Category: Special Days

And I’ve Finally Arrived……

Wow, that was the longest plane ride to Prince George EVER!  A whole week…..MAN!  I’m really looking forward to posting every day about all the fun times that we will have and I’ll be sure to just LOAD each and every post with TONS of pictures…….

Actually, I’m home!

Turns out, Girlfriend……doesn’t have Wireless access and so I connected a grand total of 3 times and pretty much only to check my e-mail.

We had SO MUCH FUN.  We talked and laughed and cried and talked some more and laughed some more and did laundry and cleaing and ate and herded kids and laughed more, and it was a most wonderful, wonderful week.

I still have to download and go through my camera and think about what else I can say about this past week……

But, for right now, the kids and Jon and I are having some family time as a WHOLE!  Nothings more important than that, and so I’ll talk to you maybe tomorrow if I’m able to wake up……

I’m a teeny, tiny bit tired.  ‘Siah was a complete and utter mess during the night…..nothing was wrong, but he was just extremely restless and wouldn’t actually fall “hard” asleep, and it all culminated in last nights most amazing…..wake up but not really awake-ness from 12:30am until 2:30am and then finally falling asleep but waking again at 4:30am, and being half awake until 5:30am, and then I got up at 6am to get packed and ready for the day……..so, I think I’ll be going to sleep when the kids do tonight, and Jon gets to deal with ‘Siah tonight. YAH!!!!!

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”

Wacky Wednesday

So, it’s late(r) on Friday night and Spring Break is almost over. 

I think that I’m ready to send my little darlings back to school.  My house is a DISASTER and Josiah needs some time without the kids IN. HIS. FACE…….and I need to have an hour where the kids are not hoovering me out of $60 in fruit and veggies a week.  Okay, it’s not that bad, but close, and so while I love to have the kids around – I’ll be thrilled to have some quiet time.

So, anyway…Wednesday morning we got up and had a leisurly morning and then headed into Walnut Grove for a visit with my Chiropracter.  My hips have been out and Siah needed an adjustment because he….he….fell out of his crib.  I don’t know how it happened, and yes, we should have had the railing up, but ‘Siah’s only been army crawling for a little while and can’t sit up on his own and hasn’t shown any interest in pulling himself up on anything and so I didn’t think it was even possible for him to fall or crawl out of his crib, but last Friday morning we woke up to a rather large BANG followed by an extremely large CRY and I ran in and pick him up off the floor.  I couldn’t (until today) figure out how  he could have possibly pulled himself up and managed to heavve his rather large body over the railing.  He seemedto be okay and I squished and pulled and prodded until I was sure that there was nothing broken and he quickly stopped crying and seemed to be his happy self.  He did have one funny scratch on his head, but I wasn’t sure if he had been gouging at the exczema on his head or if he had somehow hit his head when he fell.  It did look like his head was lumpy off to one side, but maybe I was seeing things…..ya know how you’re just not sure when you’re stressed out?

So, we get to my Chiropracter…I’ve mentioned him before  Dr. Alan Irving.   He’s AMAZING!  He fixed ‘Siah right up. 

Dr. Irving's Smooshology
Later in the day I was telling my brother, Chris, about our visit and told him about how the Dr. manipulated ‘Siah skull and how you could definately see how it was out before and how now it was a nice round melon… and Chris says, “He just shoved the skull back in place?“  So I explained how the bones in the baby’s head are not set in place and again Chris says, “So,….he just smooshed it back in place?“  And I started to explain how Dr Irving went to school to learn how to “smoosh” a baby’s head back in place, and Chris (very sarcastically says) says, “Yah, he took Smooshology!”Yah, that’s right Chris….he took smooshology…for sure…

After our appt, we hit the Starbucks and then took the kids to the park.  We got some good pictures and the weather totally co-operated so that was really nice.  Click on the picture to see the pics that we took at the park.

After these pictures the camera died and we had to run home to get the charger but the battery takes a while to recharge and so we got no pictures of us wandering around Fort Langley.  We let the kids just wander in and out of all of the cute and eclectic little shops and see and exploreand it was a lot of fun. After we were done at Fort Langley we headed over to my parents house for dinner, and after dinner was done – we spent some really special quality family time……

….around the laptop, ’cause nothing says family like dorking out around the computer.It was another great Wednesday, and the kids are already asking to go back to the Fort again.

We’re still Springing along.

Ha Ha Ha Ha – Springing along…I’m such a “gork” (Kennedy word for Geek and Dork all mixed together) sometimes.  Forgive me….just blame it on sleep depravation….I’m gonna go on and on and on about the sleep depravation again so I know you’ll want to keep reading won’t you..

NOT!  Just joking!  Hey, did I lose some of you?  Did you think I was serious?  I guess I’ve complained about it so much and it’s kind of too fresh to be joked about, hey????….sorry about that.

Nope, not gonna talk about it at all.

Instead……don’t you wish you had a little boy that was a cute as this little guy is……..couldn’t you just “eat him up”? 

He is almost ALWAYS this happy.  It’s very rare that he’s not smiling and even rarer that he’s crying.  I just LOVE him so much.Topic Change…… 

I also dyed my hair using a natural hair dye.  It’s called Herbatint and it’s amazing.  It is more expensive than just buying a color from the store.  It was just under $30 for the box, but I was pleasantly amazed at how it didn’t smell like I was frying my hair or burning brain cells from the fumes.  We’ve been trying to rid our house of the Detergant SLS because it’s been linked to eczema and Josiah does typically have a flare up when he comes in contact with it…..and it’s in EVERYTHING, and it a known irritant……if that’s the case, then why put it in all the freakin’ baby soaps……it’s ridiculous.  Anyway, this dye doesn’t have SLS and it works so far.

Anyway – I went Black…it seems that if I go really dark, that by the time the dye lightens and wears off slightly that it’s pretty close to my natural color…..which is a nasty sorta mousy brown color……enough about that…..here’s me.  Excuse the frizzies…I’d do a re-take, but I just don’t care that much – you can see the color and realize that I don’t have perfect hair, and that I really dont’ care……get a little chuckle outta the “halo”….yah, that’s it…..it’s my halo…I’m an angel…ha ha ha!

In other news….my kids are playing SOOOOOO Nicely most of the time and here’s a shot to prove it…..I’m not gonna tell you how we staged this shot just so you’d think that we were such a nice family who calmly and quietly plays games together….’cause we didn’t and even if we did….I wouldn’t tell you about it….I’d just go on about my business and be all cool about it….now that I’ve blathered on and on – you have no idea whether I’m telling the truth or not, so just enjoy this pic of the 3 older darlings playing nicely together….as this is a rare treat.

Nothing like a sweet game of pick-up sticks.

Now, for some really amazing news…..you should see Josiah crawling…okay…it’s a bit weird, and none of my other kids did this…….He Army Crawls.  It’s darling, but strange…just get up on your hands and knees already, son!

Isn’t he just DARLING?  See, flat on his stomach…..weird.And here he is coming to get you….

Regardless of how strange his little crawl is…..HE IS FREAKIN’ FAST.And so now…….

This is the view coming up our stairs.  Yup.  We are now officially gated, and it makes life WAY easier ’cause I can just put him down and let him go….mind you with 3 older kids…there is a whole lotta yelling and screaming gently reminding to “please remember to shut the gate EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ time you come in or out” ’cause I’m nice like that. I’m also into the “vaccumming the carpets 40 times a day” stage because apparently my older children are SLOBS and the baby is “exploring” everying by putting every little piece of anything and everything into his mouth.  It’s so much fun.

Today is Day 3 of Spring Break but it’s also Wacky Wednesday.  Named because……beacause……well, because both words start with a W…..We decided that it’s hard for Jon to be working from home and for the kids to not understand how come he’s around but not available….sooooooo…….he’s working Mon and Tues and Thur and Fri from 7am to 5pm and we are tkaing Weds off.  It’s nice that we can do this.  One of the perks of working for your self at home, but it’s also a Loooooooog day when you’re working for 10 hours straight.  So far so good and we’re headed off to see a movie with the kids today. 

I think we’re going to see “Horton hears a Who”.  It should be fun, and then we’re going to have dinner with my parents. So, a nice day that’s not too crazy busy, but fun none the less…..  How’s your Spring Break coming along?  if you have one? 

Spring Break

Well, it’s the first day of Spring Break.  Hold me…I’m outnumbered.

I’m also VERY tired.  The littlest boy child is warped when it comes to his sleeping habits and I’m so tired of him waking up in the middle of the night, because even though Jon’s the one who goes and settles him down.  I’m still awake, and then I am awake when I nurse him at 5am, and if left up to him…he’d just nurse forever.  I know it’s not really nursing, but more just soothering, but still.  Josiah seems to be a really light sleeper, and that is terrily frustrating for me and my sleep depreved self.

So anyway, back to Spring Break…..we have two full weeks off, and today is pyjama day.  We are all staying in our pyjamas all day today.  Thereare some nice things about Spring Break…I have the kids around all day and they can entertain ‘Siah and we don’t have to wake up early and get readyfor school, BUT  I have the kids around ALL day and they wake ‘Siah up when he’s sleeping and then they eat ALL day and whine about not knowing what to do and watch TV and play on the computer ALL day until I kick them outside which is ehn they start having glorious fun and really using their imaginations to play, until they come back inside and whine and want to eat and vegetate in front of an electronic box of some sort.  Oh it’s SO MUCH FUN! 

And, Jon is working from 7am until 5pm so that……..we can take the next two Wednesday’s off.

I gotta lot of planning to do before now and tomorrow.  I gotta figure out what we are going to to on Wednesday AND I gotta figure out a way to deal with the food issue.  These kids will eat me outta house and home if I don’t set down some guidlines.  I may go all Supernanny on them and give them a box of food that they get to snack from and when it’s gone…it’s gone….we’ll see.  I’ll figure something out.  i always do.

Baby just woke up from his nap and I gotta use the toilet and them go and get him before he wigs out.  Chow for now!

Wacky Hair Day

The kids are having wacky hair day at school and we did their hair kinda wacky….sort of.

Jeremy just looks normal, but really what can you do with a kid who has a mohawk.  I supposed I could have slicked it down and made him all “normal” looking, but that’s not very exciting and while the kids really wanted colored hair – Yah, it ain’t happening right now……so a mohawk for Jeremy it is.

No picture as I forgot, and really just go to my photos and he looks pretty much the same as any other day- just imagine him!

Xandra has short hair ad I really wasn’t sure what to do with her hair either, but she threw out the idea of a lot of little pony tails and so that is what we did.  It kinda looks like her hair is fountain-ing out of her head, but she was happy and so that’s all that matters…..right?

 Then there is Gelica.  She had no clue what she wanted, but was totally talking about Kool-aid colors and that was a mess that I just wasnt ready to handle right now.  She has long hair and so I threw out the idea of back combing it.  Obviously the kid has no clue what back combing is – she’s only 10 (almost 11) years old, but I sold her on it and so back comb it, we did.

Here we are in process………

We had talked about either making a bird’s nest or a butterfly nest because I have aton of those little butterfly clips, but as we got going, she kept saying that she looked like one of those troll dolls with the big hair….and it was actually true.  I had back combed it so big and used so much hairspray and she totally looked like one of those little troll dolls.  My only concern was that her hair would fall into her face and drive her nuts during the school day if we just left it, so once it was huge and puffy, I did end up using the little clips to kinda hold it up a it…..Here she is from the side/back-ish view…..

 And here was the final finished product from the front…..

Seriously, her hair is about a foot off her head and she looks so cute – wacky, but cute….now I only wish I had done something similar for Xani but then again she has such a sensitive scalp that she could have never taken the abuse back combing as well as Geli did.

an anniversary of sorts – guest post

today is Nathaniel’s third birthday.  Alexandra had to remind me at dinner time.  There is a lot going on: Patti is in Toronto at a conference, I am trying to run my business and take care of all the kid details at the same time…

This is exactly what I don’t want to happen, and yet I feel it is inevitable.  I had a son.  I held him.  I kissed him.  Right now as I type, I can vividly see him in the dimly lit hospital room.  I remember where I was sitting and how I held him.  I remember the feelings of confusion and not knowing what to do, and not knowing how long I should hold him, and how quickly I should let him go.  I wish I had held him longer!  What I don’t want to do is forget all this.

Now three quick years later, my 8 year old asked what we were doing for his birthday… (For the last two years, we have gotten helium balloons and written on them with permanent markers and said a few wishes and let them go.)  I want to be the father of 8… 4 living and 4 have moved on…

Life has a way of moving on and focusing on the present realities, or even on present opportunities, but makes light of past actualities.  Things have happened that have defined me, have become a part of me, have taught me all about compassion in a way I wish I were still ignorant it… but in the here and now, I (we) focus on what is in front of us, or what is currently required of us.

In the first year since Nathaniel, not a day went by that I did not think of him.  Now three years later on his birthday, I did not think of him once, until I was reminded.  I guess that is how life goes, but I don’t like it… HE IS MY SON!

—————————————-

Nathaniel,

I miss you.  I see three year olds, and I know you would have been taller.  Your brothers and sisters were all big for their age.  I miss knowing who you would have become.  I miss knowing how much like your mom you were and how much like me.  In so many ways I am glad I got to hold you; to kiss you.  I’ve fought in my mind to keep you present in my mind and in my heart, but I haven’t done as well as I would have liked.

You are my son!  Nothing can take that away!  No matter how long you lived, you are my son.  No matter how well behaved, you are my son.  No matter what you attained, no matter what mistakes, no matter how hard you tried or how little, you are my son.  There is nothing that you could do to become more of a son, and there is nothing you could have done to become less of a son.  And so you get what sons (and daughters) get… my love.  My sons and daughters get all the love I have, unconditionally!  I know that you can see me from where you are and I know that you know my thoughts.

I love you.  Happy birthday.
DAD

Does it get any better or easier than this?????

I know I’m not even 6 months into this new baby thing and the fact that the early years with the other 3 kids is just a blur should tell me something, but I have such high hopes for myself and what I can or will accomplish and then…………

……it’s d

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That was my post that I started on Thursday and then we had a power surge and the computer froze and I was certain I had lost the start of my entry and I was so discouraged about it all that I just walked away.  Does that say anything about my frame of mind these days.   I’m so frustrated that I’m not accomplishing anything….or I should rephrase that to say that I’m not accomplishing as much as I was (and am) capable of doing in my pre – 4 kid days.  Again, I wouldn’t give up ‘Siah for anything, but it continues to be an adjustment.  I do actually belive that you can be grateful for something and still whine or complain about how hard it is…….someone we know had a special needs child – it’s their only child and they love this child so much….dealing with him on a daily basis and I think it’s completely fair for the parents to say that they are tired or discouraged or really wish they didn’t have to deal with their situation….does that mean that they love their child any less….nope….I think that they have the right to say that something is difficult and not feel guilty for doing so…..

So, here I am…this is difficult….probably more so because I have “stuff to do”.   If all I was doing was just being a SAHM – cooking and cleaning and that kind of stuff, I might not feel like I was behind in my duties, but that not all I’m doing…I have two other part time jobs and there is “stuff” that I have to get done….BUT….

::singing at the top of my lungs::

……I’M LEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVING ON A JET PLANE….   ::end song::

I’m going to Toronto tomorrow.  We are leaving in the middle of the freakin’ night.  4:30am…YIKES!  So, I won’t be around.  I’m still trying to convince Jon to post in my absence….so stay tuned to see if and what “crap” he throws at you….

Well, I still have to pack and I have a headache……It’s unreal the amount of gear that is required to take the baby and to make our week long stay a happy one…..I really hope it’s a happy one…it will royally suck if it’s not happy……and not just for me, but for my girlfriend that I”m rooming with……

‘Siah  is an AWESOME baby, but we will be off schedule and not at home…..I do hope it’s all good…..of course I’ll keep ya updated when I come back and I’ll probably have loads of pics of Josiah’s first plane ride…..’cause I’m dorky like that….have a good one people.

Just a sec….

Roof is okay..I haven’t left you….even though it looks like it.

One of my most favorite-st-est people in the whole entire world arranged for Jon and I to go away for the weekend……wait for it…..wait for it……..

 WITH NO KIDS!

 

Okay, we still had ‘Siah…but really he’s still tiny and is the most difficult easiest one to take care of.  She farmed the other 3 out to family and friends, and we had an entire 4 days to only take care of ourselves……it was absolutely heavenly and I’ll be back in a bit….or maybe tomorrow…..to catch you up on it all.

Reflecting

Great Title, eh? 

Sounds like this should be a great inspiring post, full of all the wonders of 2007.  Maybe it might include some of the struggles and hardships that have been overcome or worked through…….NOPE!

I’m justnot feeling that deep this morning.

The kids are GONE! back in school, and my house is quiet, and except for the 4am fight that Jon and I had last night….all is well in my world.

I just realized that all I mention is when we fight….and well, it’s not as bad as it sounds. 

Please realize that we have a 5 month old who is not sleeping through the night, yet; so we are both over tired and on edge.  The fight last night was a stupid one.  Jon had got up to try to get the baby back to sleep (’cause if he smells me then he wants to nurse, and he really doesn’t need the middle of the night feeds anymore, so if he can learn to sleep through, then we’ll all be happier).  So, I was saying….Jon had gotten up at 3am to put the baby back to sleep, and by 4:15am – I couldn’t handle it any more. Jon was agitated, the baby was agitated, and I wasn’t sleeping anyway and I was agitated.  I just figured that an hour and 15 minutes was a good shot, and I’d nurse the baby and be done with it.  I know that’s just teaching him to wait it out, but with no one sleeping in our house, today and tonight should be fun times…wanna come over?

Anyway, Jon was annoyed and the Baby was crying and we were all tired, and some nasty things were said, and it was not a good time.  For some reason, after we had our little fight, the baby went to sleep and slept until almost 7am.

Middle of the night is not a good time to try and work anything out, so we both went to sleep, and now we still have to deal with the rubble of last night.  Not fun!

Moving on, ’cause that had nothing to do with what I originally planned to write out……ha ha HA HA HA!  That makes it sound like I had a plan when I sat down here in front of my computer.  There was no plan.  Which is why this ends up rambling……that’s something I want to stop doing.  I’m planning to have a plan…..see how tired I am….

Any way, I’ll just stop there and continue on down here.

We had a great Christmas holiday time, and you can check out the pics if you so desire.

Our Christmas Eve…….we found out that Taco Time is pretty simple and basic as ingredients if you are looking for a fast food.  Although the hard shells are corn, and some need to stay away from corn….but we were thrilled to find something that had no wheat, dairy or eggs in them….YAH!….oh, we skipped the cheese, and sour cream……that’s how they were “okay”.

I love this shot of me and ‘Siah……not cause it’s an okay shot of me, but mostly ’cause EVERY TIME he sees it, he stops whatever he is doing and smiles HUGE.

I also love this one of the 4 kids…….

…..to go to any of the “sets” just click on the pics, and it’ll take you there.

Then we had Christms morning with just the 6 of us, and it was so amazing. We usually have those mini cereal boxes, but we just bought 2 sugar cereals that we knew had no dairy in them…..but had WAY too much sugar in them.  The kids did pretty good considering they’ve been off sugar for a while now.

The presents part of Christmas was fun, as always.  My parents went overboard, and totally blessed the kids with stuff that they actually needed, and maybe a few things that they didn’t need.  I think the the highlight of Jeremy’s Christmas, though, was the stacking cups that he got.

He’s played those things non-stop since he got them…..everybody’s played those things non-stop since we got them.  I’ll post a video or two hopefully tomorrow.  It’s pretty funny to see grown men challenging each other over “those stupid cups”….even funnier to show them the links to the “pros” and to watch how fast they really can stack those things.  

Jon’s parents came over for the rest of the day.  We had so much fun playing games and eating dinner and opening presents and just spending some quiet time with each other.  It was a very nice Christmas with them.  But it was a little different ’cause ha;f of our fmaily is on the other side of the world…..missed you guys!

Then, on Boxing Day…..are you tired yet?  I know I was, and we’re not even done yet?…….my family got together at my sister’s house to celebrate Christmas.  We had another good time.  The kids all got the play together and the adults all got to play together, and we ate some good food, and well….it was just a lot of fun.  Too bad Xani couldn’t keep her eyes open…I guess the day just wiped her right out.

THEN………the next day, Jon and I headed back to Debbie and Denver’s house to meet up with these guys.  We had such a fun time.  We showed up around 6pm, and then we finally looked at the time, and it was midnight…..it’s true that time flies when you’re having fun.  I just wish they didn’t live so far away. 

We had the 28th off and on the 29th we headed to another friends house for a evening of fellowship, fun and FONDUE!  It was a blast, and there were so many of my old friends that I hadn’t seen in a while, BUT……I stupidly forgot my camera.  Oh well! 

The 30th was Jon’s birthday, and we had a big lunch time breakfast for him, and then we did NOTHING on the 31st, and then we had…….you’ll have to check back tomorrow to check out what we did on NEW YEARS DAY!  Mean, aren’t I?

Anyway,  I don’t really have any NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, but if I did….and I don’t……I’d be working towards being 175 pounds…..that’s my first goal…I seem to be sitting right now between 178 and 181lbs. and I’d like to drop a few more instead of just sitting here stagnant.

AND……… I want to start posting more…..like every other day, for sure, I hope, I’d like or whatever……..

How was your holiday’s?