Jason and Rochelle
I'm starting to get into trouble for having too much content on my site...so I think these are going to be the last pictures I post for a few days. I'll probably still have content coming, just not pictures.
More family pics
Look! It finally let me post these!
And again, pics gone to appease the blog lords.
When family comes to town...
I deleted the pictures in the hopes that the blog overlords will see this as a good thing and allow me to post more pictures in the future, and the present for that matter. Jen (Sept 6)I'm sure in a few weeks Quentin will respond to the question "What would you like to do?" with "Go to Debbie's house." Nobody really wanted to leave, but the children needed baths and sleep and it was already past Quentin's bedtime when we left.
Debbie is a friend of the Van Buskirks and we gathered at her house for fun and food in the sun on Saturday. My brother Jason, his wife Rochelle, and their children Colt, Chase, Ryker, Emma, and Ronin (I really hope I spelt those correctly) were in town from Grande Prairie - something that happens very rarely so it was a very joyful occasion. My sister Terri, her hubby Gary, and her two children Keith and Nathan were there, as well as my brother Mike, my sister Katie and her two children Andreas (AJ) and Tanaya, and Terri, Traci and Jason's mother Cheryl and two of the triplets that are her nephews and Tara and her son Ashaun (sp?).
Sheesh, can't post more than five pics at a time, so two more posts are coming... :)
Mars will not look as big as the moon
Just so you know. That was 2003, if you happened to have a telescope with 75x magnification on it. Not happening this year, especially not with the naked eye.
http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.aspI know, I know, I got excited back in 2003, until I realized that I didn't have a telescope and didn't know when my old Physics/Astronomy professor was going to be at Burnaby Lake showing off the night sky. I believe he still goes there every lunar eclipse with his class. (And that was Astronomy, not Astrology...that I had to teach myself. Haven't done it yet though.)
Blogging
There's going to be a temporary change in the comments. Anybody can now leave comments, not just members. BUT...become a member because it's going to change back! It doesn't cost anything to become a member, or to create your own blog. Heck, you can even choose to make money off your blog by placing ads on it, but it won't cost you anything. Even the time spent making a blog (or becoming a member) isn't that much. A few minutes.
In the meantime, in a day or two I'll load up a ton of pictures from this weekend when we had an incomplete Van Buskirk family reunion. My 'puter's been slow lately, so I haven't had time to do that on top of my other 'puter things the last few days. I will though, I promise.
Take care.
Summer fun
Learning to crawl, and loving that she can get into mischief...
We wandered down to the rec centre today to try out their Busy Bees program. It was much better than I expected. The theme today was the ocean, so there were four different crafts having to do with that (okay, one wasn't, but it was messy enough to need lots of water after, so close enough), a fishing game, tons of toys spread around, then circle time at the end for a story, songs and parachute games. Quentin loved it all and is looking forward to going next week when the theme is dinosaurs. Although, I will let you know that Quentin is anything other than a typical little boy in that he has not shown an extreme fascination with dinosaurs, or cars. He is looking forward to being a scuba diver when he grows up though.
Jade didn't make the age limit to join in the fun, but they were nice enough to not make her sit outside the room while the fun was going on. She even did her first craft today and got paint all over herself, her dress, and even mommy. This picture show some of the paint on her, there was yellow and blue on her face too, and also shows her doing a bit of sign language. This is her interpretation of "Mommy, it's time to pick me up, snuggle, and get me some food so that I may fall asleep." In other words, almost the sign for mom.
Some pictures of Jade and Quentin enjoying the backyard.
I really should learn to upload my images before I start typing...then I'll know what order they will show up in so that I can write my blog accordingly.
Hello Nancy! I'm glad you could visit! Everybody else, take a look at her website to see some amazing photos of Africa and learn some of the wonderful things she is doing. Nancy was my department head at Fraser Valley last year and I don't think I will ever have another department head that will come close to her support and dedication.
Take care all.
(Mondays and) Tuesdays with Jadey
I really enjoy my days with Jade while Quentin's at daycare. Don't get me wrong, I miss the alone time I used to have with Quentin, even the drives home after work last year. He's growing up so much, I wish I could spend more time with him. But, when he's not around, I actually get to pay attention to Jade. Quentin takes a lot of energy and attention and really wants to be the main focus.
When Quentin's at daycare, getting attention and doing activities that are great for his development, I get to see Jade growing and developing herself. Today I finally got to interpret some of her actions and see how she is using sign language. (We're using the little bits we used with Quentin, only more because Quentin wants to know how to talk with his hands and has me looking up all sorts of words.) She mastered 'more' today, and after some misinterpretation from mom, I figured out she was trying to use the sign for mom not water, even though she was saying 'mom' I wasn't believing that was what she meant because that's what she says all day. She crawls around saying "mom mom mom mom" occasionally stopping to sit up, clap, and then go back to crawling. We got to play a great game of catch with a little stuffed duck while she was in her swing. She's a little imp that loves to play "you can't catch me!" She's learning how to feed herself. She loves climbing.
There needs to be more time in the world. I want to spend time with Quentin, but I can't always take him on errands, so I do most of them while I have just Jade with me, meaning that the focus isn't on Jade either. Then by the time we get home, it's nap time and then we go get Quentin who is wound up and wanting attention while I try to make dinner. If Quentin's home, attention to Jade is generally trying to save her from too much affection from her brother (who at times thinks that sitting on her is a fun thing to do for both of them). I know I've missed a ton of things with Jade that I didn't miss with Quentin even though I'm rarely apart from her. And I don't have enough time to spend with Quentin, and my house and yard need more attention from me, plus trying to find time to spend with my husband, and then trying to have some sort of social life around family functions...
Anyways. When Jade and I get the opportunity to sit down and focus on each other, I get to be incredibly amazed by the wonderful, intelligent, active little girl I'm blessed to have as a daughter. Obviously she's a very cute and very happy girl, but to realize how much she's learned and just how much she can do...wow.
Ramblings
Didn't know what else to call it.
The dentist can't see me until next Wednesday. :( Okay, she could see me on Monday morning, but too early for me to have Quentin at daycare and be back here. First it was "sure, come on in and the assistant can do that for you right away." Great! Get everyone ready to go and the phone rings to tell me it's not what the receptionist thought so I have to wait a week with this shelf of stuff on my tooth, my root fully exposed again and VERY sensitive. Genetic predisposition to receding gumlines...grumble grumble.
Quentin is needing some mental stimulation these days. I think he needs music classes again but those don't start up until September. Drawing lasts five minutes, painting lasts less time than it takes me to get the paints set up, playdough lasts the longest at twenty minutes, building blocks are okay if someone is building with him, he doesn't want to learn the piano or how to read (hey, I'm trying anything), he needs some sort of fidgety thing to use his imagination on. He has a very complete tool set, but nothing to use the tools on (it didn't even come with enough screws to put the tool bench together, so there aren't enough to play with) and we don't use tools often enough for him to know what to do with the non-screwing toys other than push the button to make noise for a few minutes. I really need to check out what drop-in things the rec centre has going on...but I don't know if there are any for his age group. I just know of ones for younger and older kids.
Jam recipe: 4-5 cups of prepared fruit, 3-5 cups of sugar (generally this is 4:4), 1/4 cup of lemon juice, mix together in pot and cook until it reaches jam stage (10-20 minutes depending on fruit...berries are usually 10-14 minutes, apricots and peaches 16-20 minutes). Test for jam stage by having small plates in the freezer. When you think jam may be done at the minimal time, put a bit on a plate in the freezer for two minutes with the pot off the burner. If you think the consistency should be thicker, cook for 1-2 minutes more and repeat. Skim and jar. Makes around four cups jam. Tip: a little bit of butter (~1 tsp) in the jam generally makes for no foam and saves you the skimming step. The cherry jam I made yesterday was the first jam this hasn't worked for me...far too foamy.
Hey! Ramblings was a good title for this post!
Take care.
EDITOR'S NOTE: There's an interesting dialogue in this set of comments regarding dentists. Feel free to join in.
Now will the pictures load up?
This first picture, they were being so cute. I missed getting a shot of Jade cuddling her brother from behind in a hug. Oh well. They're still adorable.
When we went to the Island to visit my grandmother, we got to see a number of deer on the way back to the ferry. Quentin was quite happy to see them so close!
These were on the ferry home. Yes, they are sitting on a countertop. And hey! It's pictures of me with my children without my pajamas and glasses.
Busy Busy Day
What did I do today? Cleared the kitchen floor (really, that is a chore in itself these days...hadn't been done in forever and it is a really big kitchen), vacuumed and washed it Cinderella style (with the scrub brush on hands and knees), baked cookies, made two types of jam (cherry and cherry strawberry), went for a family walk after dinner and hung up Quentin's artwork that I framed. Not much.
Jade decided to crawl on her hands and knees. This is surprising because Quentin never did end up doing that, he dragged himself along and moved right to walking, and also because she did it on our hardwood floor while wearing pants. Slippery. She took her time the first time she moved across the floor to me. Probably close to two minutes to move eight feet as she figured out the balancing and counteracting the slipperiness. Second time took about thirty seconds. Quentin, not to be outdone, decided he needed to show me that he could crawl on his hands and knees too.
I've been trying to get this entry in for many hours now. I've finally watched the Colbert Report (love that guy...funny and he finds what he does funny enough to break character which makes it even better) in my third attempt this evening. Flossing my teeth, the floss gets stuck on a ridge of filling stuff that the dentist painted over my exposed roots. It's been getting stuck there since she did it last summer when I visited the dentist for the first time since I was 15. Well, it broke. A big chunk of what looks like tooth, but thankfully isn't, came off. So we're going to be walking up to the dentist's office tomorrow.
Making dinner, Jade decided to empty a carton of new potatoes over the floor. She knew it was food, one could tell in her approach. She then proceeded to pick up and try to bite just about every potato.
Look! The floor's clean enough I'm not worried about her eating things off of it! Yay!
My tooth is bugging me.
I'll add more pics tomorrow and maybe some other stuffs.
Take care all.
Mosquitoes, Friends & Jamming
This past week I meant to post about how awful mosquitoes are. I haven't been bitten (until now) since I got pregnant with Quentin, and suspect that my visit to Quesnel for April and Andrew's wedding may have actually been the last time a mosquito bit me, let alone having a bite that drove me insane. Well, I got quite a few bites last weekend. They were very itchy. Poor Quentin gets big eczema-like patches around some of his and that seems to increase the itch factor too much for my little boy. I think they bother him more than his chicken pox last year did.
I also meant to post about friends and how great they are. My friends that I gathered while working at Fraser Valley are the only work friends I've had that have carried on past my work experience. Okay, there was Ally, but we seemed to lose each other after she went to Saskatchewan. Shannon (the one who got married) is of course a great friend, Mike and Melanie, and even David and Genvieve (sp?) although we don't see them as often. I hope we can retain our friendships over the years because Tyler and I think they are all really great people. It's been a year since I left FVCHS, so I'm taking this as a good sign. Okay, when Shannon and Melanie each phoned me last September without provocation when I was getting a little depressed was a good sign, and it made me incredibly happy that they did. Okay, I'm tired, and before that dissolves into me repeating myself...
Taira, Ed, Philippa. More great friends. A little more random as they all live away from the Lower Mainland (well, Philippa doesn't, but she is out of town so often she seems to live away). April, who I still have a box of stuff for sitting by my door. I keep adding to it, but I don't seem to send it. Not very useful that way, I hope she forgives me. She is an amazing friend in so many ways. I don't know about finding true love over the internet, but apparently with the help of a mutual friend, finding a true friend does happen.
Yes, I took pictures of the cake. It turned out well, other than the discovery when I was filling and icing it that the bottom layer had a very large area in the middle that hadn't actually cooked. That's fine, there was more than enough cake for everyone that was still there, and I sent home the two bottom layers with the groom's family (big family, lots of gatherings, I worked with one of the brothers last year as well).
Oh right, jamming. Berry picking does not work all that well when the children aren't quite one or three. Hopefully next year will go better. I've made three batches of jam so far, and more will happen...Tuesday. Not tomorrow as Tyler and I will be heading out to see Pirates so Vicki can spend some time with Quentin before she heads back to China for four or five weeks and Tyler and I get to go out. Jade will come with us as that wouldn't be fair to anyone but Tyler and me. Quentin's hard enough to get to settle down for sleep without him trying to vie for attention. Anyways. One is raspberry, one is blueberry raspberry and the third is blueberry. If only the recipes made more than four maybe five jars at a time...lol. Immediate plans call for a blueberry cherry, cherry, and strawberry. We'll see what the pantry looks like after that.
Time for sleeping. I have already slept an hour or so tonight, so subtract an hour from the time of this posting and that's approximately when I'm going to bed. :)
Take care all.
Canada Day
I forgot to take a camera with us when we went out today. Burnaby Village Museum for some old-fashioned fun. I knew that I would be upset the second I realized I'd forgotten it, and I was right. Is there anything as much fun as a child first discovering the wonders of blue cotton candy? The various ways of eating it, the way it ends up covering ones entire face in blue...it was great fun.
Tonight Jade and I went to my friend Shannon's Blessingway...a different sort of Hen Party based on Navaho traditions. Jade was not going to fall asleep, she was having too much fun. The groom's sister was her favourite. It's not often that Jade gives kisses and babbles in a person's face, let alone someone she's just met. Well, I finally dragged her out, and by the time we'd walked to the car, her eyes were getting droopy. Sat her in her seat and she got a big smile on her face and turned her head to fall asleep (smile still on) as if to say that she had had a wonderful time and was going to crash from exhaustion. She did. Apparently she liked girls' night out.
As for me, I've got a cake to make pretty tomorrow. I hope it turns out all right.
Take care.
We wandered down to the rec centre today to try out their Busy Bees program. It was much better than I expected. The theme today was the ocean, so there were four different crafts having to do with that (okay, one wasn't, but it was messy enough to need lots of water after, so close enough), a fishing game, tons of toys spread around, then circle time at the end for a story, songs and parachute games. Quentin loved it all and is looking forward to going next week when the theme is dinosaurs. Although, I will let you know that Quentin is anything other than a typical little boy in that he has not shown an extreme fascination with dinosaurs, or cars. He is looking forward to being a scuba diver when he grows up though.
Some pictures of Jade and Quentin enjoying the backyard.
When we went to the Island to visit my grandmother, we got to see a number of deer on the way back to the ferry. Quentin was quite happy to see them so close!
