Spring Break

I love being at home. I love my bed, the sounds in my room, how well my kids sleep, the list goes on and on... But our kids have actually never spent the night in a hotel (with the exception of Chelsea, once, when she was just over a year) so we booked a room in Winnipeg. We even splurged and got the kids theme suite that comes equipped with bunk beds. They were pumped.

Here's the view from my angle. :P Hello baby #3.

Now, the idea behind staying in Winnipeg was to enjoy the hotel pool and waterslide, which we did, and then we were going to go to the park and zoo for the day. Last week was hot and sunny, but this week was cold and rainy and miserable, so we decided to hit up the Manitoba Museum. We even managed to meet up with some friends. Okay well, we met up with one of my friends and her 3 kids, but I don't think my kids and her kids even spoke to each other. However, they did co-exist nicely!

The highlight of the museum for these three? Oh a little slanted step in front of one of the displays. They loved playing on here while we waited for Chris and Chelsea to rejoin our group.

The highlight of the Winnipeg trip for me was hitting up 2 Salvation Army stores and 2 Value Villages. I got a ton of stuff for the camper and a few summer dresses for Chelsea and some mat clothes for me. We did learn a life lesson about sleeping in hotels though. ALWAYS ask for a non-poolside room. Our kids did not go to sleep until after 10 when the pool finally closed and then were up again at 8 because we could hear the kids in the pool area screaming already.

As much as I love being at my home, the kids had fun and I survived. We might do this again someday. :P

Numero Trois

I always look forward to that mid-pregnancy ultrasound. Now for comparison, the top is Chelsea...

And this one is Gavin. Yikes - bad quality.



 And now, may I present, the cutest little bambino yet, Baby#3. 

Okay so they all kinda look the same. The funniest thing was that when I went to the counter to get our pictures, they handed us this one.

We were "oohing" and "ahhing" until Chris said, "Umm... Is that what I think it is?" Now, go take a look at the above photo again. Do you see what we see? We handed it back to the receptionists and they all gasped. Remember, we found out it was a boy with Gavin so we have lots of pictures like the one below...

And we were fairly certain we saw boy bits a few times during the ultrasound with #3. However, when I showed the picture to one of my friends, she was quick to point out that what we thought was telling evidence, really could be his/her hand, if you look at the arm and elbow.

Okay, that makes sense, but I'm still pretty convinced it's a boy. Guess we still have 3 months to wait to find out for sure!

My truth.

The truth is I've been struggling a lot lately.

But these guys? 

 They keep me grounded. They help me believe in who I am and who I am supposed to be.

Loves.

24 weeks

Lately, I've been struggling. I am feeling HUGE. I've gained way more weight this pregnancy than I hoped to, even though I am eating ridiculously healthy. Like ridiculously healthy. I eat more veggies than anyone I know, but yes, do allow myself a burger and poutine once a week. ;) The only thing keeping me sane and grounded is the following mantra. "I can only control what I put in my mouth. I can't control what my body does with it."

Right?

Right.

Plus, I am building a healthy baby. I wouldn't risk the health of the baby for anything, so I am being very balanced and reasonable with my diet.

It's just hard to go from being the fittest I've ever been to feeling out of control in my body. I can't exercise like I want to because I damaged my back muscles during my last pregnancy and have to be careful to make sure that doesn't happen again. Plus, I'm exhausted. I know it's an excuse, but it's a tiredness that is impossible to explain. I walk a lot, but it's not the same.

So, yesterday I was 24 weeks. So I decided to take some pics to compare how I am now to how I was at the same time with Gavin. It was so nice to see that I am still smaller! I wore the same shorts, but don't have that shirt anymore. (The beige is Gavin, the grey is Baby #3)

So yup. I build big babies. Yup, I am due July 12. Yup, I'm positive it's not twins.

In the blink of an eye...

I know it sounds cliche, and I thought I was doing well, but it hit me that soon my baby girl will be going to Kindergarten. Now, I'm not nervous about Kindergarten, as I do work half days and I am away from her for half the day now, but do you know what comes after Kindergarten?? Grade 1. A whole day away from me. A whole day away from me that when I ask her, "So how was today? What did you do?" her answer will be "not much" or "nothing". A whole day during which I won't know what goes on. A whole day in which she'll be free to spin tales about having 5 birds as pets. That concept breaks my heart. I know she'll love school and I know she'll do well, but I want to be there.

Good thing it's a whole year away.

But wait. Wasn't it just yesterday that I laid my eyes on this sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl?

Oh wait - this was yesterday. My big girl all grown up. My sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl.

 I swear. I'm going to blink a few more times and it'll be her graduation.

My sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl. Love you to bits, baby!

There may have been crickets chirping...

I just finished parent-teacher interviews. Now, I don't usually blog about my students for confidentiality and all that jazz, but this was just too funny not to pass along.
I work on reading with a grade one student every day. On Thursday, I laid out three books - "Budgies," "Cats," and "Mice" and told the child to pick a book. He got all excited and chose "Budgies" because he had 5 budgies at home. He went on and on, talking about the budiges and their names and the colours and the tricks that they do and their cage and where their cage is in their house and how if you open the door, the budgies will fly out and on... and on... and on... Literally over 5 minutes, telling me ALL ABOUT HIS BUDGIES. Get my point? The boy liked his budgies.

So fast forward to parent-teacher interviews. I sit down and I'm telling the dad all about this child's success and I say, "So, did *Walter* tell you about his new book today? It's about budgies and he was very excited because of the budgies you have at home."

Dad - "Uh... we don't have any birds."

Me - *Blink, blink.*
         "Uhh... oh. *Walter* was telling me all about them."

Dad - "Nope. No birds. We talked once about maybe getting one..." We both stare at *Walter.*

Poor *Walter* was 87 shades of red. Busted, my friend, busted because of budgies.

___

Just a warning parents - you NEVER know what stories your kids are coming up with at school!

M'boy lost his 'noids.

I know this blog has been awfully quiet lately, but we have been busy. On Thursday, G finally had his surgery for his adenoids. Hopefully this will be the solution to all his breathing and speech problems. We were at the wonderful Children's Hospital again. We tried to make him feel better about wearing what he called "a dress" by telling him it was a really cool costume. That made it acceptable to him. The nurses laughed when we called the name bracelet "a watch" but again, whatever made him happy! He was actually really mad that his monkeys both needed watches too, but eventually he got over it.

As we were waiting to go into the operating room, we distracted him by getting him to push his monkeys around in a shopping cart. Things were fine until it turned into a high speed chase and he wound up giving himself a bloody nose. You know, that's a proud parenting moment - as the surgeon enters the room to discuss the impending surgery, I'm frantically dabbing his nose, trying to get the bloodflow to stop. Sigh.

Last year when G had his surgery, he was screaming as they took him from me, he screamed as he went under and screamed for 2.5 hours when he woke up. I was soooo worried about that part of it.This time, I talked to the anesthetist and we decided to try putting him out with a different drug. He happily wheeled his shopping-cart-o-monkeys into the OR and that was it.

When they called us from the waiting room into the Recovery Room, I was happy that I couldn't hear him screaming from the hallway. The nurses kept saying how bad his recovery was because he was crying and kicking, but Chris and I just kept reassuring them that this was nothing compared to last time. He only cried for about 45 minutes and I didn't walk out of there with bruises, so thanks for all your prayers!

The next few hours were spent giving him lots of cuddles and trying to convince him to drink some juice. His main complaint was about the IV. Like mama, like baby.

The night was rough. He still had a local on his mouth and throat and so that wasn't bothering him, but he kept crying about his IV and the fact that he had to stay in a crib. We got maybe 5 hours sleep in total.

However, the next morning, he was ready to go home. It wasn't until later when the local wore off that things became fun.   For the first 5 days at home, all he did was wander around whining and crying. He only drank and didn't eat. It was awful. It's been a week tomorrow and he's finally acting like himself and eating again. Yay.

Interesting fact  #1 - One of the side effects of adenoid surgery is awful, foul, unrelentless bad breath for 7 - 10 days.

Interesting fact #2 - being pregnant can heighten your sense of smell.

Now, if these two interesting facts happen to collide, for example a young boy who has his adenoids taken out and his mother happens to be 22 weeks pregnant, it can present an awkward situation. Every time I try to cuddle him, I wind up gagging. Now I know you might think I'm exaggerating, but it's true. Chris had him in the van two days ago and left him in there for a few minutes while he ran an errand and when he opened the van door, even Chris complained about the smell in the van. Here's hoping that clears up soon because it is unbearable!!

Seriously though, thanks for thinking of us, friends. I really appreciated all the texts and messages. It went really well, and here's hoping we are done with surgeries for a long, long time!

Cuddle Muffins

I walked into the livingroom the other day and saw this.

My heart melted. Chelsea, loving on Gavin -- Gavin, tolerating Chelsea.

Long February Weekend

Although we didn't do anything exciting for Louis Riel weekend, we did have fun at home. We took advantage of the unusually warm February weather to hang out outside.

Chelsea has mastered riding her bike without training wheels. She's conquered turning, starting, stopping, riding up the bump onto the sidewalk, everything but attempt to drive up the driveway.

We are really lucky to live within a 5 minute walk of 3 different parks. This "twirly slide park" is one of our favourites.

 Then, we'll often drive out to Schanzenfeld to hit up my school because there are 3 big playstructures there, so if the kids get bored of one, we simply move to another one. It's a lot of fun.

So, although we didn't go on any major hotel stays or shopping trips or anything like that, we still made it a family weekend.

Valentine's Cookie Pops

Chelsea adores Valentine's Day. This year, she wanted to make cookie pops for pretty much everyone she knows. After cookie dough pops, she asked for cherry chip cake pops.

 Me, being the stellar, fun-loving, over achieving mother that I am, of course said yes.

So here is Chelsea, giving a pretty poor attempt at a thumbs up. Then of course, she needed a break.

 Decorating all the cake pops was a very tedious, time consuming job. It was really fun to work on with both the kids however. I love that G was old enough and hand enough patience to help!

Tiff, over at TLP Photography, whipped up some super cute photocards to pass out as Valentines.

The finished product - individually wrapped cookie pop Valentines!

Monkey see...

Gavin is growing up so fast. He idolizes his big sister. As I've stated before, she is patient and kind, usually. Here, Chelsea is playing Wii Dance Party and G, well, he isn't even watching the tv for the moves. He usually watches C instead. It's cute really.

 I had asked Chels to pose for a picture because she just looked so cozy and warm and grown up and melt-your-heart kind of cute. Well, she hadn't even said "Cheese" yet, and we could already hear G come running, yelling, "Me too. Me too."

 Well, I obliged because I kind of think this kid is melt-your-heart kind of cute too.

 I walked into the livingroom and saw C sitting like this and ran to get my camera. As soon as G realized I was taking a picture, he had to do as his sister...

Stinkin cute, right?

Love.

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident... -- Captain Corelli's Mandolin"

Here's to many more years of being entwined together, babe.

Boy in a Box

The best day ever for my kids was the day our rangehood microwave died. It may have cost mommy and daddy a pretty penny to replace, but it came in a sweet sized box. I threw in some pipsqueaks and the two of them have had a blast.

 However, we did have to have a little chat (again) about the fact that although these markers are washable, they are NOT to be used as facepaint.

Kind of ironic...

I've been so busy working on converting my blog into hardcover books that I've actually neglected my current blogging. Be prepared. Turning my blog into a book has really made me think about my blog and what I want to document.

So some things will change. I will blog more. It will be picture heavy because I don't scrapbook and I rarely print photos, so it's a nice way to keep some photos. I will tell more stories of my kids that I think are sweet/hilarious/sad/uplifting or heck, even boring, just so that I have these memories written down.

So for now, I'll leave you with these pictures. These two are are my life. They are so much fun and they are developing such a great relationship. It really makes me wonder how a 3rd is going to fit in with these two monkeys.

Chelsea has been so sweet and patient, for the most part, and I stress patient. Gavin is really big into copying EVERYTHING his sister does. She has started having such good conversations with him. They are now sharing a bedroom and sleeping in bunk beds. I hope this fun relationship continues!