Getting Settled

 Well little by little we are getting settled into our new house. A snowstorm this weekend allowed Darrel to try out his snowblower. When we bought this house, with its long driveway and garage in the back, Darrel informed me that we just had to factor in the cost of a snowblower into the price of the house because he wasn't going to shovel that whole driveway during long Canadian winters. Fair enough, I can understand that. So he kept an eye out in the Buy'N'Sell, with a small stroke of luck, and a little bit of elbow grease he was able to pick up this one for $50 and get it running properly. The test was fairly successful -it was really wet snow and tended to stick in the blow chute but that really couldn't be helped. I think he was pretty pleased that he wasn't shoveling, much easier on the back. And heck, why use a simple stick with a blade when you can use something mechanical with an engine! And the snowblower was a really good deal, which I think makes Darrel love it even more.

 I spent an hour this afternoon hanging shelves in my kitchen, I was pretty pleased with myself that a)I got around to doing it; b)I couldn't find the drill or power screwdriver but forged ahead with hand tools, (hmmm -I think Darrel is rubbing off on me!); c)found the studs, and managed to screw the brackets into them with no extra holes in the wall; d)hung the shelves level, even if they don't look it, I think the ceiling isn't completely level; e)I did it without resorting to nagging Darrel to help me as I used to do these sorts of things by myself all the time before we married but lately just make "handyman" lists for him and don't really consider it my thing. It makes me feel good to say nope, I can do this, I know how and I'm competent enough to do and and then do it; and finally f)they look so darn cute. The yellow pots will have plants in them when I am able to make a trip to get some, and I have one or two other things that will go on the shelves, like my recipe box. Death to anyone who defiles them by piling crap on them! This is a joke as in our household the most likely culprit would definitely be me. Darrel is extremely good about putting things away as he goes and cleaning up after himself, whereas I am more sloppy and tend to dump stuff with the good intention of getting to it later -it ends up being much later sometimes and the pile has to reach a certain level of chaos before I clear it, (note the pile of tools and miscellaneous stuff on the dishwasher, hiding behind the pumpkin), yup, all stuff I've left out, not Darrel.

 And finally, just a funny picture of Jack. These swim goggles were in a bag of clothes that Lara brought for Jack when they came to help us move. Needless to say he thinks they are pretty neat. 

A Blessing on doctor/chiropractor/insurance offices with well stocked tots areas, a double blessing on kind receptionists who play with your 2 year old and cuddle your baby while you get an adjustment!

A Serious Baby

  

Things I Love

 It goes without saying that I love these two kids but I also love the light that fills my kitchen in the afternoon. It makes for great photography and just happy spirits. Jack loves giving Baby Eric kisses on his head, he's done this since the day we brought Eric home, it's quite adorable.

Lately I've been listening to CBC more often in my car and I have to say I'm really enjoying 'Sounds Like Canada'. I always learn something new and interesting. 'As it Happens' is also good. The slant is a little different, more newslike, but slightly oddball stories, although they can be about fairly serious issues too. Anyway, I feel like I'm getting smarter as I listen and I have something to chat with Darrel about that's not about diaper changing or what the kids did today.

Other great things lately are all the clothes that Lavonne & Co. keep passing along to us for the boys. It's almost crazy how much clothes Jack has...more than Darrel and I for sure. He's wearing a cute new shirt in this picture.

My car is in the shop today, just regular maintenance and an out of province vehicle inspection. We are finally getting around to switching the insurance. So it's a quiet day around our house/town for us. That's fine by me...yesterday we were gone all morning in the city running errands so a morning at home chilling in our pjs sounds delish! I may get going on making the curtains with the fabric I bought yesterday...or I may not. We'll see how it goes. :) 

Moving Tales

  Well, we are here, hooray! The garage still has some stuff in it and there's a whack of unpacked boxes but we are in the house and all went well. Many thanks to Lara, Dean and Aidan for coming and helping us. There is no way under the sun that I would have been able to get that oak entertainment centre out of Judy's house with Darrel. Oi vay, that thing is huge! As you can see Jack was well entertained during the move -dress up, miscellaneous small boxes to cart around and even a ride on the dolly.


 As always when you move in to a new house there are a bunch of little things that need to be fixed/done. I went to Rona this morning and spent an hour buying curtain rods, ground fault interrupters for the bathroom plugs, door jams, light bulbs, electrical plug covers (obviously the old owners did not have toddlers who slam doors or stick knives in around electrical boxes).

 I am optimistic about meeting people and making friends in my little town. In the post office yesterday I met another Mom who moved here from Halifax in July. Our town is quite close to the Edmonton Military Garrison and a lot of military families choose to live in a small town around the area versus the city. So, it seems like there are other people here that are "new" and looking to make friends. I had a "big city moment" on Monday when I went to pay the hook up fee for our water and was told I could only pay by cash or cheque. No debit, No credit card. Wow, I almost said, Are you Serious?, but realized that may sound rude. hahahaha Yup, it's the country life for us.
Well both boys are napping, I better get some boxes unpacked! 

Night time musings

I was laying awake the other night and thinking about ways that I am alike and unlike my mother. This evaluation was prompted by the sobering reality that I am 30, have two kids and doing things, (keeping house, paying bills, rearing children), that I saw my mother do. I've reached that magic age where you are a contemporary of the parent you had growing up. It's somewhat scary, not getting older, but being at a stage of life you remember your parents being at. You start wondering if you measure up, if you are doing the right things, are you making the most of your life and making all her hard work of nurturing you and raising you worthwhile and meaningful. (Not to leave you out Dad! -rest assured you were also a postive formative element of my childhood, but on that particular night I was specifically pondering the role of motherhood.) Anyway, this is a layout looking at some of the simple ways I am like my mother...obviously not an exhaustive list. And while there are many ways we are different I'm happy to say there are many ways we are the same, and I have her to thank for that.

  

Another style template...

I had a lot of fun making the digital paper for this template....now that I've finally figured out the easy way to do it. This would definitely be for people not afraid of colour.

  

Kool Aid Playdough, Nicknames and Good Books

Just a couple of pictures of Jack having fun with some Kool Aid playdough we made. This was a great recipe find. It's completely non-toxic, as it has only has flour, salt, cooking oil and kool aid in it, but smells really yummy from the kool aid. Jack did try a taste and decided it was not for him, hahaha, it's pretty salty!
 
 

Darrel posted this picture of Eric already on his blog but I thought I'd post it here as well as I didn't want to leave him out. I haven't taken enough pictures of little Bubba lately. Bubba is for "Baby Brother" and Jack is quite adept at saying it, and thinks it's hilarious. I've taken to calling our daily family life, (at least in my head), the "Bubba and Smoochie Show" as smoochie is our pet name for Jack. For some reason it kind of cracks me up. My previous pet name for Eric has been lambchop but it never has had the popularity or common usage that "smoochie" had for Jack.

So, back to the pic, just shows what we are up to...packing packing packing. Check out Darrel's blog for more information about the significance of the photo. We start moving on Thursday night, hooray! (It snowed here today, go figure.)

In other news, Eric laughed for the first time yesterday. I was making cutesy faces at him and tickling his rib cage. He gave me the sweetest little laugh/grunt, very cute. I am calling it a true laugh because it was repeated upon further poking, and he did it again today.

I am reading "All That Matters" by Wayson Choy right now. It is funny how a book can sit on your nightstand for a couple of weeks, and you aren't that excited to start it, but once you do you cannot seem to put it down. The book is about the Chen family's experience as Chinese immigrants in Gold Mountain (Vancouver) in the early 1900's. It is written from the point of view of First Son, Kiam-Kim. This choice of perspective is very interesting and quite central to the feel of the book. When Kiam-Kim comes to Canada as a three year old child, you only know what he is told and the simple things he understands. As the reader, you get more information / awareness as Kiam-Kim becomes more aware, figures out life and "tells you" what he knows. I have been fascinated with getting a glimpse inside another culture, the descriptions in the book are very rich, delicious in a way actually. 

My business idea...

So, for over a year I've had this business idea that I've wanted to start, and I think I'm ready to really get going on it. I want to make wedding albums for people. I figure if they are willing to spend thousands on photography they will spend another $500 on having a custom wedding album. I was playing around this afternoon with making some templates of different "styles". The great thing is that because I'm doing this digitally I can easily alter colours, if someone wants a solid blue contrast colour instead of black I can easily change that on the fly. I'd like to start with 8-10 basic styles and then charge people extra for custom work beyond basic colour changes. As time goes on I could create additional style templates.

The marketing concept would be based on preserving not only your photos but your memories of the day. I could incorporate people's wedding vows, thoughts of the day, the wishes of their family etc. in the copy.

 

This first picture is a more ornate style..and the cover page of an album.

 

This is more of a graphic, magazine style look, and is obviously a "bride" page. Once I have more of Erika's photos I will change the bottom ones so that they are all different.

Anyway, I'll give it a go and see what happens. My goal is to be ready for the big spring bridal shows in Edmonton so that I can have a booth there.

p.s. Aren't Erika and Ben so cute!! 

  

  

A Work in Progress

So, this long weekend is paint the house weekend. Well really, it's been paint the house weekend for Darrel. I have been wrangling the boys who are taking/needing quite a bit of attention. I am really grateful for Darrel and all his hard work. He has spent the past three days working quite tirelessly on these two rooms all by himself. All that is left is one final coat for each of the accent walls and then the cleanup, putting the trim back up, the light fixtures etc. So far we're pleased with how it looks. Having lighter walls in the master bedroom really makes the room feel larger and more open. I think the dark brick red wall will look great with our headboard that Darrel made. The yellow in the office is definitely bright and cheerful! Goodbye beige everything, hello colour!!

 
 
  

The Before Pictures

So here's our new house, before we do anything to it.


This is looking from the dining area over to the kitchen. I will probably paint the circa 1970s kitchen cabinets next summer. Right now the dishwasher is not a built in, some day we will renovate the kitchen and change that, but for now it's fine as is.




This is from the same spot, just looking 90 degrees right towards the living room. We really like the laminate flooring, it's a nice colour and will be very kid friendly.




The third and fourth pictures are our bedroom. It is definitely getting all new paint. There is an ensuite in the master bedroom with a shower and toilet behind a pocket door. The vanity is out in the room, between the closets. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But it will be nice to have two bathrooms upstairs. You can see the main hall closet in the fourth picyure, I really like it as it is nice and big. The main bath also has a closet for all the towels so there is plenty of storage room.



The fifth picture is the main bathroom. After seeing it yesterday we are very tempted to paint it before we move in as well. The green is a little too minty, and there's a flower wallpaper border that needs to go.

So we're pretty excited to get going on it this weekend. I'm off to buy primer today.

This and That

I have promised myself that I will keep this monthly album of Eric's up to date. I still have months 10-12 to complete on Jack's first year album and it sure gets a lot harder when you are doing it from memory.

 

Yesterday we were supposed to get posession of our house but ended up not being able to get in because the mortgage company had screwed up the paper work and therefore our lawyer couldn't forward the money to the vendor's lawyer etc. It was a lesson in patience, I felt like throwing a huge temper tantrum, but of course what can you do? Besides I also recognize that I am an example to our boys and it's important to teach them that life will throw some curve balls and having a huge fit won't usually fix anything. So after consoling myself with a Dairy Queen buster bar I just let it go. (Guess I'll have to work on teaching them lessons about using food to fill emotional needs, hahaha!) Crazily enough I got a call from our lawyer this morning, everything is worked out and our realtor has permission to give us the key. The problem was that the mortgage company ended up giving us a better interest rate than they put on the papers 6 days ago. They dropped from 5.5% to 5.28% Which is really bizarre, since when do lenders DROP their interest rate without you asking them to? This will probably mean a $50 drop in our mortgage payment and savings of a couple of thousand dollars over the next 5 years. So maybe it was all a blessing in disguise. It is funny because this week I've been stressing about money and thinking about the payment of tithing and how it is really a commitment of faith on my part -we could really use that 10% every month. But it seems like funny things like this "mix-up" with the mortgage end up helping us out -we end up with more money than if we hadn't paid tithing. I remember a talk where someone we know said that he always paid his tithing and then it seems like the thing that his family needed the most that month would miraculously show up in a half price sale at Canadian Tire and that he could live better on 90% with Heavenly Father than the 100% without him. So I am thankful for this blessing from Heavenly Father and all that he gives us. 

Eric - a smiling machine

I love this stage when babies are so ready and willing to give you their little grins. It just melts your heart when they give you those sweet smiles. Yup, Eric has got his momma hooked.

We had a good weekend, I enjoyed watching conference and in between sessions we made forays outdoors as the weather was fantastic. I feel motivated to be the best I can be and be more service focused in the next six months. I think it is so easy to get wrapped up in your own life, issues and troubles that you don't spend the time actively looking for ways to help others. I know that I haven't been so good at that since I have had children. You spend so much of your time focusing on others as it is that it is easy to think "I am too busy to help other people or do something for someone." But if not me than who? So that is my challenge to myself, to "load up my handcart and set out to find the needy" as one of the general authorities said.