For the Record

I would like to put this info out there in case you ever stop by my house and proceed to wonder.... I do indeed wash my floors! Not that you can tell by looking. Monday morning I was feeling pretty good, the house was decently clean. The kitchen and living room floors had been washed on Saturday afternoon and at 7:45 I was already done scrubbing my bathroom including the floor (hey Laura, I do clean my bathroom! :) ) when...

I stopped short of cleaning the bathtub to help Cara go pee. And wouldn't you know it, the floors weren't even dry yet and somehow she managed to pee between the seat and the bowl so that I soon had a large puddle racing across my (slanted) floor. And while I was getting a rag to clean up the mess I heard a great big crash from the kitchen area. The kind of crash that immediately makes you think of the bowl your other 2 year old was eating his cereal out of a couple of minutes ago.

Actually, he wasn't eating the cereal because he was trying to tell me it was "gucky". Maybe he was bringing it to the bathroom so I could help him finish it, maybe he was bringing it to the bathroom to convince me to flush it down the toilet, maybe he was bringing it too the bathroom with the hopes he would trip and tip it all over my clean flooring so he wouldn't have to finish it. I"ll never know. But as I got yet another rag and went on my hands and knees to clean it up it somehow came about that he informed me, "it's your fault!" Like, how?!

And while I was carrying the mess back to the kitchen sink he wailed, "don't throw away my foodies!" It's probably what I get for feeding my children sugar laced cereal like Frosted Flakes :)

So this morning I was talking to a friend on the phone and she asked how my floors were this morning and I happily told her there had been no incidents.

Yet.... because no sooner had I hung up the phone and Cam whipped a book all frisbee like and took out a cup full of apple juice that was still standing on the table. I heartily dislike apple juice spills. Especially flung far and wide, apple juice here, apple juice there, incredibly sticky apple juice spills.

I'm sure there's some frisbee elite athlete out there who would have been impressed with the throw and resulting bulls eye. But me? Not so much. Cam just stood there looking at me, in fact, I think he quietly mumbled an, "oops!, I didn't mean too" wondering if I was going to fall apart.

I didn't. Actually we laughed together and for the next few hours I pondered grace and mercy. Undeserved reprieve of deserved punishment. Yet I can't seem to type out what my thoughts were exactly, and I've been trying for a while now. So, I'll leave it with a verse of scripture.

Psalm 86:5
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

I Did it Again

Closed the windows. Tight. Because no matter how tough I think I am I absolutely cannot handle the idea of my neighbors thinking I mistreat my kids. And no matter how much I talk it up, rub the razor thing up and down my hand or his hand, do another kid first or bribe, I cannot get this boy to submit to a haircut without a lot of screeching. But despite the tears and snot he sure looks cute when he's done. And a whole lot like his dad too.

And if you think this side looks Steveish, you should see the back. I forgot to check the settings and he has one stripe up the back left side that was cut on the shortest setting. The setting his daddy uses to do his hair. But that's not why it looks Steveish. It's because I did it to Steve once when we were dating that makes me think of his Dad every time I see it. I almost cried that time. :) He didn't wear his hair so short back then! It seemed a terrible error at the time.

Oops!

As for other news I would just like to report that I am thankful you didn't see my face on the front of the local newspaper for robbery this week. I went into Pricemart, filled my basket with goods and realized (once again, sigh) that I needed a buggy not a basket. I went to stand in front of the "in" doors waiting for someone to come in so I could scoot back out and get a buggy. Not until I heaved my basket into the buggy did I think about the fact that I had just left the store with bunch of unpaid groceries. No wonder the eldery lady coming in had such a funny look on her face! "Kids these days are just getting more and more brazen... basket and all!"

Anyway, she was waiting for me when I got back in and the incident sparked 25 minutes of conversation. (Can you tell I'm not getting out much these days?! :) ) She told me it was a "shtupit ding" to do. "Yah, a mistake" but oh so dumb. Why? Because 50 years ago when she was a new imigrant with very few English words in her vocab she made the same mistake and the store clerk was not very forgiving. Or at least he scared the willy nillies out of her and I'm pretty sure she never was that "shtupit" again. Well, she was a precious lady and I'm sure Poland is the worse off and Canada the better for her having come across on the boat.

Sunday's just around the corner and we're still not all better here. I'm aching for a "normal" Sunday of worship services.... another one of those "shouldn't have been taking it for granted" reminders.

Precious

There's a special lady "named" LT out here in blog land who, through telling her own tragic life story, is my constant reminder how blessed I am in the way of family. How precious love between parents and children, grand parents and grand children and even great grandparents and great grandchildren really is. In fact, I'm convinced I have no idea how precious it actually is.... because I have never known otherwise, I have never been without this kind of love.


This is my Oma, my Dad's mom who, the Lord willing, will be 90 this year. Oma is a bit more forgetful than she used to be but is still very clear in her mind and a joy to visit and tease! For a lady who learned a new language, English, later in life - I think in her 50's - it amazes me that she speaks only English to me! And if she forgets and starts her sentence in Dutch she quickly switches when I remind her I don't understand.


What a precious gift, a loving great grandma!

Aren't they a cheerful looking lot?! Man, I'm starting to forget what it's like to have a house without sickness.

Probably because I took it for granted.

Big Change!

I wasn't going to do it. It made so much sense to keep them in their cribs. They like the cribs and it makes it easy for them to continue sharing a room as they don't crawl into eachother's crib at night. But it all started when I took Cody's crib down so I could steam clean the carpet with Oma and Opa's handy dandy rug cleaner. (It worked beautifully but the carpet was so dirty it took me probably nearly 5 hours before I gave up and said clean enough - see the nice lines in the carpeting?) Anyway, I could hardly believe how much room there was with only one crib. I was envisioning taking some toys upstairs and giving them their own space to play- babies for her, cars for him, it's what they play) This cute little guy is such a cheerful helper. The others are too but a couple of them had fevers too high to care, 102 and 103 for Sam and Cody.
Steve came home and over supper I mentioned this next idea and like the kind loving husband he is he took the kids and they went to it pulling the second crib apart.

There are some things that even a fever can't keep you away from :) Tools would be one.

I'm not sure who was more excited, the twins or Cam but what a happy bunch. We used the bed we had originally bought for Leah when Cam needed a crib and Sam went to the toddler bed. We set it up backwards so Cara could use the wall as a head board and Cody could have something to keep him from falling off his end. Cam was a little worried that Cody had a girl blanket (Leah's old one) but we put it stripes up instead of the flowers and he decided it would be okay. :)

The bunk beds came with these two Sears foam mattresses which we had stacked double on Cam's bed so we took one from Cam and gave the twins one, shopped the house for whatever bedding was available and had 2 very hyper, happy campers. "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" as their little feet itched to do some little hops and then a big jump down to the floor :)

I thought it would take a while for them to settle but they were tired and within minutes were fast asleep under their own blankets. We'll see how they do overnight. And don't think for a minute that I haven't considered what a pain it will be to try and change the bed if one of them pukes.

They look so tiny again. It's hard to believe they're big enough to even consider getting rid of the cribs. The last 2 years, 5 months and 12 days has truly flown by.

Hopefully this will work for now and we'll start keeping our eyes open for another bunk bed! For now we have a crib and a toddler bed to give away. Anybody have a need?

Tonight I sit amazed at how I am provided for. At the lack of tragedy in my life. I can go on the internet and read about the hugeness of the tragedy in Japan, I can read of death and accidents at my own local news website, I can read of horrible hardships and life experiences recounted by fellow bloggers. I'm overwhelmed. God is gracious to me.

Our dear Leah and Sam were brought safely back home after a very special visit with Opa and Nana. Big thanks to Gramma who enjoyed their company for the 1o hour road trip there and back. Leah left still fighting the fever/headache and Sam arrived home with a fever. Yup, we're still fighting it here. It's been very staggered and drawn out.

We rediscovered a couple things since their arrival back home. a) five is noisy b) five is busier than 3 :)

We've had some very special days with the youngest three but I don't think I got a single picture of it. We stopped in at the leisure center, we made some special visits to play with cousins, we played a bunch of extra games, read extra books, had some extra late night together time with Cam, had extra snuggles, fought extra sickness.

Keeps coming back to that, I think I'll go get some sleep.


But, just to keep things really exciting....


Carolyn and Clayton should be landing any minute and will be spending the next week with us!!!

Ps. Sorry that this reads as though I'm tired.... :)

A post worth sharing. In a world full of ugly things this is precious, making the heart smile even as the tears flow.
Thanks to the W's for allowing their story to be shared. Thanks to Will for sharing it so beautifully as only she does.

Today's Project

Friday night the bed frame and mattress went home to its rightful owner. It didn't take up an extraordinary amount of room but once it disappeared I asked Steve if we could please install the wire shelving I had picked up garage saleing - a whole bunch of it with brackets for $15!

So our storage area went from this...

To this! Three rows of shelving.

I still need to go through some of the boxes and start getting rid of stuff but it sure looks like it will be a lot easier to work with all this floor space. I am SO thankful for my sweetie who took my vision and brought it to fruition. It's amazing what he can do with a stolen... no borrowed drill! :)

ps. Dad O. I'm picturing you with a big grin, thinking you'll think this was an excellent Saturday's work. :)

pps. that's a toddler bed frame on the right side of the picture, just in case it's mixing you up.

Bullzoding

I think there's something wonderful with an imagination that takes a piece of cardboard, some scotch tape, 2 spoons and a hard hat and transforms it all into a man on a bulldozer.

And the fact that he couldn't get it straight and kept calling it a bullzoder was the icing on the cake.

There's education and then there's.... education

Sam came home from kindergarten today and solemly informed me, "mans only button one button on these kinds of shirts." Yep, his kind classmates decided he needed to be in the know and he was SO grateful. :)

And I laughed out loud as he cheerfully skipped away like the little boy he still is.

Ps. This was taken on parent evening and THANKFULLY he had only done up one button.

Pps. Our sickness situation is such that we are still wondering if anyone else will get it and Cara had her first day without a bucket. Relatively cheerful but weak. Why is it so easy to take good health for granted? I am so thankful for staying healthy to this point and pray that I may be able to miss it all together. Yet, God's ways are not mine and so I will patiently wait and see.

And evening has come and instead of having departed FB seems to have settled into the tummies of the next 3 kids. Or at least, they didn't eat much supper and complained of owie tummies. It could be, of course, that they have learned the (wise) ways of their daddy and taken to fasting when sickness is in the house :) But just in case, my Saturday night preparations looked something like this.

• beds cleared of everything (extra teddies, books, toys and blankets, yes our kids will load their beds with stuff) only the blankets required to keep them warm are allowed to stay.
• floors cleared, rugs folded up and night tables shifted over or cleared off
• buckets set by each bed
• rubbermaid container of extra blankets hauled out of storage
• extra sheets set ready
• couches spread with towels for those needing to move upstairs

Let the games begin! :)

We have house guests

...the kind that surprise you when they come through the door and you count down the days till they're gone again.

Until they showed up I was of the mindset that as a mom of twins I could do fine with 3 crib sheets, 2 for regular use and 1 for emergencies.

Since the arrival of our guests, Flu Bug by name, I have concluded that I was mistaken and really I should be required to have 10 sheets.

• 2 for on the beds


• 2 for in the washer


• 2 for in the dryer


• 2 for on the floor in front of the dryer waiting to be crumpled up... er I mean folded up and put in the closet


• 2 for the closet, close on hand for middle of the night changings.

That way at least the cycle can run smoothly! Crazy but the twins are still at it even though they act pretty normal, if somewhat whiny between bouts.

To add to the quote of a friend, "parenting, house cleaning AND flu bugs are all for the birds". Not always bad but sure with difficult moments. And, Friend? That must make me a really old buzzard! :)

Ps. We've informed the guests they have till tonight to leave but they don't seem too persuaded by my intimidation tactics and just let their eyes slide over to stare down the rest of my family. It's wait and see, I guess.

Two Facts:

- of all my kids, Cam has the weakest stomach and will gag at the slightest (or not so slight) provocation
- my babies are sick and I'm dealing with stomach contents regected from both poles. Sorry, facts are facts.


And despite the fact Cody feels crummy he keeps asking for lunch and supper (we'll work on extending his vocab when he's feeling better) so we hauled out a package of crackers. Sam and Cam wanted to spring for something a bit more exciting as their snack so they asked for cheese whiz for something a tad more elaborate. Cody couldn't help himself and asked Sam to make him one too. Which he promptly broke into pieces and spit his one mouthful back onto the table.

And Cam and Sam? "Run for your lives," Sam hollered as Cam stood there and gagged. Cody feeling a bit hurt in the feelings, chased them with his hands in his armpits and his elbows flopping back and forth, "come back here, you bunch of chickens."