What A Waste!

Today is the last day of spring break and it is RAINING. Again. It has rained every single day since Monday with the exception of part of Tuesday, when we did manage to get to the park. But still, it was windy and cold out. It is hard for 3 kids to keep busy inside the house for 5 days in a row; all day. I guess my saving grace is that I got three [evening] shifts this week instead of two! Now I am off to sneak in to my room to try and watch Grey's Anatomy that I had to tape from last night while I was at work. Hey, It's worth a try! You never know, right?

Way to Go Nick!

Yesterday was beautiful out. It was an early dismissal from school; at 1:30 due to Monday's report cards and Nick took his bike to school. First let me tell you we tried to take his training wheels off last week (at school where there is a big flat piece of cement) which resulted in a lot of screaming, the shrilling kind, and "I cant's" So back on went the training wheels so he could ride home. This is a repeat of what has been happening since last summer when we first tried to take off the training wheels. Then yesterday he just got on a started riding like he has been doing it his whole life. He was so proud of himself. He was giggling and saying "I'm doing it" the whole time. One crash in to a door, a wall and once in to the basketball pole and I thought he would be done, but he just got back up and ask for help to get started again. He did great! There will be no stopping him now, except at every road and driveway where he knows he has to walk his bike across......

Just another update....

One day left and then it will be March 1st. Can you ever remember having snow 3 days in a row at the end of February? (at the west coast anyways??) So strange. Then the sun will come out and it will be quite warm. Huh. I spent this past Sunday down in the USA with a friend shopping for the day. We had such a good time. I think I have found my new favorite store....ROSS; dress for less! I would say that it is equivalent to our Winners up her in the sense that it is sorted by clothing type and size, except nothing I tried on was over $10. I got 2 new dressier shirts and one was $6.95 and the other $8.99 USD. Got to love that! We also hit the Costco too! Just for fun. I like seeing the different selections and stuff to choose from. It would be safe to say that I will be going down again soon. Brian has been working at the Langley Packaging depot the past couple of weeks for Mike while he is spending some time at home with Deb and their beautiful new daughter Ava. So that I think is a nice change for Brian to be able to have a little variety from what he calls "being trapped in his Surrey store all day".

Ava at5 days old

We have 3 new little baby kittens that were born on Valentines day. They are all long hair black and white. Very adorable. Bessie, the mom was a stray, most likely abandoned, before being taken in by the shelter. She is a very sweet cat.

Tanya and Sam left today for Arizona to have a visit with my Mom and Dad. I'll admit, I'm a bit jealous...maybe one day I will go see them too. One more month and a bit and they will be back for the summer. I have started swimming about 3 nights/days a week for 1 hour each- Shhhh, don't tell my kids I go to the pool with out them (and its a good thing they can't read!) I spend the time doing laps and 5-10 minutes at the end relaxing in the hot tub. This is my idea of having some "me" time and getting exercise too! I feel like it has been a long winter [although I love the snow 80-) ] that has been spent with too much time in front of the T.V. with nothing really better to do, due to wet days and the sun going down much to early. I am about ready for summer now!

Welcome Baby Ava!

Debra and Mike welcomed their new baby girl Ava Marie in to the world on Saturday February 17th at 5:29 am. She weighed 6lbs, 12 oz. and was 20 1/2 in. long. Mom and Baby are doing very well and baby Ava is beautiful. Congratulations!

Feb. 12th, 2007: Happy Birthday Kayla!

Happy 3rd Birthday Kayla!

Extra, Extra

Okay so I got stuck on the photo part again ! Is it me? or is it this site? Anyone have any advise on posting pictures??

Here are some extra photos from the Monster Trucks!!

Nick and his Blue cotton candy. I think his entire body was blue by the time he was done!

I love this picture of Kayla! We actually had close seats (only 18 rows up from the floor) but I guess she felt she was missing something??

Whhewww!

Okay, where to start? It has been a while since I have actually posted something new. I have to say that I DID try to post a couple of times but kept getting frozen when I wanted to add in pictures..so frustrating. I have now switched over to the "new" blogger version so hopefully all will go smoothly in the future.

So what was it now that I wanted to post before?? Hmm...oh yes; Topic #1: Monster Trucks. On Saturday February 3rd we took the kids downtown to the Monster Jam. We didn't tell Nick where we were going, he just knew that we were going on the Sky Train (Yes!! this was the best news for him so far!! He has been begging for a train or bus ride- I guess he doesn't understand the blessing of owning your own car) and that we were going to need the ear plugs that we took a trip to Home Depot for earlier that day.

They loved the sky train. Nick had been on once before, but Kayla had never. They spent almost the entire way up on their knees looking out the window behind them. I thought for sure that Nick would hear something about the Monster Trucks from others on the train talking, that were also going to the same thing, but he didn't. I guess he was too excited about the ride. We arrived downtown a little early and got something to eat before walking over to B.C. Place. Nick had seen a little digital monster truck running on the big light board as we were climbing the stairs up to the stadium and he was like, " Mom, I just saw a monster truck on that board!" and I said, " Really? Hmm. that's odd" he still had no clue. Then we got inside....

It was so loud already and the trucks hadn't even come out yet! To make a long story shorter, they loved the show. There was little go cart races, motor-cross and of course, Monster Trucks! It was a great Family Adventure Night!

I have been tagged by ladybugmichelle!

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Missy
2. Mimi
3. Mommy

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. miss-kitty-kat
2. missymelville
3. missy

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. my feet
2. my eyes
3. my nose

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DONT LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. my weight
2. my hair
3. my upper arms

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. English
2. Scottish
3. Irish

I'm not sure that any of those are actually true.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. the idea of Aliens
2. locking my kids in the car (oh my. good one michelle. I didn't think I was until I read your answer)
3. spiders

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. coffee or tea in the morning
2. a shower
3. something sweet

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. socks
2. yoga pants
3. T-shirt

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:(at the moment)
1. Countdown kids
2. Crazy Frog
3. Mini Pop kids

Are there other bands out there??

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS:
1. So Happy Together
2. Cowboy Take me Away
3. Glory of Love

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. to be equal
2. to be really loved
3. to be spoiled just once in a while

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):
1. I am a bit obsessive
2. I have walked across a long train tressel
3. I was in a movie once

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. someone who doesn't try too hard
2. a good conversation
3. smells good

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. the idea of scrapbooking
2. card making
3. baking

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. have a nap
2. go to the spa
3. go on a date night with Brian

THREE CAREERS YOUARE CONSIDERING/YOU HAVE CONSIDERED:
1. Vet
2. Nurse
3. Teacher

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. Vegas
2. DisneyWorld-Florida
3. Australia

THREE KIDS NAMES YOU LIKE:
1. Layton
2. Olivia
3. Emma

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. Travel
2. see my family happy
3. try temporarily living in a different country

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. hate shopping
2. prefer sweatpants and running shoes?
3. like fishing

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1. Love to get dressed up on occasion
2. love the spa
3. can/will cry at almost anything

THREE CELEB CRUSHES:
1, 2, and 3 is that I always crush over whoever has the leading 'too good-looking', 'too-perfect', 'never going to get a man like that in real life' role of the latest movie I watch. Until I see the next movie and then it changes....

Bye-Bye "Soo-Soo"

Good-bye, adios, sianora, see you later! How ever you want to say it, the result is still the same; It's GONE! This weekend we lost Kayla's soother, or "soo-soo" is what she called it. And no, we didn't lose it on purpose, neither are we tricking her, it (or they) went missing for real. She asked for it the first day and we looked everywhere for it with no luck, couldn't find any of the spare ones, and she hasn't brought it up since. It's amazing. So many times we have tried to get her to give it up. We even tried the "you can only have it in bed" rule, which only lasted a couple of weeks. And now they all go missing at once and I think she actually understands and seems to be okay with it. It's only been 3 days, but that is the most we have ever went without it. I even kept a ziplock bag with extras in her drawer just in case-they have all disappeared one by one too. Maybe the fabulous soo-soo fairy came down when we were all sleeping and collected them all (either that, or the dog has taken them all outside to bury). Well, lets hope they really are gone for good because if she finds one around the house that will be it!! I will keep you all posted.

Just Some Pictures

Having fun in Yah-Yah's car

Ahhhh....

Jetta always has to be ON them; napping on the couch

Nick made this really awesome centerpiece at school

decorating the tree at G&G's house

Surprise!

Peek-a-boo!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wishing you all the very best for 2007 and hope you all had a fabulous Holidays. I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went. Our Christmas was really nice. We Celebrated with Brian's family on the 24th as usual complete with turkey dinner and Santa. The kids got a ton of great stuff and Brian and I didn't do to bad either! Christmas morning was quiet; Just the 4 of us at home in the morning, a visit to my sisters in the early afternoon and then a really awesome dinner at my Uncles house...We really couldn't ask for anything more. The only thing missing was my Mom and Dad. We missed them and were thinking of them! New Years Eve was also very quiet for us. We spent the night at home with a small buffet of appetizers and snacks in front of the T.V. and struggled to make it to midnight (we don't seem to have a problem staying up until 11:30 or 12:oo on a week night!) New Years day was spent trying to clear a path through the house and putting all the new stuff away (easily the worst part of Christmas) then off to Brians Mom and Dad's house for dinner and Birthday Cake- Yes, Brian's Dad was a New Years Baby in 1949! Now everything is pretty much back to normal; well as normal as this house has ever seen. Nicholas is missing school and his friends and I am trying to find a balance of keeping the 3 kids entertained through the day and trying to get a few things accomplished (like laundry) with out being boring. Only 6 more sleeps and school will be back in session. Hmm...what else is new?? Brian and I purchased a new coffee table, TV stand and kitchen table and Chairs (8)- Merry Christmas to us!! hee hee. I am very excited about this as we have never had new, always hand-me-downs or borrowed pieces. I heard some great news today; My cousin Michelle got engaged to her now fiance Roger on Christmas Eve!! Congratulations to you guys..we send our hugs and kisses. Maybe my new years resolution can be to keep everyone updated on more often on this blog site. Well, until then....take care everyone.

SnowDay!

It snowed! I LOVE the snow! Here is Nick and Kayla out for a stroll.

But that wont stop Kayla from having fun at the park; I think it adds to it!

The Storm

I thought I would share with you all what we were left with after the big storm. We were fortunate enough to not lose any power at all, as we never do. I think that our lines are underground as our back yard is on a main street. But I am pretty sure that the rest of our neighbourhood was out for at least 24 hours. I even know of a few people who's power didn't come back on until Saturday morning! They were all busy cleaning out their fridge and freezers and shopping to restock them...While we didn't lose power, we did lose a tree and our fence. Now our fence was in need of replacing anyways but at least it was standing up in panels.

We just spent a week of the summer trimming a bunch of branches off our two large trees in the back because Brian was worried that in a big storm they would come down and a couple of them could have come through the kitchen or bedroom windows. He wanted to take them down then but I kind of talked him out of it. I guess he got his wish afterall!

He is lucky it didn't take down our fence on the other side!!

....and this is what we are left with- a piece of plywood and a whole lot of chicken wire; so we can still let Jetta outside to pee. The broken fence panel is also gone now too and the right side of the trunk is cut down to the ground like the left side. It's all just chicken wire now too.

Well now we are adding a new fence on this side to our list of home renovations. I can't complain too much I guess as we have been talking about replacing that side for a couple of years now at least. Mother nature has ended our procrastinating!

Halloween Pictures; Finally!

Yup, you guessed it...this is Nick!

and Kayla too!

My Cute and Scary Kiddies

Happy Halloween everyone! We had a fun day yesterday. Nick got to dress up and party at school and it was very cute seeing all his other classmates dressed up too! He came home from school with a bag full of candy and had half of it eaten before dinner. Every year we get together with Brian's family and do dinner and Halloween and Audrey's birthday. This year we went to Mike and Deb's house. It was a bit sad to have our house closed up for other trick or treaters, but next year we will decorate extra to make up for it. Nicholas dressed up as an Alien (I think he picked this just to torture me-I HATE aliens) but what a good mom I am to still let him be what he wants..and Kayla was a fuzzy purple Unicorn. She is really into anything to do with horses. She LOVES horsies.

Okay, I have tried twice to add the photos but it wont let me.....will try again soon.

Everything is the same around here pretty much. Yes, we are still renovating. The floor has yet to be laid upstairs because we are thinking of other things that we want done before that in order to not damage it once it's down. Work for me is VERY busy. We are in full Christmas mode and Christmas in a toy store is not a pretty site. I am working my limit of 3 nights per week until the holiday hours come in to effect and then I will probably work 4-5 nights. Brian is still working; He and Mike have set a price for their business' so now we wait. Still not so sure what we will do when he sells but I am sure we will work it out. We are good at just "flying by the seat of our pants".

Some sad news (for my family anyways) is that one of our little foster kittens got really sick and died this morning. She was the little runt, and my favorite. I had to force feed her the wet cat food (from a baby bottle) a couple of times because she looked like she was losing weight, but then she seemed to be getting better. The next day we found her in her basket almost gone. We rushed her up to the vet where she was treated. She seemed to be doing better the day after that and her prognosis was hopeful. But this morning she passed away. So sad. It was hardest for me when I told Nick and he cried and cried. I am not sure what was wrong with her, but they think maybe a defective liver.

Anyways, I don't think that I really have anything else to report at this time. I will try and blog a little more often to keep everyone up to date. Hope everyone is doing well...talk to you all soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day Everyone!! Hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend filled with Family, Food, Pie, and more food! I know we did. Well, it feels like I haven't posted anything in soo sooo long, which is actually just about accurate. The weeks go by so fast now and I know a lot happens, but when I think about blogging it, it all seems insignificant. I have to learn to just ramble on, without thinking to much of how important it may seem.... It is heading close to mid-October and I am still loving to sit out on the back deck in the sunshine-and it's still HOT! How can this be? It was not this warm out this time last year, was it? Or do we always say that because we just simply forget? Well, whatever the reason...WHO CARES! It's nice out. Nick is in to his second month of Kindergarten and LOVING it. He has already had a playdate afterschool at his friend Josh's house and has received his first Birthday invitation to a party this Saturday at Chuck E. Cheese's for Carter. His very first school photos came back SO cute (one of the poses anyways) so I will be sending them out as soon as they come back and I have some of Kayla to give too. Most likely closer to Christmas. I don't have to many new photos to post because for some reason something has happened to my camera. I have to send it in to be fixed. But I will post some of the most recent ones. We still have the 6 baby kitties. They are getting big quickly. All of them have their eyes open and they are starting to walk, or shall I say, wiggle about the room. They are about 4 weeks old now and soon it will be time to give up the mom so that the kittens "wean" off of her. Jetta is 3 months old now.....when will the biting stop?? I can't wait for all her teeth to fall out. You could say that right now we have a love-hate relationship. Ha ha. Not too much else is new here...Brian is as always busy everyday with house reno's. The downstairs is pretty much complete now and the upstairs has been started. They backyard is semi-started, but probably wont do to much more to it until Spring now. Work for me is very busy. I am sure we will continue to be swamped from now until Christmas. The good thing is that the seasonal hiring has started for the x-mas rush so we have a lot more staff working each night. Yikes...Christmas....I better start thinking about it.

Jetta sitting in kayla's dora chair. It won't be long before she is too big to fit!

New babies have arrived!

We have 6 new (seven, counting the mom) additions to our house as of Saturday afternoon. Petunia, our newest foster kitty, had her adorable litter of kittens! 3 of them are solid Black, just like mommy cat, and the other 3 are solid grey...so far. They are just so cute and Nick and Kayla just love them to death.

Let's see...all that I have been talking about lately is animals, animals, animals. Oh yeah, and Nick. Not too much is new here other than what I have been blogging about. We are falling nicely in to the routine of taking Nick to school and picking him up. I am still working 2-3 nights a week. Oh, some BIG news (in effect to our family anyways) ...Mike and Brian have decided to sell their stores. Not exactly sure what either of them will do instead, but I am sure they will come up with something; whether it be together or individually. Only time will tell. Jetta learned how to go down the inside stairs today... she had the "going up" aced but we were still carrying her down. So this is great other than it only took her 5 seconds to find the cat food down in the basement. And going down the back outside steps will be a whole different lesson for her I am sure- you can see through them to the ground...SCARY! Our new laminate floor is complete in the entrance way- AND LOOKS SO GOOD- and Brian is about 1/3 the way done the basement. Then hopefully he will start on the upstairs. Hmm, what else? Congratulations to my cousin Carolyn and her husband Tracey (and Cadrin and Carrena too) on their New Baby Boy! I can't wait to meet him sometime soon! That's one baby checked off my list of 5 that I am waiting to hear about over the next few months or so. Well I guess that's it for now. Take Care until next time. Bye for now.

First Day of School!

We have now entered into a whole new world.....school! Yesterday was Nicks first day of Kindergarten! He went for 15 minutes last week for a one-on-one with his teacher; Mrs. Burgess. She showed him around the class and did a little assessment to see how much he knows. Then he had his full day (2 and 1/2 hours for him) yesterday.....no school today....and then starts regular afternoons tomorrow. I wasn't as sad as I thought I would be. Maybe because we were in such a rush to get him there because I decided to let the girls walk - BIG mistake. I was so wound up by the time we got there. The door was already open so in Nick went. He never looked back and I didn't see him again until 2:30 when I picked him up! Congratulations Nick! This is going to be so exciting for you.

Welcome the new Zoo member.....

...her name is Jetta (yes, like the car) and actually only so far. We just got her on Saturday afternoon and are still trying names out for the weekend. This is what we are leaning to so far....we may just end up changing the spelling. She is an 8 week-old Border Collie X Lab. Last night went pretty well. After getting her we went out to Brian's Mom and Dad's house for what turned in to the whole evening, so that wore Jetta pretty much right out. She slept until about 1:30am in her crate. I woke up because our bird was having a flying fit in her cage (which I am sure that you all have no idea about how much noise this can make) and Jetta was whinning. I am not sure what happened first; if the puppy woke the bird and scared her, or something spooked the bird (which could be something as little as a fly buzzing around) and scared the puppy. Anyways, outside we went for a pee (Jetta; not me) and then back to bed. I only had to get up two more times after that until 8:30 when the kids got up and remembered we had gotten a puppy! The rest is history, as they say. But it is still only Sunday of the long weekend so wish us luck!

Kody just thinks she's a pest...

...who steals his toys...

Remember me?

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I last posted so bare with me....this may be long and gruelling. Here is the quick version...Brian and I are back from our 11 day drive across Canada (for a few weeks now). We had a good time. It was long, but not bad and boring long. It was nice to spend so much time together alone...day and night! We only got into one little (okay, maybe a little bigger than little) argument along the way. We weren't sure which way to go coming out of Regina, SK so Brian was "talking loudly" to me to get the map out and I couldn't get it quick enough and we ended up going the wrong way, which of course was all my fault. You know, it's not easy to turn around a 26' truck pulling a 10' trailer but somehow we managed to pull a u-turn in a quite intersection and that gave us something to giggle about! It was kind of cool to see what each province has to offer. It took us a long time to get out of BC because of the mountains. The truck could only go up them at a speed of about 30km-which meant putting on the 4way flashers each time and being passed by the semi trucks; a little frustrating to say the least. Alberta was fast. We stopped in Medicine Hat to have a quick visit with an old friend and then we were in to Saskatchewan that evening. The prairies were a sight-but a sight that got boring after a day or so of looking at the same thing; wheat, wheat and more wheat! Ontario was pretty. It has a LOT of water. All kinds of little lakes and water streams that are almost connected but actually different. It took us 2 days to get through Ontario. Not too bad. Quebec was a bit of a challenge seems how neither Brian or I speak any french-haha. We tried to get through that as quickly as possible. We ran in to a bit of truck trouble when the engine kind of just died coming in to New Brunswick...we managed to get it to the Super 8 around midnight where we stopped for the night. U-Haul hooked us up with a mechanic in town the next day to look at the truck. It ended up being the fuel pump that went. He said we were very lucky he was able to find the part at a neighboring GM dealership as usually U-Haul has to send the part in from their warehouse. So it was a long day hanging around the shop waiting for the truck. We were finally able to go on our way at about 4:30 that day. We drove until dark then opted to stop for the night. That put us a day behind. We only managed to travel about 2-3 hours that day, as opposed to our usual 12-14 hour days. We finally made it in to Nova Scotia on the Saturday where Brian was meeting his "friend" Leroy, whom he met when Leroy bought some truck stuff off Brian on Ebay. We were delivering a truck cab (which Brian managed to squeeze into the back of the U-Haul). Then Sunday we hit our destination of Somerset where the truck and contents were to be delivered. It only took about 2 hours to unload the truck as we had good help on the receiving end. Then we were off to Halifax to spend our last couple of days. Dropping off the U-Haul was a nightmare- the drop off location was a little service/gas station way, way out of Halifax, in the middle of nowhere. It took us over an hour to find-after getting lost a lot, having to buy a map of Halifax, and almost getting the truck stuck in downtown Halifax (which is very similar to downtown Vancouver). Then the kid working at the station had know idea about anything! Literally! I asked him how we could get back now that we had dropped off the truck- he said, "get back where?" I said, "anywhere" he said, "I don't know" I said, "is there any taxi's?" He said, "I don't know" I said, "Do you have a phone book?" He said (you guessed it) "I dont know" Now I am getting really short, let's say, with him...I managed to get a phone number for a taxi company and Brian and I sat on our luggage waiting to get out of there; a sight to be seen I'm sure! So a $30 taxi ride got us back to downtown Halifax where we managed to get a room at the Holiday Inn. Finally we could relax and play tourists until it was time to go home. We were able to stay an extra day and come home on Monday night, so all worked out okay. I would have liked to see a bit more of the country but in order to do that we would have needed almost another week or two. I surprisingly didn't take a whole lot of pictures as it was too hard to stop everywhere in the truck and too hard to take pictures from the truck window. We all in all had a really good time, but it was nice to get back home-as always.

Our ride for 11 days straight! You can't really see it that well, but that's a car and trailer we were towing a well!

Welcome to Melville, SK (haha)

We were glad to see this!