to post or not to post

For nearly 13 weeks I have thought I was pregnant. For about 10 weeks I have known that I was.

During those weeks I made posts about how awful I felt and kept track of what I was thinking. I thought that I would post it when the time came.

But now that the time has come, looking back through my eyes and my typing, I am a real whiner! Who wants to read that??




So lets forego the TMI posts, and just be happy with the news that we are expecting a baby to make our 5-family a 6-family early June 2011.

happy thanksgiving!

As a belated salute to this thankful time of year, I want to say how thankful I am for my family.

For kids who are so cute they can get away with almost anything.

For a husband who helps clean around the house.

For in-laws who are thoughtful and caring.

AND for a dad who is going to watch my kids for 3 days so I can go to Kalispell for black Friday with my mom and some of my sisters!!!!!!!!!!!!

sweet childs o' mine

Enoch has many spiderman/random superhero figurines. He loves these guys and plays solo quite a bit with them. For his birthday he even got a foot and a half spiderman "doll." He loves that thing and will put it to bed and loves to sleep with it. He has an old spiderman figure with webs in his armpits that Enoch is really taking to lately. He calls it "my son." It is so funny! "Mom, have you seen my son?" or "I want to play with my son, now." It cracks me up.

Levi has the idea in his head that we are going to be making a clubhouse this winter. He drew me pictures of what he wants it to look like, complete with color choices for walls and roof. What is really interesting is that his drawings include every angle of the house, front, back, left-side and right-side. I was pretty impressed.

Monet is starting to be a holy terror at church. We arrive just before 1pm and she is crazy. The boys are happy to color or read, while she just throws things out of my purse and speaks as loudly as possible saying the one word she loves most; "NO!" So then I take her to a classroom, let her cry on the floor for a few minutes, then pick her up, squeeze her tight for 10 seconds, following which she zonks out if I am lucky. Sometimes this process takes a few tantrums to get the desired outcome. Today at church, with her cute blonde hair complete with outfit matching bows, all I could think of was, "The Devil Wears Pig-Tails."

One more thing about this girl I don't want to forget is that she tells me to shhhhhh!!! anytime I try singing for her. It is so funny.

twenty-four

I love love love this new show.
Well, its not new, but it is to me.
Just finished season 2 and it was even better than season 1.
Sometimes I ride my bike while I watch so that it is a good use of time. Sometimes I pretend to fold laundry while I watch so that I can pretend it is a good use of my time.

Lately I have been wasting the evening watching 3 episodes in a row with my hands clenched and my heart racing.

photo update

First off we have a picture of the boys, together, on their first day of school. It is fun that they can share stories and exchange ideas on similar things, such as the coolness of the playground or the choice of books at the library.

Next we have Monet. This is her eating an onion. I literally had to pry it from her hands.

Pig tails!!!!! What a joyous day in my life. My mom called these things wop wollapins growing up.

These last two are the boys painting. We haven't done it again since, although I give full points for the image of gore they were going for.

you know you're in stirling when

everybody you meet already knows who you are.

your new neighbours greet you with cookies.

you start to connect the dots, and see that everyone is related somehow to everyone else.

people around you seem to own more quads than cars.

you run down the middle of the road rather than use a sidewalk.

you can smell a certain something awful in the air.

you can hear more horses and dogs than cars.

you can fly a kite in your backyard (every day of the year).

you discover the BIGGEST scoops of ice cream at the local store.

you are constantly embarrassed that you are driving everywhere.

fried green tomatoes??

No, thanks. But I made this the other day. It is a great way to use up green tomatoes.

all about me

With such cute kids to blog about, it seems I never talk much about what I am doing.

So, the question is, what am I doing?

Well, of course, my life revolves around kids and a husband. But aside from that I think I am finding a thing or two to do around here. Some mornings I go running. A few girls are training for a half marathon and I join them. I ditch out on the long runs, though. I ran 10km on Monday, and that was a first for me.

I bought an exercise bike and I love riding it at night and watching 24. I am almost done season 1. What a great way to involve entertainment with exercise.

Canning, canning, canning, I have done lots of canning. I wonder how I ever lived without it. Apple butter, saskatoon sauce (its really a chunky syrup, but its really good on pancakes), cherry preserves, cherries, crab apple jelly, choke cherry jelly (more of a syrup), chokecherry syrup (more of a jelly), apple juice, cherry juice, applesauce...... I tried pear butter but they were to grainy and that was a big failure. Not to mention a big mess. I still hope to make a couple different salsas. Canning is so seriously fun, I wonder why no one ever told me before.

As far as Stirling goes, we love our house and yard. It is fun. The people here are really nice and friendly, but I miss some things about student life. For instance, girls nights. Here, everyone has a husband at night (who isn't studying) and so it wouldn't make sense to all get together then. I saw some pics on facebook of a girls night in Saskatoon and I loooonnnggged for it. I miss gaming with my girls, and talking till the wee hours in the morning. I also miss the hundred or so parks. We have 2 here and that is it. But don't ever let that defer you from coming out to visit. We can find something to do. Cow tipping maybe???

We ended up changing wards and I was called again into YWs. Now I am with the Mia Maids. It has been pretty fun and they are a great group of girls. I am in charge of YW in excellence in November. I have some plans outlined, we will see how things turn out.....

So that is all about me. Nothing spectacular but more than enough to fill the days.

flashback

A few weeks ago we had some nice, windy, S Alberta weather. So what better thing to do than fly a kite? Please note the brave batman flying with the dollar store kite. I think that is why Enoch is so mad - because Batman kept falling off.