Out of the mouths of babes....

Kaden: I have something to show you in my library book. It's really gross.

He gets out his book all about T-Rex, and shows me this page of T-Rex and another dinosaur in a rather graphicly bloody fight.

Kaden: See all the blood Mom? Isn't it cool?!

-----------------------

We have this plastic drawer unit that has wheels that can be put on. We have it sitting on top of a small filing cabinet, so the wheels are still in the plastic in the bottom drawer. The conversation with Anise went like this:

Anise: Gasp! What's in the drawer Mommy?

Me: Um, nothing, we don't have anything in that drawer

Anise: But I can see something! It looks like chocolate!

Me: Chocolate? We don't have any chocolate down here.

Anise (reaching into the drawer): But I can see it. It's chocolate!

Me (finally seeing what she had): Anise, those are wheels for the drawers. Not chocolate. You can't eat them.

Anise: It's chocolate Mommy! I love chocolate! It's my favorite. Can I have some? Please?!

Me: I promise you it's not chocolate. You can not eat the wheels

Anise: But I love chocolate so much! Please Mommy?!

This conversation continued for longer than you can imagine, her begging me to let her eat the chocolate (that didn't exist) and me desperately doing everything I could think of to convince her that these wheels were not in fact made of chocolate. We may have a bit of a chocoholic on our hands!!

And now we know

Many of you may be anxiously waiting the results of our most recent ultrasound. For those who aren't, just go ahead and skip this post. ;-)

We are having another little GIRL!

Now obviously no one can guarantee the gender until baby is born, and there's even more uncertainty with a girl predicted, but I'm still going to go along with it and get all the pink out again. I'm glad I get to use all the girl stuff Anise has accumulated again (and there's a lot!) and I'm even going to go ahead and make a girly baby quilt. I'm excited because it means that the girls can share a room.The one Anise is in just so happens to be peptal bismol pink and the biggest of the two kids rooms upstairs. Originally we were going to move Kaden downstairs and his room would be the new baby's room because his isn't big enough for his bunk, a crib, change table,dresser etc, but I've always felt bad about "banishing" him to the basement and giving his room away. So, assuming Anise can manage to not wake the baby up and vice versa this will be a perfect arrangement.

When we told Anise she jumped and did a little dance and said "Wahoo!" Kaden on the other hand looked a bit forlorn and said, "Ahh, I wanted a boy. I think we'll have a boy" We tried to console him, telling him that he wouldn't have to share his toys as much because a girl would want to play with Anise's stuff more, but he didn't buy it. He also quickly figured out that the girls will now outnumber the boys and wasn't too pleased with that either. Guess we'll see how this all plays out!

So that's our exciting news, and we'll just have to wait 'til D-day to see if we were right, or if we'll get a surprise after all.

Kaden: Whats that?

Jen: It's called brain games. It's a game to stop mommy's brain from turning into mush.

Kaden: But video games are supposed to turn your brain into mush.

 I love this kid! 

I did it

I made a new blog. It's a photo a day blog, and I already LOVE it! You can find it here. I love the idea of having a yearly journal in pictures, and I've wanted to do one ever since I heard of the idea, but I just kept forgetting to start, and then didn't really want to start in the middle of the year. So, while it's still January I got one started. Let me know what you think!


Oh, and here's a pic of Baby #3 taken on Tuesday. Pretty cute hey?! Looks just like me (hehehe)

where has the time gone?

Has it really been a month since I posted? Wow!

We've had a busy but fun Christmas. Here's the pictures to prove it!

---Anise dancing in the tree skirt---

---Decorating our Gingerbread House---

---Decorating Mommy---

---Can you tell they may have eaten as much candy as they put on the house?---

This year we decided to stay at our house and have all the family come to us. Christmas Eve, my family came to over and we had fondue dinner. Oil, cheese and of course chocolate!

---Anise loved the chocolate!---

Then we all opened our Christmas Jammies and attempted to take a family picture.

---This year we all got BYU jammies in honor of Lurel---

---I forgot to put the timer on!---

 ---Third time's the charm---

Then we watched Mr. Bean's Christmas, which has got to be one of my favorite Christmas movies. Kaden thought it was pretty funny this year too, so it was fun to watch with him. Anise just isn't quite old enough to get what's going on, and spent most of the movie asking what he was doing over and over. Next, we put the cookies and milk out for Santa, Kaden wrote a note, and it was off to bed (at least for the kids!)

Christmas morning came all too soon, but by some sort of Christmas miracle the kids didn't wake up until 7:30am.

---Anise got a whole lot of dress up clothes, and couldn't wait to try it all out---

---Kaden got a HUGE race car track from G&G Brooks---

---Sean finally got what he's always wanted! See here for the complete story---

---Anise is a little unsure of Daddy's new 'toy'---

We had a couple of days break visiting with various friends and family that were in town, and then the Wilde side came our way. New Years Eve we played games, and ate and ate and ate. New Years Day we went tobogganing at the Sugar Bowl. And ate. 

---Anise fell asleep in our driveway on the way to the Sugar Bowl! Our driveway isn't that long. She was just that tired. She should have been - she went to bed at 10:30pm, and was woken up by her cousin at 5am (don't even get me started!)---

---Kaden would live out here if he could. He absolutely LOVES tobogganing!---

---Sean's attempt to ride the lid from the turtle sandbox was less than successful---

---Anise hanging out on the snow racer---

---Peacefully sleeping. I great sight at the end of a very very long day. You'll note that the quilt I made her is on her! I knew she would warm up to it eventually---

That about wraps up our Christmas Holiday. It was fun, but it's nice to get back to the routine and normal bedtimes (which translates to less cranky kids and parents)

The story of the Drums

Sean has always wanted a drum set. We started dating in November, and a few short weeks later when I asked him what he wanted for Christmas he immediately responded 'a drum set'. Since we were both poor students with no where to put a drum set he received a nice shirt or some other appropriate gift for a boyfriend of 3 weeks.  Four months (and a break-up) later when I asked him what her wanted for his birthday he again responded 'a drum set'. Since we had survived a break-up, and I liked him quite a bit I got him this:

It was the best I could do on a student's budget, and besides he had no where to put anything any bigger, especially because he was about to move to Edmonton for the summer. 

Summer came and we got engaged, we planned a December wedding (just 4 days before Christmas - sorry Mom) and I again asked him what he wanted for a Christmas/wedding present. You'll never guess what he responded - a drum set. 

And so for the last 8 years every time I ask him what he wants for either Christmas or his birthday, his first response has always been a drum set. At some point I told him he could get one as soon as we met 2 conditions:

1. We had a house to put it in
2. We had a sound proof room for it to live in (as more of a joke than anything - I like drums when they are played properly and not just banged on)

In all honesty it has become a bit of a joke for the two of us. I would point out kid drum sets in the store and in flyers and joke that I was going to get them for him. It would be years before we could afford anything as expensive as a real drum set.

When Sean finished Med school I really wanted to get him something to enjoy, nothing medicine related. But something he could unwind with. A drum set. It would be perfect, we had just moved to a bigger house that had a room that would be perfect for drums. It wasn't sound proof, but like I said drums are great when someone who knows what they are doing is playing them. Then I started to really look at what drum sets cost. That idea went out the window pretty fast. I even talked with him about it to see if we could justify such a purchase. We both decided we couldn't.

Then, just weeks before Christmas, I stumbled upon a flyer with a real drum set in it. They were incredibly cheaper than anything in a 'real' music store, and at first I was going to toss it aside and forget about them since there was no way they would be any good. Not for that price. But I just couldn't stop thinking about them. What if they were decent? I went to check them out. They seemed to be good, not that I'm a drum expert or anything. So I got them.

Now, what to do with them for the next 4 weeks? I drove to my parents house where we hid them in the basement. There they stayed hidden until Christmas Eve. While Sean was busy with something (possibly Christmas stockings?) Dad brought them in the house and into the room where they would live. Lurel, Dad and I were ready to get them all set up, only to discover they didn't come with any instructions (I mentioned they were cheap, right?) Luckily, Dad played drums in band way back in highschool, so we were able to figure it out without much trouble. The 'skins' were too cold to put on because they had been outside in the van all evening, so I left that for Sean to do in the morning. Just as I was double checking our set up with an online post, Sean came looking for me. He was this close to seeing the drums. I jumped and yelled and scarred him away just in time. I think I really did scare him. There was no way I was going to let the surprise be spoiled now! He totally knew something was up, but went along with my crazy excuses. He was probably worried I would start jumping and yelling again and remained well away from the forbidden room.

Christmas morning he finally got to see what was in the room that I had banned him from.

He's already spent countless hours putting the skins on, tuning them, reading up on techniques, and of course playing them and loving every minute of it.

You can now find him here most of the time:

I'm so glad I found these for him. True, they aren't the greatest but they are fairly decent and someday we will get better ones, but for now they keep him entertained :-)

Now, what on earth is he going to ask for for his birthday?  

Catch up!

A lot has happened since I wrote last. Here's a snippet of what we've been up to.

We decided to get a real tree this year. The last couple of years we've had an artificial one, which has been fine since the kids, or should I say Anise, was just too young and way too curious for her own good for things like real trees. I'm positive that last year she would have tried to climb it. I'm not totally convinced she won't this year. This year I decided that with the new house with the window that was made to put a Christmas tree in, we should have a real one. And I missed the smell. So, I scoped out trees at all the local grocery stores and we found the one. It is the fullest real tree I've ever had. I'm used to the ones that you have to load with decorations so you can't see all the branches and trunk - kind of Charlie Brown like. Not this one. We actually took decorations off because it was too much! Well, see for yourself.

---That's real, baby---

I also got all my nativity sets put up. I didn't realize that I have as many as I do. 5 on the shelf, no kids allowed to go near ones, and 2 that the kids can have a free for all with. As you can see, Anise is taking advantage of the free for all.






So now the Christmas music is out, the house is decorated with lights, and all things Christmas, and there are even a couple of presents under the tree. We are almost ready!

Last weekend, we had a storm. Actually it was a blizzard. A real good southern Alberta winter blizzard. It was unbelievable. We got quite a bit of snow, but it was the wind that did the most damage. Saturday morning, we woke up to this:

---Our front yard. At least what you can see of it. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but that drift is about 3 feet deep, and covers our entire driveway, yard and road in front of the house.---

---We also got about 1.5 feet of snow on our covered deck in the back---



---A view from our bedroom window. This was after a lot of the plastered snow had slid off---

Shortly after seeing all this, reality set in that we no longer live on a main busy road and bus route, where the plows would be coming, and the sanding trucks would be driving. We now live in a quiet cul de sac. If we wanted to go somewhere, we were on our own. It was cold, but not brutally bad (that would come later) and we spent most of the day pushing out neighbors who got stuck in the drifts, and shoveling the driveway over and over again. And by we, I mean Sean:

---it's a good thing I bought us a new snow shovel last month!---

Sunday, we got a call letting us know that the last two hours of Church were being cancelled, and sacrament meeting was going to be held for those who could get out of their houses. We were not one of them. So we stayed home, watched a movie about the birth of the Savior, and tried to stay warm.

Monday, the wind chill was -52, but school was still on! Seriously, I know we're Canadian, but come on! Luckily for me, Sean was able to get the van to start, and took Kaden to school in the morning. By the time Anise was ready for preschool it had warmed up (to -32) so I took her because I knew she would be mad if she missed school, and quite honestly we were all getting cabin fever and I couldn't wait for a break from the kids. The rest of the week has been about the same. The forecast calls for another 10 cm of snow today, so we'll just keep digging ourselves and others out.

So the roads are slippery, the wind is cold and the snow is plentiful, but we've survived our first winter storm without a road plow to keep us dug out.

How's this blizzard been for you?