C'est fini!

Before.

After. (We moved a big chair up from downstairs. I'm not sure if it'll stay.)

I like it. I like it a lot. What I like almost as much is having my kitchen and dining room back. One more day of cleaning and tidying up and life should go back to normal.

gum in hair, poop on stair.

What a day.

It started with a wad of gum in her hair. Some olive oil and lots of combing later, we only had to cut out a small chunk.

Then she was off to Grandma's for the morning and nap time. We're all good.

Then she woke up. Oh. my.

Trouble. She went to the bathroom and came out without her undies or pants on. Whatevs. In our house, pants are always optional. The problem was apparently she didn't wipe and when I gave her a time out for hitting her brother, she wiped her bum all over the carpeted stairs. Her dirty bum. I don't have to draw you a picture, I'm sure. I was not impressed.

I went into the bathroom and discovered probably half a bottle of soap squirted all over the counter, floor and toilet. Another time out followed with a good dose of her trying to clean it up.

As you know, our livingroom is down to the bare boards right now. We had Corner2corner in this morning to spray the floors down with an odor eliminator, so the boards were a little damp.

Around 4 or so, I noticed that all the knots in the wood had water in them. I called Chelsea into the room and asked her if she had sprayed water onto them.

"Nope. I drank from my sippy and spit it out on the holes."

Seriously?

There was a "consequence" and a time out. Followed again by Chelsea having to clean up her mess.

Hmm... what else? I know there was more. By about 4:30 I was done. I'd had it. Chris could not come home soon enough. I knew I had run out of patience, if I even had any today to begin with. I wasn't doing well because my house is in disarray. The toys the kids always play with are moved around, there's no room to move in the dining room, the basement is overcrowded and I was frustrated with all the setbacks during what was supposed to be a quick renovation (I know - is there such a thing?)

Then my little C walks up to me, out of the blue and says, "I forgive you, mom."

"For what?" I ask.

She gives me a hug. "For yelling at me today."

...

Aw. Shucks. Guess this is one of those bad mommy days.

We had some snuggle time and I apologized. I'm so glad children are so forgiving. We talked about how she needs to listen and why mommy says no. We hugged and kissed and said some "I love you's" and then I gave her to the neighbours for a while because I still needed a break. I'm so grateful for my neighbour friend who loves my children but more importantly, gets me and totally understands where I'm at right now with no judgement. It means a lot.

Eventually, she returned from next door and when tucking Chelsea into bed tonight, she pulled me close and said, "I'm happy with you, mom. Are you happy with me?"

I reassured her that indeed, I was very happy with her, and that I was glad that we could start all over tomorrow. Sometimes, I'm not happy with her behaviour, but I'm always happy with her. She has such a way of knowing just what to say.

What a way to end the day. Just knowing that someone is happy with me. Isn't that what we want every day? On those days when we find it so hard to be happy with ourselves - the way we look, the weight we are, how tidy the house is, how high the laundry pile is, how many dirty dishes there are... Just to have someone look at me and say something as simple as "I'm happy with you."

Loves.

P.S. I'm happy with you, too. :)

Just sayin'.

The resemble is uncanny. Even the wispy hair...


Those cheeks are incredible, Chubbs.

(And yes, I'm aware he's holding his gums funny, but it does really emphasize the cheeks!)

The pee-pee palace

The carpet in our house has never impressed us. The house is only 3 years old, but the carpet always looked dingy and matted and dull. It was professionally cleaned when we moved in and then when we bought our new tv, we had to clean it again because we moved some furniture around. We've talked about taking it out, and now seemed like a good time.

Here's some progress pictures - mostly for Shelly who is begging for them. But since my sister did give me "permission" to blog them, I figured I should get on it!

The before shots.

Woah! Where did all the furniture go?? This is great.

Mom!! I found all our stuff!!

(sneak peek of the new table and chairs and the laminate that will be going in)

Here's when we started to get a little suspicious. The carpet is rolled up and the foam underlay is revealed. It is at this time when the overwhelming urine smell is also unveiled.

Shocked and horrified when the foam comes up.

Gross - gross - gross. At first I was like "MAGGIE!!!" but then when we were looking we realized it was all really old and huge stains. Since Maggs is only 7 pounds, it couldn't have been her. Also, alot of the stains were covered by our furniture, so they couldn't have possibly been Maggie. I should add that when we moved in, even after the professional cleaning, we could always smell pee in the stairwell going down into the basement. We soaked it one day with Norwex's odor eliminator and didn't smell it again. So although we were shocked last night, it did make sense to see all these stains.

So yeah. That was my last night. The cleaner guy is coming tomorrow morning to soak the wood with neutralizer. The wood can't be replaced because it is structural to the home. We could lay another sub floor overtop, but that would mean the livingroom would then be higher than the rest of the flooring and we don't really want that.

Bubye Geege.

So many things to blog about and I have just no time!

I guess the biggest news is that we gave Maggie to a new home this week.

Allow me to explain.

We love Maggie. She's awesome. But when we got her, we were told she was a poodle/shitzu. Great. Non-shedding, hypoallergenic. Good to go.

But as she grew older, it became apparent that she shed. As she got older, the shedding got worse. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it bothered me.

However, since Gavin was about 2 months, he's been congested and stuffed up. It's been horrible. I have also been really stuffed and we began to wonder if it was Maggie. Every day, I became more and more convinced that she was the source. I started suggesting to Chris that perhaps we needed to find Maggie a new home. He was heartbroken, but eventually agreed.

I listed her on PVO and Kijiji with a price attached. We didn't want to list her as free because we wanted serious inquiries and we wanted her to be wanted and well cared for. We weren't going to just ship her off to the first interested person. I also mentioned that we were looking for a new home for her on FB.

Here's where I think God stepped in. I love that He cares for all our needs. I read a lot of blogs and one of the blogs I read was Shelly's. She is a good friend of some friends of mine and although we had never met, we felt like we knew each other from the blogging world. Well, Shelly finally joined FB just a few days before I posted in my status that we were selling Maggie. Just a few days before this, Shelly and her husband had been talking about how much they wanted another small dog, but they didn't want to deal with a puppy and housetraining. Shelly casually joked in my status that she'd love Maggie but couldn't convince her husband to fork over the mulah. Since money wasn't really the issue, we started to chat.

It was so awesome. They have 3 kids. They have a small dog and a cat already. They love thier animals a lot, and this was evident in their animals' sleeping arrangements. ;) Our dog is a little spoiled and it sounded like she would fit in just fine. As hard as it was actually handing Mags over, we knew she would be well cared for and adored. We felt such peace about our decision.

Chelsea hugged Maggie tight and handed her over to her new family. She didn't ask about her again until this morning. "Where's Maggie at, Mommy?"

"Remember we gave Maggie to a new family?"

"Oh yeah."

That was it. Gavin has spent more time looking for her. This becomes evident when he's eating in his highchair. He throws fistfulls of food onto the floor and then bangs his hand against the side of his highchair, as if he is calling for her.

I miss her eating the food off my floor. I've had to sweep sooo much. Not fun!

My husband is already asking when we are getting a new dog, but I'm making him wait. I need to make sure that I really really want another dog, so that I don't feel burdened when I have to train another puppy.

Although we miss gee-gee, we know it is for the best. We are cleaning like crazy and ripping up carpet and praying that soon our kids will be able to breathe again. We are also praying that Maggie fits in and loves her new family.

I know to some of you this is silly because she is "just a dog" but she's been in our family for 3 years. You get pretty attached to those little furballs!

:)

Thank you Dollarama, for your $1.50 hats. We played for almost 2 hours with them. I think I'm going to try and sneak away to get the other two hats in the store. Too cute!

On a side note, thanks to all who came to the Norwex party. I had a lot of fun!

My baby loves me just the way that I am.

This girl makes me laugh, all the time. She's big into funny faces and dressing up.

or dressing down...

She wears pajamas pretty much all day long. We change in the morning when she wakes up, but she changes back for nap time. Hey - I don't really blame her. I don't wear my jeans when I nap.



She talks. A LOT. She did this to herself. It lasted until I took the photo.


But occasionally... okay - about a gazillion times a day, I have to deal with the whining and the crying and the boundary testing.

Here's a hint, sweetie. Mommy wins, dearie. Mommy always wins.

(Yes I realize I won't always win, but for now, against an almost 3 year old, I still win.)

loves.

dating. 2001

engaged.2002


married. 2003

sometime. 2006.

edmonton - where we escaped after being told we may never have babies. 2006.

pregnant with that baby. 2007.

5th anniversary. 2008.

pregnant with baby#2. 2008.

Today. 2010.

- is so excited about this.
- can't wait for it to warm up so that we can start doing some painting and ripping out carpet in this house. We've been here for over a year and it's finally starting to feel like my home - not just a nice house that I get to live in for a while.
- loves my neighbours to bits and pieces. I'm pretty sure that we're going to kill a strip of grass on their lawn over the years, walking back and forth to each other's houses.
- is rooting for Tenley. :P
- needs a pedicure.
- loves her good friends. :)
- is angry that C is sick again and that we're having to battle fevers - again.
- thinks that you should leave a comment saying a few songs that motivate you to get moving. I want to know what is on your MP3 player.
- deletes people who swear in their FB statuses. I also delete people who don't comment or participate on my FB.
- is going to be ordering some glasses from this website. A friend of a friend has ordered 6 pairs and says they are great, so I'm going to try it out.
- is excited for her Norwex party coming up. Come y'all! ;)
- is already planning C's third birthday party and it isn't until April!
- has dreams of opening a cake store. I like dreaming of names. Amanda's Creative Cakes is pretty lame.
- also dreams of this. Sigh.
- loves the TV series "Leverage" and "Modern Family." So good.

- is smelling supper almost done and should get off her hiney and go do something.

Open wide.

I have a dentist appointment today. I had it booked for April, but they called today with a cancellation. It's just a cleaning, but I haven't been to the dentist in 4 years?

I'm nervous. It's not that I'm scared of the dentist or pain or anything, I just don't like it when I don't know the outcome. It's like being given a pop quiz when you haven't studied. Will I pass the test, or will I have cavities?

Plus, the bill at the end is never fun. Why is it that I can spend a day at the spa for $300 and have people gasp, but spend an hour at the dentist, spend the same and people understand. It's a sad world, people.

Cross that one off the bucket list

I finally finished my first quilt. Chelsea was still using her baby crib quilt to sleep and her feet kept sticking out the end. She told me she wanted a purple blanket, so I set about sewing her a quilt.

I called my aunt (who is pretty much a professional quilter), and my mom many times and even my neighbour helped me too.

What started as this...


turned into this.

And it stayed like that for a long time. I wasn't sure how to attach the quilt batting and how to finish the edges so I ignored it for a few months.

But I wanted to start a new sewing project so I knew I had to finish the quilt. I'm big on only having one project at a time. So, two afternoons of sewing later - voila! My first ever quilt!

Chelsea thought it was a pillow and was pretty disappointed that it wasn't as jumpy as a trampoline.


Hopefully soon she'll start to love it as a blanket, otherwise it might be up for grabs! Either way, I had a lot of fun making it and now I can cross it off my list of things that I always wanted to do.

Mom - I'm grumpy.

Me too, sweets, me too.

Summer? Are you there? I miss you! I desperately need some sunshine and to able to take this grumpster to the park.

Thatta Girl

Chelsea must have some kind of bug. She just threw up all over her bed, again. Two days ago, she was throwing up lots and the doctor said it was probably pain from the ear infection causing it. Now she's been on antibiotics for a few days and her ear is better, she's thrown up again. I'm not sure what's up, but we're believing for a quick healing.

All that aside...
I was holding Chelsea while on the couch. She was passed out, sleeping in my arms - or so I thought. Chris was standing up and talking to me and he farted. (I know, romantic, isn't he?) Chelsea opened her eyes. "Dad - you have to say 'scuse me when you fart." She then closed her eyes and returned to sleepyland.

Gotta love those manners.

Through the years...

Here in the H-household, we like to live on the edge. We like to create a little controversy, if you will.

This pertains to Gavin's hairstyles. He likes to mix it up - but can rock almost any of the 'taboo' hairstyles out there.

First, allow me to remind you of "The Mullet."


Then came "The Mohawk."


Currently however, G has lost his edge. He's gone from his trendy mohawk to this next one.
Allow me to present "The Combover."


Aww baby, dude, grandpa. We still love you.

matchy-matchy

Love this girl to pieces.

This week, Chelsea and I made the decision to get matching ear infections. We considered other options. Matching shirts? Matching tracksuits? Matching tattoos?

Matching hairstyles?

But finally, after much deliberation, we decided that matching ear infections was definitely the way to go. After a quick trip to the clinic, we came home with almost matching prescriptions too! A bonus!