Monday, March 28, 2011

The Spider Sanctuary

I'm still packing.  Yay.  I have a lot done, but there is still a lot to do.  The basement, office, playroom (which contains the toys that the girls play with the LEAST...??), most of the living room, most of the laundry room, and part of the kitchen are done.  The playhouse in the back yard, which had become a mini spider sanctuary, is taken apart and cleaned out- a big shout out to D who tackled that one as I ran screaming in the other direction.  We're going to put it in the new basement playroom where it can't be infiltrated by creepy crawlies and the kids can use it without having nightmares.  The swing set is partially taken apart for transporting, C is acting like we took her best friend away, although she's only been on the swing set once since October, and it will be back up in four days.  Whatever.

Still to do: bedrooms, bathrooms, linen closet, finish the kitchen, finish the laundry room, finish the living room.

One more note about the move- I am officially obsessed with totes- not necessarily Rubbermaid, I don't discriminate.  I love how neat they look when stacked up, I love how I can label them and know exactly what's in them, I love that I can take what I need and put the lid back on.... ohhhh, I could go on.  And if you have extras, send them my way.  K thanks.

Last but not least, we subscribed to Food Network Magazine and got our first one this week.  There was a very small blurb in the "10 Things You Need To Know This Month" section that I found very interesting.  It was #8 on the list, entitled "A former TV chef cooked up a juicy book".  I'm just going to copy this word for word, then we'll discuss:

"After Amy Finley won season three of The Next Food Network Star in 2007, she hosted six episodes of her own show, The Gourmet Next Door, then seemingly disappeared.  Turns out, her husband wasn't thrilled about her new career, so she agreed to end it.  To patch up her rocky marriage, Amy took the drastic step of moving her family (the couple has two small children) to France, a journey she details in her new book, How to Eat a Small Country ($24; Clarkson Potter).  "I hated the thought of giving it all up," she says.  "Everyone was putting all this effort into producing this beautiful show.  It was hard to put it down."  Although she has no regrets, she does remind her husband of the ordeal when she needs to: "Oh yeah," she says.  "I throw it in his face all the time."

That was it.  The whole article.  I have one word: WHAT?!  So let me get this straight, This woman competed against thousands of people to become Next Food Network Star, an her husband decides he's not "thrilled" about it?!  So?!  Clearly she loves to cook, and she followed her dream and got herself a TV show, and she has to give it all up and move to France to save her marriage?  What a jerk.  I love her last quote!  Nope, she's not bitter at all!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cork and Canvas

I've been really bad about blogging lately, so sorry!  It's been pretty busy as we get ready to move in t-minus eleven days... sooooo excited!  I've been packing, but the process is extremely slow.  The theme of this move is "Simplify", so with that in mind I've been going through everything with the "do we REALLY need this" eye.  And the answer is usually no, which is a good thing, but it's so much more time consuming.  Yesterday I took everything down off of the walls (except in the girls rooms), and that really makes me feel like this packing thing is coming together.  I'm trying to keep the girls rooms as normal as can be until the day of the move.  Pictures are on the walls and clothes in the closets.  I want it to be as easy on them as possible.

Last Tuesday was awesome.  My mom and I went to something called a "Cork and Canvas".  Basically it's a painting class where you drink wine, what could be better than that?!  As many of you know, I love to paint, but I've neglected it over the years for many different reasons... two of those reasons being C and G.  It's hard to paint with two little girls running around sticking their fingers into your perfectly mixed aubergine!  Now that they are getting older and their preferences and abilities are starting to come out more, I'm learning that C is really interested in art, while G is more interested in clothing design... mostly dresses.  C will sit and paint with me for hours, it's really fun.  So the cork and canvas was at a little art gallery and was put on by a local artist who supplies the canvas, paint and brushes while we supply the wine.  Anyone can sign up for it, but mom and I were the only ones who happened to sign up for that day, so it was just the three of us.  We painted and drank wine for three hours and left with new art to hang in our homes.  It was great, and it really got me thinking about painting more.  D got me an easel a couple of years ago and I've never had it out.  It will be out for regular use in the new house.

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, and this was the first year that C was really into it, so everything revolved around green.  The day started with green shamrock pancakes that were so cute!  Sorry, I haven't had time to upload pictures.  Just trust me, they were cute.  The big struggle of the day was picking out our outfits.  G didn't care as long as it was a dress, so that was easy.  She wore a little green number that used to be C's.  But C wanted to wear ALL green.  And none of the greens matched.  A pea green shirt with kelly green pants and green and red striped socks... ouch.  I ended up getting her into a pale green dress with kelly green leggins, which was actually pretty cute.  Lunch was pb&j and green milk... which kind of made me gag but the girls thought it was awesome.  Dinner at home with our great friends R and J was homemade pesto (green) with shrimp and penne with garlic bread.  It was yummy and the green beer was flowing!

Saturday and Sunday was painting day.  I'll post more about that later, but the girls new bunk beds (or block beds as C calls them) got a fresh coat of paint this weekend.  We also picked the paint color for their bedroom.  I can't wait for it to all come together, it's going to be adorable! 

This morning something really funny happened.  G pee'd in her bed.  That wasn't the funny thing though, the funny thing was WHY she pee'd; it was raining.  This is a theme that we've discovered.  When it rains at night, G pee's the bed.  We didn't catch on at first, but one night about a month ago when we were putting her to bed she said "Oh no, it's raining! I'm going to pee in my bed!"  And she did.  Last night it rained and she came stumbling into our bedroom this morning crying because it had rained and, again, she pee'd.  Poor kid.  I need to come up with a solution to this problem... any ideas?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

My Baby

This is the post with the news in it, which leads to the reason that G got her big girl bed.  No, we aren't having another baby,we're moving!  We've decided that we're city people, and we need to move- goodbye suburbs!  One little problem with moving into the city is that you don't get as much house for your buck, so we'll be downsizing a little... okay, a lot.  The girls will be sharing a room with bunk beds, and we're going from a pretty roomy two story to a ranch.  But it has tons of character and is within walking distance of the library, two parks, shops, restaurants, C's school, and a Dairy Queen (most important).  We're really excited!

So, G had to get a big girl bed right away because we're moving in about three weeks and didn't want to shock her by taking her crib away, making her sleep in a big bed, and sharing a room with her sister all in the same day.  She was on board with getting a big bed so it made our decision pretty easy, big bed ASAP.  Sunday I went out and found a great deal on a really nice mattress (don't need a box spring because it's a bunk bed), and Monday was the big day.  I took a few shots of her last moments with her crib...



Snuggling with puppy



Laughing with C


Goodbye crib!


This was really emotional for me.  There is some finality in taking down the crib. With C, I was pregnant with G so I knew it had to go, but there isn't anyone else now. 

Here is her big girl room (for three more weeks)...


The bed is really low to the ground because it doesn't have a box spring- just one of those weird bunk-bed-under-the-bed-boards, and this isn't permanent bedding, but it'll do for now.  She did really well last night, she went right to bed and did her usual talking and singing herself to sleep, and she slept all night and even slept in a little this morning. 

She's not a baby anymore, but she's still my baby.

Happy Birthday 5 year old!

I didn't post on C's birthday (Thursday) because we were really busy doing fun birthday stuff, but I did want to show you all how much fun we had as our big girl turned five!  This year was the first time she had school on her birthday, which was really sad for me because I would have liked to spend the whole day with her, but I guess it's something we have to get used to with a March birthday.  D took the day off of work and we all went to breakfast and took C to school together.  She passed out treat bags at school and after school we went to Tim Hortons (or Tim Portons as G calls it) for a birthday donut.  Grandma and Grandpa, L, M and A came over for pizza and cake and ice cream.  It was a great day!


She's really into dinosaurs


She let G help blow out the candles


Saturday was her BIG birthday party... and I mean big.  We always have a very low key at home party with a couple of friends and some cupcakes.  Not this year.  Five is a pretty big birthday, so we let her have a big party.  She invited her entire class (and one friend that isn't in her class)  to The Jungle Gym for two hours of jumping, swinging, climbing fun.  And they ALL came.... well, except for one little boy who was out of town.  It was insane-- 25 four and five year old's!  The kids had a great time, but D put it best when he said "We'll do that again at 16 and 21, that's it." 

Expert climber in action


Focused


Look how long this trampoline is!  It was AWESOME!





Blowing out her candles

Her theme was Dinosaurs and she had the coolest cake.  I didn't get a picture of it, I was too busy making sure little boys and girls made it to the bathroom on time, but you can kind of see it in the picture above.  It was a green brontosaurus made of cupcakes.  Adorable!  C had a blast and is already thinking about next years party... we've created a monster!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

A Quickie

Sooo, I took a break from blogging because it's been a crazy week.  Thursday was C's 5th birthday (sniff, sniff!) which was great!  I'll have pics to share soon.  Today is her dinosaur themed Jungle Gym party... in two hours.  I have yet to shower, the kids aren't dressed, D is running to Taco Bell for lunch (parenting fail), and I'm on the computer blogging.  So yeah, pretty much a disaster.

I didn't want to leave the blog hanging though, so I stopped in for a quick note.  More later, I promise!  Lots of news to share!