Pictures from Auntie Kathryn's visit

Auntie Kathryn and a very tired Joey!

Alex at the Calgary Zoo

They're a little late but here is a picture of Joey and his godmother Kathryn and a great closeup of Alex courtesy of Joey our little photographer...Aaron thinks he'll be working for Playboy when he's older...you wish Aaron!

Last weekend Auntie Kathryn and Jeff came to Calgary for a couple days and we had the pleasure of their company for Sunday dinner and then they graciously offered to take both boys to the zoo after Joey came home from school Monday. The boys always have fun with Auntie Kathryn and it looks like they'll be seeing a lot of Jeff in the years to come and they've taken a liking to him. (I think the feeling is mutual.)

Today was a crazy day! We celebrated Zeke's birthday and had a little party, poor Zeke, he ate lunch then opened his presents, had some birthday cake, ran one lap around the dining room table and barely made it to the bathroom to throw up. I think it was a combination of too much activity/excitement and too much food.

I also talked to the Dayhome Registry to find out about pricing and rate increases and was asked if I was interested in taking over for Lonni. Tammy and Lonni volunteer to operate a registry so people can phone either of them and access a database of over 250 dayhomes in our area. Isn't that crazy? So, it looks like I may be replacing Lonni, she's done it for 2 years and needs a break. Everything is on computer so it shouldn't be too hard, just answering the phone calls, questions and emailing information. Maybe I can just sign up for a year. I didn't give a definite yes or no but said they could keep me in mind. They're trying to organize our next meeting asap. so I guess I'll find out then. Like I need another project! Oh well, it'll put my organizational skills to the test!

We survived another Monday!

After Joey having those two extra days off I think he was looking forward to the school bus coming this morning almost as much as I was!

We've got another busy week ahead! Tonight I headed over to Lucie's for a quick intro to blogging. Good luck Lucie! A lot of it is self-explanatory so I think it's a lot of playing around with it to see what all you can do.

Tomorrow is Zeke's birthday party and I have yet to make his cake, wrap his gift or whip up a card for the little guy. I'm sure by 7 o'clock tomorrow morning it'll all be done though. Thursday is another seminar at Joey's school for 'advocating for your child' and then it's Friday again, thank goodness, a busy week seems to go by faster than an uneventful one! Aaron has Tuesday, Wednesday off so he'll be around to help with the kiddies, although I think he may try and take Joey tobogganing by himself. Joey could have kept tobogganing last time we went but Alex was tired and cranky so we had to leave, this way Joey and Aaron can have some fun together.

I think my goal for the month of Feb. is to dust off the digital video camera and start putting it to good use. I keep thinking of all those times when I should have been taping it....better late than never, right?!?

Our visit to Alix

Joey the ballerina - just kidding Aaron-

Kirsten and Kacie

Joey sticking his bum in Kirsten's face - sorry Kirsten

Kyla maxin' and relaxin'

Alex and Kacie playing barbies

Apparently Alix isn't as far away as I thought. It was two hours from my house right to Tina's which isn't too bad.  We left at 8:30 and were home for 4:30 although Joey kept telling me that he was staying at Kacie's house.  Sorry Joey, maybe when you're about ten years older... Alix is a cute little town, I'm not sure what the population is but it's definitely small, there's a Food Town instead of a major supermarket and there's no name-brand restaurants and there's no Tim Horton's...I don't think I could do the small town lifestyle, I'd probably be driving into the city every other day.  Tina's actually a city girl as well but she's adjusting quite well I must say and the kids seem to love it there.  I suppose we'll have to visit more often than once every six months!  Thanks for the visit guys! (And as mentioned earlier the next blog is Tina's picture for you Steve get a good look now because I'm sure I'll delete that post by the end of the weekend! I'm sure you'll understand why when you see what I look like. Ha Ha!)

This one's for you Tina!

Lesley, Dusty and Debbie

Allan, Les, Nicki,Debbie,Tina,Sean,Dusty,John, Jen

This is Tina's favourite outfit...never got it on film to prove though...

Lesley and Baby Calvin

Cal's 1st trip to Calaway Park with Cindy, Sean, me and I think John or maybe Mark?

Alright girlfriend as much as I hated to post the nasty pictures of me I thought we should show Steve the dominitrix in his little lady....notice the handcuffs Steve?!? Tina , if I would do this on just a regular average day could you imagine what I'd do to you at your Stagette, Bridal Shower, eek...wedding day?  The phrase "Tina and Lesley Kickin' It Old School" comes to mind...Maybe things are good just the way they are, hey?  Just kidding! We wouldn't want to give your mom a heart attack would we? Although I'm still going to send you the bridal magazines...we can hope can't we?!?

TGIF!

What a long couple days it has been! Poor Aislynn had a viral infection in her mouth and has been quite contrary which makes it hard on the other kids. But we all survived.

Heather came to babysit tonight so I could sneak away to the Partylite show, I was disappointed with the cash and carry table, all that was left for candles were ball candles which just aren't my thing. I think they look funny when you burn them and what's the point of having them if you're not going to burn them. They also discontinued a whole bunch of fragrances that I like although they have brought in a few good ones. But I think I still got sucked into putting in another order, if you spend $50 you can buy a set of three mini jars for $5 and Carrie will through in a dozen tealights too. I can't pass up a bargain like that now can I? Don't answer that Aaron!

I managed to get most of my housekeeping done tonight so I think we're off to Alix first thing in the morning. I phoned Tina to see if I should bring the boys toboggans and apparently there's no hills in Alix so I think I'll just bring snowpants in case they feel like playing outside, it's supposed to be 6 here so hopefully it'll be close to that at their place. The kids haven't seen each other for a while and I think they'll need to blow off their energy outdoors for awhile.

Sorry it took so long Mom!

Well my scanner is having a few issues today so I didn't even attempt to do the suckers. The top two cards are the Valentines ones for the teachers and friends. The first one was the rubber cement on glossy paper technique and the second is kind of scrapbookish with some dimensional dots under the hearts and crinkled paper.  The bottom two cards are from class. You can't buy the love definition stamp that size anymore but there is a set of four small definitions which would probably work the same and are going on my wish list.  You can't really tell but the heart has glitter fused on with the heat & stick glue.  The second card is the scratch and sniff lemonade card/pocket. If you lift the flap up there's a package of lemonade tucked inside. Apparently you can do it with cocoa too. 

Some people just have too much time on their hands don't they?

Yeah! Our Ralphy Bucks Came Today!

What a nice surprise to find $1600 in my mailbox this afternoon! I'd heard that they were going to tax the boy's cheques but apparently they didn't. We didn't make any big plans for the $ except to go towards our holiday so hopefully that'll cover the car rental, insurance and gas. Aaron's hoping to rent an SUV, he's still bitter about me picking the Windstar over the SUV. Men don't get over stuff like that too easy do they?

Today was a very busy day with all seven of the kids...complete chaos at times but for the most part it was managable. I'm sure I'll appreciate my Friday night pick up time by the time it rolls around. Heather has graciously volunteered to watch my boys tomorrow night so I can pick up some more candles for everyone. I'll be shopping for H, myself, Mom and Leanne, which means it could easily turn into a couple hundred bucks in Partylite.

The boys and I are planning a trip to Alix to visit Tina, Steve and their three girls. I think we haven't seen each other since they babysat for us in August for one of the weddings we went to, so we're long overdue! I think any other time we've tried to hook up my kids have been sick or we've been away when they've come to the big city. Aaron's got a guys' night with Phil after work on Saturday to go to a hockey game.

Aaron also met Joey's teacher this morning for parent-teacher interviews and got a glowing report about our Joey. Apparently his speech is coming along really well and he's quite the social butterfly. We've got a few goals to work on until June and I think we'll be able to meet them. So far Joey's met and passed all of the goals set for January. We've enrolled him for Kindergarten at Providence so he'll get the same door-to-door bus ride which he seems to enjoy. Providence is in the process of finding a facility in the deep south for all of the kids in our area. That would be nice for Joey to not have such a long bus ride!