Mother's Day

Another Mother's Day has come and gone.

One of my treats today was to have Spencer home for a few hours this morning. One of his early meetings was cancelled due to Mother's Day. So he whipped up some toasty pancakes...yum!

While he was working away in the kitchen, I had a peaceful shower and had time to paint my toe nails before church.

We also opened presents...Evan made me a clay butterfly that I will frame and hang up in my gallery, Megan gave me a painted pot and plant and Spencer hit up his favorite store on one of his work breaks...the body shop for a lovely smelling lemony scented bath gift box. At church we all recieved a candle.

We had good talks and a wonderful primary musical number and a brunch/VT lesson with all the sisters in our ward.

After a lovely dinner of Spighetti and veggies we decided that the kids needed some time outside to burn off all of their....I'm bored Sunday routine. (That may have been true this Sunday as I took a delightful nap for a few hours).

The sun was shining and it was still day light. So we enjoyed spending the day together.

A very special Happy Mother's Day wish to all of those mothers out there and other wonderful women who have helped me along the way.

Lucky

So I've recieved a complaint from my fan club that I don't update my blog enough, so I thought that I would finally post about our St. Patrick's Day festivities.

We always do something...

Thanks to the dollar store for being able to get some cheap accessories and decorations.

I bought some green necklaces, a pack of buttons (Kiss me I'm Irish...etc...), 2 shamrock mugs for the ladies I VT, some sparklie window clings (put on my mirror in my 1/2 bath for all to enjoy!), tattoos and lucky hair clips.

I then ran off to the bulk store to find lucky candy...anything that was green and of course the gold coins at the end of everyone's rainbow. I filled the cups for my VT ladies, and packaged the snack sized ziploc bags for my kids and hubby. They were so excited to recieve a candy bag in the morning...

I also stopped my Sally's beauty supply store for some green hair coloring and fingernail polish.

I was going to have some green pancakes...but I didn't wake up early enough for that...I did fill Megan's lunch up with green veggies and some nice artwork on her paper lunch bag.

Megan was the most dressed up; green hair streaks, nails, sweater, some green on her pants, hair clips, button and necklaces and a lucky tattoo on her cheek. Aaron also had on some green on his clothes, had his nails painted, and green in his hair and a tattoo on his hand. Evan eventually agreed to have some green hair and wear a button he also had a tattoo on his cheek (it eventually came off too in about a week) . Spencer opted to not have green hair (not very professional), but did wear a green shirt and put on a button and a green tattoo on his hand as well. I'm now just realizing that I got everyone else green and read and didn't opt for any of the fun things to wear, except my green shirt. Oh well next year.

Evan the day before in preschool made a green magnifying glass that he loved to look through...

Chronicles of Narina

So our latest escapades took us to see the Chronicles of Narina exhibit at the Telus World of Science(TWOS) (of all places). They tied in the themes of global warming; which is associated with the "white witch".

Any ways the exhibit was interesting. We read the entire series with Megan as her reading time with mom or dad before bed. She really loved the series and so did we. We are slowly making our way through the movies that have been done about it as well.

There were pieces of C.S. lewis' things and different props from the different movies. There was even a craft of making your own shield to take home. The boys were far to into the hands- on catapult to be bothered much with a craft.

We enjoyed this on a teachers convention day so Megan had no school. We've been to the TWOS a couple of times as a family and it is quite pricey for the whole family to go. I also happened to see that there were a few more exhibits that I know my kids would enjoy so I ended up buying a family pass. (Thanks Jen for the coupon book for my b-day; cause there was a coupon for 10% off an annual admission).

Megan and Evan love to go to the demonstration area and learn how "pop" is made. Megan got selected to go up on stage to give the finally product a try, to see if they followed the recipe right. Yup, they did. Everyone is allowed to try the results. This time they tried peach, lime and orange flavored pop. They both gave it two thumbs up!

We also spent some time in the kids area, building with big blocks, standing in front of the funny mirrors, dancing on a big piano, and playing at water tables. We also managed to fit in a star show that they kids enjoyed. It sure was a busy day.

White Trash...

Sorry if the title of this post offends anyone....but that is all I kept thinking about as I suggested to Spencer that he should do something different and special with the kids. I was going to be a daddy/son date, some good quality time with just Evan (aaron is too young to enjoy this) but when Megan heard what I was suggesting she said that she would also like to go.

Where you may ask.......to Rexall Place to the Monster Truck Jam of course. They went on the first Saturday of February. They got tickets at the door and we purchased ear plugs for them.

Motorcycle jumpers, crushing cars, races.....

After the show they told me that it was ok, really noisy. I asked them if they would like to go again next year they both said "no thanks" I wasn't constant entertainment. There would be lulls in the program and the noise was too much. Good....now we can start to refine our tastes on what we consider fun/worth while entertainment. As a family we perfer to be more active.

Here is some of what Spencer captured on video:

Lazy

If the truth be told I think that I'm a little bit lazy; especially when it comes to blogging. I have been enjoying reading everyone else's blog but have been to lazy to up load pictures to use for my blog. Really what is an entry with out pictures....nothing but boring. So keep scrolling down for catch up entries with pictures......

January

I told Megan at the start of the month that January is the longest month of the year cause of the dark, cold, snowy days and I have not been wrong. I'm ready for February and am already looking forward to Valentine's Day and dreaming up what our celebrations will be.

Here is some of what we have been up to these past few months.....

My baby no longer looks like a baby....now he's a little boy with short hair. (He picked the barbie jeep to ride in)

There is Megan on the end...singing with her school choir at the Festival of Trees.

Spencer and I all dressed up ready to go to his work party. We had a good time and even stayed later this year for the dance portion.

This one is worth celebrating...Megs finally! lost a tooth. Her permanent tooth was already growing in but the baby one just wouldn't let go. Megan would not allow Spencer or I to help with the removal, we were only allowed to wiggle it. Then one morning as we were sitting down for breakfast it fell out on the table.

Our Christmas celebrations

Sorry for being so busy/tired and couldn't be bothered to post pictures of our Christmas celebrations as of yet. (Actually we didn't take too many pictures this year for some reason, I'll find some to post later)

I'm personally taking some time to do so now. (Most of you would have already heard/experienced some of our celebrating by now anyways....here goes...)

This Christmas rolled by faster than I was prepared for, but all the important things got done.

Some things that kept us busy include:

• sledding on the warmer days
• trying our hand (or feet and skill) at skiing. (We think that this will be our new family winter activity; we survived one day anyways. Megan was able to take a lesson, Evan was too young. It was a struggle to help him, when neither Spencer or I have been skiing in years. Our best success came from having him take off his skis and walking a little way up the hill then helping him back into them and sending him down hill. He loved that. But kept asking if he could take the tow rope to the top of the bunny hill and when he would be able to use a snowboard. Yikes! One ski day at a time. He'll get there eventually and so will Megs.)
• watching despicable me at the cheap theater while eating a large popcorn! The kids finally all stayed fairly interested and in their seats for the whole movie! (actually I told Evan that if he didn't; as he typically likes to scale the seats, visit the arcade and washroom etc. during the movie; that I would no longer take him to the theatre to watch movies) It worked!
• Went swimming at a wave pool, and played at a real indoor park
• Of course the usual errands and grocery shopping (nightmare with 3 kids in tow!)
• Forever cleaning the house together
• Decorating cookies with grandma.
• Pushing and shoving our way through various stores to find the "perfect" gifts for others
• Attending Spencer's work Christmas party (looking fabulous in purple)
• going to our Ward Party
• Watching Megan's school Christmas party
• sending/receiving Christmas cards
• I did no Christmas baking, but opted to buy a few treats (time and stress savor)

Now for a more spiritual side of activities:

• Listening to Christmas music
• Decorating the tree together
• Spending time with family
• Not rushing too much through out the day
• Selecting a few people in our ward to drop of a stocking of goodies too to help brighten their Christmas ( one carol was sung!; Megan joined us in delivering these stocking, while the boys fell asleep in the van due to the long ride and wait. BTW we were wearing elf hats/Santa hats)
• Having one Christmas dinner with good friends and another after Christmas with family.
• Having our own version of Christmas Eve festivities, we each shared a talent and watched a Christmas video from the church website.
• Attended a live Nativity (PS. it was the coldest night that week to be outside but we were bundled and ready, then the kids enjoyed their dinner at Rotten Ronnies)
• Christmas morning brunch and relaxing with new gifts and spending the day together

Of all our favorite Christmas traditions that we have done my favorite are:

• writing letters to each member in our family that we read aloud Christmas morning (part of our stockings)
• doing a food hamper/stocking with gifts for those in need in our ward

both of these things help us to more focus on the real meaning of the season and include a way to show love and service to others, just as Christ would do.

There are typically other things that we do that didn't happen this year....like taking a night to drive a look at lights, or attending the tree lighting downtown and going to the legislature. We had a more relaxed and slow Christmas which turned out to be perfect. Maybe next year we will find time to include all these other things, but for now we are happy with how our Christmas turned out.