Category: Family

Running Around..

Guess What?

It’s Siah’s FIRST BIRTHDAY……..TODAY!

I can hardly believe that it’s been a WHOLE year since he was born…although technically he wasn’t born yet. He didn’t decide to make an appearance until around 3pm….I think?

So Cute

To be certain, I’d have to go back and check, but We’re headed out because some of our longest standing and dearest friends have moved closer and we are going to help them unpack.

I’m so excited.

I have pictures to post and thoughts to expound upon and endless drivel to blah, blah blah about and it will all be good – BUT….right now, I am in my pyjamas and we have to go in 40 minutes and I gotta do something about myself.

We are going to have a first Birthday party next Saturday, but we’re just trying to nail down a time….so, if you are family or close friends, please consider yourself invited. It’s more a time to celebrate “LIFE” and to get together and just be happy than an actual birthday party, but whatever it takes to call a party, eh???

Gotta go and get ready!

Happy Birthday, my son!

This day, like every day with you, is another day to celebrate life and to be so thankful…..so, so thankful.

Back to those Core Values

So, I’ve been wanting to do something with our Family’s Core Values…something like a big piece of Art or a poster or in a Picture Frame….something.

I picked up a canvas from Micheals on the weekend, and have spent the past few days working on it, and this is what Ive come up with.

It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but it will do.

I like that it’s BOLD and that it stands out. I might paint over top of it all and start again in a week or two, but for now…it stays.

I was wondering about adding something to it…something like this….

I wondered about adding an outline of a flower to it or something like that. What do you think? Would it add or detract or look okay or realy stupid? And if I were to add it, would I do it in black or in white or cream or brown or should I just scratch the whole idea all together?

Lemme know what you think?

ps. I just looked at the picture here on the blog, and it looks better in person than it does in this picture, so you’re ALL invited over to gawk at it. Wouldn’t that be fun? I guess it’s not going to happen. Oh well, you get the general idea.

Behind the Scenes

From the looks of this site, one of two things is happening. One, either we are so boring that I have NOTHING to share or Two, We are so busy that I have no time to share.

It’s mostly number two, although throw in a healthy dose of sleep deprevation (that I keep banging on and on about) and you about have it pegged.

We’ve been SOOOOO busy and that’s a good thing sometimes (like when you are busy working and hoping that your clients will pay – sometime soon, for goodness sake already) and some times it’s not so great, like when you’d just like to have an evening when your husband wasn’t working or wasn’t even thinking about working….do I hear any amens….

Well, about two weekends ago, Jon and I did take a weekend and we sat down and shut off our computers and just took some time….and the result of that time…..is that I’m pregnant again….HA HA HA HA HA JOKE! I’m totally kidding on that one.

Let me make it very clear….I AM NOT PREGNANT…it’s not possible – and lets just leave it at that.

That weekend we came up with something that is or was or something….one of the most pivotal things that has happened in our family. Jon and I have come up with a set of our Family’s Core Values.

This is a list of values that we are choosing to live our lives by. It’s not the end all and be all, and it can change as we change and as the seasons in our life change…maybe we’ll add to it or even drop certain things, but for right now it’s kind of a launching point for us.

This is our Families Core Values….

1. Honor God
2. Live Simply
3. Develop
4. Build Relationship

What we want to do is to run things through the grid of “Do the different things already in our lives and the new things that come up fall into line with our Core Values?” If the answer is yes,then YAH and continue on, and if the answer is NO, we need to re-evaluate.

1. Honor God

I think that this one is pretty self explanatory. If the way we are conducting ourself or the things that we are doing or are asked to do don’t bring honor to God, then we need to not be doing those things.

2. Live Simply

We have been trying in so many different ways to simplify our lives. This is related to our health, our food, our home, our belongings, our time. I could go on and on about all the different ways that we could live in a more simpler fashion, but really when it comes down to it, as long as I understand the value that’s what really matters.

3. Develop

When Jon and I were talking, it became clear to us that continued growth or development was important to us, and in a focused and purposeful way. A weed can grow and plants left to their wo devices can grow, but how much more amazing is it when you cultivate a garden as opposed to just letting it run wild.

4. Build Relationship

It is important to us to build relationship with people in our lives. This is not to say that we are looking for Quantity, but rather for QUALITY. We want to be continually asking ourselves if what we are doing is building realtionship with the important people in our lives. And to be thinking about which relationships are important and what we can to do to be working on building those relationships.

Life has been really interesting since we have come up with these Core Values. It’s been interesting to asses the different things that we come up against and to ask ourselves, “Does this line up with those Values?” It has really made it easy to assess different things and to be able to confidently move forward with pupose.

Do you have Core Values?

Happy Birthday, Mum!

It’s my Mother-In-Law’s Birthday today. She has been blessed with 60 years.

I think that’s amazing.

She has an amazing story to tell of the past 60 years and the ups and downs of life and travelling all over the world and raising her own boys and helping so many throughout the years.

She is a wonderful person and I’m grateful and thankful to have her for my Mum.

We are headed in to spend the day with them, and I’m sure I’ll have some pics to add to this post.

But, I just wanted to say…….

“I love you, Mum; and I hope that today is a great day and that this year will be the best year that you’ve ever had. That it will be full of love and laughter and blessing.“

Snap Happy!

It was the perfect picture taking day on Saturday morning. The sky was grey and bright with high cloud cover and it was perfect.

We tried to get ready in a hurry, but for whatever reason….all 8 thousand of them…we didn’t leave the house until after 1pm.

And by that time it was sunny. Was I ever upset to see the sun. Can you believe that I even typed that down let alone thought it? I know, it’s horrifying after all the bad weather that we’ve had, and we are exactly 5 days away from summer…not cool…not cool at all.

So, we made it to City Hall and everyone piled out of the van and as I scouted out the best location and flicked my camera on…..I realized that I had left the battery…………in the charger…………at home!

So, we had to pile everyoneback into the van and drive back home, but fortunately, City Hall is only about 5 minutes or less away from our house – so not the end of the world….just slighty frustrating.

We made it back to City Hall and once again everyone piled out of the van and took off across the grass.

We got the kids and Daddy “Happy Father’s Day” special shot as evidenced below….

The kids were pretty good, well except Jeremy decided that today wasnot a day for just normal smiling, and so that made things a bit difficult as evidenced below…..

Apparently, I’m liking the phrase “as evidenced below” today…it’s a good one. Try it out, let the words rooooollllllll off your tongue. I’ll try to see if I can fit it in a few more times in this post…..special like, just for you.

If you click on the first picture, it’ll take you to the pics that I didn’t delete because I considered them okay….I could probably mess with them in photoshop for some of them, but you’ll get the general idea. I was LOVE the pictures of Geli. She’s been known to take some REALLY bad photos in her day, but on Saturday – that prize went to Jeremy.

If you click on the picture of him, it’ll take to you the other pics that I didn’t delete, but only because they were so funny. There were almost no good pictures of him, but oh so many really good, bad pictures.

Which ones are your favorite?

Enough with the Pizza’s and the Cheesecake….

Alrighty, so I have exactly 2.348 seconds before my little (large would be more accurate) Hoover starts complaining that I’m on the computer and wants to knock over the 1,079, 342, 457th block tower this morning.

I’m not sure exactly what’s up, but ‘Siah was up from 2-3:15am last night or this morning or however you want to call that…..like happy and in that half drugged/asleep state, but talking and singing and most definately AWAKE.

He finally went back to sleep, but it took me a little bit to settle back down, and I was DREADING this morning with everything in me.

It went pretty well though, and everyone was off to school on time and didn’t forget anything and there were no tears and no melt-downs, and as far as I’m concerned…that’s a very positive morning.

Yesterday, ‘Siah was up freaky early (like 615am….that’s freaky early in my estimation) and then went down for a 2.5 hour nap that started at 9am just after the kids eft for school and if you can do the math – ended at 11:30am, AND…….I had crawled back into bed and managed to (minus a few phone call interruptions) sleep the whole time as well. So, lets just say that yesterday was a good day, and after last night, I was really hoping for a re-run, but NOPE!

Little stinker fell asleep, but didn’t want to let me go, and then woke up at 10am. Stupid Expectations…they get me every time.

I had mom and dad and Chris out for dinner last night, and they stayed until the kids were in bed, so that was SO HELPFUL.

Everyone at J’s school is raving about how wonderful he is doing, and cynical me is wondering if he’s really doing that well, or if they are all just saying it so that we keep him on the Ritalin. Not that we are planning on taking him off it right now…we are still in the trying it out stage and have no intentions of mucking around with stuff until we give it all a good shot, BUT…..

….it’s still as messy and frustrating in my head, and as much as I could just ramble on and on about everything that’s flying hrough my head – I’m not going to subject you to that….I’ll keep it until I have some clearer, more consise things to say.

Regardless, J’s doing okay, but night times are rough and he seems to be more hyper when the meds wear off…..Is this normal? or is it just our perception? I dunno.

Siah is cruising the furniture and even the walls like a monkey and is clapping and waving hi and bye and he is just happy and darling and everything that we’ve been waiting for and hoping for the past long years.

Xani is her happy bubbly self….and we adore her. She is being so helpful and seems to really be “getting” responsibility and pitching in and we are so proud of her.

Angelica is getting so big, and honestly is struggling a bit. She is so upset that we ask her to help out or pitch in with housework…she doens’t like that she has to prove that she’s responsible. She just wants us to blindly trust her, and the problem with that is that she’ making some stupid, stupid choices, and tends to react when confronted with a situation or issue. It must be so hard. I don’t know what’s going on or why she’s acting like this, but we are talking and so that’s good. I wonder what of it is hormones, and what is preeteen stuff and what is….I dunno. She’s a great kid and we love her, but she’s making some hard choices and learning (in our minds) the hard way….but she and we’ll figure it all out and it’ll end up good.

Jon’s been away for the past 2 nights, and is coming home “sometime” today. That’ll be nice. I’ve missed him.

Well, I gotta go and dig ‘Siah outta the plants….he’s discovered dirt…..:rollseyes:….and that’s just so much fun!

Water Rats

We went into White Rock on Wednesday to see some friends of ours, and to have fish ‘n chips and to visit down at the beach.

They have 4 girls, and we have 4 kids so between the two families that is…..YUP…..8 kids. Wow, we really took that whole “Be Fruitful and Multiply” thing to heart, eh?

Here, you can see 5 of the kids, and the baby’s head….the two older girls were sitting at their OWN table AWAY from the LITTLE KIDS!

We went to a cute little resaurant – Moby Dick’s – with, obviously, a whale/sea theme, and it was pretty cute, except that when we sat down, we were overwhelmed by the BRUTAL stench of the toilets. Now, I don’t like to cause a scene, but I was willing to get up and leave even though we were already seated and ordering drinks because IT. WAS. SO. BAD!

We did end up asking if we could go out to the patio and when we got out there – the patio was just basicallly big enough for the 12 of us, and so it was awesome private dining.

The food was delicious – going down – but after about half an hour felt like CRAP in my stomach. We don’t eat a lot of fried food, and so this is a BRUTAL amount of grease to subject out systems too. But, like I said…..DELICIOUS going down…

We sat around and ate and talked and ate and talked some more until they very blatently started hurying us along and Honestly, we had JUST finished our meal and it wasn’t like the inside of the restaurant was full, so I’m not sure what the deal was.

Regardless, it was so nice to sit and chat with our good friends. We’ve missed them tons. These are the type of friends that are “life-long friends” I’ve been friends with Lala for our ENTIRE lives, and we’ve known the men since we were 14/15/16 years old. We have the kind of friendship that we “just love”. If we’re close, then we get together. If we’re not so close, then we call or e-mail….or not! There is no pressure, there are no hurt feelings…and even if it’s been a while since we’ve talked, it always just falls right back into that comfortable talk about anything kinda space. No Judgements or pressure – just friendship, acceptance and love….it’s not very often – if ever – that you will find yoursaelf with friends like these, and I am so thankful and grateful to have you guys in our lives. You mean more to us than you could possibly know and so much more than I could ever explain in words.

After dinner we headed out to the beach, and even though it was a grey and overcast day, the kids were DESPERATE to play on the beach, and once down on the beach, the water was just too enticing, and so they had to wade, and well…..once they were in wading…..you just have to swim, and SWIM THEY DID.

We could hear them screaming and splashing around in the freezing cold ocean water, but they were just having so much fun together. I LOVE White Rock Beach because it jsut spreads on and on and on and on and the kids can go WAY out and you can still see them, and it’s shallow for them to be able to play in, and SOOOOO SANDY!

They have a few more days down here on the Coast, and then they are headed back up North, and I’ll miss them, BUT….I’ll see them soon, and it will be as if we were never apart.

UGH!!!!!!

We had a poker night last night.  This is our 4th month that we’ve had a poker night….First Friday or Satrday of the month..two games…$5 per game…runner up gets their money back, and the winner gets the rest….It’s a BLAST!

So, everyone showed up arund 7ish and we hung out and finally got the first game going around 8pm….we wrapped up the 2nd game and chatted a bit more and just as everyone was getting ready to leave around midnight….SIAH WAKES UP.

….and starts to scream…..and scream…..and scream……and scream….

Long story short…he screamed for over an hour and then we finally gave up and I nursed him and he fell asleep. 

BUT….that meant that we didn’t get to sleep until after 1am…..and then the little stinker was awake and HAPPY!?!!?!??! at 6am….UNREAL!

Now, I must say that I think the green smoothies must be doing something, because I don’t ever remember crawing outta bed at 6:30am on a Saturday morning…or heck, ANY morning EVER at 6:30am and being fairly awake and fairly cheerful and not feeling like death has enveloped me and is trying to drag me back into the pit of hell.

But, the afternoon sleepies have hit, and I’d love nothing more than to just crawl back into my nice feather bed and go to sleep…..

I might need to go and make another “Shrek Shake” or “Swamp Shake” as J is now calling them.

We actually met up with my parents for breakfast this morning.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen them, and well, I don’t think that a “Ricky’s” breakfast really counts as “quality time”, but it’s better than nothing.   After breakfast, we had to do a bit of running around and we dragged Chris along with us (but not the same way that my mom dragged the lawnmower around with her back in the day – anyone remeber that story?)…..and it was good.  We hung out…..checked out some music videos and blathered on about unimportant stuff…all in all a good day.

Man, gotta go and get me a “pick me up”…..I’m fading here.

Peace Out!

Working Out My List

It’s funny, (or maybe it’s not, but it is to me) that as I keep thinking about the “Important” things, that the list keeps getting longer and longer.

I’ve not actually written anything down, as of yet, and some of these are much more inclusive than just the word, but I’m just going to start with some of the things that I’ve been thinking about.

Family

This means both my immediate family of 6 and my larger family as well.  I want to be available for my kids.  I will only ever have this time with them once.  And I want to make it count.  I want to be present, here and now.  not just at home when they come home from school, but off the computer, and actually paying attention to them.  I want to be able to help out with their homework and to teach them how to cook and bake and to do crafts with them.  I want to not be so tired from half assed doing other things that all I want to do is foist them off on the TV so that I can sit and veg. on the computer.  I want to grow in friendship and trust with them and to teach them how to communicate their feelings and wnats and desires and how to effectively communicate even the negative emotions. I want to have time to spend with my extended family.  I want my kids to grow up knowing their grandparents, and aunts and Uncles and Cousins and even their great grandparents and great aunts and uncles and second cousins.  Family is so important and I really want to have a sense of closeness in what is rapidly becoming such an “Island” world….I want to cultivate (as much as I can) the sense of “Village”.

Health

This is a huge one including Food, cleaning, Exercise, and a buch of other stuff as well.  I want to be able to cook good healthy food for my kids and I want to train them to love to put healthy stuff into their bodies.  I don’t want it to be a fad…I want it to be a lifestyle.  Not so stringent that they feel the need to stuff their faces every time Mom or Dad isn’t looking, but I want them to be able to make good choices for the long haul.  I also want to make the healthiest choices regarding cleaning supplies.  At this point, the decision that slightly been taking out of our hands just because ‘Siah seems to have a reaction to SLS and so that means that we have to find alternatives, but now, I use things like vinegar for all my windows and mirrors and I think it works WAAAAAAY better than Windex ever did.  And I like the fact that my floor cleaner residue won’t get all over ‘Siah as he’s crawling around.  i could go on and on about this, but I’ll spare you.  Also, included in this section is exercise.  I HAVE to make time to exercise.  I WANT to make time to exercise and so it will be done.  It just hasn’t been done, yet….soon, though…soon!

Jon

I want to clearly set aside time and effort to put into Jon and I’s relationship.  I want it to be deliberate.  I don’t want to find out 20 years down the road that we wished that we had put the time it…..I want to continue to build on this GREAT friendship that we have and to be an example to our kids for years to come.

Me

I want to have time planned for me to do things like the different crafts that I like to do.  Already since just trying to slow my life down, but not being entirely purposeful about it, I’ve crochetted or knitted two kimono style sweaters, three vests, a hat and I’ve started a few other pieces.  I made a bead necklace.  I’d like to paint some more and to do some more paper crafts as well.  I also want to set aside more time to find and make more healthy baking for my family.  I enjoy baking and to find stuff that we can all eat and that tastes delicious, that makes me happy and brings a sense of satisfaction.

None of this is in any particular order of importance and there are still more that I’m thinking about and even more to flesh out in each particular category, but it’s a start.  To know what I want helps me to see what I shouldn’t be doing. 

I think that I’ll be taking stock regularly of where I’m at and what’s important to me and why?  See, life changes and things move up and down the importance scale, and I’ve lived enough to know and recognize that just because this is where I’m at and these are the things that are important to me right now, that doesn’t mean that I get to go on autopilot like this for the rest of my life…..NO!  What was important to me in the months and years before I had Josiah changed when he came and when he turns 1 or 2 or 5 – it stands a good chance of changing again…in September it might all change or over the summer months or when Geli goes to middle school.  I think that any big life shift or change necessitates a peek inside as to what’s important to me “NOW”!  and how can I accomplish that and what needs to be re-evaluated and possibly let go of…for a time or forever…..

It’s about what’s important to you……..asking yourself “What is important to me?” and “How do I accomplish that?” 

If you want something enough, you will figure out a way to make it happen.

I want a slower, more simple life.

Sunday Afternoon Family Painting

We had a lovely afternoon yesterday, painting as a family……what?  Don’t you do stuff like that?

Actually, this was a first for us too.

We’ve been so insanely busy and just needed to have a weekend away from everything.  We feel like we’ve been going, going, going, going for a looooooong time now and every once in a while you just need to step back and out of your regularly scheduled programing and take a vacation, and what better way to do one than to do it for free in your own house.

So we did that.

We got up yesterday morning and stayed in our jammies and then we made a HUGE delicious breakfast with bacon and eggs and hashbrowns and toast..mmmmm.  The kids set up our dinning room table with our fancy dishes and the special tea cups and we had a very nice breakfast.

Then we eventually got cleaned up and the kids played for a bit and then we decided to paint as a family.


‘Siah helped out by keeping track of the paint bottles….I’ve actually been wanting some “art” for my walls for a long time and have been after Jon to get his butt in gear and paint me something.  He’s very artistic and creative and he keeps saying that he’ll do something and then he never does.

So, we pulled out some canvases yesterday and some acrylic paint and sat down around the big table and had at it.

I picked 4 shades of blue and then told the kids that the theme was birds, and let them get busy creating.

They had SOOOOO much fun.  This is definately something that we’ll do again.  They already asked what the next color’s and theme were and had some suggestions, so it looks like I might have some art before this is all done.

It also gave us a chance to talk about how each of us can create something special, and that Xani’s ideas are not better or worse than Jeremy’s ideas, but that their art is special and unique to each of them.  Of course, Jeremy wasn’t buying that, and just wanted to know if we liked his picture “MUCH better than Xani’s or Geli’s“.

Everyone actually stuck with the theme except me.  I started painting, and then i couldn’t figure out how to work a bird into the picture and so I just left it.  Oh well!  Maybe next time I’ll stick with the theme!

Click on the picture to see all of our “creations”