Headin' Out

Tomorrow morning the kids and I head out to BC for a week to visit the folks. I'm very excited to see the fam, and meet my newest niece, Faith, who will be 2 weeks old on Sunday. Come to think of it we will also meet Mason for the first time, and he is now 15 months old. A little nervous about such a long drive with the kiddos, but I'm sure it will be just fine.

I took grad photos for another of my YW this week and in my prep downloaded some pictures off my camera, and found these gems. I did not take them so I suspect they were taken by Darrel after he let the boys help feed Julie. Ay caramba!

My dear friend Emma came on Thursday and helped me whip my garden into shape. We dug, weeded, planted and basically took control of it. Hooray, I'm excited to come home to little seedlings sprouting. Part of my garden behind the garage has turned into parking for the utility trailer so I have planted more veggies in the front bed with the flowers. I think it's going to be awesome. I will definitely keep y'all posted.

Hmmm, what else have I been up to. Read an awesome book, given to be my friend Jess, Alices' Tulips by Sandra Dallas. Set in civil war times it's almost a coming of age story written entirely in the form of one sister writing letters to another sister. Alice comes across as super spoiled and silly at the start of the novel and by the end she is resilient, strong and courageous. I loved how Dallas was able to have Alice's personality shine through in the letters, definitely worth reading.

Alex's grad photos turned out so cute, had so much fun. Her friend Kaitlyn came along, so we had double the fun. I will have to post these on my photography blog...but I will put a couple here that I love. (Do any Andersons recognize the quilt? Grandma's quilts make fantastic photo backdrops (at least for black and white!) They are so busy and fun, love them!)

Spooky Eyes and other stuff

I have about 50 pictures from the afternoon that this was taken. Eric was hamming it up and wanted pictures with Julie -a rare treat for me as they usually don't want to pose for me. Julie's eyes look a little spooky, I may have over photoshopped them, lol! In my defense I actually didn't change the colour, that's the colour they really are, I just sharpened them, basically making the whites whiter and the darks darker, so that they stand out against the white of her eye more. Maybe still too much...but it certainly gets your attention. I haven't done any photo shoots lately (well, really only two weeks), and I'm feeling withdrawl. Get to photograph another grad next week, yay!

I have come up with a brilliant idea. Not that it's totally original but it's a new way of thinking for me. I have so many medium to big sized projects that are needing to get done but I can't get up the gusto to do them as they are hard to do on my own with little people around. (Think repaint entry way, clean and reorganize entire basement, sew all my new curtains and pillow covers.) Chores like this are tricky to do when you have to take a break every ten minutes to get something for a child. Soooo, I have recruited two good friends here and we are going to start having little work bee days. On Thursday I will go to my friend Emma's and help her paint her entire basement. (They are just finishing it off and the carpet comes next week so there is a time crunch.) All of our kids will go to visit our friend Bonnie where she will wrangle the entire crew (8 kids including the two babies), while Emma and I paint like crazy women. hahaha The next week all our kids will go to Emma's house where she or I will entertain the crew and the other two mamas paint Bonnie's daughters' bedroom. Then it's my turn and the great basement organization will take place. (Bonnie, from her own accounts, could get a job on the show Clean Sweep, so she is the PERFECT person to help me clean out my junk!) I am so ridiculously excited about this plan. a) so productive b) so much more fun than doing these kinds of projects alone, and c) won't reduce me to becoming crazy mommy because I'm trying to cook supper, nurse a baby and finish painting a wall at the same time. Oh yeah- and the mom's who are coming to help the one mom at her house bring lunch. Sweet! I like that we are all helping eachother, having fun together and being supportive. I think in the past I haven't wanted to impose on anybody by asking for help, but this way we are helping eachother. yippee!

Kitchen Evolution

I've been thinking about this layout for a long time. I love, love, love our new kitchen. It has been a joy to cook, work, clean, bake, well, do anything in it actually. There is now soo much more counter and storage space. And it looks about a million times better. I think back to the faux wood panelling cupboard doors and shudder. Darrel, you rock! Thanks for all your hard work honey!

Happiness Is...

There are so many things of late for us to be happy about. Here are just a few:

The garage is re-shingled! Hooray!! On Friday morning we stripped it down and by Saturday at 9 am we were done. We had awesome help from church and that made all the difference. My awesome friend Emma came both days and watched kids so that I could help up on the roof. I so appreciated that! And I got this awesome hanging basket today, how can one not be happy when you see that massive bunch of flowers?

I caught a picture of this bluejay today too. There are a few that often frequent our backyard, hopping along the fences and swooping around. They're so pretty, a treat to see.

Darrel took the kids with him to return the air nailer and I had an hour to myself this afternoon. I took the opportunity to run over to the greenhouse and came home with a few things, yay!

I even managed to plant a few things in the front flower bed. The rest will wait until Monday, or later in the week. We still have to prepare the back flower beds and garden areas.

As far as garden prep goes, we scored today! The town was giving away free loads of compost so we came home with the utility trailer full. Seriously this made me so so happy. (Particularly when it's $10 a bag at the greenhouse, and I just scored to loader bucket fulls! Yay!!!)

The boys were finally able to start soccer last week, seeing as we didn't have any freak snow storms. By the second day of soccer Jack has become a start, scoring four goals. Below he is getting a high five from his coach after one of his goals. He's definitely getting the hang of it.

Eric is enjoying the running, but at times has trouble focusing on what he is supposed to be doing, like below where he needs to be doing a throw in.

 We've got the hang of snack time though.

Julie is her sweet dear self. The latest game is to drop things. I cannot get this child to keep a hat on. argh!

"Ha, ha, see ya later hat!"

"I don't know if I really wanted you all the way down there."

"Maybe I can get rid of this shirt too?!"

"Hey wind, leave me alone, I'm the trickster around here!"

Go Jack Go!

There's still a little bit of learning to do in regards to breaking and stopping but Jack has got the hang of riding his two wheeler. And he couldn't be prouder!

Growing So Fast

We are all so glad that Julie is part of our family. She is quite the character. She likes it when Jack and Eric make puppy faces. Today at supper she dropped her sippy cup on the floor, and at first was surprised by the loud noise and then belly laughed. Oh oh, we're in for it now.