Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I Wish For My Children

1. To live a long life
2. To be happy
3. To be successful in whatever career they choose
4. To find someone that makes them happy and to hold onto them
5. To be able to recognize when they need help and to be able to ask for it
6. To laugh often
7. To not be afraid to show or express their emotions
8. To be proud of who they are
9. To take some risks in their life
10. To phone home
11. To accept the consequences of poor decisions
12. To make wise choices
13. To have faith in what they believe in

Is it summer holidays yet?

Joseph's out of school and is loving the luxury of staying at home and annoying the heck out of his mother, LOL!
Now that the holidays are approaching fast we're starting to think about what we're going to do on our 2 weeks off. We have a wedding on the 14th in Edmonton but Aaron still works so the boys and I will be solo (well with my family, so not totally on my own, phew!) and Aaron has an appointment July 21st in Calgary so we'll definitely have to be home on the Friday. The days inbetween are going to be spent somewhere around the Morinville area and we're hoping to get in a few day trips here and there.
Joseph should be out of his cast by then so he can hit the hot tub - we doubt Alex will be though, so we may have to get him something else really cool to make up for it. He still has a slip and slide from last year that hasn't made it out of the box yet too. And believe me we've tried putting bags on his arm and taping it to make it waterproof but it just isn't. I'm not sure if it's because he sweats so much with the plastic on or what but it always seems to get just wet enough to make it smell really bad!

An emotional rollercoaster day!

It was only at 10:30 last night that I heard the sad news about the Benoit family and I just can't seem to let it go. As frustrating as life can be I've never wished harm on anyone in my family and can't imagine what could possess someone to take another's life - let alone that of a child. I was giving my kiddies lots of extra hugs and kisses today and had more than one teary moment, I'm bawling now just writing this. It's just so very sad! The extended family of the Benoit's are in our thoughts and prayers.

Babies versus Big Kids

Today was an awesome day! I was lovin' the dayhome kiddies, even the thundershowers in the afternoon didn't get me down. We even had some serious discussion today...when do the babies become big kids?
This is such a hard question to answer especially to some 2, 3 and 4 year olds.
The older boys that are 4 were figuring that the almost 3 year old girl is a baby still because she's in pullups still and not panties. She however thinks she's a big girl now because she pees in the potty now. Then they argued that she must be a baby because she sits in a booster chair but she knows she's a big girl now because she's not in a high chair.
The conversation went on and on and on and by the end of it I was almost rolling on the floor pee'ing in my pants. And then when it couldn't get funnier one of the 4 year old boys looked at me and asked me if I was a big girl. I said yes (because I fulfill all of the requirements to be a Big Girl) and then he asked "Can I see your panties?"
Freaking hilarious!!! I love my job!

***Yes, the little darlin' belonged to you 'Chelle***

A casual Sunday

We've had a great weekend so far, off to a rough start with the unexpected discovery of massive missing programs off of our computer. I couldn't use my camera and still can't update my iPod. For some reason the computer guru deleted them while cleaning everything up and now iTunes won't install, actually it won't even uninstall either. I'm not very computer literate so this is mucho frustrating! Friday night I did get out to do some shopping and bought all of the Bunco prizes for Friday night. It's always fun to shop with other people's money, isn't it? Then yesterday morning JoJo woke up with a pretty pinkish looking eye, so, off to the doctor's we go and wait and wait and wait some more just to find out that it's a cold in his eye and some polysporin drops will clear it up in a day or two.
And then the fun part of the weekend came:

Here's the girls and my boys

Just the girls

Me and my girlfriend, Tina, out of the 14 years we've been friends this is like the only picture of just the two of us, WTF?

Steve and Kyla

We visited, had some pizza, attempted a game, but the absolute highlight was listening to 2 of the 3 girls singing along with the Mini-Pops rendition of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. It was a hella good time folks! And I've got another member to the "I heart Hawaiin Tropics Fan Club", (the drink versus the sunscreen). Today, is going to be a low-key day I think. I'm carpet cleaning...wheeeeeeeeee....it's going to be a fun day...not...

I heart my computer!

Yeah, my computer is finally back home again. Ahh, I missed her more than I probably should have. I could use my son's computer to check some emails and attempt to read/write blogs but that turned out to be mucho frustrating! In a nutshell we've (Aaron) has finished painting the mainfloor and is going to do the stairs/hallway upstairs and then call it quits on that project, Joseph had his Kindergarten celebration Thursday night - only school on Mon & Tues and it's a swim/water park day for them both but with Joseph in a cast I don't want to leave the burden of keeping it dry up to the teachers nor do I want him to get his cast all wet either so we're not sure yet if he'll go for the last two days or not, my parents came down for Joseph's grad and we have the pleasure of Cody-sitting for them...I think that's about it. I thought more things happened...guess not. So without further ado some picture updates:

Living room picture
Alex and Mommy - why does he insist on taking our self-portraits all the time. Oh wait, I do that to Mom and Aaron all the time. I guess he gets it from me.
Some brotherly love
Joe looking not so impressed to be graduating Kindergarten
My babe in his cute little tank top

We changed the bathroom accessories to polished silver and have copper/chocolate accents. Tres cool. The new curtain makes the bathroom a lot darker and it's a lot cooler too.

Here's Alex , AKA, Thing Two putting on his best blogging smile.
Aaron and our two boys Hulk 1 and Hulk 2.
Here's Joseph, AKA, Thing One and his Bionicles.Grrrrr, feel the wrath, feel the wrath...

Boyz II Men was a bust

This is from Cyndi so I'm assuming it's Boyz II Men
And here is Cyndi and I waiting for them to start the show...next time I want to wear white too so we can both glow!

Doors at Cowboys opened at 7 so the four of us thought we'd eat at the Chophouse first. Yummy yummy yummy! We had great food and a few drinks then headed over to Cowboys. We arrived at about 7:50 and stood around and waited and danced a little and waited...they started the pre-show around 9 o'clock. Well by 10:30 Aaron and I had enough and decided to head'r home. That was the first time we've ever left a concert before it even started. No wait, there was that Bare Naked Ladies concert that I passed out at - first time body-surfing though!

I'm having slight withdrawals from my computer

We're really not sure what the heck happened but I'm pretty sure it involved me and a song I was obsessing about - anyways, Saturday morning Joseph turned on the computer and all we got was an error code and after talking to a couple geeks I was ensured that yep, we've got a worm. So our CPU is currently off being cured or hopefully at least we can get the pictures from it. I always copy the good pics onto CD or blog them so I'm not too worried but it's still nice to get the everyday ones too. Lesson learned! So, in the meantime I'm borrowing Joseph's computer and we're laptop shopping once we have some free time...what's that?
Our main floor painting is completed! I'd show pics but once again, I'm on Joseph's computer which is a little bit limited. (Not that I'm complaining, I'm just happy to have web/email access)
Tomorrow night is Boyz II Men concert night, Aaron's not thrilled but we're going with Cindy and Dan and those 2 boys are always trouble when they're together so I'm sure Aaron'll have a good time.
July 7th is Ultimate Fighting at the Beck household (mark it on your calendar Dad) and it's a "Guys Night" , the boys and I are kicked out for the night. Not sure where we're headed yet but I'm okay with it. Usually it's a Girls Night and the boys are on the outside looking in , so it's only fair. Aaron has also told everyone that he'll bleach his hair "Tito blond" for the fight night. Isn't that crazy???
Hope everyone had a fab weekend!

4 Year Meme

Four new things I have learned or experienced in the past four years and would like to learn or experience in the next four years is the Meme from Jenn. I'm having a little difficulty with this one so I'm going to customize it just a wee bit and do a glimpse of four things that are important to me four years ago, now, and four years from now.

June 15, 2003
Family
I'd been married to Aaron for 4 years and we'd already had Joseph who was 18 months old and I was 7 months pregnant with Alex.
Friends
I had very few close friends, and nights out were almost unheard of. It was pretty hard finding a balance between working, spending time with the family and the pregnancy hormones counts as a wild card in any and everything.
Career
I was working at Albert Park Elementary. Primarily as librarian but was also the Computer Tech, School Assistant, some ESL and some Early Literacy stuff. I loved my work and couldn't imagine not going back after my maternity leave was up.
Myself
I was 25 and pregnant - not much else to say about that....oh wait, I also had a super hormonal moment and cut off all my hair, and had massive roots because I didn't want to use hairdye while preg. Not a good look for me! I was driving a green Ford Windstar - I'm cringing just thinking about it!

June 15, 2007
Family
Aaron and I have been married for 8 years and are just rediscovering what Date Night is all about. We've got a fabulous babysitter that our kids are crazy over so we never feel guilty about our time alone because we know the kids are having just as much fun. Joseph is 5 1/2 and just finishing Kindergarten and Alex is almost 4 but acts like he's 12 most days. As a family, we spend a lot of time together. Aaron tries to volunteer at Joseph's school on his weekdays off. We visit with family a lot and just last summer we took our first big holiday to the Maritimes which we still talk about like it was last week.
Friends
I seem to have a lot of friends. Friends in the neighbourhood, friends from high school, random friends from the wonderful world of blogging. I'm not sure what's changed - I'm still the same person I was 4 years ago...I love my friends and my girls night out Aaron's just starting to hang out with friends on a more regular basis, he's got hockey once a week and he's got his UFC fan club that keeps growing and growing
Career
I have operated my dayhome for over three years now and I'm still lovin' it. That's something I totally didn't see happening but it was awesome the way it evolved from helping out by watching a cousin's daughter into an awesome home business. I also do some volunteer work mostly with the neighbourhood dayhome registry.
Myself
I'm 29 now...sigh...last year of being 20-something. I'm halfway back to my pre-preg body. We've been waffling with the idea of more babes, some days I want another one and some days I have my hands full with my two boys that I can't imagine adding another into the mix. Now I'm driving a silver Ford Windstar when I'm on Mommy Duties and when I'm off duty I'm driving my white convertible Mustang. WOOT WOOT! I've also gone for some trendier lo-lites and hi-lites.

June 15, 2011
Family
I will be married for 12 years and hopefully have a 10 year anniversary trip to somewhere hot to write about, lol! Joseph will be 9 1/2 and in grade 3 (yes I mean grade 3 and not grade 4 but that's a whole different blog) , Alex will be finishing up grade 2. I'm hoping we'll be doing fabulous family holidays each summer. I love to travel , not necessarily out of the country, I'd love to go to Victoria and Aaron would love to go back to PEI (he still can't get over the glass bottles of everything and red sand) We may or may not be a family of five by then...only time can tell with that one!
Friends
I'm hoping I'll still have this close circle of friends that I've got now as well as the outer ring of girlfriends that I don't see often but still love to chat with, email and go out with for ladies nights. I could see Aaron will have a monthly poker night much like my monthly Bunco night. Fair enough, right?
Career
Right now I could see that I'll still be running my dayhome business but I'd also like to get more involved in awareness of cervical cancer and HPV. I'm not sure in what capacity whether it's volunteer work, fundraising or just talking about but I think it's something that's not talked about enough (that's also something for it's own blog...)
Myself
I will be 33...ugh...I can't imagine what that'll be like. Actually I'm sure it'll be much like it is now. My goal is to be back to my pre-baby size or closer to it anyways. I am pretty certain that I'll be sporting a new tattoo by then and perhaps even another piercing.

Now I'm going to tag four people:
1. Natalie
2. Tina
3. My Mom
4. Jen

Thursday Thirteen

Me, Andrea, Michelle and Heather before the concert

13 Random Thoughts Before, During and After Gwen Stefani Concert

1. WOOT WOOT!
2. Lady Sovereign? I thought Divine Brown was opening.
3. We should have thrown our panties to Akon
4. Gwen is hot - so what if I have a slight girl-crush on her?
5. What was Lady Sovereign thinking with the side ponytail?
6. Cause I ain't no Hollaback Girl I ain't no Hollaback girl
7. Thank gawd Akon played the clean version of I Wanna Love You - the dirty version makes me blush
8. Is it 10:30 already?
9. I must really buy Aaron a kilt
10. I heart my GFs
11. I need a wayyyyy better camera phone
12. Could I get away with a side ponytail? Hmm..Nope, don't think so
13. Worth every penny! This concert was tres cool!

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Not only is Wednesday my Sweet Escape night but...

it's also my darlin' Daddy-O's birthday!

Happy Day to you Papa! Which guy are you again?
Can you see the family resemblance?
This is SO my favorite pic of us together!
Hope you have a great day!

Only 1 More Sleep Til Gwen

And what exactly is a 'Hollaback Girl' you ask?

A girl that is willing to be treated like a doormat or booty call. She is a girl that will allow guys to do whatever they want with her and will just wait for them to 'holla back' at them.

Anyways....

The boys arms are healing from their breaks quite nicely although Alexander is being a real pain in the butt at bedtime. He's usually pretty easy to get down providing we don't miss that golden window of opportunity between 6:30 and 7:30. Last night was a complete exception - he went to bed at 6:45 and woke up at 8:15 and then stayed awake until 11:30. WTF, I ask you? Is it because I was actually really tired and wanted to go to bed early? And when my alarm went off at 6:01 this morning who do you think came toddling into my beaudoir? You got it, Alexander...

Hollaback Girl
By Gwen Stefani
CodesAndLyrics.com

We're 1/2 done our main floor painting

This is the living room, it's actually not as yellow as the picture makes it seem. Definitely makes the fireplace stand out more. New curtains have yet to go up because we had to stain the curtain rod and it's still tacky...
The eating area hasn't been painted yet but we did hang the new curtains up and curtain rod - we're going to paint this room and the kitchen in the evening this week.
'Kay this is also not an accurate colour. The powder room is mushroom not mustard, must be the copper curtain and time of evening that's making the colour so off.
That's it , in a nutshell everyone. We (Aaron) painted the powder room and living room and all of the baseboards and trim. Tedious but looks awesome! Now we have to do the rest of the main floor. Hopefully before the weekend so the boys and I can take Aaron away for Father's Day :-) He just doesn't know it yet - haha!

I'm so mean...

Aaron and I have cancelled our road trip to Alix until both boys are a bit healthier so I've come up with a new game plan for this weekend....

PAINTING OUR HOUSE

I doubt Aaron will share my enthusiasm seeing as he'll be the star painter. But, other things have come up and it's been prolonged long enough. Last night I stripped the main floor bathroom so he could patch it up. One of the dayhome kiddies thought it looked like a grandiose idea to hang off of the towel ring, they were very surprised when they pulled it off the wall leaving some big holes... Not as surprised as poor Aaron though! Then I got this fab idea last night before bed that I'd strip the living room so we (meaning Aaron, of course) could paint the living room too.

Hopefully I'll have pics this weekend to share!

Thursday Thirteen

13 Guilty Pleasures

1. Bath & Body Works products
2. Caramel Macciato from Starbucks
3. LaSenza panties
4. Spongs
5. Books, books and more books!
6. Singing with the stereo - especially during stereo wars with the barking dogs next door
7. Spa time
8. Arbonne skincare stuff
9. Aardvark's Pizza that you can only get in Banff
10. Mary Kay bronze eyeliner
11. Partylite candles
12. Concerts with my girlfriends and/or Aaron
13. Quiet time

Here's the other view of the new do

Joseph was my photog tonight so please ignore the cheesy smile from Mommy (and the fact that you can see half of my beaudoir..I have no idea why I have lots of pics taken in my bedroom, I'm really not that kind of girl!)Anyways, I was hoping for something drastic and ended up with something subtle instead. I like it but I think I would have like more high lites and less low lites. Guess that's the good thing about colouring your hair is that you can always change it later, right?.

Half of the new look

I spent my evening at the spa and got a new look. You don't get to see the front view tonight though. They used some serum that made my hair ultra flat on the front side so you just get to see the back for now...yeppers that's chocolatey low lites on the back side.

An uneventful day where no one got hurt - whaddupwidat?

Today was a typical Monday - lots of outdoor time with no injuries. Yeah!

Joseph got to show off his new cast to his classmates today and was even the leader. He was surprised that no one made fun of him. I didn't think they would but at 5 years old Joseph thought they'd laugh at him.

Here's the boys Batman cake as requested by Alex. While we were at the hospital waiting for surgery all he could talk about was having a Batman cake for his birthday in Aug. I think this stems directly from realizing that he would be missing his friends birthday party on Saturday. So, Nannie and Papa stopped at the local Sobey's and ordered this cake for the broken brothers. Well...when Aaron went to pick it up last night the baker said there was no cake ordered. Those were definitely fighting words! Aaron phoned me and I phoned the manager and told her that we had ordered the cake , I had a copy of the receipt and said they had 10 minutes to produce a Batman cake for two little boys, one of which just had surgery. So the manager walked into the cooler and there's the cake. I felt like an idiot for maybe over-reacting a wee bit but I was the one who promised Alex a Batman cake and bribed him with it all day. Couldn't lose face with my boy, now could I? As a bonus, the manager re-imbursed us for the cake because of the baker's idiocy. So, I suppose it all worked out in the end. And here's a picture of my new ankle bracelet. It's a little blurry and my legs really aren't that orangey colour but it's still a cool bracelet. It's for cervical cancer awareness. It's one of those below the waist cancers that affects a lot of women but gets little attention. I'm sure a lot of people didn't know that the ribbon for cervical cancer is turquoise - my fave. If you're looking for some cute awareness jewellry check out www.headcovers.com , they've got some pretty kick-ass stuff.

I'm also going for the drastic hairdo tomorrow! Due to the whole broken arm saga I missed my first appointment.

Until tomorrow with before and after pics...

Apparently Thing Two's broken arm wasn't completey healed

I now have 2 boys in casts.

So, Friday night Mommy was feeling pretty good about herself, after all I was going in for some spa time and a new 'do. Well, Alex had other plans. The boys were playing in the backyard and Alex tripped, rebreaking his broken arm. That's it, I'm going to start wrapping my kids in bubble wrap each and every morning!

This was a realllly bad break. Bad enough for Aaron to call 911 to get an ambulance. So, he called me and I zipped home, got there before the ambulance which doesn't say much for the traffic and speediness of the ambulances in Calgary. I had the pleasure of taking my baby to the hospital in the ambulance -not something I'd like to ever do again but it's something unique to write in his baby book , yep, I still add stuff to his book.

Aaron's Mom came and stayed with Joseph so Aaron could drive to the Children's Hospital and then we waited and then we waited some more. At midnight they did the procedure to set his arm but the doc had a bad feeling that it wouldn't be so easy and after another hour of waiting we re-xrayed and seen that it wasn't quite right. So you know what that means? Surgery! Alex was admitted to hospital and Aaron ran home to get our overnight bag and bringing some essentials (which strangely included hairspray and my gold shimmer lotion, guess he thought Mommy was trying to land a doctor or something, LOL) We got settled into our room around 2:30 and Alex slept pretty well, me not so much, I was too worried that he'd wake up and try to jump down off the bed so I think I forfeited sleep for Friday night.

Saturday around noon Alex was finally ready for the OR. His procedure was an hour and a half from start to finish and they said they got a good set. He's got wedges in his cast to help align the bones versus having pins and plates screwed to the bones. We hung out until 9 last night when they gave Alex the okay to come home. So, now we're back to weekly visits at the bone clinic for gawd knows how long.

Aaron and I were considered about Alex's bone density but the doctors have assured us that he rebroke the same spot from 8 weeks ago and that the bone should have been in a cast longer. It's a double edged sword, when Alex's cast came off they said it wasn't completely healed and gave him a soft brace to wear for 2 weeks. They were concerned that his arm muscles would be weakened too much - but I think that we should have kept the hard cast on for the extra 2 weeks. Alex is obviously very active and probably used his arm more than he should have with the soft brace, not giving it enough rest.

Guess we'll see what happens... hope everyone else had a better weekend than me!!!!!!!

Alright, here's the skinny on the broken arm..

This time it's Joseph :-(

He was on the little climber (like barely 3 feet tall) and was trying to see what the boys next door were doing in the backyard and he fell - on his wrist , and it buckled.

So, off to the hospital we go and sure enough it was broken. He is now sporting a shorty black cast on his left - predominant- hand.

The good news is that it'll only take 3 to 4 weeks to heal and he'll be ready for the hot tub when he go to my folks :-)

Tonight I'm going to get my hair done - I'm thinking something drastic. Not too sure what, but considering I only ever get 1/2 inch taken off , a few barely noticeable layers, and the usual summer highlights - anything would be drastic.

Stay tuned...