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Welcome

Just wanted to say welcome to you all. I appreciate followers and if you do decide to follow, I'd love it if you would give me a heads up in a comment line that you are now following. I love to check out new pages but have a hard time figuring out which are new vs older followers on the blogger site. If you know, let me know. Thanks. :)

I also love comments and try to follow up each comment when I have the time.

Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, November 9, 2009

New Clothes and a Date

Wowee. It's amazing what a few new clothes and a date night can do for a gal.

On Saturday, I dropped the hubby and the kiddies off at one of those inside play places and headed off for the shops. At just one store, I managed to score myself some new pants and tops. I splurged a little since it had been so long since I had bought anything. I even bought myself this really lovely deep blue silk top with silver chain entwined spaghetti straps and a black sequined shrug to go over it.

Guess what I wore on date night? A new look that felt great.

It is funny though. After I was done trying on all the clothes I had picked out and narrowed it down to the few I would actually buy I was embarrassed to put on my old jeans. Until I had tried on the new ones I hadn't realized just how bad the old ones were. I cannot stress enough how bad the old jeans were. They were washed out with discolored knees that were verging on thread bare. Not to mention, that they didn't fit properly so were loose waisted. I was down to this and one pair of yoga style black pants. This was what I had to wear to work, taking the kids to school, shopping etc and it looked appalling.

They always say that mothers need to take care of themselves. Reality is that is very difficult to do. The children grow so fast that it seems like every other week they need longer pants or bigger shoes, new winter coats and boots. That leaves very little room for me or my husband. I realized that I had been wearing the same ill-fitting jeans for probably 3 years at least. No wonder one pair quite frankly broke down from exhaustion and the other pair looked like my gardening pants. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I had to dig deep in my closet for an old pair of loose waisted cotton pants that I had worn when I was pregnant. While not actually maternity wear, I can tell you I felt pretty dowdy in them.

Well, I can frankly say that I never want to see those jeans again. I've now replaced them with 3 lovely pairs of jeans, all different with two snazzy everyday tops along with the silk blouse and shrug. Makes me smile just thinking of them. If only I could have snuck in a new pair of shoes and a wrap or shawl. Maybe next month.

Then on Sunday, my husband and I got all dressed up and went to see the Christmas Carol in 3D with Jim Carey. It was really good. The 3D effects were pretty neat. Just a word of warning to you all out there, it is definitely not a movie for the under 12 set. It had lots of dark and scary bits that in my opinion would be just a little too intense for younger children. Some parents may think it's a Christmas Carol and ignore the ratings. The ratings are accurate.

Like I said it was extremely well done. The dialogue true to the original with a few liberal licenses in imagery. My husband really enjoyed it as well.

After that we broke out the BB and looked up seafood restaurants in our town. The one we chose was a little more upscale but after all we were dressed for it. It turned out to be a great choice. The food was delicious. Which was a relief. We have in the past walked away after dropping $60.00 to $100.00 on a nice meal with a bad taste in our mouth. I hate it when you spend all that money and the food is less than appealing.

We had a enjoyable time reconnecting with each other and best of all I think hubby only talked about work for maybe like 5 minutes. He's just started up a new facet to his business, online selling through Amazon, and that is all that is on his brain lately. Every conversation is interrupted with some thought that had been running around in his head about work. So it was a nice break from work talk. It makes us realize how important it is for us to do this. Not necessarily going out and spend money but sitting across from one another talking and laughing. It seems too many nights these days are spent slouched in front of the t.v. together.

After that we went to Wal-Mart. J's birthday is coming up and we need to get going on the planning. I said to K that wasn't it funny that every time we had time to ourselves we ended up going shopping either before or after for family things? But then we're a family and you know that is what family is about. Nothing wrong with that bit of reality. ;)

I realize that we need to find ourselves a proper babysitter. We use K's parents usually but don't like to take advantage so we try not to ask very much. Add to that my FIL is still recovering from his surgery in September so they haven't even been able to babysit much for a while. This is probably the first big sitting job we've asked them to do for 3 months. It's hard to let go and let some stranger look after your children. But we are going to have to suck it up and do it. I think it's good for our children to see that we spend time working on our marriage.

Well, I've got to clean the house now because we may or may not have a showing this afternoon. I just love how realtor's just leave you guessing. Hopefully, this will be the one. I don't know if I mentioned that we've lowered our price another $30,000.00 under much pressure from the inlaws. She wants to get settled and is tired of waiting. So am I but I don't think it will make a difference. It's not the price, it's the house. It needs someone with unique circumstances like ours to be interested in it.

The good news is that we've approached another mortgage specialist and he seems much more encouraging about how much we can borrow than the last guy. Being self-employed can make the process more difficult.

Well Happy Monday to you all.


Thursday, November 5, 2009

Top Ten Thursday - Why I shouldn't Have another Baby

Top Ten Thursday Button

So I thought I was done. I mean done done. This womb is closed for business. My milk supply is in a permanent drought. Especially after my last delivery of O. Some of you have heard about that. That was, however, 2 1/2 years ago and now there are people all around me or so it would seem having babies. One mom of a girl in E's class just had her 7th, yes 7th baby and he is just so sweet. sigh.

I know I've mentioned this subject before but lately it's just been ever present on my mind. It makes me sad to think I might never have another child. So I thought this week's top ten would be the

Top Ten Reasons Why I shouldn't Have Another Baby

1. I hate pain. I spend the last 3 months stressing over how awful labor is going to be. There are no pain free guarantees except schedule c sections.

2. We have three kids already. Three should be enough. We are already busy busy busy.

3. Financially - we are just getting by the way we are. A third child would strain those already slim finances.

4. We are this close (holds fingers an inch apart) to being rid of diapers... for good... freeing up extra cash. *doing happy dance*

5. We are out of naps. No more hold up of the schedule for one child to be at home sleeping. My babies always liked their own beds.

6. Travel is easier without babies. My babies never slept well in a strange bed/place. O is big enough to actually fall asleep in a hotel bed or campter.

7. I developed FIST or FIRST disease with my last pregnancy. Serious life risks to mom and baby.

8. My mom would have a cow. Not my major deciding factor but still there it is.

9. I am 2 years away from 40. I know lots of women have baby in their later years but it doesn't strike me as something I want to be doing personally. Unfortunately I started having babies late.

10. My babies were born at 8, 10 and 12 pounds. Do you see a pattern there. There is no way I'm going to be the woman on t.v. for having delivered a 14 pound baby naturally. Yiii.

I actually thought it might have been difficult to come up with 10 reasons but there they are. That alone should tell me something.

Want to play along? Join in by grabbing the button off the side bar, posting it on your site along with your Top Ten Reasons. You can use my prompt or one of your own. Then come back here and link up so we can come and check out your lists.

Don't forget to check out more Top Ten at my lovely co-hosts



Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Bubbles

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween 2009

It's amazing how each Halloween gets easier. Of course the first Halloween's were pretty easy. We dressed E up and took her to a half dozen houses, had all the old folks ooh and aww over her cuteness then home to happily divide up the candy between K and me. ;) Who says we don't live through our children. *L*

Last year was a bit of a trial though. I actually had to push and prod my oldest to continue on to each house. She had focused on one house in particular that she wanted to go to... on the other side of the street. Now in my grown up orientated and organized mind I wanted to go down one side of the road and back up the other. By the time we got to that house we were both frustrated and it turned out the people who dropped the big spider had moved. Arg. I realized that it would have been better to be flexible saving us all frustration.

This year; however, notwithstanding the fact that J told me that I would surely have to say trick or treat for her because she was too shy to say it, by the third house she was gayly running ahead with her big sister to each house and answering promptly inquiries about her costume. Amazing. Is this the same child that has to Dora the size of her to preschool just so she won't cry when I leave?

Stamina my children do not have, however. By the end of one block and half way up the other side of the street they pooped out. Not cause they are lazy, inactive kids but because they aren't night time kids. They play so hard by the supper time they are barely making it to bed time. We skipped the last half of the houses and simply went home. They barely made it out to my mom's property for the fireworks. I think they did sleep in the van on the way there but thankfully they got their second wind and managed to stay awake this year for the fireworks.

Nothing makes a halloween evening than heading out to my parent's property for a bonfire. There is just something about roasting hot dogs over the fire, drinking hot cocoa and eating chili that is so much fun. My brother usually invites his friends over and there are always a bunch of kids ready and willing to play together in the dark. This year they built up leaf piles and jumped in them. How they could see I am amazed, we grownups stuck closer to the fire. Then my brother started setting off the fireworks and we all oohed and ahed. It was so much. We all pitch in for the fireworks so we end up with some really good stuff. The last firework of the evening had so many starbursts, flares and swirly sparks that it outbeat anything the City ever put on for Canada Day. It was great.

This year we have to be a bit more wiley in stealing their candy. For even O has developed a sincere attachment to his treats. He refused to allow us to empty his bucket into a waiting bag just for him because he insisted on seeing his candy. Fortunately they hate coffee crisps and I don't much like any of the other suckers and sticky sour treats so they are pretty safe from me. Daddy on the other hand....

Here are a few photos from our Halloween. I hope you guys had a fun time!

O would absolutely not put his hands inside the pumpkin.

J on the other hand dug in with gusto.



My scared construction worker, E's princess pumpkin complete with earrings and J's scary pumpkin complete with green boogie. J was very adamant about that green booger.

My Tiger

My Little Puppy

My Tinkerbell

It's hard to hear see in this photo but there's a sign there that says Halloween at the North Pole. The people were dressed up in snazzy christmas outfits. Not the typical chubby Santa though. Really well done.


A spooky walk



Happy Halloween!