Sunday.

Today is the Santa's Anonymous Toy Run, and there are bikers tearing up the avenue here since 6 this morning! Assholes, quit complaining about the new bike noise bylaw. You brought it on yourself.

I am going to pick up my mom so that we can go to the mall and see the sea of bikes and toys...it honestly doesn't do any justice to post pictures, but I will still try to get a few pictures up later. Love seeing those big bikers with big teddy bears strapped to their bikes.

Ok, here's a FB album of last year's pics:
2010 Motorcyle Run for Santa's Anonymous

I really don't want to be the only wife following behind the pack in a car with my mom, but whatever. I want to see the bikes.

Kylie is riding with Scott today. It only took her half an hour to curl her hair and put on makeup...possibly because she thought Scott's friend was bringing his son...gone are the days where she doesn't give a crap how she looks I guess!

My alley sounds like a Mad Max movie right now. The neighbours have their Harleys out...pretty soon the bikers across the street will get their bikes out. That is, if they can haul their butts out of bed on this fine Sunday morning. 930 on a Sunday is way too early for the biker crowd.

Ooh, oh!! Here's a link to this year's pictures (blogger kicked me out after I wrote this so I couldn't publish until Monday):
Motorcycle Toy Run 2011

Later.

Pics!

What a gorgeous day! We spent the day at the zoo, but as usual, there was nothing to see. Our zoo stinks, seems like the animals are always so far away that you can't take their picture...or they're sleeping, all rolled up in a ball under a rock or something. Can you tell I'm not a fan of our zoo? 95% of the animals are brown so they blend into those rocks and dead grass pretty well. We have a prairie dog exhibit. Come on now.

The big kids started school last Thursday and so far are really happy with their teachers. Kylie's school is way, way under populated and on the verge of being shut down, I fear. Oh well, it was bound to happen. The school is falling apart anyway.


Kylie, first day of grade 8. Last year I couldn't get her to comb her hair when she got up in the morning. Now she has to get up early to trowel her makeup on.


Jacob, first day of grade 5. We freezer-paper stencilled the shirt with a tie that reads "epic", his favourite word. Things are either "awesomely epic" or "epic fail" in his books. Nothing in-between.

Sam starts preschool on the 13th. I don't think she needs it, per se...I don't think any kid 'needs' preschool, but she is incredibly social and it's driving my nuts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be anti-social and introverted like myself when you have a kid who is the complete opposite?!? So she will go to preschool to fill that need she has to be with other kids. I can stay if I want, or I can use that time to shop or exercise or whatever. Two hours, two mornings a week.

I'm going to start working Mondays soon, a full day. The opportunity came up and I really like the work so I thought I should take it. Turns out the office is closing for two whole months this winter so I guess I should make some money while I can :( .

Later, taters.

Happy Easter!!

Sam could not get enough of the egg dyes this year. Forget doodling on the egg first, gimme that dye! It is an annual tradition for me to forget to buy a vinyl tablecloth for egg decorating, so I was lucky that the contractors left a big roll of vapour barrier in my basement. Not pretty, but it passed for a tablecloth :) .

My God, what a good meal today. I peeled and mashed 10lbs of potatoes, thinking that it was way too much...nope! It all went...along with the ham, roasted carrots and other yummy dishes. My sister's husband, Amir, took us on a long windy walk after supper to burn off some of those calories. Still...I think I'll be working extra hard at my workouts this week. But it was *so* worth it :) .

The kids are home for one more day, then it's back to the grind. Does anyone else in the world get tomorrow off *except* for school teachers? Even the bank is open tomorrow. There's so much on the to-do list for this week. The bathroom drywall should be started this week...so that means next month in Contractor Time, right? Poopie.

A new and stupid way to celebrate each and every month in 2010!

2010 Monthly Observances

Please add this to your favourites, as it is very important!

Honestly, how else would you know that February 2010 is both "National Cherry Month" AND "National Condom Month" (tee hee).

March 2010 holds the honour of being both "National Umbrella Month" and holding "National Procrastination Week"...but I'm celebrating that one in July :D .

Awesome. Just awesome.

Happy Birthday Kylie!

My oldest is 11 today :) . I can't believe how she's changed in just the last 6 months...sometimes I look at her and think, where did my baby go???

She's a great kid with a kind heart, although she morphs into Katie Ka boom at the drop of a hat sometimes...but we still lurve her :) . If you don't know who Katie Ka Boom is, here she is:




Some pictures for you: I was too lazy to take the pics out of the frames and scan them, so I just took pictures of my picture wall lol.


Kylie at 22 months (same age that Sam is right now!)


Kylie just before her 4th birthday with her cousin.


Kylie age 4, Jacob 8 months.


My 11 year old girl :) . Happy birthday, sweetie!

Happy Mutha's Day!

Hope everyone had a good Mother's Day. Like every year, my big kids help Scott make some Pilsbury cinnamon rolls and apple turnovers and then Gramma comes over for coffee. This was the first year that I didn't have to pretend I was asleep while the kids cooked for me lol.






...note how Stewie is wishing me a "Happy Foul Mother's Day" lol. Jake knows I love Family Guy, so he asked Scott to help him wrap his gift to me.

More Easter pics

Did I post this pic before??? I don't think so. I loved, loved, loved this fabric when I first bought it, and trimmed it with a brown polka-dot fabric to match the big brown dots...now it's a touch crazy for my tastes. And my sister pointed out that it was a bit pysanka-ish, so perfect for an Easter dress lol!





This is Uncle Terry, Scott's brother, colouring eggs with Jacob. He's such a cool uncle...always has time to play with Jacob, when some people forget that the poor little guy even exists :( . Jacob lubs him to pieces. He's such a cool uncle that he brought this for my kids for Easter:







Yes, that's right: an entire case of Cream Eggs, and an entire case of Mini Eggs. He works at a warehouse and got a good deal or something...anyway, it's all in the freezer now to go into lunches. It should carry Jake into junior high, right? Jacob is still saying, "Mom, remember when Uncle Terry brought us all that chocolate? Remember?" . Yes, buddy, it was just 2 days ago...


I don't remember if I posted this before, either...Uncle Terry's old Spiderman t-shirts upcycled into a cozy blanket for Jacob. Jacob wouldn't let me wash it for a while, because he said it "smelled like Uncle Terry". Goofball kid lol.

Happy Easter!

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's Friday already! Back to work tomorrow...

Today, we decorated eggs. I always did it as a child, and now we do it with our kids. Scott's sister and brother also partook (is that a word?)in the festivities.

Wanna know how to get the perfect hard-boiled egg?

This is how we do it:

• In a large stock pot, cover a single layer of cold eggs with cold water. Add a couple of splashes of vinegar (it keeps the shells from cracking, although we did have one out of 36 that cracked anyway).


• Put the pot on the stove, uncovered, and turn the burner to medium-heat.


• Wait for what seems like forever for the water to come to a light boil.


• When the water starts to boil, turn off the burner and cover the pot. Set the timer for 25 minutes. When the timer goes off, take the pot off the stove and drain it. Set it somewhere for the eggs to cool.


• Store the cool eggs in the fridge until you're ready to colour them.

Now to dye them:

• add 1/2 cup of cold water to a bunch of old coffee mugs. The dye might stain, so be forewarned.


• add 3 tbsp of vinegar to each cup. Add a few drops of food colouring and stir.


• draw designs on the eggs with wax crayons or pencil crayons, then lightly place your egg in a cup of dye for a minute or so. Remove with a spoon. Drain on paper towels.

This year was the first year that I had a store-bought kit for egg decorating...silly me, I thought my kids would like it. It turned out to be super-useless, as it had one red dye and 3 purple dyes...where the heck was the yellow? The green? Didn't matter anyway, Kylie said "those kits are dumb, Mom"...rolling her eyes, as if I didn't know that already!!! Little bugger...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ah, love is in the air. Jacob is screeching over my shoulder, "I hate girls! Don't tell anyone I gave out valentines today!" . Your secret is safe with me, my friend (wink).

So here is a sampling of our Valentine's Day fodder:


First off, Kylie's crafts for her dearest friends, her BFFs. Two kitties and a squirrel from The Cute Book . She wasn't into hand-sewing them, and I wasn't going to force the issue, so she machine-sewed/glued these ones. I was quite impressed with her French knots! She paired these with a few High School Musical valentines, and was set. She also made a really cute heart-doily-type valentine for her teacher, but I neglected to get a picture. As usual, Jake refused to do any crafting at all. He slapped his name on some Star Wars valentines and called it a day. Although he did make Scott and I a really cute card at school that I shall treasure always. Kylie says that only 2 boys in her grade 5 class gave out valentines this year. *Sniff*...but they're only babies, are they already too cool for this holiday???


For the party at school, Kylie wanted to make a cupcake-cake, so we settled on this design (I think we saw it originally at Safeway). The cherry on the top is a pic we found online, printed it, then covered it with clear Mactac. I think we will have to think of something new to take to the next party...you would not believe the amount of cupcakes the kids brought today lol. This was easy enough for Kylie to do almost all on her own...from baking the cupcakes to decorating. I did supervise, though, and helped wield the icing bag.


For each of the big kids, a Domo mp3 cozy. Jake's is orange, Kylie's is brown. I was going to give it to them on Valentine's Day but there is just too much floating around in my sewing corner right now and I didn't want to forget where I put them.

Well, this doesn't have anything to do with Valentine's Day per se...Kylie sewed this hat for herself, with a pattern that we designed together, and it was her very first sewing project where she mastered feeding the fabric through the sewing machine while operating the knee pedal. How cool is that??? She saw it online somewhere, I don't know where.

Saturday night is our traditional candle-lit Valentine's Day family dinner. We are having chicken cordon bleu, pasta alfredo and salad. I still haven't settled on a dessert yet, but I think I will leave that part up to the kids to decide.

Later, taters.

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone...*sigh*...why does time have to pass so quickly when you're a grown-up? I don't remember time slipping through my fingers so quickly when I was a kid.

No resolutions this year, but lots of plans:

1. Inventory the freezer and pantry, and come up with meals using up what I have. I know there are things buried in there that I have forgotten about...like that great deal on canned tuna last month...guess tuna cakes are on the menu this month.

2. Clean up my sewing area! It's a freakin' disaster!

3. Get a job. Yeesh...do I really want to? I'm going to be super picky, though, and hope that I can keep my present 3-hour-per-week job at the same time.

4. Paint the kitchen. I'm been meaning to do this since we moved in 3.5 years ago, but there were other, more pressing jobs to be done. And it's going to be the most wicked shade of lime green. Cool.

5. Make the basement more live-able. Sometimes I wish that it was unfinished when we moved in, so that we could finish it the way we wanted...but I guess I should be grateful that it was reasonably ready for the big kids to sleep down there.

6. Work on the backyard once the snow melts. Sam will be able to play in the sand or on the enclosed trampoline while I dig. Things really need to get done back there, the raspberries are out of control!

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure there is more, but I don't want to overwhelm myself lol.

Christmas Pics

Auntie and Kylie, decorating gingerbread cookies the Sunday before Christmas.


Jacob making chocolate pops for our Christmas Eve party. He was so excited about our Christmas Eve PJ Party that he just stayed in his pj's all day long lol.


Jacob with his new guitar and his Green Day shirt.


Sam in her new Dora chair. We felt sorry for her, having to sit in the
ghetto chair that Kylie made so we bought her a cushy armchair for reading books in.


I'd like to show you a picture of Kylie, ever so excited about her Christmas gifts, but she doesn't seem to get excited about anything lately...so this is what you get. But according to her, she is very, very excited in this picture.

It's all over but the crying...

So Christmas is done for another year. The kids got spoiled, of course, and we had three great meals: Christmas Eve of hors d'oeuvres here, Christmas Day at my in-laws and Boxing Day at my moms. I helped out this year by making two types of perogies (well, I didn't make them...Cheemo did lol), a big garden salad, some cooked garlic carrots, and a bunch of squares and cookies. My mom made the ham, which was super yummy.

I get points for being the best wife on the block this year: I bought Scott a motorcycle for Christmas. My mom's neighbour was selling Scott's dream bike, a V-Star (I have to admit, I have no idea what that is). Scott was hemming and hawing about maybe getting it this spring...or using our savings to build a fence. I really wanted him to have this bike, he never does anything for himself. So I went behind his back and bought the bike. I didn't know if he would be angry or happy lol. So Christmas morning, he opened a mouse pad with a picture of the kids in it...and I told him that I couldn't decide which picture to put in, so he should decide...he looked behind the picture of the kids and found a picture of the bike. I think he just about fell over lol. His next gift was the keys and the bill of sale. I can't wait for this snow to go away so that he can go for a ride...he really, truly deserves it.

The Christmas tree is coming down tomorrow. I know some people leave it up until the New Year, some even leave it up until Ukrainian Christmas, but I can't wait to get my living room back. There is just no room to move in here. We've already decided that next year we are doing a theme tree, but we've agreed that we have to make 90% of the decorations with stuff we have around the house. The favourite theme right now is Pirates...I can't wait to see what a Pirate Christmas tree would look like lol.

Next week I will help the kids go through their rooms and pull out all the toys that they don't play with anymore. I have an itch to wash walls...I think I will do spring cleaning early this year.

Merry Christmas!

Since I probably won't be on tomorrow, here's an early greeting to my blogging friends:

From our family to yours, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Christmas Guilt is setting in...

So with all the rushing around lately, planning/executing the school bake sale, finishing the Christmas crafts for the teachers...I completely forgot that the kids would be having class parties today, and each kid requested home-made ginger snaps to take.

Do I feel like the absolute worst mom ever??? You bet! I made sure that all other tasks were taken care of, except for my very own kids: which sucks, considering that they are the reason that I am at home in the first place. Bad Mama. I made up for it by buying mini chocolate cupcakes from Safeway this morning...does that even make sense??? Working all week to make sure that a bake sale goes off without a hitch and then I run off to Safeway to buy cupcakes lol. Oh, and also those stupid Lunchable things that come complete with Nerds and a juice box, because I was at the school most of yesterday and forgot to help the kids make lunches last night. I suck.

At least the bake sale was a resounding success...we made almost $300, and had tons of baking donated from lots of parents. There were even donations of donuts and Little Debbie snack cakes, donated by parents who didn't have time to bake but wanted to help out in some way. That was absolutely awesome to see.

I'm looking forward to picking up the kids after school today...because they are home with me for 2 weeks now :) . Tomorrow we are baking gingerbread cookies, and then on Sunday we will decorate them. I think I will go to work on Sunday night this week, so that Monday night I can take my mom for groceries for Christmas dinner. She is making the ham/turkey while I am bringing perogies, salad and juice. Kylie wants to make a cupcake cake, one of those kind that looks like a reindeer head or something...I think that will be fun. And I still needs to do baking for our Christmas Eve pajama party.

Well, I should go...nanaimo bars aren't going to bake themselves!

Pics

There is nothing better on a cold day than sitting by the fire, in the ghetto arm chair that your big sister crafted out of a Costco box and a pillow.


Well, enjoying a book by the fire is very enjoyable, too. Even if the book is upside down.


Scott, all dressed up to shovel. Two pairs of pants + long johns, 2 coats and 1 toque.


Marshmallow pops for the bake sale at school. I planned on making more white chocolate ones, but frankly I got bored of the whole thing and figured I had done my share. Time to enjoy a coffee and Bailey's in front of the fire with my family.


Sammy Sunshine's favourite new pass-time...unloading Scott's bottom drawer and then crawling away, leaving the mess for Mom to clean up.


Our Christmas picture! Four bucks at Capilano mall, can't beat that. Then I just had to go on Monday to pick them up at WalMart...I don't get how other malls can charge upwards of $14 for this same service??? Unreal.

Christmas Pics

The tree with our special angel on top :) . Scott put the tree together and put up the lights, I put on the garland, and then we sit back with our coffees while the big kids decorate it. I love me a crazy tree.


The stockings, hung by the chimney with care. Auntie Sheri made all of them, with pretty buttons and such tiny, careful stitches.


Santa heading over the bridge to deliver his presents. But wait! Does he know what lies on the other side of the bridge???


Eek, it's Halloween town! Poised to attack Santa and his sleigh full of gifts. I ask every year: who would win in a fight between Christmas Town and Halloween Town? I have my money on Halloween Town, I think they would fight dirty.





I talked to the kids about what charity we should donate to this Christmas, and we tossed around the idea of donating toys to the Stollery Children's Hospital and a couple of other places...but the kids thought that food was more important and that we should donate to the food bank, like we usually do. So we went through the pantry and pulled out a few things, talked about what the food bank needed and then purchased a few staples like pasta, tea and canned meats. Then I take a picture of each kid with their donation and put it in a card for their teacher, with this letter:

Dear Mrs. H.,

Thank you for a great school year so far! We wish you and your family a very
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

In the spirit of the season, our family has put together a parcel for the food bank, which we will donate in your honour.

Merry Christmas!

From,
The T Family

Traditionally, we only buy gifts for children and our parents at Christmas time, but we wanted to show our appreciation for the kid's teachers in some way...this is how we do it. More and more, I'm against buying 'stuff' just for the sake of buying 'stuff', and I think donating to a charity in a teacher's honour at Christmas teaches the children a little something, too. For the pictures, I just piled up half the food on the table...so there is twice as much food going to the food bank as shown.

...and a picture of my baby with chocolate all over her face, just because it's really cute :D .

Our Trip to West Edmonton Mall

OK, I know these pictures are crap...something is screwy with my camera. I'm not a happy camper.


First off, we went for breakfast at McDonald's, the one in the west end with the giant playland (is it 3 stories tall or just 2??) Well, it's freakin' huge anyway.


Jacob, modelling in the Pocky aisle at T&T Supermarket. He picked chocolate Pocky while Kylie chose Brazillian Pudding Pocky (tasted like coconut).


World Water Park. Scott and I looked at all the girls in their super-teeny bikinis, sitting at the bar waiting for drinks, and wondered...who would wanna sit on that bar stool after those girls leave...and where on earth are they keeping their money??? I'm sure those teeny bikinis don't have any pockets.


Jacob, modelling in the theatre under the super-huge Batman and Yoda.


Again, Jake under the giant King Kong.


Every 22 minutes, this dragon lights up and breathes fire onto the people below...Kylie and I wondered if the emo girls with the giant beehive hairdos and with all the hairspray would instantly catch fire LOL. That wasn't very nice, was it...


Sammy enjoying the ball pit in the Galaxyland Playland.