still under construction

Day 16 of our renovations and I love my house...i love my house...i love my house...notice the sarcasm dripping between the dots? Why oh why did we tackle such a project. We have a very old house the previous owner put on a new basement and NOTHING is square. not even my windows! Know how i can tell? The dust lays all to one side! Well perhaps the wind has a play in that. Even the contractor we hired to help us with the finicky drywall work says we should be in the guiness book of world records for the most amount of putty used in the smallest square footage!

I love my house...i love my house....you get the idea. During the renos Tim and i escaped to Lethbridge to visit with family for 4 days and it was nice to get out of the drywall dust! While there my very brave sister in law offered to help me paint! Crazy girl, she must have had a few slokies or something! Pardon my butchered attempt at writing a dutch word for "drinks."

So this honorable woman came to our humble abode and chuckled at my disaray! Then off to work.....and work she can! She is a slave driver. My coffee time got cut in half! Half i say! But we did get much done! Thankyou Bernita! i am indebted to your patience and willingness to help out! Until i blog again dear readers, cough couch, excuse me i tried to dust off my desk while typing.

renovations

It all started out with a birthday wish, i asked Tim for a new fancy shmancy frying pan for my birthday from costco. Well, it turns out i was spoiled with a gift certificate to a flooring store instead. So i picked out new lino to rid myself of the sad-pulled apart hard to clean laminate flooring i had before. Well after the lino quote tim asked if we should go for a fireplace quote seeing the floor was out anyway why not keep renoing? right? WRONG! now i have a wall coming out, the part above the kitchen cuboards is out, the trim is all going, the tile in the bathroom is being stripped out and new paint goes on next week. I am the most spoiled girl on this side of Ponoka, maybe all the east side of hwy 2 even! Anyway here are a few pics for you to enjoy! Maybe next year if i ask for the frying pan again i'll get a new lawnmower.....hey a girl can dream right?

Everything has it's time" Eccl. 3:1-8

Hello again fellow readers! I was in a venting mood a few days ago and it was good i did not blog then. I was raised if you cannot say something nice do not say it at all. So can I type it then? I went shopping for groceries with my two oldest boys. It went very well until we got to the till. There in the magazines rack was some very provocative images of a known hollywood lady with barely a bikini on. I was instantly mad. Is that where righteous anger may kick in? This woman was at my boys' eye sight and if she hiccupped while the photographer took her photo I am sure her kazoonas would have fallen out. Can we spell M-O-D-E-S-T-Y? Oh the scripture references i could pull out right now.....but also scripture on how a man can lust when this pornography is soo easily accesible. In a grocery store of all things and at the perfect height of my 6 year old. I can give a perfect example. In line ahead of us a man oh say in his 30's had bought some apples and milk. He could not take his eyes off of the picture...in fact he dropped his apples on the floor TWICE trying to find the grocery belt without taking his eyes off the well endowed woman. I could have cried right there. We see again how we live in a sinful world. Do we have to keep our kids at home even from the supposedly family friendly grocery store? I decided right then and there to grab the magazine and turn it around. Hmm much better a nice ad for dove soap...works for me....mental note....do i need soap? The man looked right at me a little disgruntled. I nervously replied " I do not need my boys looking at half naked women" the only naked women i pray they will look at is their own wife it what i added in my mind. When Nathan asked why I was turning around 2 more magazines I replied, "Son, there are things on them nobody should see. It does not glorify God". He accepted that answer and we discussed the magazines and their contents in the vehicle more openly later. Nathan was dissapointed that a store would sell that stuff and i had to sorrowfully explain, money and advertising has more say than morals. I love to talk with my boys about anything and what a great opportunity is was to speak openly about this topic with them on that time. So if you see a mgazine rack looking a little disheveled...i may have been there with or without my kids. Have a great weekend and an enjoyable Sunday. Thankyou for reading my rant.

A New Room for Rachel

Ok people this is a super big deal. To me at least. I love to paint. Not on an easel or on artsy crafty stuff no i like to paint walls. If i walk in my minds throught all the rooms in our home the only places i have not painted are the garage and one playroom. Hmmmm....anyhow all these other wonderful rooms have been painted once and some twice and never was i allowed to paint any of them a girly color. Probably because i was soo out numbered.Well now that i have a girl i have merrily walked over to the brighter colors in home hardware and had some fun. Brown and purple it was! Did i ever have fun! The only hurdle i have to overcome is to get a matress for her crib and sniff, sniff bring her downstairs. Hey this is a big step for me. Pictures by request of my sister! Have a wonderful family day weekend!

In December we decided to venture down south to celebrate Christmas. No not that far south....do you see palm trees and pina coladas? Anyhow, Tim and I decided to hotel it seeing we have 4 kids now and invading someones home with them sounds much too stressfull. Just to make it extra special we went to a hotel with a pool! What a highlight! As you can see the boys had no fear with their lifejackets on. Backwards or forwards on their bellies they slid down the slide. We were so fortunate not to have to endure long lineups for the slide.....in fact we were the only family there that morning. We made Rachel our certified life guard. She sat under the fake tree and really did a lousy job watching us, she liked the towering tree abover her instead. So after a good swim Rachel was done! Nap time. Now this cheap and smart momma utilized her packing space well. You see Rachel slept in a tote. I packed her clothes in the tote on the way and back home. At the hotel her clothes were in a drawer. She also bathed in the tote and at night slept in it. We still chuckle at the picture! Between visiting lots of family and eating far too much food we had a great 4 day long weekend. The boys loved visiting with their cousins and sledding and skating with them. We live too far away from all the family. I think we should start a colony. Any willing participants?

Of Birth Certificates, pink eye and soothers

Caught your attention didn't I? Well it has been an interesting week here in the hen house. Last Sunday our dear Kevin developed pink eye, as i rub my eye again, come on i am sure you did too! It is an irritating little feller that gobs up little childrens eyes and takes a good dose of eye drops to clear. Well clear they did and then i was extra cautious to make sure Rachel didnt get it, or the other boys for that matter. This momma was on high eye alert. I even checked the dog at times. But that also passed, we survived and we needed a birth certificte for Rachel. You know to prove she was born. Well..... to prove to the world she was born. I know she was born....i am sooo glad she was born....she had to be born becaue she was late....or she would have exploded out of me. Ok bad picture. SO this mommy, with a toque on (i have to mention this now beause it is necessary to make it funnier later) headed to the registry office with postpinkeye Kevin in toe and of course the victim Rachel. As i got in the door, she started to whimper, i think it's cause she still feels the need to remind me she hates her toque. So i took it off and waited my turn with 3 others in line. She got more mad, so maybe mommy had to take her toque off. i did that seeing it was warm in the office and imagine what toque hair with a slight drizzle of static would look like on me who had not even brushed my hair that morning!! Wow, i type alot, anyhow. She continued to bellow. Louder and louder, by now others were watching. I pulled out my paperwork acting like i was not leaving for i had to be here too! A lady appraoched me and asked if she could help, i answered no thanks i think i am ok. Kevin was sweetly smiling at her from under his toque and revealed his post-slightlypink eye and the lady quickly backed up. Two people left and my turn crept closer. Rachel started her shrill. The lady cautiously approached me again and asked if she could feed Rachel for me. I replied no thanks she is nursed. Kevin decided to help me out by sticking the soother hard into Rachels mouth. He is quite persistant in the matter. He will not allow her to spit it out! Then came my turn, poor woman behind counter. She looked up from her computer to find a scary hairy mommy, a postpartum pinkeyed boy and a screaming baby. The questions she nailed me with..... i was so unprepared. Where was she born? Umm the hospital. Which one? I turned to the helpful lady behind me and asked what is the name of the Ponoka hospital? She replied "which one the mental or general", question answered. I guess you can have babies in the brain injury hospital as well. Unless Tim turned the wrong way ou of the driveway... i remember giving birth in the the general hospital. Tho i was really drugged with my epidural......no it was the Ponoka General. so the paperwork continued, Kevin persisted with the soother ritual and i swept hair out of my face again! The registry lady was content with with my info and i attempted to pay her, but my purse was gone. I turned around and found Kevin had attempted to help me pay by emptying the contents on the floor. Imagine, nursing pads, other pads;) mentos, reciepts coins OH another soother and stuff strewn about. Rachel persisted to remind me she was still hungry. Oh i love mother hood. I found the money, and knew i had to get out fast or i would end up in the brain injury unit today yet! We survived, picked up our mess and toques and left to nurse Rachel and our pathetic attitude in the vehicle.

Sleeping on the job

I lack much motivation these last few days. Perhaps it is the weather, or lack of sleep,or the depressing sight of endless laundry and dust on the furniture or even on my washer and dryer as you can see in the picture. It can be frustrating to say "aahhh, all done and all caught up" one day and then turn around to find the boys have happily cleaned their rooms and found another load of laundry for me! Or dusting...really....it is sooo overrated! I live in Alberta with dusty roads and on the farm t'boot so if you feel so inclined to write your name in my furniture why not ask for a doekie to start dusting for me? I also detest ironing. Pointless, the roosters in this house wear it and throw it on the ground anyway. I must confess if i do find a really wrinkly shirt in the dryer by mistake, i will re-wash it. Yupp.... you read it hear folks i wash sunday shirt sometimes 2 or 3 times a week. Just till i remeber to dry it for 10-20 minutes then hang it so not to have to iron it. I have started to teach my daughter the basics of laundry. How to sort it, what soap for what load and how to remove her poopy stains. Also to make sure she is not too overwhelmed by this tacky task i assure her any money or treasures she finds in jean pockets is hers to keep. My greatest treasure i found was a $20 bill in Tim's jeans. Poor sucker! Occasional hockey cards, quarters and candies also appear but the paper money is always welcome and never returned.

Maybe that's a note you want to make as a reader if you ever visit our home!

So as the bible reads we ahem, older women in Titus 2:3-5 need to be examples to the younger ones. I've decided to teach Rachel good things, like being a good homemaker, but by looking a the above picture this was her reaction to it. Hmmm, maybe vacuum training will go better.

On a side note, could whomever reads this blog just make a little comment like "what your least favorite job around the house is" this way i know how many people really follow this blog so far? Thanks, have a great weekend.