Where Have I Been

I know, internet, you have missed me so. (Or I should hope you have at least noticed my absence.)

It's not that I don't care. Or that I have nothing to report.

Quite the contrary.

SO much has gone on the past month, or few months in fact (as I have learned I forgot to post about Christmas!).

Well, I fought for a week to get grass.

And then I fought (and still do) to keep it . . . with this crazy heat wave.

I cleaned out our garage (really, I did, even scrubbled the floors, got rid of A LOT of junk, and painted all the walls with a broken brush and crappy paint). I also messed up the garage with yard sale item collections, our patio furniture that still has no where to go, and hoses and mud. I suppose a before picture would have been best to show that we could barely even find a place to walk through the garage, and now we can at least see the floor in most areas.

I cleaned out Brad and my closet. Again, a before photo would have done more justice, but it was worse than the garage. Minus the mouse poo. (Thanks to brining in the trooper when they did the first coat on our drive last October, mice who had been living in its engine were brought into our garage. Fortunately, they seem to all be gone, but their remains, well, remained. In the garage.) Really, each of our closets are about 4 ft x 6 ft and we could no longer set foot in them with junk that we still hadn't put away from moving day and Christmas.

(So there is still some work to be done. But seriously, they were jam-packed with junk and I had four kids at home and one of them would not let me put her down for one minute. You try doing this one-handed!)

I (re)painted the master bathroom. I first painted it a celedon, but switched it out for a much calmed colour, ballet white. So much happier now.

I brave grocery stores with four kids on a weekly basis.

I brave soccer nights, three times a week.

We've been to amusement parks, the cottage, friends' and family's places.

We've been really, really, busy.

Atlantis: The Pools

Now I'm really sifting though old photos! I read a post with the beach shots stating that there were just too many vacation photos to put all in one post . . . well, really there are WAY too many!

Here's a start for our FEBRUARY vacation in the Bahamas!

The pools were probably our favourite part. Okay, maybe everything was our favourite part. Truly, breakfast was pretty amazing. And the beach. And kids' club. Well . . . this post is on the pools.

We were fortunate enough to be at the hotel that has special access to it's own pool . . . that wasn't shared with any of the other hotels' guests or cruise guests. The kids' LOVED it. They could have splashed around in it for the entire five days, but we were mean and forced them out to use the beach, the water slides, "lazy" river (though nothing was lazy about it since it had giant rapids and water slides on it), and the water playground.

Here is our pool. We really didn't mind sitting here with the kids every day, the view was just spectacular. And, no one was really using it. (Maybe 2 other families for the entire stay.)

The water playground. Kids had lots of fun here on the water slides, and Avery's favourite perch was by the water gun.

The rest of the pools in the whole campus were almost empty too. We certainly picked a good week to go. None of the water slides had any line ups and the "lazy river" was pretty well empty most of the time. Even with the "dreaded" cruise ship guests, there was hardly anyone there.

Our little Liv. Such a cute little ball of white flesh! I just couldn't resist the last photo, of her rolls! She got a tan everywhere but in her rolls so when she came home she had white streaks between her tan!

Add that to perfect weather and it made for utter paradise. It's no wonder that we still talk about it and yearn to go back . . . and it's almost August!

Christmas 2010

As I've been turning some attention to my photo back-log . . . I've realized I've forgotten some important events . . . like Christmas 2010 (or the boys' birthdays from 2010 too!).

I apologize for not editing any photos, but obviously I might do better without it until I catch up!

Christmas 2010 was very pleasant. Grandma from Calgary came to visit. Everyone seemed to get everything on their list (well, except for the iPhones and iPads that the kids had asked Santa for!).

Mrs. Claus thought that the boys could use a Wii, to give them some controlled indoor movements (seeing as we didn't have a yard and boys, well, they get restless). Unfortunately, she didn't realize that Wii was merely a wrist motion and not the full body workout she thought. So, Dad went out the next week and purchased x-box connect. It was a pretty fun system, even as president of WAX (Wives Against x-box), MAX (Mothers Against x-box), WAGS (Wives Against Gaming Systems), and MAGS, I found myself loving it. Especially the dance game. (We had such fun with Templemans on Christmas day with Ted and Meg's copy!)

Other great gifts included a kitchen set for Avery and Liv to share, thanks to Santa. It probably took him, er his elves, a really long time to put it together Christmas Eve.

Avery got her mermaids and Jessie doll, as well as Littlest Petshop Collections; Liv got some new bath toys and blocks, Jackson got lots of Bakugan and a Star Wars light sabre for the Wii, and Jayden got Lego and another Light Sabre.

As far as Brad and I were concerned, this was the first Christmas that we really "surprised" each other with gifts. He got me some video games and I got him a filled-pancake pan. I think perhaps in the future we will go back to the "I'll buy my gift from you" routine.

Jayden and Jackson both got house coats from the Big Man in Red, while Grandma from Calgary made sure that Jackson did indeed get his snuggie.

Guillermo got a brand new coat. I just couldn't resist upon seeing it at the little dog stand in the mall. So fitting for his personality . . . and the neighbours certainly got a kick! (The coat says, "Security" on the back and has a "Paw-lice" badge on the arm.)

For me, I was very satisfied to have finally gotten a new, fake tree. Though it was a little tough setting up a 9 ft tree by myself, it was SO much nicer than the lame trees we've had in the past, and all the needles to clean up.

After presents, we had a lovely brunch with my parents and then headed off to Brad's sister's for Christmas dinner.

Must-Close-The-Lid

Liv LOVED this toy for the longest time from about 7-13 months old.

It was an obsession of hers to close all the lids. No matter what.

I often enjoyed watching her (struggle while) "quickly" close them all (for the 50th time), only to have me open them all up again within seconds.

Must-Close-The-Lid!!

Parental Survival Tip #6

How to make you child eat their dinner. All of it.

After 6 years of pickiness, I had had enough.

It came to the point that Jackson was not eating anything, unless it was from the following select food groups:
candy
ice cream
bacon
chips

A recent visit to the doctor reminded me that these weren't part of the four preferred food groups included in the Canadian Healthy Eating plan. Combined with several instances where we actually let Jackson pick out his own meals at restaurants only to watch him pick at the food and then squish it into the floor of our van . . . or restaurant floor, and keep the dessert or toy, I resolved to fix it once and for all.

Clearly, we needed to work on it a bit. (Or have a major overhaul.)

I told Jackson that since he wasn't making good food choices, his right of choice was being taken away. In spite of his protests about how he'll be better next time, I stuck my ground and told him that I will be choosing all of his food for the next week. Starting with a disgusting BLT sandwich today.

"Okay, I'll eat every thing . . . but the tomato."

"No, Jackson, you will eat the tomato."

"But I hate tomatoes! Anything but the tomato!"

"If you hate tomatoes that much, I suggest you keep it in your sandwich so you don't have to eat it raw by itself and its taste is disguised."

Well, some how the tomato fell out of the sandwich. And I reminded Jackson to eat it. By itself. Between alternating protests and dry heaving, flash backs to the back fired "Beat the Clock" plan flowed through my mind.

"Don't even think of throwing it up. If you do, I will make you eat your vomit too." (Okay, maybe that is bordering on child abuse, but seriously, he hates ANYTHING that might be somewhat healthy.)

We struggled for a long time at the table and finally I said,

"Well, remember how we were at the doctor's office yesterday and he asked if you were eating healthy? Should I call him and tell him that you are not? Because if I do, he will set up a room for you at the hospital where they will put a needle and tub into your arm and feed you healthy food."

"Does that hurt?"

"Oh yeah. Lots. And the sad thing is you have to stay in a hospital bed and not play outside or with friends."

I did have to pick up the phone a few times and start dialing the doctor's number . . . but all of a sudden, Jackson is my healthiest eater.

Now . . . about the other ones!

When Dad Comes Home

Dad is gone quite a bit.

So much, that often the few times he actually is home, but maybe upstairs (or even at the table), during the blessing of the food, one of our kids will always bless that Dad will come home safely.

So, when the kids are around (or awake) when Dad comes home, it is really exciting.

Of course Guillermo gets excited. (He gets excited at the prospect of anything rattling at the door or window . . . or even at the neighbour's door or window). But then the kids hear a key turn and drop what ever they are doing and rush to the door to pounce all over Dad.

This time, Liv and Avery were upstairs playing when Dad came in.

I love how important it was for Avery to help Liv get to Dad faster. So cute.

And how excited Liv gets when she is in Brad's arms. Even cuter as she tells him all about her day . . . in Liv-anese.

Backyard Battles

We have gone pretty well insane the last 19 months without the use of a yard.

Imagine, two boys (5-7 years of age), two girls (0-3 years of age) and one crazy black dog . . . with no where to easily retreat to when mom goes bersurk at dinner time or pretty well anytime during March break, Christmas or summer vacation. For 19 months.

It was evident that we weren't getting it for either boy's birthday parties (so add about 6 more boys), and the next best thing that I could think of was for our builder to forget about us and miss the ridiculous 274 seasonal days deadline. Just so I could nail them.

Well, they sailed past the deadline. Not even a hint of anything going in. And the very next day I wrote out hate mail to the Better Business Bureau, the Mayor, and Ward Councilor. And the day after that I began a week long battle on the phones with the new home builder's insurance company . . . screaming at them to help me since I paid them $1500 should something like this happen.

A very long story short, we had an inspection set up for one week after the original deadline for 1 pm. The builder (after making several excuses) finally got around to putting in our grass and drive way in by 12:30 pm.

Of course, this all just happened to be on an insanely hot week . . . where temps hovered around 116 degrees fahrenheit (48 degrees for Canadians). My poor little green newborn shriveled up fast and I was nursing it to life 24/7.

Sadly, we were told not to put heavy traffic on it for about 4 weeks (the kids have been dying!), and as they did our drive way the same day, we can't walk on our drive way either! How do we get into our house? We follow Dr. Spock and hope to get beamed inside . . . with all our groceries.

Did I manage to get the builder in trouble? Hmm. Maybe a teensy bit, but not near as much as I was hoping. The insurance company who I thought was supposed to be on my side, was making it incredibly difficult for the builder to default by giving them later deadline, after later deadline. But, I am sure there must have been some embarrassment from getting the Mayor and insurance company calls . . . not to mention the extra expense of sodding and paving ONE house at the last minute.

But, what a difference it makes to look out our windows and see green. (Instead of dirt littered with construction debris.) And, I am glad that we got it put in on our terms, when we were prepared to take care of it, for a few weeks anyway, before vacations set in. Currently, I see sod going in on other streets. I would have hated to come home from a week long vacation and find straw on my "lawn."