Change of Season

 I think I go through this every year; the feeling that this spring is the longest ever, but this year I really think it is true. Four weeks ago we had a Saturday where water was running down the driveway, and the next day it was -12C. We've had a couple days of melting only to be followed by a week of -5C weather where no progress on the mountain in our yard is evident. sigh. The kids and I have still been finding fun out in the yard, it is super nice having a long paved driveway for the pushing of tricycles, pulling of wagons and drawing with sidewalk chalk. So, despite the remaining snow all over the lawn, we are blessed to be outside getting fresh air. But still, hurry spring, hurry!

And Finally, One Funny Picture to Round Out the Evening

Four posts in one day, that must be a record. I had to share this one for the grandmas! Jack and Eric both feel asleep at the supper table!! It was pretty funny, Jack's head kept bobbing up and done, his chin would hit his chest, he'd partially wake up, and then it would droop back down again. I finally took him off the chair because I was worried he was going to pitch over the side! Let's just hope they are soooo tired they sleep ALL NIGHT!

Book Review #2

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"*** by Mark Haddon is one of the most unique books I have read in a while. It is the story of Christopher Boone, an autistic 15 year old, who is trying to discover who killed his neighbour's standard poodle with a pitch fork. Before I go too far, I must say that there are a few language issues and some marital infidelity within these pages. I don't know if I would recommend this book for say your church book club, but it is amazingly well written and so hard to put down. I felt like I understood Christopher's way of thinking in this book, Haddon really has done a good job of describing the life of someone with autism, from their perspective. (At least as far as I know...what do I really know about autism??) In some ways the book is heart wrenching, you sympathize completely with Christopher as it is written first person, from his perspective, but yet you see the upheaval his condition and the consequences of it has caused his family. Yet you feel that there is hope for them and Christopher. I would give this book two thumbs up!

***The original title on the book has no caps in it, I have capitalized them in honour of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss, (and my good editorial friends Marta and Karly, hehehe). LOL!

Book Review #1

I have been fortunate to be reading some really fantastic books lately. I really should have started my book review series with "Honeymoon in Purdah" when Anne gave it to me for my birthday because it was FABULOUS! but I am lifting this idea of a book review series off of Angela's blog and didn't think of doing my own until now. So, book numero uno, "Winter Wheat" by Mildred Walker. This was another great birthday gift, from my friend Karly. It tells the story of Ellen Webb, a girl that has grown up and lived her whole life in the dry land wheat farming country of Montana. Ellen goes away to university in Minnesota and the book is the story of her coming of age during the following year and a half. Ellen is a completely lovable heroine, she is capable, smart, well thought, hard working but yet completely human. Ellen experiences what I think all of us feel at some point, that the family and home life we think is normal and don't really think about, is totally not normal for others, and in fact may be viewed negatively. It can make us squirm, feel insecure, become self-critical or critical of our families, but, (in most people), these feelings pass and we can accept our foibles and family situations and eccentricities. And frankly as we mature we care less about what other people think. Some of my favourite passages in the book would give away the plot and how things all turn out so I shall refrain from quoting them here. I would definitely give this book two thumbs up!

Why Mommy Can't Be on the Phone too Long

 
 I find children do things to get your attention. Here, Jack has moved from thing to thing to thing, pulling more out, and dumping more things until it the situation has reached a critical mass and I am "forced" to get off the phone and pay attention to him. Fair enough, poor ignored child. Time to have some productive play. :) Out comes the dustbuster, Jack can vaccuum up all the spilled rice krispies. Which is fine, work, especially with power tools is more like play at this age.

A Scrapbook Page from a few weeks ago

 I haven't had a chance to scrap much in the last couple of weeks, I did this a bit ago as a reminder to myself to enjoy life amidst challenges. Hard to do but I think that's really what makes the difference for people who find lasting happiness. It's not that their lives are trouble or hassle free, it's that they've learned to view things in a positive way and roll with the punches. I want to be better at that.

I love my husband!

Darrel is really fantastic. Tonight after supper he asked me what should be a priority tonight and I said I REALLY needed a way to keep Jack from opening the door to the basement. So a half hour later he has a block of UHMW plastic tacked to the door frame. If you turn the block sideways it clears the door and allows it to open, but horizontally it blocks the door and will prevent our two year old from making a break for it. Hooray!!! I almost can't wait for him to try it! (The loving mommy in me will say, "we'll go out to play in a little bit Jack", the frustrated parent in me will say, "too bad sucka, one point Kirsten, zero points Jack".) This may sound a little harsh, having fun at my toddler's expense, but just imagine pulling a kicking and screaming two year old away from the basement stairs about ten times a day. He definitely has ideas about what HE IS GOING TO DO! So I will enjoy this brief moment of parental control, until he moves onto the next thing, (most likely something more dangerous).

Another reason to love Darrel: my Remembrandts web site is coming along. We had to revise our timelines somewhat due to parental duties and lack of firm knowledge on my part of what I wanted but we're definitely heading in the right direction.

I was really productive today, I crossed six things off of my weekly tasks whiteboard in the kitchen. I love having that white board there, it helps keep me motivated and on track. It makes me smile, my Mom was/is a list writer. In my mind I can still see pieces of paper with her handwriting itemizing her daily chores. She had it down to a science, even creating separate lines for wash, dry and fold clothes. Every load had a number...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, .... and she would cross off the number as she did it. I can totally relate to that, (even though I usually don't go that amount of detail (probably because my white board isn't THAT big). Karly and I have both admitted adding something to our weekly lists even thought it's already done, just so we can see it up there and crossed off. LOL! Ridiculous in a way but fulfilling none the less. A couple of the things that were completed have been up there for a while or have been in my head but haven't made it to the board, in particular, "vacuum the car". I am so excited to ride in a clean vehicle! Well, cleaner vehicle, I still have to armorall it. It just felt so good to take the time to do something that I have wanted to do for a while.

Our Weekend

  This weekend was a mixed bag for our family. We did get some projects done around the house and that felt great. We finally hung a towel bar at the vanity in our master bedroom. Hooray, no more drying my hands on my bath robe. What makes it even better was I found this towel bar at Home Sense for $5. Double Hooray! Darrel also hung a shelf in Jack's room for his books. Jack empties the book case in his room on almost a daily basis so having this shelf at 5+ feet high should do the trick! We have decided to focus some of our time on kid proofing our home more so that we are not going crazy on a daily basis. So the book shelf was an easy no brainer. The old book case will come out this week and go down in the basement. Either it will hold toys in the family room area or be repurposed to hold food storage.

 So the not so wonderful things this weekend: Jack fell down the stairs on Friday after wrestling with a garbage can in the landing. Thankfully he was ok but at first we were pretty worried, his nose is quite scraped and while it wasn't bleeding it bruised rather quickly so we thought he might have broken something. IIsn't it funny how resilient kids are? If I had fallen down the stairs I'd be laid up for days. Jack cried for 20 minutes, had a nap and was as good as new. Eric was also under the weather, with a flu type bug. On Saturday his temperature was spiking and at one point he had a fever of 104F. Saturday night we were both up a lot with the kids (Jack's also getting his two year molars), and this morning Eric still had a fever so we stayed home from church. I always have guilt/not knowing what to do on Sundays we don't go to church. I'm not sick so I feel like there's all these things I want to do, but yet it's Sunday and I shouldn't be doing my laundry, cleaning and all the regular stuff.

Saturday night Darrel and I watched, "Stranger than Fiction". We both really enjoyed it, it was witty and funny and we both laughed out loud several times. For the past few years it has been very difficult for us to find movies we are both interested in seeing, let alone both of us enjoying, so this was a pleasant surprise. On top of that it was a Will Ferrell movie, so actually it was really a huge surprise that we enjoyed it. Let's just say we don't usually enjoy his type of movies. Emma Thompson was brilliant as the troubled and crazy author. I am always impressed by her acting ability. Also this movie was a good one for language and a lack of gratuitous sex scenes.

Jack has learned how to open the child proof door knobs that we have on his bedroom door and the door to the basement. My life has suddenly become much more difficult. sometimes having a resourceful, smart child is a little bit of a trial, but I know it will serve him well in later years. It's just at two I wish he would stick to blocks and cars, not latches and Darrel's tools. :) Darrel's going to rig some sort of latch for the basement stairs as Jack has seen fit to walk down the stairs, down to the back door and outside a couple of times. Argh! If I keep the deadbolt on it's ok, but if we forget then that child could be half way down the street before we noticed him gone. Plus, it's just not safe that he can open it when Eric is learning to crawl and rolling around. One of these days I won't realize Jack's left it open and Eric will take a tumble.

Busy Times

I do not understand why/how I am so disorganized. In my work life I was quite organized but at home I feel like I'm always playing catch up, putting out fires, rather than focusing on what is coming up. I had the horrible feeling this morning that we had missed our nephew's birthday. I pulled out my Organizer book, (note to self: organizer book needs to be in a more visible place!), and phew! his birthday is the 23rd, Friday. For some reason ever since he was born I have the 21st stuck in my head. Every year I go through this. But of course since I haven't mailed anything yet, we are still going to be late on the birthday wishes, and then while I was looking in my date book I realized that it was my good friend Jessica's birthday last Wednesday. Jess and I have been friends for about 16 years, you think I could remember her birthday by now. The horrible thing is that I spoke with her on Friday and didn't even mention it!! ouch! Jessie, I'm terribly sorry, and I hope that getting the Tim McGraw tickets makes up for it. (Jess and I are going to see the Faith Hill, Tim McGraw concert on June 20. I am SO excited. I've never been to a real concert before so it will be super fun.) So I am trying to become better organized but I'm sure this is not the last set of birthday cards that will be mailed late.

I am in desperate need of a hair cut. So desperate in fact that I stopped in at the hair dresser yesterday and booked an appointment for this morning which I will have to take my kids to. I told her all I want her to do is wet it down and cut it, no shampoo, no style, just get the job done. That should be about 20 minutes right? I think if I bring the right books/toys I will be able to get 20 minutes of good behaviour out of the boys. Right? Here's hoping! :)

The boys and I are heading in to the city today. We're going to meet Darrel at work, ride the LRT down to Northlands and go to the Home and Garden show with some friends from church. I'm looking forward to it for a couple of reasons: the get out of the house factor and the social factor. Not that we have any money to do major renovations on our house, other than fix the crack in the foundation that's leaking gallons of water an hour, but it's always fun to go see. I'm actually really looking forward to the garden exhibits. Our yard is kind of a blank canvas right now, just lawn and some shrubs. I really want to make it more lush and inviting.

If we don't end up going anywhere for Easter I would really like to paint Jack's bedroom, so maybe I can find some ideas for that. Our back entry really needs some attention too. The people who lived here before primed part of it and never finished the job so it looks a little shabby.

On Tuesday Eric had his third round of immunizations. Here in Alberta immunizations are done at the Public Health Unit by a nurse, and they have a list of specific things they chat with you about at each visit. So at this one it was all about car seats, baby proofing and get this...'Before you Get Pregnant Again.' I laughed when she handed me the little sheet, nope, not thinking about another baby yet. As if my days with two kids 18 months apart aren't reason enough to think twice, (or thrice), about getting pregnant any time soon. She kind of looked at the boys and said, yes, I imagine they keep you pretty busy. An understatement if I ever heard one. I'm sure after my attempt to take them to the hairdresser's this morning I will vow to never have another child, ever. LOL! On a positive note, I liked this nurse a lot better than the last. She didn't make a huge deal over Eric's head being "Too Big". And in fact kind of went out of her way to say his head was just fine, she had kind of a puzzled look on her face when she was reading the chart from the last visit. (For those who haven't heard my rant about this, the short story is that at the last visit the nurse said that Eric's head measured in the 90th percentile, and his weight was only 50th percentile, thus his head was abnormally large and I should have the pediatrician check it out. Good grief. Have you ever seen me try to wear a hat? My head is quite large, all the Blum's have big heads, and what's the doctor going to do anyway?? Yup, he has a head, it's a good size. Okay, thanks for coming, bye bye. Anyway, I ignored her didn't bother going to the doctor about it and I got a phone call a month later and she was calling to check up and see if I had taken him to the doctor and mentioned "The Too Big Head." Anyway, much eye rolling and annoyance on my part. And of course, his head is just fine.)

Ok, time to start my day, get dressed, do dishes, etc. Have a good day out there friends and family.

Sunday Afternoon

We are having a lazy Sunday afternoon. The boys are watching "signing time" and Darrel and I are hanging out in sweats and pj's respectively. I've done a little bit of scrapbooking, I figure it's memory preserving and thus an ok activity for the sabbath. We had a good Sunday dinner meal when we got home from church. Sunday evenings we usually graze rather than make another big meal because by the time we eat lunch it's usually 2 or 2:30. So the afternoon and evening usually slide along and we just hang out. We discovered today that Jack is getting his two year molars and we were quite happy about that. Mainly because this means that there is a reason for his crankiness, temper tantrums and multiple night wakings other than terrible twos. It's so much easier to deal with problem behaviou when there is a "reason". ok, kids are getting cranky so we better entertain them ,ciao. 
 

Our Little Charmer

 

Hip Hop Update

Lil reminded me that I did not post an update about the hip hop class. Two words: I suck. The lady teaching it made it look so easy but nope it's not. I couldn't even get coordinated enough to turn my head at the right time! I hope all those back up dancers for JLo are making good money because they sure earn it. I was immensely relieved when Eric started fussing and I could make a graceful bow out with the excuse, Uhhhh, my baby is crying, you girls keep at it. :)

Our Little Town

The boys and I went for a walk today and took some pictures of our town for all of you who haven't been here. This is the busiest spot in town. (Except on the weekends in the winter when the hockey rink is as busy as a Home Depot parking lot.) This little strip mall houses the new hairdresser in town, the post office, Chelsea's Pub and Family Restaurant and an insurance business. As we all have post office boxes in town, (no home delivery), there is a constant stream of cars in and out of the parking lot. I have put the stop sign prominently in the foreground of this picture for a reason. Invariably directions to someone's house start with, "From the 4 way stop, turn..." or "From the 3 way stop, turn..." They are MAJOR landmarks here in town. (The other being "The Liquor Cabinet") This is our town hall, fire station, library, pre-school, ambulance dispatch building. It's quite handy, you can get a lot done in one place! This is one block west of the four way stop, about 5 blocks from our house.
Straight south of the strip mall is the food town, our little grocery store. The food town is good for when I run out of bananas or milk but I do my grocery shopping in Morinville, Edmonton or Fort Saskatchewan. The food town is fondly, (well not so fondly), known for it's rip off prices. On the other hand it has a very good collection of videos for rental, which saves me a 25 minute drive to a Blockbuster. Hidden behind the food town is our Community Centre. We haven't been in there yet...so I guess I'll have to take a gander in there one day.
This picture of the houses I mainly took to see if anyone can spot what is wrong with it. Sing to yourself, "One of these things is not like the other..." a la Sesame Street. Post a comment if you figure it out. We think it's so bizarre. And it will only get more bizarre when they finish the house and do the landscaping.

Here is Jack at the kiddy park at the centre of town, this is just south of the food town, the side of the store is on one side of the park. He loves the train and come warmer weather I imagine we'll be here a lot.
Eric doesn't seem to impressed with the swings. Probably because he was asleep in the stroller and woke up when I stopped pushing it. (The audacity of that is almost unbelievable I know!) So there you have it, a mini tour of our little town. Maybe tomorrow we'll roam further and you'll get to see the funeral home, Double Dragon Chinese restaurant, hockey rink and the Husky. LOL! I know sound kind of mocking, and I am a bit, but really all in fun. I love our little town and am happy that the weather is getting warmer so we can get out and experience it more.

Happy Again

Poor little Eric had the flu yesterday. He woke up Wednesday night with a fever of 104F. Yikes! All day he was feverish and cranky. But he seems to have shaken it off, today we went to clean the church and he happily played in the excersaucer and on his blanket for nearly two hours. For the rest of the day he was pretty content doing his own thing, playing on the floor, rolling around and chewing on toys. Tonight after baths we were in the kitchen; I was trying to get some photos of his new tooth so we were tickling him and he was laughing and laughing. No success on the tooth picture but it was great seeing him back to normal as his cheerful little self.
  I keep thinking that I have to blog about last Saturday's Womens' Conference. I had a great time. Sheri Dew, a former counsellor in the Relief Society General Presidency of our church, along with Wendy Watson Nelson, another female speaker in our church came to speak on "A Relationship with the Savior". At one point Sister Dew came out into the crowd and asked randomn people what has been harder in their lives than they would have imagined. The responses from people were so interesting. One woman said it was watching her children make bad choices. Another said, "just being so busy." One that I could identify with to some degree was, "Having people say you're just a Mom". (Not that anybody has said that to me but sometimes I feel like I need to apologize/explain my decision to stay home and raise my children.) Another said not finding someone / having the opportunity to get married. There were many others, that struck such a chord in me. The solution, they said, to all of these feelings, because for every one of us life is and will be dissapointing, frustrating, hard, difficult etc. at times, is to develop a deeper relationship with Christ. As it says in the bible when we yoke ourselves to him our burdens may become light. When I left Saturday afternoon, I felt re-charged in my role as a mother and homemaker, because frankly there are days when I do feel like going to work would be WAY EASIER. More than that though, I guess I felt re-charged in my soul as to who I really am, a daughter of God, who loves me and sees infinite potential in me. The other little tidbit/idea that I gleaned and that keeps popping back into my head from Saturday is a quote from Sister Nelson, "If we only take sprinkles of the gospel, (e.g. I'll have a sprinkle of scirpture study -reading a few scriptures in Sunday School but not really studying them any other time, a sprinkle of temple attendance -casually attending the temple every once in a while), we'll only have enough knowledge or understanding to feel guilty, but not enough to really experience the joy of the gospel." Isn't that true!! I know that I have experienced this, (well, currently am experiencing this in a couple areas that I just need to improve on), so it was a kind of an a-ha moment for me.

Tomorrow I'm off with my Young Women's class for a little retreat for them. All the 12 and 13 year old girls in the stake are invited. There's going to be a hip hop class, call me crazy but I'm actually looking forward to that! hahaha
My girls will probably be laughing at me, they are all little dance divas. So, if you're lucky next time I see you I may have to bust a move for you and impress you with my skills. hahaha! There's also a skipping class -that sounds a little bit scary for me. I mean at least with hip hop I'm not likely to get entagled in anything or run into anyone. We shall see, a full report tomorrow night!

Two Can Be Fun

 Yes, two is challenging, but two can be sooo much fun. Jack's personality is really starting to emerge and he can communicate so many things to us/with us. It is a hoot a lot of the time. I wouldn't trade my music loving, play dough squishing, bird watcher, flower observer, banana monkey, two-year old for anything!

Milestones Flying By

 
Eric has been growing and changing so much lately. Not only has he learned to sleep, but he's learned to sit and today his first tooth popped out. My baby will soon not be my baby anymore, sniff sniff. lol!

I've been reading photoshop books and digital photography books by the author Scott Kelby recently. For anyone out there interested in improving there photo taking or editing techniques I would definitely reccommend his stuff. He doesn't overload you with technical details, just tells you what settings to use in certain situations with a brief explanation of why it works. And as a bonus he has a good sense of humour and it's entertaining to read his books, how many computer manuals can you say that about?!

Darrel and I, (mostly Darrel), have been working on my business website. The goal is to have it finished by the end of next week, so you may be prevailed upon to critique it. It's been a fun project to do together. And thank goodness for Darrel's experience, I don't know the first thing about how to build a website. We've had a lot of fun picking apart other people's websites for functionality, appeal etc. man are there some bad ones out there!

It's been 48 hours since Jack has thrown up so hopefully the flu is really done here at our house. I want to take the boys into Ft. Sask tomorrow and go to the Children's Indoor Play Space again but can't if Jack is still sick. So we'll see what the morning brings. He's been super cranky all week, so if he's cheerful I will take that as an indication that he is feeling better.

Ok, on to work on business wedding album stuff.

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

 
Well life has taken a sudden turn for the better around the Anderson household -Eric is sleeping! Hooray! After the encouragement of my dear husband and several friends I bit the bullet and decided to let him cry it out in his own bed. The results were better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.

On Friday bedtime was at 7:09; he cried until 8:02 but remained sleeping until 11:35!! I then nursed him, laid him back down and he only cried for 12 minutes; slept until 5:30. I nursed him again, laid him back down and he fell asleep after 6 minutes!! Hooray! And he's gotten better every night since then, only crying for 5-10 minutes before falling soundly asleep. This photo is yesterday at nap time, (amazing, he actually napped!!!) That took a little longer, a good half hour of crying, but it's brighter during the day and there's more noise in the house from Jack, etc. Last night he woke up at 1:00, I nursed him, laid him back down and he probably would have slept until morning but Jack crying at 4 am woke him up. But I didn't nurse him, just patted his back and he was asleep again in 5 minutes. Honestly, already my life is about 300% better. Darrel and I have had time and energy to talk in the evenings and work on projects together. I actually cleaned my kitchen last night and made a loaf of bread. And in the day I'm able to spend more quality time with the boys knowing that I'll have an hour to an hour and a half at 10am to get stuff done as long as I find an activity for Jack. I feel like I'm the one in charge rather than being held hostage by my child's lack of sleep. And on top of just the me time in the evening I actually get some decent sleep at night. My goodness, I have forgotten how good it is to sleep for four or five hours in a row, let alone eight!
so thanks to all those who encouraged me and told me that it was not selfish, mean or negligent to make this baby sleep, you have really, truly and honestly saved my life. :)