Tuesday.....

I gave Susie the day off of school today....she had complained that we only go swimming mid week while she is at school...so she came with us today.

I woke up early and waved Lloyd and Chris off - Chris had basketball practice at 7am.......I was sooo tired though and could easily have gone back to sleep but I had to get up as there were things I wanted to do before we headed into town. It was difficult to get up though as Sammy was snuggled into me saying 'I'm just so sleepy'...so he didn't want to get up either!

The pool was empty (yet Millennium place was CROWDED.. a hockey thing going on or something???) and we stayed in for just over 1 1/2 hours. It was good fun - warm...and the kids love the new toys they have there - the slide and the canoe...the paddle boat...and we got a workout in the whirlpool by trying to run backwards in it - sooooo not easy!!!

After swimming we headed to Zellers to get a new coat for Susannah - she found one she loved (it looks so great on her) and has a big floppy furry edged hood. Then we ran in to Safeway to grab a lemon for the salmon and a few other things....including Maple Avalanche Cake Mmmmmmm

Why is it that I never seem to see anyone I know at the mall...but the one day I run in in tracky pants and my hair.....well lets just say my hair was doing a pretty good post-swim interpretation of a birds nest...a CROWS nest!!!!....it's those times that I run into someone I know!

Colleen you looked wonderful today...I'm sure you are feeling tired and huge and irritable but you look amazing! Colleen's baby is due TODAY and there she was doing her very best Jennifer Garner impression looking calm and relaxed with two young children in Safeway....sigh! I'm teasing - you did look wonderful and it was so good to see you and I'm soooo sorry I ruined your childrens healthy diet for the day ;) Poor Colleen had told her girls that Safeway don't have cookies for them...and then of course they run into us and all three of my children are busy munching the free cookies! Oops!!

I was so tired after swimming - I'm not normally so I'm not sure why I was today but I felt physically drained. Came home and threw some laundry in and tidied a little and then Sam and I collapsed on the bed and snuggled and I read to him a bit and then I was dozing while he watched Handy Manny.

Dinner tonight was salmon....we don't eat enough fish so we are determined to eat more....really we only eat salmon and tuna so we need to get more fish into our diet.

They say you should eat fish three times a week. I'm not sure we will eat that much but at least twice. We don't eat much red meat...maybe once a month or so.....we mainly eat chicken or vegetarian dishes.....but we do need to eat more fish.

Now all the children are tired and cranky....well Chris is happy....Susie is happy ......Laurie is in the shower....but Sam and Abby are tired and cranky...VERY tired.....I think I will see how they are in the morning as to whether we go to Parentlink...I don't want to take them if they are tired as they will be hard work.

I have two very happy cats here tonight eating the left over salmon :)

Lloyd is sat beside me filling in a form for some insurance or other for work...we are going to head up to bed soon - yes its 7pm but we're tired and we're going to relax and watch tv and read....my book A Rhinestone Button is so good that I want to keep reading :)

I could do with smoking some pot but my dealer's pregnant and she's let me down ;) lol! just kidding ;) just a joke for one of my blog readers! See if she reads this far ;)

Goodnight everyone - have a great Wednesday :)

ps anyone want a tired and cranky 5 year old????

Crash!

Last night we went to bed and watched the movie Crash. I had never seen it before. Its not a 'comfortable' movie to watch....VERY good though. It centres around a culturally and racially diverse neighbourhood in LA and how the various characters lives kind of criss-cross. The whole movie kind of made me sad and reminds me again that the US is still an extremely racially prejudiced country. It makes me wonder again whether that country is ready for a black President.

On that subject, Colin Powell was on the View again this morning. He always comes across as though he is such a great guy. He said he hasn't ruled out running one day.

I don't know if its because I was in a mixed race marriage or whatever or because I have mixed race children....but it makes me so sad when people judge each other on the colour of their skin.

Wedges!

DELICIOUS!!! Everyone said they were great! I think we will definitely be keeping a bag of these in the freezer for 'easy dinners' mmmmmmmnot that home made wedges are difficult but some days its nice to not even have to chop potatoes lol!

I don't like oven fries so this is a GREAT alternative! Try them!

Coscto wedges...

I normally make my own potato wedges which we LOVE...sometimes I put paprika on them...sometimes a little salt and pepper...sometimes plain.....but today we are trying the Costco potato wedges by Alexia - with Rosemary, olive oil and garlic. They are in the oven right now and they smell GORGEOUS!!!!!!!

can't wait to try them!!!!!! We're having them with a big salad and the children have these mini sausages with theirs...that are Mesquite garlic flavour!!!

Yep dinner tonight is mainly processed junk lol but it smells good :)

Happy Birthday Jack

Happy Birthday to my Brother In Law Jack.....he's over in Afghanistan at the moment - probably sipping a double double in the Timmys there lol!

Hope you had a great day there anyway!

I think he only has a couple of weeks left over there....I;m sure my sister said he would be home early February.......

How to get a toddler to sleep!

We were getting ready for bed last night around 10pm and Sam started diving off of the bed - I HAD to grab the camcorder! It was so funny - he's never done this before and Lloyd was soooooo NOT impressed lol - especially at 10pm but also because his precious little Samsam might get hurt lol! I just found it hysterically funny! Please ignore all the laundry everywhere - oh and Lloyd has Sams bedside lamp atm as he gave his to Laurie....omg ok just ignore our bedroom that needs a major reno and focus on my gorgeous little boy :)

Hhhmmmm

Some people are never ever EVER to blame are they????? Its amazing....

Shaking head......

Carry You Home......

Hello Moon...

New pictures....

Here are the new piccies we bought, hung up in the front room. We've been looking for pictures we like for AGES....and have had bare walls for so long....the crown molding still isn't done (reno people are finishing that for us when they are here in Summer) finally we found some pictures we liked to go above the book cases and I'm really pleased with them.

I have to say that I HATE those shows where a family go away and come back and find their home has been redecorated - urgh especially 'theme' rooms......I just think its so impersonal and I would hate someone else to choose my decor and my ornaments and pictures for me......

I love that our home is slowly being decorated and filled our way. That we wait until we find things we love....that we don't go to one store and just get everything there....we look around...we wait.....we fill our home with things we love...things that mean something to us.

I picked the picture at the bottom because it reminds me of the sunset pictures I take - the same tree line...the same low sunlight below the line of cloud...the snow dusting the filed and roof top. It just reminds me of home.

Anyway, I'm glad we waited until we found pictures we love. We still have so many bare walls in the house waiting for pictures. I keep meaning to have some of my photographs blown up and framed.....I want to hang those here too. We decided that this year we will focus more on looking for paintings for our home.

When the door in the study is closed off we will have more wall space in there for bookcases and then I can move many of my books out of these glass book cases and they will look a little less cluttered and crowded ;)

Wings of a dove.....

I took this with my cell on Friday - a piccy of Sam with the dove he fell in love with...he spent ages talking to it through the glass.

Sunday....Sunny day...

Its so sunny out today.....it kind of fools you into thinking its warm out there - but its not...its BLOODY FREEZING!!!! lol!

This morning was a slow start - typical Sunday. Lloyd called his Granddad to say hi - he does that every couple of weeks. Sam and Abby had a bath....we pottered about upstairs watching a powerboat show which meant we ended up talking about how we want to move South to somewhere warm. I want to go to Florida....we were looking at vacation homes there last night - houses there complete with pool are still so cheap....Lloyd is keen on Phoenix but I said I would still prefer Florida...just somewhere to escape to when its an ice box up here!

Enough of that!

Ok so this morning was lovely and lazy...then we headed into town to Costco to pick up some dog food...the pictures we liked the other day were still there, so we got two of them....and right now Lloyd is behind me hanging them on the wall in the sitting room :)

After Costco we ran to pick Laurie up from his friends house and then ran to the mall so Lloyd could run in and grab a hat to use on the tractor. We saw Val in the parking lot and when she came out of the mall she came over and said hi :) and we waved like crazy to J who was in their van :) It was nice to see you Val - lets hope we can get together for brekky this week!

Got home and not long after we got bacxk, Chris arrived home from his weekend in Vermillion - their hotel had a swimming pool, so he had fun there and enjoyed the ice hockey too!

Now I am waiting for Lloyd to finish hanging the pictures...I'm going to cook a roast dinner a little later.....

Chris is away next Saturday for a basketball tournament he's playing in, in Vegreville.....so next weekend may be a little 'different' too...as we haven't planned things really......dinner out probably Friday night but home on Saturday for our Anniversary...not sure what I want to do on my birthday on Sunday....I think the Muttart is still open so maybe there...maybe the museum.....maybe just brunch out.....or maybe we will head to Ice on Whyte on the Sunday to see the fire breathers or whatever they are having to do the big 'melt'.......

I have to organise Susannahs birthday party too....she doesn't want to have it until February though.....

Apart from that, laundry, vacuuming and generally pottering about - fairly typical weeknd 'stuff'.....

Lost dodo...

This is when Sam lost his dodo (soother) in Its a Small World....when he watches this now he either laughs or cries and says he wants his dodo (he hasn't had a dodo for a year now lol.

Laurie and Susie on Splash Mountain

This is Laurie and Susie on Splash Mountain last year - we screamed and screamed to them but they didn't hear us......funny :)

Beautiful Day!

Not my movie but this kind of shows so much of what we saw and did last year.....every day really was a Beautiful Day! Just an amazing holiday! And this is just Disney and doesn't include everything else we did...the villa, the wedding, Universal....Sea World.....downtown Disney.....Downtown Orlando.....

I keep going to look at the January and Feb archives from last year to relive our holiday - hard to believe it was a year on Monday that we flew there......Can't wait to be back again next year!