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.

The Weekend :) .

Well, lookit that...you get 2 posts for the price of one today :D .

Saturday, I spent the day with another mom from school selling Grey Cup Raffle Pool Tickets to raise money for the school. It was actually kind of fun, so I didn't miss having a day away from my family. We had originally set up at the Sobey's in Beverly, but business was so cruddy that we moved to the ACT Centre where they were having a really big craft sale. I wish we would have thought of that first...could have made a few more bucks in the morning. What was really surprising...there were so many senior ladies at the craft show, and a good portion of them knew a lot about football. They knew current stats on the Eskimos, who was playing in the game that day, etc. I was quite impressed. When I got home, Scott finally put away all of the Halloween yard decore. He has been working a lot lately, and just hasn't had time. I guess I could have done it, but Sam just won't sit in her stroller anymore...oh well, it still got done.

Sunday, Scott went to work for a while and then we went to West Edmonton Mall to play for a bit. It was the first time that they told us that Kylie was too big to play in the playland :( . She was a little bummed, but Scott took her to the arcade while Jake, Sam and I played in the play structure. Jake would have liked someone to play with, but he still had a good time. I took some pictures, but something is screwy with my camera and everything looks overexposed and stupid. I have to try and figure that out today while Sam is sleeping.

Today is Monday, and Jacob has 3 friends coming over to play today. It's all or nothing with that guy, I tell ya. Sunday night he was very upset that he had no one to play video games with and today we will have more kids than Gamecube controllers LOL. I'm going to send them all out to play on the trampoline anyway, it's still really unseasonably warm so they will enjoy it.

I have to work tonight, as well as pick up a few groceries.

A Sammy Sunshine Update

I thought I would do a post on what my baby is doing lately.

-Typing anything takes Mama twice as long lately, because one of Sam's favourite activities is pulling herself up to the keyboard tray and pounding on the keys. She does it so quickly!!!! Argh...little bugger LOL.

-She has four first-year molars coming in all at the same time. She doesn't really wake up at night due to teething, so I'm lucky in that way; instead she wakes up at around 6am screaming (an hour early). Poor kid, those molars feel like little rocks in her gums and by the time breakfast rolls around they've gone back down. I wish they would erupt already!!!

-Sam is 14 months today and is walking around furniture (slowly and cautiously). Jake didn't walk until 16 months, so I'm not really worried about the delay...it will happen in time, I'm sure. When she crawls, it's on one knee and one foot for some reason LOL. It's pretty funny to watch.

-She dances, sings, and can sign "more". She says "no", "da da" (Daddy), Kah-key (Kylie) and Ga-Ga (Gramma). If I won't give her something, like the phone that I'm talking on while she sits on my lap, she pulls my hair LOL. She eats whatever we eat, but seems to particularly like cheese, apples, bananas and lettuce with a touch of dressing on it (no, not all in the same bowl).

-We are still nursing, and first thing in the morning is absolutely a must for her. If Scott gets up with her, she whines and cries until she sees me...sometimes crawling to my bedroom door and sitting outside whining until I get out of bed.

My baby...why do they have to grow up so fast???

Ugh.

Some rules stink. They stink so much, that I wonder who on earth made them...and what exactly where they thinking??? They're stupid rules, not meant to protect anyone or anything...just put there to serve as road blocks, I think. Rules just put there because they can put them there.

I'm going to eat soup now.

Wednesday.

Last night we went to get our flu shots...waited nearly an hour!!! Holy smokes.

(by the way, I know the flu shot is controversial and I just want to take this opportunity to say...I don't care. Don't care what anybody thinks of it, don't care what your reasons are, and don't care if you like/dislike my reasons for getting it. Just don't care. In the words of the mother of my high-school BFF, "If you don't like what you see, you can kiss my Royal Canadian Behind". Ok, let's move on...)

This morning, we had a big family discussion as to why the media is so all over the election of a black president in the United States. Kylie said, "I thought that skin colour doesn't matter...why are they making such a big deal out of it?" So we had a talk about slavery and oppression and the right to vote , etc., and then we all agreed...Kylie was right, skin colour doesn't matter, so let's focus on President Elect Obama's good qualities as a person, just like we would anybody else. I hope our American friends are very happy with their decision...we wish them the very best :D .

Our treadmill is finally in! Yay! I just met Scott at the mall, where some lovely long-haired, greasy looking boys loaded it into my van. They wore their jeans around their bums, with their underwear showing. Nice. But at least it looked clean. I picked up a few poppy stickers for the kids to wear on their shirts for the Remembrance Day ceremony at school on Friday. I was surprised at the lack of poppies on people's coats this year...I hope people aren't balking at that tradition. Every year we pick up poppies for ourselves and for the kid's coats as well. I take off that dumb stick pin and stick a safety pin through the back. In fact, there were more people wearing cowboy hats at the mall today then there were people wearing poppies. Canadian Finals Rodeo is in town (yee-haw), so there were plenty of cowpokes around.

We bought Sammy some fries and laughed as she dunked them in the teeny dot of ketchup on her plate. Then she licked off the ketchup and put her soggy fry right back in the ketchup...and licked it off again. She worked on that same fry for a good 5 minutes before finally eating it LOL.

Scott is working late tonight, so dinner will most likely be KD for the kids and some turkey soup for me. Yum. I tell you, my soup turned out so good (if I do say so myself) that I wish I could eat it at every meal...but I must contain myself and throw some in the freezer for future suppers. I put garlic in it, which made it extra yummy...and just hearing about it made my mother gag LOL. She's not a garlic fan.

Sammy is sleeping right now, and when she wakes up it will be time to get the big kids from school. It's so grey and dismal out right now, and it really feels like snow is in the air. I wonder if today will be our first snow fall of the year???

Monday.

I can't believe the weather today, it's something like 9C right now and raining...usually there is snow on the ground by now. I have winter boots ready to go for both kids, replaced a zipper in a used snowsuit for Sam, and have all of our toques and mitts ready for snow. So I'm prepared LOL!

This past weekend was fun, I took Kylie shopping while Scott stayed at home with the 2 smaller kiddos. Kylie still holds my hand in the mall...I love it. She was on the hunt for 'skinnies', otherwise known as skinny jeans, which is funny...because at the beginning of the school year, she described skinnies as "gross and nasty". So it's 2 months later and skinnies are the bee's knees, apparently. We found a few pairs, but not within what I was willing to spend, so she chose a pair of greyish, tight-denim looking leggings with pockets painted on the bum. She also chose a long, fitted zebra-print t-shirt and a black hat. A girl definitely has to have a hat for those bad hair days that arise every once in a while...and Kylie was definitely having a bad hair day on Saturday LOL. She had so much hairspray in her hair from Halloween night, and a bad case of bedhead. I tried to get her into the shower before we left, but I really wanted to get back before Sam woke up from her nap so we had to go.

Sunday, I cooked a turkey! Well, half a turkey. When turkeys were so cheap around Thanksgiving, I bought one and had the butcher slice it in half. He was nice enough to wrap each half individually, so I just threw them in the freezer. I brined it, as well, so it was very tender and yummy. Lookit me go. My friend told me that she boils the carcass for 24 hours to make soup, so that's what I'm doing right now. Yum, the soup and sandwiches is the best part of any turkey dinner!

Today is Monday, and it's laundry day. I'm finding the laundry a bit overwhelming lately, and I've never really had a specific day set aside for laundry...so I'm going to give Monday Laundry Day a try. The plan is to wash 5 loads today (all the while, still checking the kids' clothes to see if they even need washing) plus diapers and have it all folded by the time I have to go to work tonight. Wish me luck.

Later, dudes :) .

Halloween

The weather was awesome!!! Something like +5, which we hardly ever get. Most kids didn't even wear a jacket, and there's some years we're up to our knees in snow!

Scott decided that he wanted to stay home with Sam to hand out candy, so I took Kylie, Jacob and K's friend M trick-or-treating. Not many houses participating this year...seemed like only every fourth or so house had a porch light on. And not many trick or treaters! Scott had one at 7...then we got two groups of teenagers near 9pm, then I shut off the light. But because there were so few kids out, my kids got handfuls and handfuls of candy at every door.

Kylie's friend M stayed over night, and Jake fell asleep on the couch watching TV. Scott and I were in bed by 9 LOL.




Both big kids were vampires this year. Kylie wanted a store-bought costume (I'm so sad she won't let me sew for her anymore) and Jacob wore a bunch of stuff we had lying around the house...like his Darth Vader black cape and Scott's old vest that I took in just a little bit. Kylie also had to throw a bit of Asian flare into her costume, so we stuck chopsticks in her hair and added a blood-red fan fron China town.


My sock monkey sat on the floor and played, eating Smarties with Scott all evening. Do you know what a baby's diaper looks like after a night of eating colourful chocolate??? Not pretty LOL.