Updates & re-caps

If anyone out there still reads this blog, sorry for being a slacker the last few months. No that I haven't had anything blogworthy to say, but I was waiting for myself to put pics on the computer, waiting for a few spare minutes without kids to bug me, or just plain forgetting. No excuse, really. I have loads to blog about. Part II of our Mediterranean cruise we took last June, Christmas, Mexican cruise, Disneyworld trip, etc., so it;ll take a few posts to get me caught up. First though, I start with general updates and the baby shower I threw last week, for my sister, Keah.

Christmas was good.We didn't have any power outages like last year, so Christmas dinner went better. Santa Clause surprised me with a"Magic Bullet Express" I saw it on an informercial and fell in love with it. So did the younger kids who were watching it with me. We sat mesmerized by it's effortless slicing and dicing and the promise of a meal, ready for the oven in 8 minutes or less. What housewife wouldn't love that? Here's a visual for you. Anyway, it saved me Christmas morning when I made scalloped sweet potatoes. Took me 30 secondss to sclice those bad boys up, instead of almost an hour by hand. I'm a sucker for those "As seen on TV" products. But this one actually works! Anyway, the kids enjoyed themselves, as usual.

Below are some pics of our tree, Logan with his stocking, Izzy on her trunki,and Logan on his trunki. trunkis are are carry on sized, luggage for kids. They can ride on it, or there's a strap, and you can pull them, through the airport. One of the best inventions ever!! I bought them from target.com, and had them shipped(free shipping!!) to Brian's hotel, when he was at a conference in San Diego, last October. He brought them home in the large suitcase I insisted he take. I had our upcoming Disneytrip in mind when I bought them.



Brian's whole family came to our house for Christmas dinner, and then my parents, Keah and Mike came to visit on December 28th for a few days. It was fun, and I got to go through my itty bitty baby clothes to give some to Keah for the twins she was expecting. So fun!
So I'll skip ahead to Keah's baby shower, and fill in the blanks later. So Keah found out she was having two girls, and the colors would be pink and brown. Well, I'm sure that those of you who know Keah, know she's already had them. Finley Anne, and Emmy Jacqueline arrived on March 12, 2010, at only 24 week gestation. Finley weighed 1 lb 5.5 oz. and Emmy weighed in at 1 lb 4 oz. Things are going as well as can be expected, they are gaining weight now and taking milk. As I am writing this post, they are four weeks old today. I've been to see them in person once, and they are just precious. Absolutely perfect, just in miniature. I had started plannig Keah's baby shower even before she got pregnant. I was just too excited. We had planned to have it at our Mom's home in Bridgewater on April 2. Sent out the invites, and went to work. Fortunately, Keah was still willing to hold the shower on the original date, even though the girls had already been born. It was a huge success. We had about 40 people show up, and let me tell you, it got hot and it got hot fast in that livingroom! Keah got some great stuff, and everyone was excited to see her and pics of the girls. Here are a few highlight pictures.

A random shot of the livingroom, jam packed. Izzy was helping auntie Kiki open her presents.

A shot of the food table.

And the piece de resistance, my diaper cake. I'm a little proud of it. I think it came out great.

Here's another view, just so you can take a better look. These are before I decided to add the pillars.

We played three games, which I did up on the computer and printed off on cardstock. Name the baby animals. There were 16 names of grown up animals, and the guests had to write down the what the animals are called when they are babies. The second game was a Baby Food Tasting game. I had six different baby food jars labeled #1 through #6 and the guests had to dip a popsicle stick in, take a taste and try to guess what it is. In retrospect, I think I made it a bit too hard, as I bought all combinations, not just single foods. And the third game was Baby Bingo. Pretty self explanatory. It was a good time, and Keah got a good haul.

Christmas Can Can

My dad e-mailed me this and I think it is really cute. Go ahead, check it out.

PEEK and giveaway

I did a guest "PEEK" into my kitchen, on my friend, Kristi's blog today. Her blog rocks! Also, I'm sponsering a pretty cool giveaway to enter on there too. Check it out here.

Landscaping: Before, During and After

**Beware: This post contains numerous pictures**

Our landscaping is done now, well, for this year anyway. The difference is huge!! We are very happy with the final results. We did A LOT of work. Well, not us personally, but a lot of work was involved. The results are astounding, to us anyway. First of all, we had nothing but rocks and dirt all around the house. A lot of dirt. We moved our trampoline to the septic bed or septic field, whatever you call it. Then, we set up the playground we had purchased last year, also on the septic bed. Don't worry, we asked the septic guys before we set anything up there, to make sure it wouldn't wreck anything there. We enlisted the help of local company R&D Harris to do the rest. They leveled and graded all the land, hydroseeded it, put in a stamped concrete patio and front walkway, built a rock retaining wall, cut down two trees, planted two apple trees, four high bush blueberry bushes, put in the front gardens and mulched them, and because we weren't completely satisfied with the rock wall, they offered to level, grade and grass the sides of our driveway, on the house! Here are a few before, during and after pics.

BEFORE:

This is the front "yard"

This is the out building. We kept it, but the foundation in front of it is gone.

This is a view of the old driveway, lawn, and how many trees there were. Wow, I thought I had a lot more "before" pictures. Guess not so many of the outside.

DURING:

Finally, nice flat land that the kids fall and trip over anymore.

More flat land, and a bit of a view of the playground. Trampoline is on the right, behind trees.

Rock retaining wall. We were expecting round rocks.

Side yard and top of rock wall, or as Jacob likes to call it, "the cliff"

Outlining the front walkway and gardens.

AFTER:

A view of the patio.

Another view of the patio.

The side yard.

The play area. Yeah, I know it needs to be mowed. This was before we got a lawnmower.

The driveway and newly grassed on either side, done for free! If you look closely, on the right of the driveway, you can see Brian on the John Deere.

A view from one side. The little tree planted, (left) will eventually hide the post.

A view from the other side. The front gardens are all perennials, so they'll only get bigger and better every year. I'll plant colorful annuals to fill it in til then.

You know you live in the country when......

Here is what I saw when I looked out the window the other day. It's not uncommon 'round these parts.

Stupid animals.

Don't they know it's hunting season?

I HATE LUNCH !!

I'm glad the kids are back in school, however, I hate having to pack lunches, every blessed day. And not only that, I just hate making lunch in general. I often just skip it, or snack it. Anyone else feel this way? Anybody have any cool tricks or great ideas for school lunches. I once got an idea from the blog of a woman with seven children (5 of them are quintuplets) and she makes sandwiches for her two school aged kid's lunches in bulk.(Like 2 weeks worth at a time) She does PB & J or PB & Nutella, wraps them up and puts them in the freezer, and when she needs one, she just pops it in a lunchbox, and it acts as an ice pack as well. Pretty neat idea. I should try it. One problem though, my kids aren't allowed to bring PB to school because of nut allergies. Has anyone ever tried freezing a ham & cheese sandwich? A jam sandwich? Did it taste okay when it thawed? HELP. It's only September.

You may be thinking, why not get them to buy their lunch at school? Well, I usually send money for them on pizza days, but honestly, they wouldn't eat half the stuff on the menu, so that's not really an option. They're kind of picky. Occasionally I will, but not on most days.

Catch up

It's been awhile. A lot has happened in August. Guess that's why I've been a little slack lately. Keah and Mike and Kiel and Derick came for a visit, the first of the month. Good times were had by all. We made the six hour plus, round trip on the 7th to see Sid the Kid and the Stanley Cup. Long drive for a two minute parade, but it was pretty neat. I'm glad we went. We all had dentist appointments, (our first since we moveddown here), we went to Annapolis Royal and visited Port Royal and Fort Anne, Logan turned 2! Avery started piano lessons the branch corn boil, and I made a diaper cake.

Here are a lot pics of the aforementioned events.

Brainchild that I am, somehow had set the camera to B&W. Oops.

This is Maxime Talbot, one of Sid's teamates.

Sidney Crosby with the cup.

Front and back.

At Fort Anne. Jacob and cousin Ellie on the cannon.

Port Royal. I don't know what this is called, but the kids really liked
pretending to shoot people.

Jacob, playing dead in a wooden coffin. Freaky.

Logan's birthday cake. He loves trucks of any kind. I wanted to make a schoolbus cake, but i couldn't find
a cakepan, so the fire truck was the next best thing.

Not too sure what to make of the candles, so Brian had to
blow them out.

Yum!

Presents! Logan is a boy's boy if ever there was one. He loves to get into Brian's tools, so we thought we get him his own. He was pretty
pumped! Yes, I realize he is in his jammies. Halloween jammies
at that. He loves to wear pajamas, and I just don't fight with him anymore. Could be worse.

Here's Jacob getting in on the action. Isn't that hilarious?
Oh, he looks so funny.

Here's the fun diaper cake I made for a baby shower.
I think it's my new favorite baby gift.