Poor Little Guy

I don't think he has EVER actually stayed still to watch Tv before...

This was after his second round of H1N1 shots... first shot - no reaction. Second Shot - fever, lethargic, and snuggly

New Wood Shed

Currently being referred to as "The manger."

We've been talking about this for a few weeks now. We even had the deck blocks in place, the floor decking bought, and the support joists already framed up.

BUT, before we could begin, we had to level the deck blocks, something that neither of us was looking forward to. Last Sunday, we were listening to the weather, and realized that it will probably snow towards the end of the week, and we really, REALLY need to get our wood for the winter off the ground.
We've previously stored it under the deck, on skids, but it was getting very very wet under there, so we needed another option.

Since Sunday was a beautiful day, that afternoon we started digging to level the blocks off. The blocks got levelled, and the support beams placed. The joists were already built into a frame. We placed the floor joists on the support beams, and attached them together. Well, WE stated attaching them together, then I hammered my thumb REALLY HARD, and retired for the day. Hubby finished attaching them, and put the floor decking in place.

Then Tuesday night, Hubby built the frames for the first three walls, and I held them up while he attached them to the frame and together.

Hopefully in the next couple of days, we can build the front wall, and figure something out for the roof, whether its a proper 'lean-to' type roof, or just a tarp for this winter. Until we have at least part of a fourth wall, we can't start filling it with the wood, because while the two back corners are very sturdy, the front two corners are still a little wobbly, they need the structure of the last wall.

Right now, we think it looks like we're building a life-sized nativity scene!

New Deck

You can see prgress Here & Here

All we have left are buidling railings for he stairs, and backfilling the bottom step (right now, that step is quite the doozy!!)

A Discovery....

When hubby gets sick, he carries on like the world is ending.

When he gets hurt, he deals.

When I get sick, I deal.

When I get hurt... the world is ending!!

A visit with Santa

Dreaming of Windy Days.....

How Early...

is too early to start 'stranger proofing' children?

In Best Buy last week, Buddy ran up to one of the sales reps & gave her a big hug. We've never seen this girl before.

Then at Guides last week, the girls were all sitting on the floor, and he started working his way down the line... giving them each a big hug in turn....

He's a very lovey little guy... but.

Oh Daddy....

Where ARRRRREE you?

Buddy noticed the other day when Daddy was downstairs getting wood for the fireplace that if he lifted the carpet, he COULD SEE DAD!!


So now, when he can't find Daddy, this is the first place he looks. 'Cause that's where we keep him when we don't need him upstairs, y'know!

Musical Dude

Making his Uncle Mike proud:

New Ways

To Waterproof a Sleeping Bag....

1. Follow this tutorial
2. Dry bag. I love dry bags. We use these for wilderness canoeing and for sailing all the time.
3. Use a Rubbermaid container. As long as the sleeping bag fits inside without bulging the lid, this will work fine (although you wouldn't want to do this for a backpacking or canoeing trip, but for car camping, its sufficient)
4. Line the stuff sack with a garbage bag. Again, I probably wouldn't trust it for canoeing, but for car camping...

Maybe it's Time to Start Working Out

At Guides on Wednesday, we had our enrollment ceremony. The girls all arrived at 6:30, and then the parents came back at 7:15 to see their girls make their promise officially.

For the first half of the meeting, we took the girls to the gym, did a little practice, and then decided that they should really burn some energy before we do enrollment.

So we played octopus (a tag-like game)

Including myself & another leader.

I couldn't figure out why I was sore on Thursday morning. And then still sore on Friday. And then it dawned on me... I spent a half hour running back and forth across a gym dodging little landmines on Wednesday night.

And if that was enough to make me hurt.... maybe I should start walking a bit or something!

A mind of his own.

Buddy has always enjoyed his food in the order of meat, potatoes, veggies. Unless the veggie that evening happened to be carrots, in which case carrots were preferred over potatoes.

However, these past few nights, the carrots have been cut into ROUNDS, not the STICKS that he is accustomed to.

Oh my goodness, the trauma.

Do you think that we could convince him that they are cooked the same way, they will taste the same, they are just CUT INTO DIFFERENT SHAPES!!

No.

not at all.

We had to stuff a carrot in his mouth and hold his mouth shut to get him to even TRY A BITE DARNIT!.

But then... after the first bite, do you want to know what happened?? he cleaned his plate. Ate every single carrot that was on there.

So then, the next night, I cut the carrots into sticks instead of the rounds I had cut the night before.

And do you want to know what happend??

THE SAME BLOODY SCENARIO!!

Those carrots, the ones that HAD TO BE IN STICKS MOM!! I DON'T LIKE THEM WHEN THEY'RE ROUND!! now... have to be round.

Again though, after force feeding him the first one, he cleaned his plate.

Remember....

all those carrots?

Last night we finished the last of those carrots.

And while they were good (they were pretty darn fresh... maybe travelled 10 km to get to our grocery store), I don't think I want to see another carrot again for a very, very, long time.

Bring on the frozen veggies though, since it's winter, and fresh veggies in winter.. not too great!

On the plus side... several stores had their frozen veggies on sale recently. And, I picked up a lot. AND, Hubby, not realizing that I had stockpiled frozen veggies in the basement freezer, ALSO picked up a ton.

I think we're good till February.

On a Cleaning Kick

A few weekend ago, I spent half the day cleaning out the basement pantry.

The next weekend, I cleaned out what was supposed to be the basement 'living space,' but had turned into a hold-all for all the junk we didn't know what to do with.

We now have a very large pile of 'stuff' to yard sale next summer. PLUS, for the kids for Christmas this year, we're hoping to turn the basement into a 'den,' or, as I keep saying, a playroom by day and teen cave by night.

We're trying to figure out how to be creative enough to make it a fun playroom for Buddy, but also a place where Chuck won't be embarrassed to take her friends, since it is a room for them both, and there's an 11 year age difference there.

Anyone have any suggestions?

New Family Rule:

No one is allowed to throw things off of the balcony to the living room, except Mama.

And she's only allowed if it's laundry!!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

1. At work Friday morning, another staff pokes her head around my cube wall... "You know first aid right?" That never bodes well as a conversation opener. One of the staff had fallen down the stairs, while on her way down to get a coffee, with her (empty) coffee cup in her hand. Coffee cup shattered and left surface scraps, but the goose egg looks bad. Send her off to the hospital with her husband. He phones later, she has a concussion. The girl who came to get me said afterwards - "I don't know sh1t. But I know you know sh1t. So I came to get you."
2. Friday afternoon, we had a staff meeting, the result of which will be some staffing changes. None of it is my fault, and my role won't change. I still feel bad.
3. Friday evening, Chuck calls to her Dad "can I toss this sheet of paper to you?" He replies yes, she does, she hits him in the eye. Essentially, he has a paper cut in the eye. He goes to bed hoping that rest will help. he's out, so Mama is taking care of the kids all night.
4. Friday night, Buddy is so congested he can't sleep. He's up crying half the night. Daddy can't really help out, since he's out with his eye injury. Essentially, Buddy can't sleep, 'cause he's too congested to use his pacifier, and every time he coughs, he spits it out. I keep bringing him into our bed, but every time I do that, he decides that it's play time. Eventually, I leave the hallway light on, put toys in his crib, put him in the crib sitting up to play, and go to bed. I assume that he fell asleep at some point.
5. Saturday morning at 5:45, the phone rings. I'm exhausted after being up all night. It's a wrong number. The phone wakes Buddy up.
6. Saturday morning, hubby still can't open his eye, and it hurts to look at anything with his good eye. We call telehealth. There's an hour and a half wait to talk to a nurse. We're trying to avoid the emerg, since we don't want to pick anything up. Telehealth calls back, and they tell us to head to emerg. I drop the kids off at my parents, and head to the emerg in Georgetown. They give him antibiotics, and say he should be fine by Monday morning. I think I prefer the emerg in Parry Sound to the one in Georgetown.

Hi!

Lately, chuck has become a 'moody' teen, who goes right up to her room after dinner.

So lately, Buddy and I have been going upstairs as well. We open up the doors in between her room & Buddy's, close the wall mounted gate on his door (generally used to keep him in), put up the pressure mounted gate on her door (generally used to keep him out), and play.

I say "If Chuckles dosen't want to play downstairs with us, then we can play upstairs with her!"

So far, she dosen't seem to have a problem with this. It isn't that she dosen't want to be with us, it's more that she wants to be in her own space.

Last night, we didn't clsoe the doors back up. I was still asleep this morning, and all of a sudden could hear Buddy 'chattering' away... "HI!" "Hi Hi HI"

He was very excited to wake up and see that he was SHARING A ROOM WITH HIS SISTER!!

Fall Harvest

Remember a few years ago, when we began planting apple tree on the other side of the creek?

Well unfortunately, that tree died after the first winter. It didn't appreciate being run over by the snowmobiles.

The next summer, we put in two more trees, but this time, a little closer to the creek, and a little more protected.

Yesterday, Hubby came running into the house, and told me I should go harvest my apple.

pardon?

yup...one apple. Considering that we put the trees in just last year, an apple was actually pretty good.

I tried taking a bite though... yuck. We fed it to the cows next door.

No time to chat Mom!

I've got places to go, leaf piles to jump into!

We remember

Lions & Tigers & Bears

Oh My!

I think he totally looks like he's dancing in this one.
Chuck said that next year, we should be the crew from the wizard of Oz... I can be Dorothy, Buddy can be the Lion, she'll be the Scarecrow, and Daddy can be the Tin Man.

They Say the Darndest Things.....

At Guides a few weeks ago, we began scrapbooks.

As part of our scrapbooks, I had the girls fill out an info sheet on themselves (favourite song, favourite class in school, etc).

They'll fill out the same sheet in the spring, so that they can compare.

I also had them do hand & feet prints. Again, we'll do this in the spring, so they can see how much they've grown.

one girl stepped in the paint, then on her book to make the print. Then lifted her foot, and put it down a second time, to make a second print (creative licence y'know. It's THEIR book, so I'm not gonna say don't do that!).

Another kid looks at her book,.....

"Oh my goodness! You have two left feet!"

I nearly died laughing.

More Laundry

I have never written about my laundry before, and here we are two posts in three days.

It must be some thrilling stuff.

Or something.

So my electric bill arrived the other day, along with a notice that 'time of day' pricing will begin in 2010. What this essentially means is that during peak electrical usage times, it will cost more to use electricity. The peak times change from season to season though (Due to air conditioning and whatnot).

Off-peak times include from ten at night until six or seven in the morning, and usually a chunk of time mid-day during the week, etc.

So they are recommending that we get washers, dryers, & dishwashers with a delay timer on them, and set them to run after ten at night. This has been promoted for at least two years now, to get everyone ready for the time of day pricing.

Now, I don't have a dishwasher, so that's not a huge issue.

But.

Should I delay my wash, and then do my drying during the peak?

Should I do my wash right when I get home from work, then delay the dryer to after the peak?

And HOW am I to process my regular three loads of laundry, that I normally do on Friday - Saturday, ALL AFTER TEN AT NIGHT??? maybe I'm a wuss, but I'm usually in bed then.

Even in the summer when the dryer isn't an issue since I'm using the line... this would be the scenario: I wash load one after ten on Friday, and hang it out to dry. Perfect. I wash load two after ten at night on Saturday, and hang IT out to dry. Again, Perfect. I Wash load three after ten at night Sunday, get up Monday morning, go to work, and come home to musty smelling laundry that's sat in the washer all day????

I dunno. I'm cheap, and I'm environmentally conscious. So these are things that I want to make work. But without cutting a weekly load of laundry, just can't see it being very effective (and the only reason that we only have three loads a week is because we already have the high-capacity front loader. For a family of four to only have three loads weekly? I think that that is pretty darn good already!).

On Customer Service...

There are things in this world I am not supposed to understand. I guess customer service is one of them.

We have been in a crisis state lately over the baby's diapers. For some reason the right tab on them continually comes detached from his diaper - the glued part, not the Velcro one. It means that his diaper finds its way down the leg of his sleeper in the night, and every morning we have to clean up a mess. At our wits end, Daddy wrote the Pampers diaper people and shared with them our tale of woe. They offered compensation. We were happy.

This past summer, our $50 (cheap) set of binoculars fell on the boat, and broke in half. Now while it seems at first that there would be an advantage to having 2 monoculars, the novelty quickly wore off. Eventually Daddy got around to writing to the people at Tasco expressing our dismay. They offered compensation. We were happy.

Through some quirk of fate, Tasco and Pampers both had their compensation packages arrive on the same day.

The Tasco package was a big box delivered by UPS Express Freight to the house, and in it was a brand new set of binoculars, an apology letter, and contact information in case further follow-up was required.

The Pampers package was a thin envelope sent regular mail with a coupon in it for $8 off a Mega-size or larger box of diapers bought within 30 days. The diapers that we bought? Were a package of 174 size four diapers, which retails for $36.97. So we have a coupon for about 1/4 the price of the box of diapers, and only available at select retailers. And even if we had bought the smallest package available, and that was what was failing, it still retails for $18.00 or so. So no matter what size package we had bought, they were not even compensating for a new package at all.

Wanna guess who is getting my business again?

Laundry

At this time every year, I feel a sense of relief that i can get my laundry for the week done in a couple of hours, instead of a couple of days.

The funny thing is, by spring, I'll feel that same sense of relief that I can FINALLY hang my laundry out to dry again, and don't have to use the dryer for several months.

I line dry from about March - mid October exclusively. The dryer MAY run once or twice in that time, if things HAVE to be dry NOW!

But generally, everything goes on the line. Even if it is pouring rain, my thought is that i am no further behind than I was when i took the things out of the washer, and the extra rinse can't hurt.

And, I love saving on the energy bill, and also that it is more environmentally friendly!!

The only problem is, in rainyt weeks, often by the time evrything is FINALLY dry & away, it's time to start over again!

Ok Mom,

I'm ready to go out & play now!

Oink

Monday night I picked up Buddy from Daycare, raced home, ran into the house and hollered for Chuck to get her jacket & shoes on, and headed up to the local H1N1 clinic.

Last week, they were 'requesting' high risk people only, but they would vaccinate every one who came.

This week, apparently not. Only high risk. Since Buddy is under five, he's high risk, so he got his shot. But Chuck & I will have to go back NEXT Monday. ugh. Not that I thought we should get ours 'first,' I just didn't want to have to line up twice.

After seeing all the hype in Toronto over it, and hearing about five hour line ups, I was afraid that we would get to the clinic (in the next town, about 20 mins away), and find that they were full for the day, since it ran from noon- eight, and the earliest I could arrive was about five thirty.

We got there, they said that they would only stab Bud, we waited ten minutes (I didn't even have the form filled out all the way), he got stabbed, we waited the required fifteen minutes to be sure he didn't react, and went home. I think we spent more time driving to & from the clinic than we spent in the clinic.

It was awesome.

Next Monday, Chuck & I can go, and then in three weeks, Bud may need a booster shot (They're giving little guys two half doses, although now they're saying that they may only need the one half. So we'll have to see)

Big Yard = Many leaves

I'll have to see if I can find the photos I took of Chuck a few years ago in the last house playing inthe leaves....

NaBloPoMo

Halloween recap

Chuck got her 'air cast' a few days before Halloween, and was pumped to go trick or treating.



So I got my little pirate & lion ready:

And bundled them into the car. We live in the middle of nowhere, so we go into town to go trick or treating every year. This year, we decided to go in the neighbourhood that Buddy's daycare is in. usually, we go back to our old neighbourhood in town.
When we parked, this was what was in my backseat:

That is one sleepy lion!!

Buddy had been hanging out with Daddy all day, and he missed naptime!!

We woke him up and Daddy took him to the first house. He had no idea what to do. Then they put treats in his bucket!! How exciting!! After that we didn't have to coax him as much... "come on now, go with Daddy.... follow your sister, where's Chuck going? can you go with her???"

He made all kinds of friends. In many houses, they'd give him a treat, he get excited, and then try to walk in the front door!!

After a block or so, my pirate was saying that her leg was getting sore, and my lion's eyes were rolling around a bit. Buddy called it quits at the house where they gave him his candy, and he promptly sat down on their porch. We had expected him to finish earlier than her though, so we had his stroller for him. The plan was that when he got tired, we'd put him in the stroller & push him, and when she got tired, we'd call it a night. She got tired a few houses after him, and that was it. There were stairs up to every house, so she was getting tired because of that more than anything.

When we got home, Mommy tried to check all the candy, but Buddy made it difficult!! Mommy dumped out the bucket... "Mom! what are you doing! That's where that belongs!!!!" As he tried to re-fill the bucket!!

I gave Chuck the bucket, and as I tossed the chips over to her (I sort while I check), he would put the chips in the bucket.

All candy got sorted and checked, and then I gave Buddy a little box of smarties "take these to your sister and she'll share them with you!"

He wanted NOTHING to do with them! he didn't know WHAT that purple thing that she was trying to put in his mouth was!! Mommy had to bite the smartie in half, and shove it in against his protestations! Once he tasted it though... "mo?!? Mo?!?"

He took a smartie to Mommy... and a smartie to Daddy... and a smartie to Chuck..... then he ate one... then he spat it out and tried to give it to Daddy.....Lucky Daddy!!

After that the kids filled their advent calendars, and went off to bed!

Cousins

Buddy, Daddy, and Cousin Sweetpea enjoying a story.