I'm sorry for slacking. It hasn't been for lack of desire but lack of time. Or should I say, extra time. It's all about prioritizing and blog writing fell below a few items on the list. :)

I do have to mention our special Friday. Wieska (sis in law) phoned in the morning to say she would finish cleaning the section of the church we were responsible for last week. (That's what I started when I dropped the kids off at Leanne's on Thursday) Anyway, that loving offer opened up our evening because Steve had been planning to spend his evening at the church. Leah and Sam were at Opa and Nana's for the afternoon and supper so Steve and I went with the 3 little ones to do some errands. After everyone was tucked in bed we watched the DVD "Fireproof". This is a totally clean movie made by a church group. It is about marriage and how a struggling couple overcomes the world's temptation to quit and walk away from the vows they made and instead they turn to Christ and learn about true love - skeleton synopsis. It was again a reminder that committment is a choice and a good marriage a lot of work! We really enjoyed it and would recommend it to any couple, engaged or married. It was after 12:00 before we were done, maybe not the smartest choice for sleep deprived persons but a choice worth Saturday's tiredness. So thanks, Wieska, we wouldn't have spent that time together if it wasn't for your offer and work on our behalf!

I do have some pictures from tonight's supper that I will have to try to upload soon. Think Cam, cup of pudding and budding artist. Finger licking good!

As for today, Mom came and worked very hard. For the most part my children were slightly on the cranky side and I didn't get too much done myself. Mom O came late this afternoon and Steve and I went to go look at a house possibility. The idea of more space is exciting but admittingly, moving sounds exhausting! (and never forget, more space to live in, more space to clean!)

I made a dumb choice tonight and accidently woke up Cody after only an hour in bed so instead of giving you some pictures I'm going to try and get this little one settled again.

I saw a sign in a magazine a while ago.

Good morning. Let the stress begin.

It's not my usual optimistic outlook but somedays.... especially when the house is permeated with Eau de Stupidity.

Our house reeks. I mean it really, really stinks. Fiercly. And this is why. I almost burned the kitchen down this afternoon. I had a few slices of buttered raisin bread and as many of you know, I have a hard time eating bread but I do enjoy toast. So rather than let the raisin bread go to waste I thought I would broil it. Problem was, after I stuck the tray under the broiler, the twins woke up and I went to go QUICKLY get some clothes for them - their lucky day, they actually got out of their pyjamas today. You can imagine what my heart rate did when Leah and Sam starting hollering from the kitchen table that, "Mama, there's smoke pouring out of the oven!!!!" As you can see it was on fire by the time I got it out of there. The whole house filled up with a very thick, disgusting smoke...and the smoke detector did NOT go off. Time to change those batteries. In the meanwhile, despite a few rounds with the Glade Air Infusions can, the house is really, really stinky.

Other than that we had a fantastic day, hope you did too.

Gramma brought brownies and cookies last night and stayed for a couple rounds of UNO. Now, I won't lie to you. My kids are not great losers... yet. Hopefully they learn. But when the contestants consist of one player who went to sleep around 8:00 the night before and got up at 5:30!! am and a second player who went to sleep around 9:00 and got up to do an exhausting day of school at 6:3o, and the game is being played at 7:00 at night, well, you better expect some tears. So, I think they enjoyed playing UNO last night but I'm not 100 percent sure because I'm not asking them for their opinion. I'm not even coming close to hinting at the name of THE game at this point in my day. You would enjoy watching Sam play for the most part, though. He loves having "plus twoses and plus fourses" in his hand and counts it a privilege to have to pick up if someone else happens to play one of those aforementioned cards against him. You never know, there's always a chance you might pick up a "good" card or two. For all the joy of picking up though, why is it so terrible to be left with a whole stack of cards at the end? And then there's Leah who refused to play her yellow skip a turn card last night because she could see that if she changed the color to yellow and skipped Gramma's turn, Sam would play a yellow card and that would leave Steve free to finish off. (there's advantages - learning strategy and disadvantages - really long games, to laying cards on the table for everyone to see but Sam's "fan" only lasts a short time yet) Could we tempt any of our loving family and friends that live so far away to travel for a UNO tournement?

It does appear you can't teach them too young! Such concentration and I'm sure Cody's giving Gramma hints about what to play next. Doesn't Cara look great in blue? Her sleeper was grabbed in the dark 14 hours earlier when she woke up too early for lights and day time but soaking wet and needing immediate assistance.

Sure hope no one is taking notes on grammer or spelling errors. I just type and post. I don't spend time on the finicky part. Can I use the excuse of needing to get back to the kids? (who are playing so wonderfully together this morning I want to scoop them into a big hug! Sam sure loves Leah's home days)

A Kind of Sad Ending to a Wonderful Day

Sis-in-law Leanne brought Chelsie to visit this morning and as a surprise came with a box full of goodies! I am back to admitting how spoiled I am. In exchange for having a delightful little sweetie play and sleep at our house we got supper, salad, yummy apple... dessert (my brains are shutting down) cookies and sour keys! Supper was excellent, Leanne, and the chips were the hit . :) I do believe Chelsie is one of the most content children I have ever known. She crawled around to wherever we happened to be doing things, found something to play with and didn't make a boo or bah all morning, not even when she was tired enough to go for her nap. Cam was quite clingy and surprisingly quite territorial when it came to sharing Chelsie with me. I have to give him a bit of extra loving for a few days, I think.

Leah was complaining of a sore ear off and on all day but when she laid down tonight she went to crying in great pain. Steve was finally the one to take her off to the clinic where she was diagnosed with ear infection and ruptured ear drum. Poor little sweetheart, I can't help but think I should have made a greater effort to bring her in to the doctor's this afternoon when her complaints got more insistent. And now I have to make a decision about whether or not to wake her up tomorrow morning at 6:30 when she only got to bed at 9:00.

And so I'm going to head to bed myself very thankful that we were able to bring Leah in to see a doctor before the clinic closed, avoiding the ER!

A Day full of Blessings!

We are keeping a careful watch of the tulips that fill our front flower bed and surround the little trees in the lawn. One of our favorite things to do when we have extra time while waiting for Leah's bus in the morning is to go see how many more flowers are poking through the ground. Amazing how these little red points turn into green leaves that in time will sport pretty flowers. Discovery, even if it's just of red points poking out of the ground, is a beautiful thing.

We had such a special morning! Leah had found a special quarter and was going to take it for show and tell for "q" week. Problem was we found the quarter on the table about 10 mins after she had gotten on the bus. The decision was made the twins would stay with Mom M when she came for her Monday morning help session and the boys and I would go visit Leah in KG. We made a quick stop at Timmy's for some timbits and then headed out. (Hey, if you're going to make it special, might as well make it really special!) We got to watch about 20 minutes of KG before recess time and then the boys even got to play with Leah on the playground for a while. What a treat for all 4 of us!!! At supper Sam reported to Steve, "we went to Mr. V's room and saw his snake! It eats mouses and it took its skin off!" Thanks to Mr. V. for giving up part of his recess time for us, that stop was obviously a hit. We also stopped at Mr. Van Brugge's classroom and "Mr. Van Brugge has a TRAIN in his class room." Because of the recent Grandparent Day with a museum theme there were all kinds of fantastic things to see and Sam reported on the raccoon cap and washing machine made out of wood we also saw in Mr. Van Brugge's classroom. Sam told Steve, "Mama said she would wash my clothes in that washing machine and she would turn the handle!" Man, I know many of you are home school people and this is not an argument for or against but my own personal feelings. I am such a school lover. In the space of an hour we saw so many people :) played with different kids, but most of all saw SO MANY things to talk about, learn from, discover! To me the school atmosphere is so invigorating and it was so exciting to share and talk with Sam as we had the extra time to walk around. Did you know raccoons were made into coon skin caps? And that two Papa's used to use one huge saw to cut down a tree, both holding one handle and pulling back and forth? How about milk, do you know it used to come in glass bottles not in plastic jugs? And on and on, not to mention what we all learned about snakes or at least this one in particular... it squeezes a mouse dead, opens its mouth really wide and then swallows the whole thing. So now I have a problem. Maybe I should have been a teacher. I'm well on my way to filling a one room school house but I don't think that holds the same atmosphere I encountered this morning :) :)

To give the morning a top notch finish we came home to a sparkling house, vaccumed, floors and dishes washed, laundry folded and put away and more going in the washer and a happy Cody and Cara. Thanks Mom. You work hard for us, giving us your time week after week, keeping things in better shape here than I ever have! We love you very much and hope we never take your hard work for granted. I also can't help but think we couldn't have enjoyed the morning quite the same if I had gone with all 4 little ones.

Now that it's getting a little warmer we sometimes try to be outside when Leah gets home. Cam and Sam had a great time getting rid of energy running back and forth from the road to the porch keeping an eye out for the bus. Can you imagine how excited they were when they saw her get off the bus with a Timmy's box in hand!!!?
Our Monday afternoon routine has also changed a little. Opa doesn't only come to bring supper but now also has to include a "round of UNO". The kids are loving UNO right now and look forward to playing a game with Opa.

And my little girl. Growing up so big and loving her little brother and sister so much.

Because I know some of you look especially for pictures of the twins. They are growing up so fast but when I look at how they still fit on the same normal sized pillow together then they can look little once again! Sometimes they are so funny how they relate to one another. Often if they are laying side by side and Cara's crying, Cody will just study her in such a serious manner. But, if Cody's the one crying, Cara has this huge grin on her face as if she's laughing at him. Maybe one of the most precious things about twins is seeing how different babies are from one another. For me, their differences make them seem like little people so much earlier because they are so individual. I don't know if that's making any sense but it's time to go read Sam some stories so I'm not going to take anytime to clarify.