up."  And this list of little frustrations is long some days and sounds something like this..."turn the tv off, leave her alone, if it's not kind don't say it, clean up your mess, watch what you're doing, feet off the table, stop jumping on the furniture, eat your supper, that's enough treats, ask before you take things, put it back where you got it, get your pyjamas on,  brush your teeth..."

When Lexi was searching her room for the perfect, random item to take with her the other morning I muttered something like, "Hurry up, Momma's getting frustrated!"  She came over to me and said in her sweetest, teacher sounding voice, "Mom, when you're feeling frustrated you just need to do the eyebrow hop." I looked at her and my heart melted.  Because she was exactly right. Even though I wanted to justify my frustrations by explaining how momma was going to be late for work, all that we had to do, how it doesn't really matter what toy you take with you and more useless mom words, I stopped myself.  I knew exactly what she meant by the eyebrow hop.  You just have to watch an episode of The Adventures of Napkin Man to know what she's talking about.

Last night, the girls were playing outside in the yard.  The sun was shining and the wind had a cold bite to it. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped myself up, poured a cup of coffee and curled up in a lawn chair on the deck.  It was Friday night.  The whole weekend was ahead of us.  Jon was BBQing juicy steak, Callie was building sandcastles, Lexi was bringing me the rings to play ring toss, I held my warm cup of coffee with both hands and said, "mom is so happy right now."  I just wanted everyone to know that momma isn't always frustrated and impatient!  In between all of life's tiny frustrations they are many big and shiny happy times.

Some of this weeks, shiny happy moments...


 You can't not be happy watching her hula hoop.  Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.

Pigeons make everyone happy. Just don't let them Drive the Bus!  Because I'm happy...


Bright orange jerseys, and Callie trying out the soccer field again.  Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do.


Another visit from the tooth fairy and two new teeth in the back ready to fill the space.  Can't nothing bring me down.

Phone photo dump.  Love is too happy to bring me down.

Happy Weekend Everyone!


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Catching Up

This post has been a long time coming.  I'm having computer issues.  It's time to upgrade my old laptop. Then I had internet problems.  Then Blogger problems.  And now I'm here to get caught up on the happenings of our little family.

First of all, little sisters nose, eyes and face are healing nicely.  What a week it has been for her.  Black and blue and nasal passages swelled up tight.  But she is such a little trooper.  Her only complaint was that she couldn't sniff.  She never even flinched at the countless times she was asked, "what happened to your face?" Sister is one tough cookie.  She never missed a beat.


After a year of dance lessons, Lexi finally had her day to shine!  Dressed in gold and twirling and leaping to some Lion King music, beat up face all but forgotten, my sweetheart made me so proud.  I admire how brave these little people are performing their moves on the big stage.


In other exciting news, the tooth fairy made her first visit to our house!  Callie's been wiggling that tooth with her tongue for a long time and on Saturday morning she just popped it out.  I catch myself looking twice at her.  That missing tooth changes her look.  She looks older.  My little girl transformed into a big kid in an instant.  I can't even describe how excited she was to go to school this week.  She was the last one in her grade one class to get to mark her name up on the tooth loss chart.  

Since this was the first time the fairy would be making an appearance at our place we had to come up with a game plan.  There are probably many cool things that fairies do on Pinterest but we went with the simple idea presented from a friend... Callie put her tooth in a glass of water by her bed.  When the fairy dives into the water to get the tooth, the water changes color.  When you wake up you can see what color your tooth fairy was.  

This seemed to be a simple enough of a tradition to start since I've heard through the parenting grapevine that as the teeth keep coming sometimes fairies forget, don't have any cash, have to pay double, and so on.  

This toothless smile was worth $8.50 and her fairy was orange.



We sure enjoyed the extra at home day this weekend.  The sun has finally made its appearance, my runners have hit the pavement outside, and I traded my water bottle for a tasty cervaza on the deck!  Oh yes!! Get ready people!  Summer is a coming!!  





Phone photo dump...


And finally, the Christmas gift that keeps giving.  The truck made its first rip around the yard on the weekend with Thelma behind the wheel and Louise as copilot!



I can see some great adventures around the yard with these wheels!  So. Much. Fun!

Monday, May 12, 2014

Messy, Perfect Mother's Day

I spent two days in the city for work last week.  While I was there I was thinking about how great it was going to be to get home friday evening and have the whole weekend  ahead to tackle the usual weekend jobs but mostly how I was going to get to spend Mother's Day basking in the love from my girls, giving them my undivided attention, doing whatever they wanted to do.



So my perfect weekend played out in my mind.  Basically it went something like this:  devote Saturday to laundry, grocery shopping, food prep and such. Getting the house in order because order makes me happy. Well, as much order as possible considering that the contents of our bedroom is spread throughout our house in preparation for it's new paint job.  Then that would leave Sunday for me to go for a run with my mom then enjoy a gourmet breakfast with my family, relax and sip coffee in my neat, tidy organized house, enjoy another cup of coffee outside watching the girls as they ride their bikes and hearing the spring birds chirp their happy songs.  Maybe a visit to the park and a stop at the ice cream store since I've been promising Lexi  we would go since it opened for the season.  Ahh yes.  'Tis would be the life.



Of course, like my house, life can get messy and dreams are exactly that, dreams.  So it's always good to have a plan B  which I just simply call goin' with the flow.  I woke up early Saturday morning with yet another case of the stomach flu.  I tell ya, I've had more than my fair share of this lately.  So operation "perfect Mother's Day weekend"  didn't get off to the best start.  Enter, plan B.  The girls got invited out for a playdate for the afternoon so I jumped on the offer, buying myself a couple of hours to recoup and hopefully get my plans back on track.  

And then it happened.  

The scream.
The kind of scream that says. "I'm not foolin'"
The kind of scream that gets all hands on deck.
The kind of scream that a Mama and Dad knows is for real.

Little sister tripped on the cement steps outside in the yard.  
Her nose cushioned her fall.
It did not look good. 
Especially for a Mama who already had a squeamish tummy.



Saturday continued on with plan B, aka go with the flow, with a trip to the emergency room to find out that despite its appearance, little sister was actually quite lucky.  No broken bones.  No lost teeth.  No stitches necessary.  Ice, Advil, and TLC is all the doctor ordered.  Ice as in chocolate ice cream with sprinkles on top.  Anything to cheer up my sweet baby girl.  And heck, it was in the original Mother's Day dream plan anyway.

So the housecleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping got traded in for nursing a flu bug, a trip to the ER, bowls of ice cream on the couch, a couple of netflix movies and lots and lots of snuggles from little sister.  

But there was still hope for Sunday.







And Mother's Day was perfect!  In a true go with the flow, plan B kinda way.  
Gourmet breakfast with my girls, courtesy of the dad.  
Showers of gifts and treasures.
A morning run with my mama!
A visit to the park.
Messy house. Messed up nose.  Messed up dream weekend.  
A messy, perfect Mother's Day.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Point Form

So many small moments happen in a week.  When they happen, I write a blog post in my head and hope that I can get it down before I forget.  But life keeps moving and the next moment comes along and I didn't have time to write about the last one.  Here's my attempt at recapping a weeks worth of small moments, point form of course since it's late and I'm tired.
  • This week saw Callie change up her hat.  Her toque is still close by for the cold mornings but mostly it's been Elmo hanging out on top those curls this week.  I think I know where the Angry Birds hat from last summer is hiding but I'm preferring this look for now so I may hold off on miraculously finding the old one.  She loves hats like she loves her two hair ponies in the same spot everyday.  They provide comfort.  And with standardized test writing going on at school this week, my girl needs as many comfort and calming techniques as possible to keep her going back.




  • Lexi changes her clothes a hundred times a day.  She tries on several outfits in the morning searching for just the look she's after.  She's even been known to pull from the dirty laundry if I'm not watching. She begs her dad to do laundry so she can wear her favorite red satin shirt again...which was actually a hand me down from her big sister who hated it the one time I forced her to wear it!

  • Callie had a gymnastics meet to wrap up the end of  her first season of gym.  She loved this sport. She says the beam was her favorite but she won certificates for bars and vault. Hmmmm.... Swinging and jumping.  Sounds just like the girl I know.

  • We can't have a post without mentioning the weather.  We had a nice day this week!!!  The kind where you think, "should I wear capri pants, go barefoot, wear a skirt with no pantyhose, dig out a pair of sandals... maybe I shouldn't.  I might jinx it." Whatever happens, more time outside in the backyard is a good thing.  Even if it's just to play in the mud.




  • If we had a Starbucks and a bookstore, I would probably hang out there on Saturday nights.  But since we don't, I settled for a coffee at McDonald's and wheeling around Walmart with my girls.  We were on the lookout for a new bike for Lexi.  She is very easy to please.  Thankfully so because there was really only one bike in her size.  She was proud of her new Barbie bike that we found at Canadian Tire.  She rode it out of the store, peddling as fast as her little legs could go, only to wipe out in the parking lot and bump her mouth on the ground causing a bit of blood and A LOT of tears.

  • Callie found herself some new Lego Movie pyjamas that she just had to have.  This purchase sparked quite a grown up conversation about why she can't ever find the characters that she loves like Buzz Lightyear, Lightning McQueen, Spiderman and now Lego Emmett in the girls section.  She thought she might write a letter to the clothes makers to find out the answer.  Any idea where to mail a letter like that?

  • Last point.  There are paint cans in the house.  Things are about to get interesting around here.  Wish me luck!  Good Night.