The start of summer

Well we're only two days into summer, and it has started with so much sun and activity. I'm exhausted already!
No. Not really. We wait for summer all year long, and we are NOT going to let it pass by without making the most of it. I just wish I could take a nap sometimes!
Riley started Soccer Camp which has been great. There are about 130 kids there, including his two cousins which make it fun. I have started the prep week at the church for our upcoming daycamp next week. We're doing all the set-up, and so Shea and Liam spend the day down in childcare with our other two cousins and seem to have a fun time as well. My grandparents were also in town this week and it was pretty cool to see my Liam just LOVE hanging out with his great grandpa. He's a pretty cool guy, so I can't blame him. Mom hosted a big bbq at her house, and with my sister and her kids in town as well...it was a full-on family shin dig.
Tomorrow we are hitting the beach for Canada Day. It's so nice to only live ten minutes from the beach.
It has been working out nicely since Shea enjoys a good 3 hour nap in the afternoon. Hubby works at home. I take a cell phone and the bigger boys and I can go do something fun while the house is quiet both for Greg and Shea. Greg can call me when he hears Shea waking up (which he'll sit in his crib a good ten minutes talking to his soothers). I'm sure the "beach scene" will get old soon enough, and doesn't work on rainy days, so I'm writing out a list of things now. What is something you're excited to do this summer with your kids?

10 years ago we got hitched

10 years ago we got hitched
Originally uploaded by Geiger Counter

Here is a picture we took of ourselves at the wharf with G's phone. We had a nice slow walk by the water after our lovely dinner.

10 years, baby!

So TEN YEARS have come and gone with my main man, Greg. I met this guy at age 15 and it turned out that there was no other guy to compare. Happy Anniversary to my main squeeze!

Quitter

Ok..so I bailed. I woke up on the third day and felt like absolute crap. Very similar feelings to first trimester pregnancy...nauseous, lightheaded, weak weak weak, tired, hungry, sweating and gross. I could barely make it to the shower from bed, it was yucky. I knew I would never be able to function as a mom without some FOOD, so I inhaled some soda crackers and later ate some breakfast and started to feel better around 10am. I feel bad that I couldn't make it for 3 weeny days, but at least I got 2 in and I know that I never want to do that again. Ha! Ok...maybe someday. I just found it extra difficult when I still have to be mom and run around the town. Being low on energy is the LAST thing I need. Hmm, I'll have to think of something else to try.
I went up and down the waterslides many times this afternoon with the boys and was glad that I could enjoy that with them.
My mom was doing this with me, and she made it! Way to go mom! Enjoy your yogurt and strawberries in the morning!!

lemons

So I decided to do the kickstart of eating healthy by doing the 3 day cleanse. I am at the end of day 2. My goodness. It is hard! And it isn't the "hungry" part that sucks...it's the fact that I realize most of my day revolves around food, making food, cleaning up food, serving food, sitting at the table with all my kids, grocery shopping etc. and I am missing out on all those things!! I do take my lemonade to the table while the other four are eating, but I have been having Greg make the last two dinners because I don't want to be tempted. But I still make their lunches, their snacks, and even had to make cupcakes for Rileys school. I could never do this for longer unless I was living alone. It isn't normal, obviously. I could handle being limited to certain foods (for example no carbs), but I could never be around good food and just sit there sipping something. Pam was even making jam with fresh picked strawberries yesterday and I couldn't eat even one!
Anyway...this is totally just a temporary attempt at making me more food conscious, and I think it's working. So far it doesn't seem to be doing too much as far as "cleansing".
Talking about "cleansing"...we brought out the baby potty from the closet today just to show Shea and he sat down and pooped on it!! I'm already envisioning my days without a diaper bag, but actually was not intending to potty train him yet. In past experience, it worked best to wait til after 2 1/2. I also am not ready to have him quit napping which happened when I trained my other two! However, if he volunteers to sit down and do his poops on the potty...I won't complain one bit!

Tomorrow is the last day of preschool for Liam and grade 2 for Riley. I am so amazed at how quickly that school year went. I am very nervous about summer starting as it means three boys in one house with me all day which will be very taxing. I'm already writing out a sort of schedule to help eliminate the "I'm bored!", and the "He's bugging me!" comments. We start off with 2 weeks of summer day camps, so it'll be busy for the next bit thankfully.

We're still having issues with the squirrels. We thought we were rid of them quite awhile ago, but for some reason the little buggers broke back in. We put this strong wire up and then realized that we had trapped one on the inside and he was trying to bite his way out. So we took off the wire and let him out and then nailed it back up, but he's out there biting away and may have even snuck in somehow again. They are so persistent, and I'm out there like a redneck with my broom and slingshot, trying to keep him away. Ugh. Anyone have a pellet gun?

Tomorrow we're hitting up the waterslides, and on Friday (when I can eat again) Greg and I celebrate our 10th anniversary with a night out!! Saturday is my dad's birthday with a big family party and my sister arrives with her kids in time for that...yay! So the next few days are looking good.

Well...I guess I will go have some lemonade. sigh.

Father's Day!

"When a child is born, a father is born." Carl Frederick Buechner

That age where memories are made

Today through most of the day I was thinking to myself as my kids were taking part in really fun start of the summer activities...these are days they will probably remember forever.
I took part in Riley's Fun Day at school...not really a sports day, but similar. They had stations set up all over the field to do things like tug-of-war and mini bike racing, parachutes etc. Liam, Shea and I watched and actually Liam joined in most of the activities like he was one of the elementary kids (so soon to be!). They had a great time.
Tonight we went out to my sister-in-law's parents place. People I have known since I was 15 and we did the classic weenie roast on a stick dinner out at the campfire. There is a big treefort in the back woods and there were tons of family and friends to chase around and make berry/grass concoctions with.
I hardly heard boo from the two older boys. Shea stuck pretty close to my leg as we were in new territory and especially since dad is away, he's more clingy to me. But still, Shea fed himself and walked around helping himself to the ice tea and marshmallow bag.
My kids are growing up!
They are making memories they will never forget.
I am reading a book right now called "Are we having fun yet?" written on parenting and told from the perspective of a mother of ten. TEN. She has some great points and it has been a really fun and positive book to read while I'm going through these busy and usually exhausting days. It is a real joy to see them appreciate and enjoy the little precious moments in each day...and REMEMBER them!

Getting crafty

So I am craft lady for the grade two's at daycamp this year. There will be three groups of 10-15 kids. I had to find a craft they could do in about 20min. I found the hardest part was finding the supplies I needed in Salmon Arm. I am obviously novice at this and don't know all the in's and out's of where to go or who to order from.
I took Greg to Kelowna on Tuesday, so I hit up Michael's which is the one craft store I am familiar with as we had one in our community in Calgary. It probably isn't the cheapest route, but they did have a good supply of stuff. Unfortunately there were some things I couldn't find, so I had to make a back-up plan in my head so I could get out of the store as Greg and kids were waiting.
Once I got home, I've been making up samples of the crafts and trying to figure out the techniques which will work easiest.
Here is the first day craft...a texture painting. Made on a cardstock sheet of white paper. There is sand glued on the bottom of it, cacti made out of green paint mixed with glue and sawdust, watercolor sunset and a twine hanger.

The second craft...a necklace. I tried to make it a little more complicated than pony beads on a string. I have actual clasps and the foam beads are small enough that they may need to use a plastic needle to put them on.

The third craft...a wood nametag. I have them in sheriff star shapes, and the cowboy boot shape shown here. I have broaches to gluegun on the back of them.

The fourth craft...a felt banner. I have the felt cut up for the back, and they just need to glue on the popsicle sticks, the hanger, and improvise with little bits of felt on top. I cut out cactus guys for everyone and also bought puffy paint for them to decorate with and all those fun wiggly eyes. I'm curious what they'll come up with.

(Are you catching on to the "western theme"??)
I don't have a picture of the last craft, but on the day we make the nametags, I'm taking pictures of the kids and will have them developed in time for the last day when we'll make frames out of that foam stuff. I have lots of stickers for them to decorate with. On one sample I made the frame look like a jail cell with bars going over the picture and it says, "WANTED" on the top.

Pink Peonies

I started out the day feeling rather overwhelmed with my "to do" list. I am single parenting this week and have wood to sand and stain, crafts to prepare for daycamp, laundry mountains, dirty dishes, messy everything, along with three very busy boys and it is OVERWHELMING! I was still folding laundry at 11pm last night and feeling very exhausted.
So I thought I should take a break and smell the roses, or in otherwords...take pictures of my pink peonies.

Feeling speechless

I know you haven't been getting much out of me, other than a few photos here and there. I have a feeling that it's going to be that way for awhile. I don't feel bad about it as we had the longest winter ever, but are now thoroughly enjoying our time outside and going places. Hence, lack of computer time.


However, it is always appropriate to document the cuteness...


Here is our goofy Liam perched up in our "doorway to nowhere" as we have finished taking the little old deck off and have the new wood ready to stain and put up there.



And just yesterday, my white peonies opened up. Still waiting on the pink ones.

Being TWO isn't so Terrible.

Got it!

Thanks for your suggestions! I knew you could click on a picture to see the full size, but I wanted almost full size right on my blog for some pictures. I finally got hubby on the case, trying to dig into the html and figure out how I could alter the size on my pictures. He got it, and now I do too. I am thankful because I really didn't want to have to switch my blog to get larger pictures.

Weekend project

Hoping you all are enjoying a great weekend. It is winding to a close now, but I am sitting here enjoying a quiet afternoon while the three oldest guys went to a movie and Shea is snoozing. I just finished up my latest outside home-improvement project and wanted to show you.
(For a mom who doesn't work outside the home, projects are a little escape from reality for me and hence I LOVE them.)
To recap...last year we had our sliding door taken out and put in a beautiful wood and glass kitchen door onto the deck. Due to that change, my dad and brother put up new siding across the whole back section rather than trying to just patch the spot where the door had been. It sat looking like this for the past year.

Our next big project is to tear out this little rotting deck and put up a new one in the next few weeks. I wanted to get the back siding painted before this happened...so...




I didn't have a clue what color or kind of paint the house was originally painted, and there are parts of the fences and the shed and the house which are different from eachother...and they are all faded and dirty. So I didn't work hard to exactly match them as they all need doing over anyway. Because this section of the house is inset a little it doesn't seem to matter that the stain I got is darker. I think it looks fine with the rest of the house. It was bound to look different anyway as it was painted on fresh wood.
So now I need to stain the boards that we are using for the new deck and demolish this old one.

Random moments from our busy life..

Let me tell you what my day was like...
5:30am...Greg woke up to take a shower before he drove to Kelowna to catch his flight to Vancouver for a meeting.
7am...I hop in the shower while the kids are playing Wii.
7:30am...Eat up breakfast and make sure kids are dressed and ready for school.
8:30am...Run Riley to school in his pioneer garb as he had Pioneer Day today at our local Haney Heritage Park in town

We switched out the hat as that one would never stay on his head.
8:45am...Run Liam to preschool. They need help driving the kids on the field trip to the firehall, so I offer my assistance...

10:30am...The field trip is over. Take the kids back to preschool and stay there til the end so I don't have to go home and come back 20min. later!
11:30am...Liam is invited on a playdate but needs his swimshorts, so I run home grab his shorts and run them to where he's at.
12pm...Feed Shea and myself some lunch and get him off to bed.
12:30pm...Do a quick tidy of the kitchen and get my door trim painted out on the deck.
1pm...fix up some pictures for my sister in law and get them emailed off to her
1:30pm...Do the 2nd coat of the painting
2pm...Clean up my paint stuff and sweep the deck off
2:30pm...Liam returns home, Shea wakes up.
2:45pm...Walk to the school to pick up Riley.
3pm...Quick stop home to pick up a freezee and swim shorts for everyone.
3:15pm...Drive down to Fletcher park to run through the waterpark and play on the swings.
4:15pm...Drive to 7-11 for a must-have slurpee...SO HOT out!
4:30pm...Home to hang up suits and get a pizza in the oven.
5:15pm...Eat pizza and call my mom.
6pm...Back in the van to drop Liam off at Pam's.
6:15pm...Take Riley and Shea to Riley's soccer practice. He scored during the game!
7:15pm...Back to Pam's to pick up Liam and talk to Luke about deck plans.
7:30pm...Back home to get Riley to practice his spelling and feed the kids a night snack.
8pm...Read the kids their 3 books and brush their teeth.
8:30pm...Tuck them all in bed.
8:40pm...Set up the sprinklers.
9pm...Sit down on my recliner and grab my laptop and SIGH a big long sigh.
9:01pm...Watch SO you Think you can Dance!! while typing this post.

Just because...we're beautiful

Today is a sick day. Shea (aka "snot boy") is dumping out all the crackers and cereal on the floor. Liam is watching cartoons, mommy is painting the upstairs deck railings and we thought we'd take a break to do some photobooth.

2nd year slideshow....

Since I did a first year slideshow in this post....thought I should do another one.



It kind of starts and ends on the wrong photo, but you'll get the idea.