I miss my friend!

I used to have this great friend...sleep. We got along so well. Then I had a baby. And you know...you lose touch with some of your friends when you have a baby. Sleep decided that we couldn't hang out as much anymore. That was four years ago. Sleep has visited me now and again since then, but only fleeting visits. I guess she doesn't like my kids. I really, really hope that we reconnect someday. Oh sleep, if you are reading this...I would like for us to be best friends again someday very, very soon.

The winter sketchfest continues at Paws! There was a Friday night sketch posted last night (that I hope to get done this evening). The lovely Tina is going to teach us how to make our very own 6x12 chipboard album from scratch and we'll be able to fill it up with all of the lovely weekend sketches we complete. Also, Paws on Scrapbooking is now on Facebook so feel free to join a great bunch of scrappy gals at our group!

Well, if my kids keep it up I'll have a brand new set of lamps soon. Last year Kieran pulled down our stand lamp and broke the shade (but thankfully didn't hurt himself). This morning, Bridget pulled down a matching table lamp down on herself :( I had put her down for a second to look in a laundry basket for clothes for the boys. I felt awful, but I think I cried more than she did. For those of you who don't know, my kids have VERY hard heads! She has a bump, but seems fine otherwise. But, that's another lampshade gone. I think I need to get rid of those unlucky lamps!!

Kevin and I went to see Inkheart last night. We went to the movies just to get out of the house and relax with no idea what we were going to see. We thought we were going to resort to Mall Cop (not really my thing) or Bride Wars (definitely not Kevin's thing, but he'd humour me). At the last minute we saw the poster for Inkheart and thought it looked good. I'm sooo glad we did, it was a really good movie. I hardly ever watch tv anymore so I never see previews for anything. I had never even heard of half of the movies. I did get to see a preview for the new Harry Potter too, so I was happy about that as well. All and all a great evening out. We even stopped at the dollar store and bought the boys magnifying glasses (they are obsessed with the one at Grammie and Grampie's). They've been playing with them all morning...too cute! Thanks for babysitting, Mom and Dad!!

Almost the weekend!!

I'm being a good little blogger this week :) I'm so happy that it's almost the weekend. We have a birthday party to go to and some work to do in the kitchen (still thinking on those paint colours) so it will be busy, but still nice to have Kevin home. It's always nice to not have to face the chaos alone!

They're coming...the terrible threes! I can just feel it. Kieran will be 3 in May and he's already started that mischievous stage. I feel like he's in more time outs everyday. But he is cute and charming and knows how to use it to his advantage. The other day I put him in a time out for jumping on the couch (a common enough occurrence for my little jock). After he was in his room for a few minutes and saying he was sorry I told him to come out. Well, out he walks with a fleece blanket around his shoulders saying he was a "oyal pince". I try to keep a straight face and ask him why he was in a time out and he tells me in the cutest voice it was for jumping on the couch. So, I'm still trying not to laugh and he leans over and kisses me. How can a person stay mad at that? I completely broke so I'm sure he knows he has me wrapped around his finger. Should be an interesting year ahead of us!

The sketchfest continues over at Paws. I finished this LO today based on the Wednesday night sketch (which is a weekly occurrence year-round). This is for Bridget's baby book. I scrapped this card and our bracelets as one of the first pages for her book since we lost the pictures of Kevin and me at the hospital when I was in labour and the first pictures of Bridget and me together. For those of you who don't know, our camera batteries died while we were taking a picture and it fried our memory card. Kevin tried everything to retrieve the pictures, but no luck :( It still makes me sad, but I have lots of adorable pictures of her since then so I try not to think about it.



I tried the other day to get a few cute pics of the kids sitting together. Of course, they are so cute and perfect until I run to get the camera. Here are my best attempts.



I guess they are real life pictures. Maybe someday I'll find something that I can bribe them all with so that they will sit together and smile. I did get a few cute shots of Riley...he's getting better and has lost that cheesy smile that all kids get.



And I love this one



Notice that Kieran is gripping his hockey puck :) Kevin won a random prize at the store the other day when he got his lunch. Apparently every 50th customer gets a prize and he's been looking at his receipt for 6 months with no luck. Well, the other day he finally won and they gave him the choice of a deck of cards or a hockey puck, lol! Big winnings. At least Kieran is happy...he hardly lets the thing out of his sight. Did I mention that he was the jock of the family? :)

That's it for tonight. Must go do some Wii'ing before bed!

Totally Tuesday...

Ok, so I stink at thinking of titles for my blog posts, lol! I also have a hard time with titles for my LOs so I guess it's not surprising. I'm beat today...feels like it should be Friday, not Tuesday. Why do my kids get up so darn early. Bridget was up at 4:45 yesterday and 5:30 today. Plus she still gets up once through the night. Yawn. AND, I had no cream for my coffee :( It's just not the same with milk. So, I'm trying not to be cranky.

We have new flooring for our kitchen sitting in boxes and Kevin has begun demolition. We're ripping off the wainscoting and we'll paint the walls and hopefully the cabinets before the floor goes in. I expect that this whole process with small children will take several weeks. Anyone have any ideas on what colour we should paint the kitchen. I want something different. I get so tired of paint colours. It seems everything is just different shades of blue/green/brown. Riley wants to paint it purple (ok, his first suggestion was rainbow). I just may take him up on the purple.

Where does time go? I have to register Kieran for preschool tonight. He'll start the three year old class in the fall. And Riley will go to 'big' school. I put Bridget in overalls yesterday that the boys used to wear ALL the time. So strange that they were small enough to fit in them once!

I took Bridget to the doctor yesterday for a rash she's had for awhile. The doctor doesn't think it's an allergy, thank goodness. Probably just the result of a virus. It's already starting to clear up. But, I had to take her with her hand all bandaged up. Why you ask? Because my kids for some reason are attracted to baseboard heaters. They love to stick their fingers in them. Thank goodness they are never hot because we have the woodstove. She did cut her fingers though. Just like Riley did when he was a baby. I don't think Kieran ever did cut himself, but I know he used to crawl toward them too! And, fingers just bleed a lot. I didn't notice until I put her in her chair for lunch (it must not have hurt because she never cried once during the whole ordeal). Anyway, I notice that she has blood all over her shirt and her sock (because she always rips them off). I couldn't put a band aid on a tiny baby finger and I'm sure if I could have she would have just eaten it anyway. Sooo...I put a cotton pad on it, wrapped masking tap around it, then put a mitten on her and put masking tape around that so she wouldn't rip it off. I know this all sounds extreme, but it really wouldn't stop bleeding...I had to put pressure on it somehow. Of course, this all happens at lunch while the boys are crying for food. Fun stuff. Here's a pic of the cutie covered in blood and food (I didn't bother with the bib since her shirt was already so stained!).



Bridget seems to be just growing so fast. Her first b-day is in less than 2 months (must get on picking a cake!). She is sitting up from lying on her belly now, has pulled herself up, gives us kisses and shakes her head NO! (yay, another kid telling me no :)).

Here's another LO from a challenge I issued for the Paws cyber crop last weekend. The challenge was based on Ali Edwards' idea of having a word in mind for the year. My word is 'enjoy'.


Sorry the pic isn't the greatest...it was taken at night and I'm too lazy to take it again now :)

The Paws Sketch Design Team is holding a winter "sketchfest" for the next 10 weeks. There will be a post a week accompanied by a specific challenge to go along with it. Feel free to join in the fun! Check it out here.

Have a great Tuesday!!

Yes, I am paranoid

(Amy, you should appreciate this story...you're not the only one who worries :)).

Ok...it's really cold out! I was kind of hoping school would be canceled so that Riley wouldn't have preschool, but no such luck. Probably for the best since I needed to get groceries anyway. So I bundled them all up really well, dropped Riley off at preschool (which involved getting poor sleeping Bridget out of the car...she was a dead weight in my arms the whole time) then took the other two to the store. We got a car cart so Kieran was happy. And he got to see the 'monsters' (aka...lobsters). I ended up getting more than the few things I thought I was getting. Funny how 5 things turns into a whole cart full! Thankfully, the kids were pretty well behaved. Got them all bundled back into the car along with all the groceries. It was about 10:45 and Riley gets done school at 11:15. So I had some time on my hands. I thought I would just drive back to the school anyway and figured the kids would fall asleep in the car. Anyway, when I was waiting to turn at the intersection 2 fire trucks drove by me in the direction of our house (and yes, LOTS of other houses, lol). Well, all paranoid me could think was what if they're on their way to our house (we do have a wood stove so really, it's not out of the question). So, since I had time on my hands, I had to drive back past our house. As you probably guessed, since I'm writing this, my house WASN'T on fire, LOL! The kids did have a much needed nap though, so that was nice.

Riley had an assessment at his elementary school yesterday. Just him and a teacher. I wasn't in the room (not that he would ever care about that). He did well, of course...I think he's been ready for school for 2 years. Though I do worry about his lack of focus. He'll still be changing his sneakers at lunch time. He's a very poor multi-tasker. He can't talk and do anything at the same time. Guess that's why his stories are so good....he puts so much into them that it's his entire focus :)

Well, I have a list a mile long of stuff to do around the house. Laundry, cleaning, etc. The kids are driving me batty today, so thanks to mom for inviting us for supper! Must do some tidying before we leave and hopefully I'll get a chance to do some scrapping tonight :)

Brrrr!!!

Man, it is cold outside! At least I don't have to feel guilty for not taking the kids outside to play :)

Our exciting news for the week is that Bridget pulled herself up yesterday! On her 10 month birthday. I can't believe how big she is! No picture yet, since as soon as I ran for the camera she wouldn't do it again, lol. Other than that, nothing to report but sick kids. Riley had some sort of stomach bug Monday evening and all through that night. Gave me an excuse to keep him quiet and calm on Tuesday. He seems to have recovered and found his usual 'healthy' appetite! The other kids seem fine so far, thank goodness.

We did a scrapjack (a combination of the words scraplift and hijack) at POS a couple of weeks ago. We all lifted a LO by the AMAZING Christine Middlecamp. This is the LO that resulted from that challenge.



Paws also held a cyber crop last weekend. This next LO was for the 'seeing spots' challenge.



And this one was for a challenge to make a LO using the colour yellow. I actually wasn't going to do this challenge because I didn't think I had much yellow in my stash, but when I was digging out stuff for another challenge, I came across a few yellow sheets of paper and decided to give it a go. I'm pleasantly surprised with the result!

This may shock you, but I don't think that I have anything else to talk about. With all the sickness and getting up a bunch at night, I think I'm too tired to talk/type :) Hope you are all well! Stay warm!!

Happy New Year!!

Ok...so I'm just a little late! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday :) I know it was hard for us to adjust after having Kevin home for two weeks. I had almost forgotten how hard it is to get 3 kids dressed to go out in the cold to take Riley to preschool. Then to get groceries. Then to go home and put them away, potty break, snack. Then back to get Riley. Phew...it's exhausting!

I was thinking the other day that this is going to be a milestone year for us. Bridget will turn one, Kevin and I will both turn 30, Riley will start elementary school and Kieran will start preschool! Hard to believe how quickly time passes. Riley said, "this is the year Mommy cries a lot" (in his matter of fact voice) LOL! Yes, I'm kind of sap sometimes :)

The kids are good. Colds come and go continuously it seems, but no major afflictions. I was on an antibiotic but am feeling better now. Except for a rib muscle that I pulled the Monday before Christmas. It still really hurts at times. The doctor said they take a long time to heal. Guess she was right :) I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm picking kids up all day long. Oh...and that the Wii calls to me whether I'm hurt or not! Don't want my trainer to yell at me, heehee.

A cute Riley story (for all of you who look forward to such things...you know who you are :)). We were talking about 911 the other day and when to call (please, Lord, don't let the police show up at my door for no reason). Riley said something about if there was an emergency at night. So I was explaining that the police and firefighters take turns and that some sleep in the day and are up at night so there will always be someone to help if we need it. He seemed to process that and accept it. Then he said something about if we had to call them when they were eating lunch. I told him that they would just leave their lunch if we needed them (which I'm sure is a concept that he cannot grasp...Riley would NEVER leave his lunch). Then he says, "but then a raccoon could climb in the window and eat their lunch!" "Yes, I *suppose* that *could* happen." He has quite an imagination :) I told him that even if there was a risk of a raccoon eating their lunch that they would still come and help us. Not sure whether he believed me, but we moved on to another topic of conversation. Never a dull day with Riley :)

Ok...a few cute pics from the holidays...


The kids in their Christmas jammies ready to go to church (where Kieran decided it was ok to talk to the minister from his pew at the BACK of the church...good times. He also interrupted the children's story a few times, though I'm sure the minister had no idea what he was saying :) He was very polite, "excuse me Ron...*something, something*, Jesus, *something*." He was also given a candy cane and when I asked him if he said thank you he said he forgot and ran back to the front of the church to tell Ron thank you. So cute :) But I digress...you know I tend to do that).


This is Bridget after the church service. She was pooped :) Good thing we had her jammies on!


Kieran opening his hockey stick. The only thing he REALLY wanted for Christmas. The first words out of his mouth Christmas morning were (in Kieran speak) "where my hockey dick?".


Riley and his Helmet Heroes toy that he asked Santa for.


Bridget and her first baby doll. I finally have a girl and she'd rather play with Kieran's hockey stick. Sigh.


The kids on Boxing Day in their matching jammies that Grammie and Grampie got them for Christmas.

Ok...enough of my cute kids :) I think I've only taken 3 or 4 pictures since Christmas. Must get snapping!

I have one LO to share that I did for a sketch challenge at CMK. I love the design of this sketch!



Phew...are you still with me? I must sign off now because there is a Turtle Oreo blizzard coming my way!