The Comic Book Family

Olympic day!

2010-02-13T23:15:00.003-08:00

The world keeps on spinning

2010-02-11T23:08:00.002-08:00

Tyler's started night school a few weeks ago. He is taking the Math course that preceeds his third year apprenticeship course. I think there's that sense of relief of moving forward with his schooling again. The apprenticeship course starts in...April, I think.

Jade, Quentin and I took a night to take an Indian cooking class at my school. We have an acclaimed chef (best-selling cookbook, on Global on Friday nights with her own show) teaching at our school. She taught us how to make paneer, paneer pakoras, (no)butter chicken, yams and cauliflower, and the recipes for a couple of other dishes. It was all quite tasty. The kids had fun, and entertained the other teachers.

I've started another semester...get this...in the same school I taught last semester!!!!! Isnt' this amazing? I might actually stay in the same school the entire year next year!

I have some pretty amazing classes. I have a grade 11 class that is actually excited to come to class. Even when we're correcting sentences for days on end. Strange, strange students. We're doing Lord of the Flies as a class because so many students wanted to read it. Okay, okay, I'm a little to blame. I told them it was like Lost in that people landed on an island and had to fend for themselves. I've never seen Lost. They're still excited anyways.

We went to see part of the torch relay today. A group of students at my school was one of only ten groups (from schools) across Canada picked for carrying the torch. I'll admit, it's a pretty amazing group led by a pretty amazing teacher. The kids were happy to see the flame. I'm quite certain Tyler wasn't that thrilled because he spent too long on Monday and Tuesday with one of the flame celebrations at the Peace Arch. The thing that thrilled the children the most was getting the blinking plastic flame from the City of Coquitlam. Quentin spent the rest of the day "lighting everything on fire" with his Olympic flame. The ground was on fire, the rain was on fire...

We're excited to see if we can find my dad in the opening ceremonies tomorrow night. We're going to short track speed skating on Saturday. It should all be great fun!

On a sadder note, the world lost a wonderful woman the other night. Tyler's Great-Grandmother, Verna, passed away. Not unexpected entirely. She turned 100 on Christmas. We've been very blessed to have had her in our lives for so long. We've been very blessed that our children were able to know their great-great-grandmother for long enough to remember her later in their lives. She was truly an amazing woman who will be missed by many, many people.

Coming to a close

2009-12-30T23:45:00.002-08:00

The year, not the blog. Not that you'd notice a difference with how little it gets updated! :) (Sorry for no pictures right now, but I'm on the laptop.)

It's been a good year. I got my continuing, so no more random paycheques, yay! Next year, I should have my own classroom from the beginning. Yay! Quentin is learning how to read. Yay! He said that he'd rather watch tv, or play on the computer, but if he can't do those, reading is a good thing to replace them. He discovered that he loves to hip hop dance and is willing to do so in front of people. Yay! Tyler got put back as floor manager for a bit, but he got them to put him back in maintenance. Yay! Jade is cute and adorable as always. She's turning out to be quite the little mathematician. Yay! She adds and subtracts faster than her brother. (Don't tell Quentin.)

It's been a crappy, crappy year. Lots of stress trying to get the continuing, then battling payroll yet again on how much they should be paying me. Jade got an infected front tooth from bumping it too many times. It had to get pulled. Which, by the way, she's quite happy with. She's thrilled she's not in constant pain anymore, and she thinks she's much cuter without it! She also, poor girl, managed to scoop up some flesh-eating bacteria in the water around Tofino this summer. Be aware that it's around if you go there in the summer, and watch out if you get a rash appearing anywhere! It's mild, but your scars won't go away as well as Jade's did. I had a super-stress filled summer school. I was teaching two classes instead of one, and there were a large number of issues with the students lives that affected a lot of us. And, well, cheating was rampant and that always annoys me. We decided to finally get our roof fixed and sealed, and ended up having to paint the house as a result. I picked up H1N1 in the fall, and passed it onto my children. My second placement for the school year has been filled with a ton of mess from the last teacher's assignments. I broke my tailbone. And Tyler, well, he's had to take care of us and deal with all the fallout from everything. And that's not to mention health and other issues with family members.

Next year. That should be good, right? Everyone will get better. Tyler starts his third year at school, finally, and is hoping to challenge the fourth. Then I get to look to doing my masters. (So excited!) Jade starts Kindergarten, so she'll be in the same daycare as Quentin which is right in their school. I get my own classes, somewhere, where-ever, teaching whatever. Stability. My best friend from my young years is back in my life, and getting married! I get to go celebrate with them next month. My first time ever away from my babes. :( I'm sure they'll do much better than I will about it. We've got a real vacation planned. Not bought or reserved, but planned. Getting away from everyone and everything. Yay!

So, happy new year to you all. I hope that you take some happy memories from this one, and move on to big wonderful happy things in the new year. Much love to all from all of us.

Fundraising time!

2009-09-17T21:59:00.002-07:00

We love our elementary school. It's tiny, which means that it is incredibly supportive of the children that attend it. It stays open pretty much solely on the support of the parents and the fundraising that our PAC does (not that they're allowed to buy things for educational purposes, of course). We have Entertainment books for sale right now ($46) and Values books ($20 - the smaller version which is mostly family oriented coupons...none of the fancy restaurant stuff). We can even sell them to you for any region of North America that you happen to live in (with varying prices). We also have Dominoes Pizza coupons. (For $10, you get a 'free' medium pizza, plus a bunch of other coupons that are mostly two for one.) If any of these sound appealing to you, please let us know and we will gladly let you know how to purchase!

Thank you.

Summer Update (with plenty of pics!)

2009-09-13T13:06:00.005-07:00

Summer school was incredibly stressful, but it's over now - yay! We discovered that Jade has my hair - we put her in curlers overnight right after a shower, and there wasn't a curl to be seen when the curlers came out! Quentin had a birthday party in July with the hopes that lots of his classmates could make it...we got less than half, but they had a lot of fun. They decorated their own goody bags and sun hats and had a blast! We took a week to go to the Island to visit Victoria, Tofino, and family (in Crofton and Campbell River). Jade made friends with a 'statue' in Victoria - long conversation one day when we didn't have a camera on us. We visited him the next day during busy time for the picture and got him a ton of business with everyone else getting their kids' pictures taken too. He was really nice so we were happy to help him out that way! Both children loved the museum (and the frozen mammoth slobber!), got followed by tv cameras at the petting zoo, and thoroughly enjoyed staying in a 'fancy hotel.' While we had fun camping and at the beach, Jade picked up the bacteria from Tofino that's been there a few years now. It's a strain of the flesh-eating type. She's felt fine and happy the whole time, and antibiotics cleared out the bacteria, but she's still got scars from the rash which we hope will disappear over time. Quentin turned six when we returned. We went to the Aquarium for our annual birthday trip and saw the second baby beluga. I got my wisdom teeth out - complete with dry sockets and migraines (which I had never experienced before). I got a job teaching Chemistry for two months, and teaching English for the eight months following that at a different school. So far, so good. Quentin has enjoyed his first week of grade one, although we're not positive who his teacher is at this point. There are fewer Kindergarteners this year than last, so they've had to split up the grade ones. Hopefully we'll find out very soon whether he's in the K/1 class, or the 1/2 class. Jade cannot handle the wait for when she gets to go to Quentin's daycare and school too, even though she does like her daycare. I chopped my hair again to donate another ponytale to make a wig for someone suffering from cancer. (It takes seven ponytales to make one wig for someone, so if you haven't dyed your hair and would be willing to cut off an eight-inch ponytale for a good cause, please consider it!) We sprayed the stucco on our house in two goes during the summer. Tyler replaced the carport ceiling, and when he finished that, it got painted and we rolled paint on the stucco in the carport. This weekend we're finishing the trim on the house. It's looking fabulous, if I say so myself! I'll post a picture soon. In the meantime...

Jade with the curlers...

Jade after the curlers...

Our son's idea of clothes that match...

Bob from Monsters vs. Aliens

The birthday party...

Our good friends Grady and Cole joining us. They used to be in daycare with Quentin and Jade, but moved to a daycare close to home in the Spring. It was great to see them again! (Jade plans on marrying one of them when they are all grown up.)

Our goofball...

Jade enjoyed the sprinkler this summer...

The mammoth! They had ice on the walls, and Jade was convinced it was frozen mammoth slobber.

Jade and Daddy in front of the Empress...

Petting goats. This one is named Lily. Lily was always my favourite goat when I'd visit Taira in Victoria 10 years ago. Somehow, I don't think this is the same one.

Jade and her statue friend...

Playing with some bull-whip kelp on the beach at Tofino...

Twilight in Campbell River...

Cuteness and other pics

2009-07-11T01:06:00.004-07:00

Promised pictures. It takes awhile (it's the editing down to size that is the issue, really. Although I haven't checked lately to see if I still need to edit the size...)

Bike riding on the driveway (our street is slanted towards the corner, so the long driveway is where they practice.)

Quentin bringing his bike back towards the house, and then Jade's option!

Somebody was having fun in the bathroom...

My model with her tooth still in...

And my lovely model just a couple of short hours after having her tooth taken out. The smile is much brighter and cuter these days, but as she's sleeping, I'll have to wait to take another pic to show you!

And because it is consuming time this summer, I'm posting the before picture of the house. We've painted the stucco you can see. The carport and the back of the house are still needing to be done, but we're waiting until Tyler has replaced the carport ceiling. The trim also needs to be done, but we might be waiting until Tyler replaces the gutters. I don't know. At the very least, I think it will be waiting for the carport ceiling too. The fake shutters are the same colour as the stucco now, but they should be blue soon, and our house number sign is being painted this weekend.

Utter cuteness

2009-06-30T01:07:00.002-07:00

She tried out at Playland on Saturday. Quentin refused. She sang one of the four lines. She's been singing it repeatedly since we got home - in its entirety. We may have to record her and send it in to the website ourselves.

Band-aid jingle.

Enjoy.

(And yes, pictures are still coming. LOTS of running around the Lower Mainland was done today.)

Busy bees (and buttercups!)

2009-06-28T17:10:00.002-07:00

First things first. Thank you to all who have sponsored us for the Prostate Cancer walk. If you haven't sponsored us yet, and you would like to, you have until June 30th (that's Tuesday) to do so. Just click on the link in the last post on our blog. (We're only $25 away from the next donation level...)

Jade lost a tooth last week. Okay, she didn't lose it. Her top lip gradual got bigger from Friday to Sunday night. She went to the ER, was told it was a fungal infection as she didn't have a fever, so to let it go. Then she got a fever in the morning, so off to the ER again. Might be an infection, might be an allergy, might be trauma. Looked kind of like any one of them, but not actually like any of them. So on some drugs (finally). The next morning, it burst, and pus and blood came out. She came to work with me, then we went to the doctor's office when I realized it was coming out of her gums abover the tooth she's broken a couple of times. She felt much better at this point as the pressure had been relieved and her lip had gone down in size as a result. The doctor said to get her to a dentist, who said to get her to a pediatric dentist, who said the tooth needed to come out. So, Jade is missing a tooth. I have pictures - before and after photos! They'll be posted. I'm sure of it!

Quentin has finished Kindergarten. I was fine with it until I got to that final line on his report card that said he advances to grade one. Then I couldn't stop crying.

Quentin has also achieved swimming. He has been able to float for a couple of weeks now, but this weekend in his lesson he was able to swim on his front, on his own. So proud!

I finished school this past week. Leaving Fox one more time. We'll see if I go back any time soon, as who knows where my job will be in the fall...or next year for that matter! I'm also prepping summer school, which starts on Thursday.

And, well, for good measure, I'm prepping to paint the house this week too. (On top of the usual garden/yardwork/housework/baking that normally gets done, or should get done.) The white stucco will stay white, and the dark brown trim I'm planning on changing to a dark teal. I think. We'll see for sure when I go get the paints if that's what I really want. I think it is. Two houses got painted last summer in our cul-de-sac, and they went from being nice coloured houses to pale grey houses. :P I'm hoping the teal looks nice! We bought the plastic sheeting today, and a sprayer. "If you use this one, it will take you about a month. This one, it will be about a day or two." And well, it cost the same as renting one for a few days, so...if you need a sprayer to paint your house after we're done, we have one. Better yet, if you want to buy a used sprayer after we're done... :)

Okay, I need to get off the 'puter before I get yelled at some more for not resting (I'm sick) so I'll get those pictures on another day...

Plea for donations!

2009-06-16T00:30:00.002-07:00

There are pictures coming, really they are. One more day of classes, then report cards, then I might have computer time to put those up. I have a great one of Jade with her new bike ("I have a REAL bike!" was what I was listening to the entire time she was riding it this weekend.) It will be posted.

But, I figured I was running out of time to ask for donations, so thought that I should. As you probably know, (one of) my dad(s) was killed by prostate cancer the year that Quentin was born. We've been walking in the walk to eradicate prostate cancer since that year. If you have a few dollars to assist us in our fundraising, we would really appreciate it. Just click here, or the link below!

Thank you so much!

On, Sunday, June 21st, 2009, I will be helping to put an end to prostate cancer by participating in the Safeway Father's Day Walk/Run.Prostate cancer is the number one cancer threat to Canadian men. The threat of Prostate Cancer for men is far greater than is commonly known - 1 in 7 men are diagnosed, and this is expected to rise to 1 in 4 within a decade. By taking part in this annual event, I am doing my part to raise funds that will support research, awareness and education of prostate cancer. Please support me by making a secure online donation. Click on the link below:http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2243508 For more information about the Safeway Father's Day Walk/Run, this important cause or how YOU can participate in the Safeway Father's Day Walk/Run, please visit us at www.fathersdayrun.ca Thanks again for helping to put an end to prostate cancer!

Giggles

2009-06-08T00:07:00.002-07:00

Jade was all about laughing this weekend. Okay, she was all about attention this weekend. Dance class had the students trying to move across the floor on a 'low level.' This meant they should be as close to the ground as possible, while moving. Jade decided she'd move like a snake. That was great. She didn't move like a snake. She moved like an inch worm. The arms went forward (okay, the elbows did), then they pulled the rest of her body forward. She was not going to speed up for anything. The whole class was against the wall and she was only 1/3 of the way across the floor. That was fine with her. She was going to keep moving the way she was moving! No self-conciousness, no worry about the others, just doing her thing.

Then we scooted over to swimming lessons. The neighbourhood business celebration was going on, which meant we couldn't get across Hastings street to get to where the pool was. We had to detour about 10 blocks. We were late. BUT! Jade was constantly putting her head underwater, and thrilled with the positive attention she got from it. She also wore a lifejacket and enjoyed floating on her back without anyone holding her. Almost everything she did, she did with such a grin that I couldn't help but stay laughing the entire half hour. She did very well at being on her stomach while kicking and paddling at the same time. She'll be a swimmer soon enough, I think.

Quentin has learned how to float on his back. He even puts his ears in the water. Now, at his lessons, he'll do what the teacher asks if she gives him direct instructions, but as soon as her back is turned, all you see is his little face poking up because he's floating again! This is the third time through this level, so this is definitely progress. (Maybe it counts as his fourth as he's also doing lessons twice a week right now with daycare.)

Quentin has agreed to go into piano lessons again to give it another try. He enjoyed it last time, but it was so long ago that he keeps saying he wants to do other things instead. This time through it won't interfere with anything else, so he's willing.

As much as Quentin loves camping, he's opted to not be joining his daycare on their yearly camping trip. It's for two nights, and he said he'd be willing if it were only one night, but he doesn't want to be away from us for two nights in a row. I can't say that I'm pushing him too hard to change his mind!

We bought Jade a bike this weekend. She's been using Quentin's old trikes, but this is a girl's bike with training wheels. She's been very interested in riding a bike lately, and as this was only $20, we decided it might be a good idea. Who knows? If she learns to ride a bike on her own, Quentin might want to too!

Oh my oh my!

2009-05-27T23:34:00.002-07:00

Don't have a minute, but it's been a month, so I thought it'd be a good idea to update what's happening.

I think our roof got fixed today! A second roofer that we called. Okay, technically the third, but the first was a friend from Tyler's work who did roofing. It took two, maybe three trips. The other company came about 8 times and ended up saying it was something that it so obviously wasn't because they didn't want to bother trying to figure out what it really was. Tyler took a ton of tiles off the roof to see where the water tracks were leading and pointed them out to this new guy, who also did more than take five minutes to pick up two tiles and put a spot of glue down (grrr). Not that I'm upset that the company I called at the end of January couldn't get things figured out and done any sooner than this, of course. Why would I be?

Quentin spent a week learning a hip hop dance at his school last week. They brought in a teacher and each class learned a routine. I was working, but Tyler managed to get there and record it for me. He was awesome! And, he'll perform for you because if he "can do it in front of all those people, [he] can do it in front of a few." He says the names of the moves the first time he runs through them too. "Yo! Muscle! Frog! Slide...bounce and wiggle." He likes the super model move best, but doesn't know why it's called that. He's pretty sure he'd like to join a hip hop dance class now. Still loving his art class. There was no soccer session this time round, but I think that we are doing okay without that extra running around. Swimming lessons just started up last weekend too, and this week he started his lessons with the daycare and they go twice a week. If he's not comfortable with the water by summer time...something's wrong!

Jade's in swimming lessons too, although the time conflicts with her music class. We missed music class this week, we'll miss swimming next week, then music is cancelled due to neighbourhood celebrations so we'll swim, then miss swimming for the last music class. Then there's four more swimming classes. 6/8 should be okay. Jade is not afraid of much and was willing to put her face in the water for her first lesson this year, so she should be fine. She's still doing dance class and enjoying it. Hopefully we'll be able to get her in a class that works on a little more technique in the fall (while still being fun, of course!) as she really wants to be doing ballet.

We worked on the garden the May long weekend and the weekend before. I shovelled almost the whole garden through the sieve I had Tyler make when the garden went in. There were lots of things still in the dirt that I wanted to get out and I thought it was a good time to do so. We also got a few bags of organic dirt in an auction at Quentin's school to mix in (we got the garden basket). It's looking great now. We have planted cucumbers; pumpkins; sugar baby watermelons; Mr Stripey tomatoes and Pink Ponderosa tomatoes we planted as seeds indoors; a variety of cherry tomatoes; some purple ones; some pineapple tomatoes (?!); some peppers (one plant of which is gone due to the neighbours' cat using our garden as a litter box); kale; chard; brussel sprouts; purple cauliflower; an artichoke; beans; peas; celery; hoping to get our ground cherries in there when they get a little bigger; carrots; the alpine strawberries, parsley and lavender from last year; and a billion marigolds to keep the aphids off of everything! We didn't get all of our brussel sprouts last year because of the aphids, and the artichoke couldn't even produce another leaf because they attacked it so viciously. I don't want that happening again! The only brussel sprouts we got were ones right beside the marigolds next to the tomatoes that weren't touched at all, so I know they work!

I'm back at Fox right now. Teaching four classes. Two of them are Science 10, so that's a lovely chore as they put so much into the curriculum and the kids are supposed to know all of it for the provincial exam. The other two classes are Biology 12. I've never taken a Biology course in my life, but please don't tell the students that! They were wrapping up the nervous system when I got there, I think I made it through the kidney/endocrine system without damaging them too much, and we're starting the reproductive systems. As long as I don't get too ticked at what the textbook doesn't tell them, it should be fine.

Tyler's working his tail off, at work and home. He's been doing the other stuff while I was doing the garden. He's been running home on his lunches to meet with the roofers. He's now in charge of the safety committee at work, so that adds to the load that he's already been given there. The two of us are definitely in need of a vacation, but it doesn't look like it's going to be happening this week. *sigh*

Time to sleep. Be well.

Busy busy busy little family

2009-04-26T08:33:00.004-07:00

It's been a month, I know, but it's been a very busy, very emotional month. Actually, a very busy, very emotional year, I think. Tyler and I have been in counselling, and it's helped. Things are improving slowly but surely. I've been fighting to get continuing status in my school district for awhile now, and this week I'm going to finally get it. It means I get full benefits and a steady paycheque, but most importantly I'm actually allowed to apply for a position in a school, instead of just being on-call or hoping that something works out that somebody needs someone last minute. It means I should get my classes in the fall. Mine. Not taking over for someone, not going to be replaced at the end of the year (unless education cutbacks continue because the wrong party has control of the provincial government and somehow the layoffs go THAT deep next year), but my position. I graduated from teacher training in 2001. I've been waiting a long time for this.

We've finally been getting the leak on the roof repaired. Turns out I now need to paint the outside of the house to cover up where the black sealant got splattered on the white stucco, then smudged around as it was being wiped off. I've already washed two of the outside walls. I think it's going to be my summer project, but I just need to make sure I don't try to do too much of it yet. That and there's a TON of other stuff to be done around the yard...old lumber to be gotten rid of, the gardens to be prepared for planting, something about the lawns as they heaved in the cold weather we had this year....

I finished the renovations on the bathroom. That means that I know how to do drywall, tiling, use the mitre saw, etc. It also means that I know I'm capable of and therefore want to dive into other projects, like fixing the hallway walls. I've already been removing the painted textured wallpaper with the assistance of Jade and Quentin, and we can't possibly leave the walls with the two colours of paint on it and the white stripe in the middle, but I need to repair the drywall first, and I might as well do the upstairs hall with it, and replace all the baseboards, and... Then there's still the back deck. And...

I also took tennis lessons and am contemplating taking the next level, although I'm still not very good. I'm also looking into a crocheting class. Not sure about the timing of that one though, as it will be on the two Sunday afternoons that coincide with the last two weeks of classes and I know that I'll be in for somebody and possibly needing to mark. We'll see.

And it's not just me that's busy. Quentin is in Kindergarten, with his second teacher there. He is making awesome advances in learning how to read. I'm so proud of him! His daycare is wonderful. He's done wood projects, clay (Fimo), baking, art, skating lessons, gymnastics, swimming lessons, field trips galore, and been making some great new friends. (He even had a playdate last week!) On top of that, he's done soccer lessons and gymnastics with us, and he's now taking an art class. He'll also be doing swimming lessons in a month. He is growing up and learning so much. I can watch as he observes a situation and see how he processes it all as a mature young man instead of just a reflex reaction like a little boy.

Jade has had a busy year herself. She adjusted to life in daycare without her big brother there, then this last month, two of her closest friends left to go to a daycare closer to their home. She's now the big girl at daycare with most of the other attendees being much younger than her. She loves singing and is still taking her music classes, but enjoys making up her own songs that are quite wonderful! Dancing is part of her life. She takes creative dance on the weekends now, but she PERFORMS when she dances outside of that. She's very expressive in her face, and does all sorts of hair flips and wiggles of attitude that she did not learn at dance class. She enjoyed learning how to play soccer this year, but isn't ready to take it too seriously yet. She'll also be doing swimming lessons next month as we think it's very important for both children to be comfortable and safe in the water.

Oh, and I had an awesome birthday party the other weekend. Tyler invited a number of my friends and family members over, including my friend Lori who flew out from Calgary to surprise me. I was surprised, to say the least. It was wonderful to see her again! I figured out that since I moved in grade 8, we've only actually seen each other 5 times. I visited the summer after I moved, she came here once, I went to visit her once after she moved, then I saw her two summers ago and then a couple weeks ago. You know, that just isn't enough!

I think that's more than enough for me to say this post. Especially since I haven't formatted any pictures for posting. I guess I'll go mark, and do taxes, and do laundry, and...

Oh, please make sure that you are informed before you vote next month.

Stop reading here if you don't want to read political pleas.

Normally I don't campaign for anything in politics, but I do feel strongly about this upcoming election to the point where I am asking you to get informed before voting in the referendum, or even for your representative. If you get fully informed and vote differently from me, that is fine, but please know what you are voting for.

Voting yes in the referendum could mean that you are no longer voting for your riding's candidate as your vote will be shared. For me, there are too many different factors between ridings for this to be feasible. My riding and the one next over have different economic backgrounds, etc. We have different environmental concerns relevant to our neighbourhoods. We need people who can speak to those individual needs.

As for the government, I am appalled by the damage that has been done to our public education system. Funding for private schools has increased while public schools (that which even by name should be funded) have been stripped of money for everything. Contracts were ripped up. Bill 33 went in to assist with class composition, and that's great and all, but it has not been enforced, and there's no money available to enforce it. Extracurricular activities, supplies, non-academic subjects, sports, and even the core subjects have all been negatively affected. Not to mention the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of teachers, are layed off and have to go through a massive process to make sure they have a job every year. Then there's the environmental concerns, the privatization of public utilities, the massive debts incurred, the list goes on.

Right, I was going to go do one of the many things on my to do list. :)

Happiness

2009-03-23T00:32:00.003-07:00

In the spirit of ignoring the negativity that I've had thrown my way lately, I'm going to post pictures (courtesy of my friend, Taira) from my vacation with my children to Osoyoos. The Soyoos, as Quentin calls it. I forgot to bring my camera charger, so I was unable to take many pictures, but I did get a few of bowling before the camera totally kicked it on me. That's what happens when the kids get the camera in the backyard for an hour or so and take pictures of everything. I mean everything - rocks, boots, grass, frisbee... And, I did try to splice the video bits together to post, but something goes wrong in the middle of me doing that. I will try again one day. We'll see what happens at work tomorrow to see if I'll have the time this week.

You can get a good view of Jade's new haircut. She's been begging me for months to cut her hair, so I told her I would on vacation. As much as it hurt me (I love her long hair), I stayed true to my word. She doesn't like ponytails or headbands, so it really only made sense. It's a little uneven in the back, but not bad for the first real haircut I've given her, in my humble opinion. When she lets me, I'll even it out.

The two highlights of the trip for the children were seeing Charley, and going bowling. Jade got a 45, Quentin a 49, without bumpers and on their own. I figure that's pretty darn good. Both of them were beating me for the first few frames. Jade has asked me if next time we go bowling, "Can Charley and and and the the the people he lives with come with us?" Charley is one of the few dogs in this world that Quentin doesn't freak out about. That says a lot.

Too much, too much

2009-03-01T01:18:00.002-08:00

I take on too much. Plain and simple.

I've been finishing up the bathroom that was started 2 1/2 years ago. I did the trim last month. I've been working on the tiles for the backsplash the last couple days, then I'm going to fix where the ones on the floor that weren't put in properly. (We've had grout chipping out forever, and it's just getting worse as the tiles get looser.) I had the children ripping off the painted textured wall paper in the hallway today. Oh the mess. They're having fun with it, though. It's my incentive to actually get rid of it and paint the hall sometime this year. We're having work done on our roof when the roofer returns from his honeymoon. I don't think we'll get to the deck this year. Unfortunately. I still need to go cut back the grapes, and the plum tree, and...

I just finished a small cross stitch for Jade. A frog. It's pretty cute. I did it because, well, she asked me to, and because it's prep for a quilt square that I'm supposed to be doing for my friend Taira's baby. I haven't done needlework since early in my university career when my wrists got mad at me. They're starting to again, but I need to do something. I think it will go okay.

Quentin finished up gymnastics today. I'll post a bit of video soon once I get the new camera hooked up to the 'puter. Not going to happen right now. Jade has one more dance class, and two more music classes for this session. They both will be in soccer until the beginning of April. I start tennis lessons on Monday. I start filling in for one teacher for a week on Monday, and then another teacher for a month or so the following Monday.

We couldn't get Quentin into another gymnastics class as it was full. He didn't want piano, or swimming, and skating was full. He does want to take an art class, so I'm going to get him into one of those if I can, plus put him in a dance class like Jade's, but for bigger kids, in order to try to keep him using up his energy in a constructive way. We'll see how it goes. He's going to come visit Jade's class next week to see what it's like. It goes later in the day than we normally like to have things booked, but it should be okay.

Friday was a sad day for us at daycare as we said good-bye to two good friends (and their mom who I also consider a good friend). The one boy had been there since Quentin went back to that daycare, and we've known his little brother from when he was born. They moved out to Maple Ridge last year, and next year the older boy starts Kindergarten, so it makes sense for them to be at a daycare close to their home, but that doesn't mean we wanted them to go at all!

Okay, I'm going to go sleep. Postings of pictures and video will happen...eventually.

Take care.

Pictures!

2009-02-11T20:14:00.004-08:00

A random assortment of pictures from the last few months. Quentin's first school Christmas concert, him thrilled with the tree that he chose for the family ("it's not too big, not too small"), the kids after decorating the tree, Quentin with the first snowman that he ever built entirely by himself, the kids in the snowbank, Jade being a cowgirl, seeing Fafa (great-grandfather/my mom's dad), and Jade and Quentin showing off the poncho and sweater that Granny knit them (Thank you, Granny!).

25 Random things

2009-02-08T18:54:00.005-08:00

This is going around Facebook, and e-mail, and I thought that it would be (maybe) interesting to do this about our family too. The idea is to generate 25 random notes about yourself, and try and get others to do the same. This is not going to be about me, but rather the children, and children-related things.

1. Yes, Jade was named after me. I've always thought my middle name was really cool. Her middle name is from Henry VIII's daughter.
2. Quentin got his name because I was getting frustrated with the 20,001 names that were available in the book I was looking at, and decided to come up with the most unique intials I could get. We ended up both liking the name. And we haven't met anyone else with the initials QXW.
3. I toyed with the idea of calling Quentin 'Samuel' so he could be a 'Sam Whitcher' (say it out loud). Then calling him 'Hamlet,' or 'Ham' for short, and putting 'Samuel' as his middle name. (Ham Sam Whitcher). Students thought it would be great to use the name 'Blair' for a boy or a girl, and that 'Samantha' could work for a girl.
3. Tyler thinks he had a hand in coming up with the punny names for our children. He didn't.
4. Our children were born 2 years, 2 months and 2 days apart.
5. Quentin was conceived first try.
6. Jade showed an independent streak from the start and took another month or so.
7. Both children enjoyed poking their knees out the tear in my abdominal muscle. Quentin especially. That's how I knew he was mine, because I knew what his little legs looked like.
8. We used cloth diapers exclusively after using the hospital's 5 disposable diapers for the meconium.
9. We even used cloth wipes.
10. Tyler did almost all the diaper changes at home, and 75% of the cleaning of them. (I did maybe five toilet rinses in all that time. Anything else I did was with the washing machine. He did all the dirty work.)
11. Both children were potty-trained by the time they were 3. (Okay, Quentin was a week or two over the 3 year mark.)
12. The doctor never believed me on how advanced our children's vocabulary was at an early age. (They didn't talk around her, therefore, they couldn't be using more than one word at a time, right?) Even now, they have immaculate enunciation for their age, and use the most random wonderful words. Quentin's current one is 'fascinating.'
13. I stopped counting how many words Quentin knew when he could say 'hippopotamus' at 18 months.
14. Quentin nursed until I was 3 months pregnant with Jade.
15. Jade nursed until she was closing in on three years old.
16. Jade sings constantly. She makes up her own songs daily. Today she was singing about rock and roll and the summer. I swear it sounded like she was singing a Sex Pistols song!
17. Both children children were in singing/music class from the time they were infants. Quentin can correct what note you're supposed to sing if he knows the song. He loves being in the children's choir at church.
18. Jade loves dancing. And she'll do it for an audience too, if she knows you!
19. Both children are in soccer. They're getting pretty good at the skills too.
20. They have both been in swimming lessons every spring. We're going to sign them up again this spring.
21. Quentin has taken skating lessons and gymnastics.
22. We had to buy a little fitness trampoline for Quentin when he was very little so that he'd stop bouncing on the couches so much.
23. If I get a call from daycare to bring Quentin home, it's because they know he's really ill because "He's just not bouncing."
24. Jade has broken her front tooth. Twice.
25. They are two of the most adorable children that you will ever meet. I can't imagine life without them - I really do love them with every ounce of my being. Because they are so absolutely wonderful, sweet, loving, smart, funny, caring and supportive, they make my days shine.

Scissors fun

2009-01-29T00:56:00.003-08:00

Well, it finally happened. Last night, while my dad was visiting, Quentin took his sister's new fake doctor scissors and pretended to cut a chunk of his hair. I warned him, for the umpteenth time, that he should never cut his hair, to let me know if he thinks it's getting too long and wants it cut, etc. etc. I thought that was good enough because, well, it always has been for the last five and a half years.

However.

As soon as she saw me this afternoon, the daycare supervisor asked me if I noticed, then asked Quentin if he was going to tell me, or if she was. In EXACTLY the same spot as last night, about 3-4 cm (1 1/2 inches for you non-metrics) back from his hairline, is this weird little triangle-shaped almost bald looking spot. (His hair is really still pretty baby fine, so short hair looks almost bald.) There had been a Teacher-On-Call in his class today, and she was apparently incredibly upset by it happening. Yeah, if I was the TOC in a room where a kid cut his hair, I'd be afraid of getting in trouble. Poor woman. I know it wasn't her lack of supervision, I know that it was all Quentin doing it.

Unfortunately for the TOC, Quentin said that the other kids started doing it too. Okay, first he said the other kids were doing it, but when I asked him why he would do it just because the others were, he clarified. AFTER he did it, others started cutting their hair too. Again, poor woman. I can just imagine her thinking how her job prospects weren't looking good after helping one group of students to see another group of Kindergartners cutting their hair - especially if there are some parents who don't get that there are just some things kids do. He's under strict orders to apologize if she's there again tomorrow.

While I was giving him a hair cut to even out his hair, I asked him who he was trying to make laugh. Nope. That wasn't it. I asked him who he was trying to impress. Yep. That was it. Two girls. *sigh* Like that bodes well for the future.

His self-inflicted hair cut didn't look awful, just a little strange. Nothing to take a pic of. Nothing as bad as that time I cut my sister's bangs incredibly short and crooked (and then we both vehemently denied I'd done anything). He does have a 1/2 buzz cut now though. I'll take a pic of that soon.

Christmas season update

2008-12-26T16:43:00.004-08:00

Two weeks ago, Quentin got sick. Fever, etc., had to come home from school for a couple of days. A week ago, Jade got sick with a fever, etc. at the same time I started feeling yucky. She was better by the weekend, I got worse. Still not better. Christmas morning, Quentin wakes up nice and early...to empty his tummy. *sigh* Guess it's that time of year.

There has been a TON of snow outside. We were pretty much snowed in by Christmas Eve. (Our streets are at the bottom of the city's priority list, so we don't get plowed out too often.) I have gotten lots of exercise shovelling the driveway, and occasionally our neighbour's driveway, and parts of the street. The children enjoy playing in the snow. Jade still less than Quentin because she's just too little still to be able to move too well through that deep powder. And, the playing had to wait until the power came back on so we knew we'd be able to warm up after. (It went out for four hours on Christmas Eve.)

Tyler made a trek through the snow to pick up those important things for a Christmas dinner. I baked a pie. Quentin and I baked cookies for Santa and left some out with some carrots for the reindeer. Quentin didn't eat much of anything for Christmas dinner, maybe two bites. Jade's favourite item was the mashed potatoes, and she was really disappointed that we didn't have any brussel sprouts. She LOVES her brussel sprouts.

Both children are enjoying their presents. Jade thinks the bunkbeds she got for her dolls is portable, and pushes it around the house. Today she tried to push it down stairs which wasn't the wisest thing to attempt. I made a bright pink stove for her to cook for her dolls on too, and she's quite happy to do that. Quentin is playing his Wii games and his Wall-E laptop quite a bit. I think that we have a bit of a computer geek for a son. They both LOVE their new pajamas too.

Tyler's getting a little worn out taking care of the three of us. I'm worried that he's going to get ill before we have enough energy to return the favour.

Tyler has moved out of maintenance at work and is now back on the floor. This time he's not the floor manager, but is in charge of a crew for testing. It will be a couple years yet before there's room at BCIT for him to continue his schooling - fall of 2010 is what we've been told.

Speaking of 2010, we scooped up some tickets for the short track speed skating for the Olympics. I'm glad we got something! I think when the time comes, the kids (well, and us!) are going to be very excited to be a part of it.

Job prospects aren't looking that great for second semester this year. There's a definite shortage of teaching jobs right now in the lower mainland. The good news (?) is that I have been kept very busy all fall with on-call jobs. I don't see why that won't continue through to the end of the year if it needs to. I have discovered that working every day on-call is a lot more exhausting than working a full-time job and look forward to the day when I'm back in one school all the time. Whenever that may be.

Both children are signed up for soccer in January. It will continue until April. Quentin finished two sets of ice skating lessons with his daycare and really enjoyed them. Gymnastics is next. I just have to see if he's signed up for gymnastics on the weekend too or not. Jade's still signed up for music class, and we're trying to see where we can fit some dancing lessons for her into our very busy lives.

We hope that you've had a very merry Christmas, and that your new year is full of much love and happiness.

Take care.

Wowsers

2008-12-07T23:34:00.003-08:00

Time has lost all meaning to me, because I just don't have any anymore. Apparently it's a LOT more exhausting to work everyday when one is filling in for other people than it is to just work full-time. I think I was only this tired when it was report card time and I was teaching English in year-long programs. So, yeah. The camera did get loaded into the computer, finally, but the pictures from the birthdays, Halloween, etc. just haven't been formatted for upload into the blog yet, and it's late and I want to go to sleep so I can deal with more hooligans that aren't mine tomorrow. This picture I had to format for another reason, so it gets posted here to show you we still exist. I know, Tyler's not in it, but I didn't make him an apron.

But.

Quentin is loving his new daycare at the school. He's gone through two sets of skating lessons, and loves skating. Laces work so much better than buckles, and I knew that when I bought the buckle skates, but I was hoping. (They were 1/4 of the price, and last for four shoe sizes.) Gymnastics is over for now, but he's going to go into it with his daycare, and I really need to check into whether or not I signed him up for another set. Quentin on a giant trampoline. Need I say more? He is also almost done his second set of soccer lessons. He's doing really well. School is good for him. He's having a few issues because he doesn't know what to do when he can't meet his own standards for himself, and his old daycare never taught him conflict resolution ("tell me and I'll deal with it" was how they used to get settled). But, he's doing awesome learning his letters, practicing sounding out words, recognizing common words, that sort of thing. His Christmas concert is in a week. Very small gym, and we've been warned by the school that they will turn away people because of fire regulations. However, they should have room on the Monday dress rehearsal if people could make that.

There is a Christmas pageant at the church on Sunday the 14th. Church starts at 10am. Tall puppet things will play some of the characters (Quentin will be inside one, Tyler might be in one too, or behind it, or...). Jade will play an angel. I will play...the other head of that angel? The speaking representation of that angel? I don't know. There's supposed to be three angels (I don't know why) and two are puppets with Jade the third angel that speaks, but she isn't going to speak so I'll be speaking for her, while I'm also dressed as an angel. Any which way, it should be interesting.

Tyler announced yesterday that he was going to take the half day off on Christmas Eve that he was supposed to work so that we could leave town for Christmas and come back on Boxing day. An hour later, he asked me where we were going to go. Yeah, well, thanks. I'm far too busy to have any clue what's happening at Christmas. Usually people plan where they'll be and who's coming over BEFORE the middle of December and things like announcing one is showing up at the last minute can be a trifle inconveniencing. Osoyoos, Kamloops, or actually having MY family over for dinner on Christmas are all possibilities, and I suppose there are others. If people are like us and haven't made concrete plans. Anyone want to vote on what we're doing? Anyone checking this blog still? :D

Hope all is well in your world!

New school year

2008-09-10T01:12:00.004-07:00

No time, no time. No summer vacation for me yet. I've been working. Tomorrow will be my fourth day of toc-ing, and it's only going to be the 7th day of school. I tried getting my camera to load some pictures of Quentin in pajamas that he got for his birthday, that he loves and wanted to show how much he loved them to the person who got them for him (Gran), but...it's just not working. Patience, and it will happen. One day.

Quentin started Kindergarten yesterday, although he started at his daycare within the school building last week. Most of his classmates are in the child care program, so he's been meeting them and making new friends even before class started. I haven't heard any complaints about his class yet. And, well, the glue wasn't working properly to hold his binoculars together the other day when he was making them, and he doesn't always get as much time as he would like on the computer, but other than that, things seem to be going quite well.

Jade is doing fine at daycare without her brother, but she does miss him. Took him a few days before he realized he really misses spending time with her too. So now, when I bring one to pick up the other, they both look for the greeting hugs from their sibling.

Quentin has also started mini soccer lessons that introduce the ideas behind soccer (dribbling, no hands, etc.) to kids 3-5 years old. We've had one so far, and he seemed to quite like it. Next one is tomorrow night. Should get a better feel then.

Now, I did say that Quentin was in school. As such, the fundraising has started already. Quentin, and his school's PAC, would like to offer you the opportunity to purchase an Entertainment book for $46. Please let us know ASAP as the forms need to be in by next week. We can even get you a book for another part of North America, if you so desire. (There's even one for the Okanagan Valley...it's only $35. Portland is $25. Hawaii is $35.)

Sleep is necessary. Take care all.

The little things

2008-08-21T00:22:00.002-07:00

Trying to make jam today, while trying to relax, while trying to spend time with my two adorable children who had oodles and oodles of energy and too much rain outside for them to play in the backyard, there were a couple of standout items that I wanted to record.

First, Quentin. He kept attacking me - with hugs. He's been doing this a lot lately. Today it was plenty of "Mom, there's just one more thing (I want to do, I want to give you) before (whatever he was off to do) - a hug, and a kiss." Wonderful for me! I picked him up to hug him once, and asked him to stir the jam because he happened to be at the right height, my hands were full, and the jam needed stirring. He thanked me three or four times for letting him stir the jam. While watching the Olympics, I pointed out that it was raining here AND in China. Rather hard in both places. That simple thing amazed him. Okay, I thought it was neat too.

Jade. Sweet little girl that she is. Almost fully potty-trained! Yesterday she had a wet diaper before we could get ready to go out for the day. Today, none. She even scooted herself upstairs to poo. Yay! She announced this evening after bathtime that she was going to rescue everyone in the world. She didn't say from what or how, but she repeatedly insisted she was going to do it. No wonder. She repeated many times today that she's the smartest person in the whole wide word. (Nope, she wouldn't accept it was the world, only the word. Although she changed it to something else for a bit, but I forget what that was...I'm not the smartest person, you know.) She ate two full cobs of corn tonight too. It's a couple days old, so it wasn't even good. Both the kids devoured their first half cob and grabbed a second, but after bath, Jade grabbed a third, and then asked to eat Quentin's because it was all that was left. I noticed today that she was sticking her tongue out in the photo from the aquarium - I thought it was just a smirk. I asked her about it, and she said that she was sticking her tongue out, and then proceeded to do it to me for the next few minutes.

Off tomorrow during the day to go visit the surgeon who looked at my finger when I broke it. It's not straight, and it still won't bend fully. They called today asking for my WCB number. I don't remember it. Do you?

Birthday time!

2008-08-20T02:41:00.002-07:00

I apparently didn't end up posting after our trip to Osoyoos, so I'll have to remedy that at another point in time. For now, be satisfied with these birthday pictures. Quentin had a party at daycare. The next day, we went to Castle Fun Park to celebrate his and his dad's birthdays with our friends. Then, today I took Quentin and Jade to the Aquarium for Quentin's actual birthday. There's a family party coming up on Sunday. Lots of celebrating for this little boy! I wish I could have posted more from the golfing, as I was taking some really cute shots, but apparently the rule is to never take pictures of children in night mode, regardless of how dark it is. (The pictures all look like they are viewed from some psychedelic dream.) I got a new shirt just for Quentin's birthday and wore it to the Aquarium. Do you like it?

How does your garden grow?

2008-07-13T15:43:00.006-07:00

Well, let's see what's happened.

My mother retired and left town to live at her summer home in Osoyoos. This is a picture of my mother. Notice how she decided to not look at the camera, even though she gets on her grandchildren's cases about that very thing? This was her cake. Very yummy. I didn't make it, but it came with a golf cart that can go quite far if you roll it back first.

Father's day came and went which much love and attention showered on the Daddy of the house. Picture: a Dad and the children who adore him.

School ended for me. I hate saying good-bye. Everyone kept trying to tell me that I'd be back next year, but I really won't, unless it's a momentary call in September. The following year, maybe, but there's a good chance I'll be getting a mat-leave spot teaching all sorts of Science stuffs at another school when my friend has her baby.

School started for Tyler. His second year courses for his electrical apprenticeship. It's not going as well for him this time around (last time he was third in his class) because he didn't take the preview course like he did last time. And, well, he has a really crappy teacher that has never taught before. I'm positive he'll make it through just fine, but he's definitely taking the preview courses before the next year's courses.

Summer school started for me. I've got an interesting bunch of kids. It's an advanced credit course, not the remedial, so it's generally a great group of students. There's just some with some unique points of view... Picture: Visual proof I still exist (pictures get taken of me so rarely). Jade took this one.

Jade is happy and healthy. She loves Backyardigans, especially Uniqua. (Pronounced unique-wah). She can't say Uniqua, so instead calls her Inuqua (Pronounced In-new-queue-ah) because for some reason, that seems to be easier?!?!? She can't wait until she gets to go to school, but alas, she has some time to wait.

Quentin, on the other foot, is ready and about to go to school. He keeps asking when his first day going to be. Most of his attentions these days are lavished on art. He constantly has ideas for his next art project. "Mom, I'm going to do some art. I'm going to need a bottle, a straw, some plastic, some tape, two more straws and some more plastic. And some water and colour to put in the water. And some poppy seeds." The straw goes in the bottle, and the top of it is covered in plastic. The two straws and plastic are taped to the side. The water, colour, and seeds go inside the bottle. (This art idea is the property of Quentin. No use of this idea is to be permitted without his direct approval.) He is awesome at drawing Wall-E, Eve and M-O from the Wall-E movie. He came home with a spaghetti picture one day, and there's no mistaking who he created.

Yesterday was spent in the sunshine in the backyard. Tyler put up one of the rock walls on the playset (the other one is a rock ramp that he's putting the final touches on today). I weeded the garden and parts of the yard. I weeded parts of the yard three weeks ago, and my one thigh muscle still hurts a little from it, so I don't know why I'm punishing myself by doing more! As we've only had a hose that reaches the garden for a week, some of the plants didn't do so well there. The watermelons died. The peas are only a few inches high, but are all putting out a pod or two! The alpine strawberries (red ones and yellow ones) are doing great. We got the alpine ones because they are not only tasty, but they're also the only strawberries that the ants don't eat so we actually get to. The brussel sprouts are getting tall - Jade E brussel sprouts, that's why we got them! The artichoke is staying small, but I think that is mostly due to the ants who swarm it constantly, not just the lack of water. I doubt we'll get anything off of it. The chard is yummy - we ate some with dinner last night. We also have carrots (3 types), beets, beans, potatoes, lettuce, rosemary (because the kids and I hate the dried stuff), parsley, quite a few types of tomatoes (doing well, including all of the volunteers planted via compost), peppers (sweet and red and yellow cherry ones, all doing fine), pumpkins and zucchini. I think that's it. I could be wrong. Of course, we also have our grapes. Lots and lots of grapes to keep me occupied in the fall. Pictures: garden, mini pea plant, yellow alpine strawberries, artichoke.

Sunny day pics

2008-05-16T20:43:00.005-07:00

We were outside, being silly, and I was playing with the new camera in that lovely light that happens before sunset. We also noticed (okay, Tyler did as he was mowing the lawn) that the city workers in the neighbourhood to replace the water mains did some severe damage to one of our trees while dropping off pipes today.

In other thoughts...please remember to sponsor us in the Prostate Cancer/Do It For Dad walk mentioned in an earlier post. Thank you! :)

New camera

2008-05-15T02:20:00.005-07:00

The first pictures taken with my new camera, the one lovely day we had last week where I came home to the children eating dinner outside, the Great Salmon Send-Off (the reptile association was there so the children got to interact with reptiles - Quentin says that snakes are cool, but frogs are handsome), and the day before Mother's Day. Cute enough for you?

Prostate Cancer Walk

2008-04-01T01:13:00.006-07:00

As per every year, we are entering the Prostate Cancer Walk on Father's Day at Burnaby Lake. Many of you know that I lost one of my fathers to this awful disease. In our efforts to help so that nobody else loses their dad in the same manner, we participate in this walk. It used to be called the "Do It For Dad" Walk, but now it has joined with other organizations and has become part of the National Father's Day Walk for Prostate Cancer. (or something like that) :)

If you would like to donate, please click on the following link: Prostate Cancer Walk
(Thank you, April, for teaching me how to do that!)

Thank you for your support. And hey! If you'd like to join us, feel free to sign up and walk with us! If you can't be in Burnaby to walk, there's a number of walks around the country - including one in Kelowna.

Spring Break! (Get it? Break?)

2008-03-21T13:52:00.005-07:00

I broke my finger before I even finished my prep to leave school last Friday. By jumping. Not off anything, just straight up in the air to see something higher, I smacked my hand into a counter. On my way up. I now have a splint on my finger for the next six weeks.

Tyler's back at work. They don't seem to run very well without him there. He's working today, and expects to get a call every other day this weekend.

The kids have been home with me the last couple of days, although they're not all that big on cleaning as a full-day task. (Let alone two full days.) Truth be told, neither am I, and the finger gives me a pretty good excuse! :)

We've got a pretty busy Easter weekend happening. Tomorrow we're going to brunch at a friend's house. It's been months since we've seen them, and Quentin is very excited to see his little friend again. (He used to 'save' extra stickers for her whenever he got some.) I think August was the last time we saw them. Then my dad is coming over for a visit.

On Sunday, Quentin is singing as part of the children's choir at church (which is joining the adult choir for one song this week). I'll be playing the bells. Last Sunday Quentin was one of only two children that showed up for singing, and the only one that sang. He played the tambourine, exactly in rhythm, and even Daddy could hear him sing at the back of the church. He came up to me excitedly later saying "Mommy! Everyone keeps telling me what a wonderful job I did!" He really was great, I'm very proud of him.

And, of course, we do have an Easter dinner happening. This year it's at Tyler's dad's home.

Typing sucks, so I'm going to stop now. I hope you all find lots of chocolate and enjoy this special time.

An update? What a strange idea...

2008-03-06T23:07:00.002-08:00

So, Christmas came and went. Jade was thrilled with the idea that her friend Santa and her friends the penguins and the reindeer were coming to visit. All Quentin wanted was black Spiderman (not Venom! - that's too scary, maybe next year - his words) and the Woody movie. After much, much searching by Santa for the Spiderman, he got them.

I spent three weeks working as a Physics teacher at Riverside in January. Now, I'm back at the lovely Fox. But, what am I teaching? English 9, Science 10, Math 11E and Tech Ed Work Experience 12 (soon). You want a diverse teaching load, or what? I am enjoying using both sides of my brain again. The running around the school and having far to travel if I forget a piece of paper isn't thrilling, but hey, then nobody can find me!

Tyler wrapped up his last test for his first 'year' of schooling for his electrical apprenticeship. He's in the top 3 or 4 of his class and tutored about half of it. I'm so incredibly proud of him!

Quentin is super-excited about going to Kindergarten. We signed him up last month. He's also going to be in an after/before-school program that takes him to swimming lessons, gymnastics and skating throughout the year. *sigh* My little boy is growing up.

Jade has the eloquence that her brother had at this age. Her enunciation is marvellous and her vocabulary is well beyond the average two year old. She's very compassionate. I'm a little worried about how she'll take to not spending all day every day with her brother next year, but I'm sure she'll be busy taking care of the babies at daycare to not be too put off by it.

We won a contest last week. One of the local radio stations had a contest for its loyal listeners who earn points by listening and visiting their website. I dumped every point I could get my hands on into it (both from my account and Tyler's - but don't get me wrong, I put almost every point INTO Tyler's account too!) and we won $10 000 in gift cards at a local grocery store. With my sporadic employment and Tyler being in school for twenty weeks this year and next year, this is almost a necessity and we are incredibly thrilled to have won. Tyler just picked up the cards today and we went off for our first shopping trip with them. We spent a little more than we normally would!

I think that works for our update. The digital camera hasn't worked since around the time of my last entry, and I just haven't taken it in to get fixed yet, so there aren't any pics to post. My apologies.

Hope all is well with all of you.

It's December!

2007-12-03T23:21:00.001-08:00

Lots of lovely snow on the weekend. Quentin is the perfect size and age, apparently. He can pull his sled up the hill, yet is still small enough to enjoy the three foot hill our lawn makes. Jade, on the other hand, knows she's supposed to have fun in the snow, but is worse off than a turtle no matter which direction she falls down in. Poor girl. There was a lot of crying...not real crying, just 'I don't know what to do now crying.' (She's reverted to that because there are now two babies at daycare doing that, and it works for them...kind of how Quentin started sucking on his fingers when he saw Jade doing it even though he'd never done it before.)

Yesterday we celebrated my grandfather's (Fafa's) 95th birthday. He's the second oldest person I know, next to Tyler's great grandmother (97 or 98 this year). He's still got his mind, can walk, can see, can play the harmonica, can flirt with the women at his home... His daughters bought him a cd player (first in his life) so the rest of us bought him cds. I didn't think about it being a problem until he's opening his presents and looking for something he might actually be able to use or play with... Of course, you go ahead and walk into a music store and ask them what they'd recommend for a 95-year old getting his first stereo and see what reaction you get.

Be well folks!

Biscuit Season!

2007-11-24T19:00:00.001-08:00

Our "sleepy song station" on the radio has turned to a Christmas music station. I wouldn't mind if it were December already, but it's not quite yet. However, our children seemed to enjoy it today, and they insisted on Christmas decorations at daycare the day after Halloween, so this isn't as bad.

Anyways. We're listening to the "Cracknutter Suite" (according to Quentin, all nutcrackers are cracknutters, in case you didn't know - we hope it stays that way) and letting Quentin know that it's a ballet and that it doesn't sound like something only girls would dance to, is it? He said he really liked the song and that it was so good that ONLY boys danced to it. (Don't worry, we'll find it somewhere this year and show him what it's really like!)

Then "Deck the Halls" came on.

- Mommy, this song is called 'Deck the Halls.'
- Yes it is! Very good. (It was instrumental.)
- And you know what the silly part of the song is?
- What is it? (Thinking it's the falala parts.)
- It's where they sing "Biscuit Season to be Jar-ly."

We decided not to tell him the real words quite yet.

Warm fuzzies

2007-11-19T19:49:00.001-08:00

So I'm scrubbing the tub in preparation for the children's bath, and Quentin is in the bathroom talking to me. He starts by telling me that he was praying during dinner to thank God for the wonderful food and his wonderful toys. (We don't normally say Grace.) He then said that he wanted to pray every day at dinner to say thank you for the wonderful food, the ingredients for the food, our toys, our nice bathtub, our nice blue towels...

I agreed it was nice to say thank you for all of this, and that there are many people who don't have food, toys, or tubs. ("They only have showers." was Quentin's first comment on that, before I talked about people without homes. He realized they only get to shower in the rain which is cold and not always nice.) I then talked about how we're going to make cookies for our church's cookie project to give to people who don't have homes. He said that we could make all types, maybe even gingerbread, and we need to put them in cans first (they do go in tins). Then, he added on that we should give them stuff to wash their hands, and maybe even give them a drink of water.

Just thought I'd share what I sweet boy we have.

Halloween and costumes

2007-11-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

The kids did a lot of trick-or-treating last night. Jade seemed eager to go longer than Quentin. It was Quentin who said, both at the mall and then when we were out, that he had had enough and wanted to go home. We went to visit a house that had some pretty scary stuff outside...Quentin wouldn't even go to the door but it was the best part of the night according to him. If you asked Quentin, he would say he was a green skeleton on a black background. Jade's story changed every time you asked (before last night). She would say a pumpkin, a ladybug, and many other things, but didn't like those costumes when we went to look at them. Daddy also dressed up as a skeleton (white on black though) and Mommy was also a witch. It will be some time before we see those pictures though, so don't hold your breath!

When I got this film developed, yes film!, I found some pics from Gramps' costume birthday party this spring and thought I'd include one. (It's the pirate and jester picture.) Quentin has changed a lot this year...and grown a lot!

Jade E.'s Two!

2007-10-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

Note: Thought I'd add these on the birthday post, because they seem to fit for some reason...scroll down, there's another added at the bottom of the post!

Friday I used my professional day to take the kids to the Aquarium. Lots of rain, lots of people, but I think the three of us had a great time. Quentin tried the sour cream and onion cricket, and immediately spat it out, but we all tried the cheesey mealworm. (They had bugs for people to try as part of their Halloween theme...in case you hadn't guessed.) Both kids like the mealworm...I thought it was hollow and nothing worth eating.

If you ask Jade how old she is, she'll respond that she's five years old. If you didn't know her very well, you might almost believe that. She's got an expansive vocabulary like her brother. She's supposed to be starting to string together three word sentences...that was shortly after her first birthday, I think, because the sentences she has now are much larger than three words. Her favourite gifts so far are the Dora bed (thank you Granny), giant Dora colouring book, large pink unicorn and the old-style Fisher Price cash register. You remember it, it has three different sized coins, a cash drawer and the change slot out the side. Actually, both kids love it. And, to be fair, she squealed "Mermaid" quite loudly and happily when she opened the Little Mermaid DVD. LOL, okay, she really didn't get much more than that-a couple more movies and a soft dragon puppet that she also likes, so I guess my point is that we chose well this year! :)

Ran into trouble with all three camera options this morning (memory card messing up, dead battery in the film camera, and full memory on the camera phone), but somehow did manage to get some good pics, so I'll post those sometime soon. I'm actually working this week so I don't have oodles of time. I know, I'm shocked too.

Jade's sleeping in Quentin's room now. They've been excited about the prospect of sharing a room for quite some time, and now we have a bed we don't have to worry about her rolling out of so we're trying it out. Jade adores her big brother, and Quentin hates to be alone. We'll see how long it lasts.

Take care all.
Jade in May. She's changed a little, still adorable though!

Happy Turkey Day

2007-10-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Thankful for...great friends and their families; a wonderful, large family; beautiful, smart, healthy, active, inquisitive, loving children; a home; God; a billion little things that make life easier for us than many people in the world; that there are those who help make things brighter for those less fortunate (Nancy in Africa, the school in Sierra Leone my old school helped build, my friend Jon who volunteered as a doctor in Africa for a year...) and that I have the privilege of calling these people my friends; our education; can one ever list everything they are thankful for?

A busy weekend for the family. Saturday Tyler worked, and I took Jade and Quentin to music class. Oddly enough, they fought over my lap less than when Daddy is there! They shared me quite nicely. After Daddy came home, we went on a quick shopping trip to find a present for Caspian, our friends' David and Genevieve's son as we were heading to his baptism Sunday morning.

And, oddly enough, we went to the baptism. It was at a different church, and Quentin was excited to go to Sunday school. Unfortunately, Jade wanted to go too. At this church, however, they only take children from age 3+ in their sunday school. I tried to tell Jade that only big kids went at this church, and she started sobbing and tapping her chest "But I'm a big kid, I want to go, I'm a big kid!" Broke my heart. The nursery wasn't quite the same, although it mollified her. The person in charge of the nursery didn't believe someone Jade's age was capable of taking part. Um, yeah.

After the baptism, we went over to Caspian's home for a lovely potluck lunch. It was quite yummy, and I do need to get the recipe for the great squash soup Genevieve made. Then, straight from there out to Richmond for a Thanksgiving dinner. My mom and her husband hosted. Katie and her family, Mike, Terri and her family, Katya (my cousin), Aunt Sheila and Wally, and my grandfather were all there as well. A lot of good food, and it was nice to spend time with my family. It's not often we gather, unlike Tyler's family/extended family. I think we actually spend more time with Tyler's family that moved to Airdrie than my family around here.

I'm not working much yet. It's a slow year for TOC's...they might actually have hired enough this year to last the district more than a month or two. The mat-leave position I was going to get was taken by someone on the call-back lists, so it's sporadic for me. I've gotten a lot of cleaning done around the house, and a lot of canning. Who knows, if it stays this sparse for awhile longer, I may even finish the bathroom trim.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The numbers game

2007-09-29T01:16:00.001-07:00

Today, just one of those neat coincidence things....Jade, who is 2 years 2 months and 2 days younger than Quentin, is 1 year 11 months 1 week and 1 day old. Just thought I'd let you know!

Vacation summary Part 3

2007-09-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

There were many places along our drive that, had we not been travelling with two small people who didn't want to be in the car and so I didn't want to prolong it, I would have pulled over and taken many scenic pictures. We did have beautiful weather for all but the one night in Jasper, and that made our gorgeous countryside even prettier. Nobody could resist stopping at the world's largest truck though. One day, we'll get a picture by the world's largest tree crusher too.

We left Airdrie and made our way to Taira's home, halfway between Castlegar and Nelson. We were going to be camping, but the little time we had to spend with her (she was working during the days, after all) and the fact we'd packed and unpacked so many times already, meant that we were more inclined to sleep on her living room floor. (I hope she didn't mind too terribly much.) Being around Charley helped Quentin with his fear of dogs - which he was passing on to Jade. He's not cured, but he doesn't immediately start screaming and panicking when a dog is in sight - he just gets a little nervous instead.

We went to Castlegar the one day, and had a lovely time at a spray park. We thought we'd go there after how much the kids enjoyed the one in Kamloops. We then walked through a park with a suspension bridge. The following day Taira had the morning off and so she took us to Nelson where we played on a beach before she went to work. We then packed up and went to Osoyoos.

Unfortunately my mother had already abandoned her summer home for the winter, so we didn't get to visit with her there. Instead, we had a relaxing time at the beach for a day, did our laundry so we didn't have to do it once we arrived home, and almost felt rested before heading home. Okay, before heading to Tyler's dad's house in Cloverdale for his 50th birthday party and then we went home. And then there were the two birthday parties we went to on Sunday. And then Tyler was back at work and Quentin and Jade were back in daycare on Monday. Then I drove to Kits to pick up my purse I'd left at the second birthday party. That pretty much negated the restful feeling I'd had. Then I made jam and canned nectarines all week.

I haven't developed the pictures from the disposable camera we got at the Calgary zoo (forgot our camera in the car and had so little time there we didn't want to run back to the car). It contains pictures of the zoo and Osoyoos. You might see them someday. :)

Vacation summary Part 2

2007-09-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

Note: This isn't actually Mt Terry Fox, but another mountain at the same rest stop. Oops. Mt Terry Fox is a little mountain off in the distance between a couple others...I do have a pic, but this is a nicer one. :)

From camping in Quesnel (camping started on Tyler's birthday and we saw some amazing shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower), we went on to Jasper National Park, stopping to view the some sights on the way. It was a lovely thunderstorm that night, after we went to bed, thankfully, but we still woke up soaked. Then we made our way to the Hirsekorn farm in Alberta (Lori's family) just south of Edmonton.

I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures. We had a great time. Quentin went fishing at Anne and Tim's fishing hole (a mini-lake on their property they had stocked with trout) for his birthday. Both children enjoyed the trampoline at Grandma's. I enjoyed seeing everybody again. Tyler was amazed at how friendly everyone was and how they made us feel right at home. My dad came out for a couple of nights so we got to see him too. Patty, Shawn and Carmen were visiting their parents so I got to meet Patty and Carmen's daughters. Kathy and Grace were out, and Richard and his family were around...lots of family that I haven't been around in over ten years.

Then, the all-too-brief visit with my friend, Lori. It's so wonderful to have her back in my life, even if we are too far apart. We went to the Calgary Zoo for a brief run through the exhibits, then to Airdrie to visit Lori and her delightful little boy Aidan. I just can't say how much it means to me to have seen them. A giant hole in my being has been filled again...a connection to my past, somebody who knew me before I was a teenager (and in my teens, don't get me wrong). One night wasn't enough, but how many would make up for the 10+ years? Our children enjoyed playing with each other. Tyler is astounded that we each call our boys "Bug" and thinks it's something to do with Mackenzie...are there bugs there?

Vacation summary Part 1

2007-09-18T00:54:00.001-07:00

We started our trip by heading to Kamloops where we stayed with my stepmother Lori. I had a great visit with her - it had been too long since we'd actually sat down and chatted. I needed a kick in the pants to see her side of the story in regards to many things, and I'm glad I got it. (For the record, it was me kicking me in the pants, nobody else.)

Quentin figured out, on this first stretch of driving, that if he said he had to go poo, we'd stop. Jade decided that this trip would be a great time to potty-train so anytime Quentin said he had to, she said she had to. We didn't want to discourage her. After the third time stopping between home and Kamloops, and Quentin not pooping anytime, I clued in he just didn't want to stay in the car long, and started denying him washroom time. Smart kid though.

We took the children to the Wildlife Park. The spray park within it was a great draw for the children. Of course, so was the playground... It was a little warm that day, but not scorching hot. Quentin has a new-found love for "wolvies" after getting to feed them (food was spread out around the pen, then the wolves were released to eat after everyone got out). I included the picture of the bird because there was a question/answer session after the flying demonstration and information session. People were asking "how fast does it fly," "what does it eat," and the usual questions when people don't pay attention to what was a very thorough talk. Quentin was not going near the bird for a picture, nor seemed to be interested in anything else ten minutes after the demo ended, so I started to walk away and asked him to come. He spazzed and said he had something he wanted to tell the guy. Okay, fine. I tell him to put up his hand, because otherwise the guy was not going to realize Quentin, staring at his feet, had something to say. He gets asked what his question is. "What...what does he do?" Oh did I giggle. The look on the guy's face was priceless.

From there we headed up to Quesnel for camping, visiting April and her sons Kyle and Michael, and going to Barkerville for some good ol' gold-panning. Quentin enjoyed the experience of gold-panning for the experience itself...until other children started exclaiming how they were now rich because they had gold. *sigh*

Okay, because I know you're hoping for it...

2007-09-11T22:03:00.001-07:00

Squirrels!

2007-09-11T18:29:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, a post about our vacation would be nice...but that's not on my mind this moment. Squirrels are.

Some people may recall we had squirrels in our attic a couple years ago. The last week I've seen our big black squirrel going up the chimney. *sigh* Call the pest control company. AAA Wildlife, if you need a good one.

Why do I say our squirrel? Because she's always around. I'm sure she's the one that planted the nuts in my car wheels. She has no fear of humans. When you're about five feet away from her, yelling at her to get lost, she will maybe move a foot further away. She's been shredding our local papers for months. Well, we found out the reason for that today.

She had four babies in our chimney. And, to be fair, they're almost fully grown, so they haven't been an issue. We didn't know there were babies in there until the control guy started pulling out the nesting material. One black squirrel with three black babies, and one grey baby. The babies were put in a box on top of the chimney so the mommy could come and collect them and move them to a new nest somewhere else. Some of the babies moved under the roof tiles in the gutter, and the grey one stayed in the box.

The mom has had an awful time trying to pull them out and move them. They've sounded like baby birds, cats, and chickens. Odd creatures. I've felt bad for the mommy, as much as I've disliked her forever, because those kids were just not cooperating. She even had one hanging over the eaves, but there was no way it was going to help her get it off the roof, so she had to bring it back until she could find a better way to get it down.

I'm pretty sure they're all moved now. I hope they're in a safe place, not in somebody else's home. And if they are in another person's home, that they get a humane remover as well.

Camera Phone pictures

2007-08-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

Quentin had his first piano recital (not really, just playing on the big piano for the class in the middle of class). He doesn't get the concept that it's important to hit the right keys, not just at the right time, so it's interesting. He loved to do the bow though, and I'm quite certain he liked the applause! Jade is in the picture, because she wanted to see what he was doing over there. She's pretty good at taking a bow too.

Jade got a new sweatshirt for our upcoming camping trip, and later she enjoyed putting a happy face sticker on her nose. (The one where she's sitting in her sweatshirt - she'd have a giant grin on her face, right until the camera took a picture...five times in a row.)

It gets better!

2007-08-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, those of you without children at this age might not realize what this means, but...Jade said she had to go poop on the potty and she did. Tyler tried to run out and buy her real underwear with the first pee, but I thought that might be a little too enthusiastic at this point. She does want to sit on the toilet anytime anybody mentions they need to.

We're leaving on Saturday, if I manage to get all my marking and report cards done on time. They need to be handed in on Friday before 3, and they write their exam in the morning on Friday. Otherwise, we can't leave until I hand them in on Monday morning. That's why I'm on the computer now... :)

Saturday we head to Kamloops, then we go to Quesnel/Barkerville, then Jasper, the farm, to visit my elementary school friend, Slocan, Osoyoos, and then back home for Tyler's dad's 50th birthday party, all in two short weeks. Lots of driving, but it shouldn't be too long a drive for any of the journies. Just a lot of them. In case we get lost, I made my car's phone number active. hehehe, my car has a phone number. It's so hard not to just call everybody and say that my car called them!

Our friend, Ed, will be house/plant/cat/birdsitting for us, so that's one good thing out of the way. My brother is purchasing my car, so that's another.

I need to go mark poetry. I have essays in store for me tomorrow.

Be well all. If I don't post again until we return...enjoy the rest of your summers.

Jadey peed in the potty! (and more)

2007-07-29T01:22:00.000-07:00

Jade has been practising sitting on the potty for quite some time. It's taken months to get her to sit on it without a diaper though. As she likes to do everything that Quentin does, sometimes she sits on it if he has to go (he's on the big toilet, so no, it isn't a battle.) Tonight, Quentin announced he had to, and went downstairs. Jade said she had to...and she did! Quentin was 17 months when he started, but was almost three before he was completely potty trained. But, they say it's easier to potty-train girls, and maybe because it took so long for the first one, it might go quickly now. Or it might be a fluke that it happened, and won't again for months. We'll have to see.

Now that the 'casts' are off my gums, I'm really not thrilled with what I spent $3000 on with my gum surgery. Not what I expected/hoped for. When I see my dentist on Monday, I'll ask her what she thinks.

Quentin helped me make jam today. He said that he really enjoyed it and wants to do this evey year with me. Maybe the start of a great tradition? Okay, okay, to be fair, he has been around when I've processed grapes for the last few years, and I think he may have thrown a cup of sugar or two in... So far, we have cherry, blueberry, cherry blueberry, cherry raspberry and cherry strawberry jam. Most of them aren't sit-still thick, but I didn't want to cook the flavour right out of them as they are so tasty! Tomorrow we'll make apricot jam. Personally, I enjoy a good red jam any day, and don't give apricot jam its due, but my dad's apricots do make a great jam, and the kids love apricots. I don't know if apricots combine well with berries to make a different kind of jam...I know I could mix in peaches, but that wouldn't make sense with my peach allergy.

I love teaching summer school, other than the usual. The kids are so well-behaved and work so well it's fabulous. All but two are taking the class to get a head start on next year's courses, so they are there to do well - and it shows.

Two more weeks, and then it's vacation time! Two weeks of travelling around BC, and a trip to Alberta to the farm, visiting friends and family and getting camping in too! Yay! A lot of driving, but I think it's going to be worth it.

On another note - I'm glad I joined Facebook. I know, I know, but I was able to get in touch with my best friend from elementary school that I haven't spoken to since I was 19. We talked on the phone for an hour and a half this week, and it was great. She has a 15-month-old son, so our conversation had a few pauses as she went to tend her child, or one of mine interrupted, but it was great. It will happen again soon, I'm sure.

Time for sleep. Take care all.

Surprise surprise!

2007-07-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

Don't read this paragraph if things make you squeamish. I went to the periodontist today, thinking he'd basically be just looking things over, removing the one "cast" and off I'd go. Nope. He said to go to the dentist in a week to remove the lower cast. The upper one, which I was told would last only two days, the most they'd seen is five - it's been nine - they glued back on so it would last "another day or two." They had booked me in for Friday the 13th at 13:00 for the first surgery originally. They managed to move people around to get me in last week. Nobody cancelled the appointment for today, so while I was under the impression it was kept just for a check before they went on holidays....I showed up to him telling me that we were going to do the next sections today. It's another two weeks of pureed soup for me. Both sides on the top were done today, taking tissue from the other half of the roof of my mouth. Leaves me with nothing to chew with. Then they jammed the needle into my sinus and shot the freezing crap up through my nose and sinus cavities. Not a nice visit.

And I was looking forward to having steak tonight. Instead I got cream of chicken soup. Tasted similar to those dry powder cream of chicken soup mixes my dad always used to have on hand. Only without the dried lumps of powder, or chicken, floating throughout.

Quentin saw the new Capital One commercial with the "tooth fairy" tonight. He asked if it was the tooth fairy, and then stated "I didn't know the tooth fairy gave kids lists!" in his 'aren't they silly?' tone. I love that tone. Tyler figures it just means that the tooth fairy gets off easy when Quentin starts losing teeth.

To sleep. Perchance to dream.

Be well.

Fun in the summer

2007-07-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

My Neon got its last oil change from me today. I'm just going to clean it up, and then it's ready to be sold. Do you know anyone who wants to buy it? It's in excellent condition as I've kept it well-maintained. It got a new battery today, two new tires a few months ago, and it runs really, really well. No rust. And, as you may remember, it's a lovely shade of purple. I've had it for ten years now, and the only trouble I've had with it (other than squirrels) was the one time the transmission line blew within a week of getting it serviced so I'm suspicious that was the fault of the people who serviced it. Nothing else.

Camping went well. The kids really enjoyed it. Jade kept trying to crawl into Quentin's inflatable toddler bed (it's an air mattress with kind of a sleeping bag attached to it) so we ended up buying her one the next day as well. Quentin got one with SpongeBob on it from his Pappy last year. It's an air mattress, with a pillow, with a cover on it that has a sleeping bag on top. Jade's is a Dora one, but it doesn't have a pillow. Instead, it has almost a head board (to keep from going over the top, I guess) and bumpers on the sides so she can't roll off. She's sleeping on it downstairs right now quite well. It's so hot upstairs that we're keeping her down there until we head to bed.

My mouth is slowly getting better. I can talk and almost laugh without hurting too terribly much. Friday they are going to take the "cast" stuff off my gums. The one on the roof of my mouth I was told would only last about two days with most people, five if it was taken care of. I still have seven days later - minus the edge where it wore away. It's a little swollen where the under coating of whatever it is under the cast came off tonight, but seems to be doing fine. Of course, now that I'm writing this...did I even mention that I got gum-graft surgery last Wednesday? If not, they took some tissue from the roof of my mouth to extend some of my gums on my lower front teeth. They'll do it again at the end of the summer to help the receding gums on my upper front teeth.

Summer school is actually going quite well. The kids are well-behaved. Some are whiny, but that's to be expected. It's going very quickly, although only teaching half days, I have no idea what day of the week it is. I couldn't figure out if today was Monday or Friday, but I figured it was one of the two.

Tomorrow I take my car in to get fixed. Yes, my new one. Tyler was at the mall the other weekend, and somebody drove into the wheel. Yes, they missed the rest of the car, but got the wheel. It's scratched up and the alignment is off. We'll see if anything else is wrong when I bring it in for servicing.

Be well. Stay cool.

It's a beautiful day

2007-07-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

It's a gorgeous day outside. A perfect day for camping in the backyard - exactly what we plan on doing. I'm going to set up the tent this afternoon, then the kids and Daddy can cook hot dogs over a fire. Or on the barbecue if it doesn't look safe around the fire. I don't think I'll cook my soup over the fire though.

I had my gum graft surgery on my lower front teeth on Wednesday. They took two strips from the roof of my mouth as donor tissue. I can't say this is the most comfortable experience I've ever had. I have two weeks of liquid or soft foods only to look forward to. No bread, nothing I need to bite into, and nothing I really need to chew. *sigh* It's cherry season. End of August I'll get my top gums done.

I finished my first week of summer school. It's a really strange experience. It's really intense while we're in class (we are trying to fit ~3 classes into every class), but I'm out of there by noon and I only have one class so the marking isn't awful. I have no idea what the students think of me. Very few talk to me because there is so little time to relax as we try to get through everything. 87 classes leaves you with time for doing homework and some casual time in class. 27 classes means there's no time to take things home to work on before you discuss it so it needs to be worked on right away. It's keeping me busy enough anyways.

My mouth hurts.

Be well and enjoy your weekends!

Happy summertime all!

2007-07-02T02:20:00.000-07:00

It's not Canada Day anymore, so I couldn't use that...Although we did enjoy our time at the Burnaby Village museum. They've done a few things differently this year that we liked. Mostly just a change in the way it was set up, but it worked a lot better. We missed having the lemonade, cotton candy and kettle corn though.

Thank you to everyone who contributed towards the Do It for Dad walk this year. We really appreciate it. It was two days after I was rather ill, but we did the five kilometre walk anyways. Just a little slower than usual...

School is done. I cried. I hate leaving anywhere. I've been passed over enough times that I just don't hold any hope of being back, although everyone says that I'll be back. I just can't do that, but I can't not. It's a vicious cycle that tears me up inside. Such a great group of teachers to work with, and they really seemed to accept me as part of the staff. I'm even invited to the summer department meeting at the department head's house.

The pub the staff attends on Fridays was attended by us on Friday, and then we were told to evacuate because of a fire on the premises. Yep, it was really, really smoky. Lightened the mood a little for me as I was about to walk out bawling anyways.

The children are doing wonderfully. Jade is singing more often than not. Random songs that she knows will start coming out of her mouth, some conjunctions missing, some lines missing, but always happy about it. The songs generally don't fit what's going on either. I think that it's wonderful. I almost always have a song going through my head, but it's rare that I vocalize it (rare compared to the number of songs, that is), but not her. I hope she keeps it up.

Quentin is growing up more and more. The way his mind works is well beyond that of most almost-four-year-olds. He has been starting to draw actual things (a happy face or a sad face are most often, but he does do some large-bodied animals with legs in odd places.) He is going to piano class and seems to be enjoying it, but he doesn't practice. Which is fine. He kicked me and Jade out of the room after the first class. I think that's okay too.

We're looking forward to our camping trips this summer, and visiting people we don't often get to visit. Quentin is very excited. If it had been nicer weather coming into this weekend we were going to have to set up the tent in the back yard and have a little sleep out. Hopefully that works out next weekend.

I start teaching summer school on Tuesday. It's only mornings, but how to fit an entire semester's worth of English into 27 classes (the 28th is exam day) is a little intimidating. After school on Tuesday I get to take my car in to get damage estimated on it (yes, our brand new car) because someone backed into Tyler when he was at the mall yesterday morning. Urrrr. Wednesday after school I get to go have gum graft surgery. I'm soooooo not looking forward to it. Let alone trying to figure out if I'll be able to teach Thursday, but I can't get a sub at summer school. That's also not too much fun because the last night of regular school, I got a massive intestinal thing that emptied my system both ways, and the same thing happened yesterday morning. My tummy's still feeling a little under the weather.

Tyler's hoping to start schooling in October, but BCIT messed up his paperwork and doesn't care, so it looks like January. Such is life.

That seems to be our world. Only working half days this summer should give me more time to update, and hey, I might even get some pictures going too!

Be well,
Jen.

Do It For Dad - Prostate Cancer Walk

2007-05-28T08:49:00.001-07:00

Hello everybody!

We've been participating in the Prostate Cancer walk for the last four years. Many of you know that I lost one of my dads to this disease when Quentin was only a few months old. He never met Jade. Breast Cancer walks get more attention, but this one has affected us personally and so we make a point of doing this walk every year. Please take the time to sponsor us, every little bit helps. The four of us will be doing the walk on Father's Day at Burnaby Lake, rain or shine.

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/personalPage.aspx?EventID=11064&LangPref=en-CA&RegistrationID=311795

Okay, I'm silly and don't quite know how to just do a link, so I'll try that later at home tonight. I'll also change the picture on my sponsor page to one a little more relevant to the family.

Thank you so much for your support!

Phone pictures

2007-05-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Daddy has a new cell phone with a camera. Here's a few of the shots we've snagged.

At the playground:

Visiting Mommy at work:

Sharing lemons with Mommy, notice she's showing me how to open up in order to eat it...:

And an obligatory tub/crazy hair shot. There was another one that had her smiling, but it was much, much fuzzier. The problems with a phone camera... :

Adorable children

2007-05-17T01:04:00.000-07:00

At church on Sunday, Quentin said that he'd never seen Jesus before.
"But he's everywhere, right Mom? And God?"
Yes, dear.
"Why can't I see God?"
Well, honey, because he's everywhere, if we could see him, we couldn't see anything else. I wouldn't be able to see you and you wouldn't be able to see me because all we would see is God.
"Well, I would just say 'Excuse me' to God."

Jade learned how to say "I love you" and in fact spent a good half hour the second day she knew she could say it just yelling it at me. She speaks quite well, considering her age. She is also very accident prone. Right now she has a giant bruise on the side of her face from falling off her chair. There are enough bruises on her legs to rival Auntie Taira. She's fearless and tries to do everything Quentin does. And Quentin's enough of an imp to encourage it.

We spent Saturday going to music class, then releasing baby salmon into the neighbourhood stream. They enjoyed that. Quentin named his fish 'Kitty' and Jade named hers "Fishie."

Tyler is waiting patiently, okay maybe a little impatiently, to be told when he can attend school. There's a waiting list to get into the courses.

I've been busy with teaching. People think they're being positive in saying how little time is left in the school year, while I try not to think about how little time I have job security. All people with less than two years and seven months under contract are being laid off this year, so who knows if it will be possible to bring me back. Everyone says that they'll have me back, but four years of teaching in four different schools gives me little confidence in that. My psyche just can't handle being optimistic about that again. I know I'll get work again, but that doesn't mean it will be in September, let alone in the same school.

Guy Gavriel Kay's new book Ysabel is great. (No, that's not a link, it's just the appropriate way to signify a book title...just taught that in school so thought I should use it.) It's not as...heavy? as his other books. It's a book that younger readers can get into easily if they are looking to go beyond Harry Potter or Dan Brown. If you are a reader of Kay's anyways, don't find out anything about it and just start reading. Trust me. As always, Kay doesn't like to start his stories with "This person is like this and lives in the area where this stuff happens," but rather introduces that information through the story itself. It makes it a little harder for some readers to get into his books, but getting through that first twenty pages is always worth it.

Be well.

Lack of updates

2007-02-18T12:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry about that. And no, I'm not posting any pictures today either. I apologize for that, but that anonymous person just makes me that much less inclined to post them... :) Well, okay, I'm lazy, haven't taken a lot of pictures lately, haven't developed film (yes, I still use a film camera for the most part), and haven't hooked up my digital to the computer in aeons.

The downstairs is still unusable. They painted the walls last week, but decided they didn't need to paint the top half so it's not the nicest looking place. I do believe I'll be making them come back. The floors aren't in, although the subfloor in the back room has been built (again, a shoddy job although it will be covered in carpet and it's in the back room, so not as essential).

The children are growing, playing, talking, singing, walking, running, dancing, adorable.

I got handed a job two weeks ago. Okay, they tricked me into taking the job saying it was only for a week and then would be posted. That's not the way it worked out. I was definitely enjoying not marking or lesson planning, and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this. I'm at my old high school though, so the staff is wonderful. The students are (generally) wonderful.

I need to get back to the family. Be well.

Flood update...

2007-01-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

We had some friends over last night to visit and play games, and I don't think we're having people over again for awhile. The restoration crew is in the house right now, moving all our belongings either into the crawl space or into their van for restoration. The walls will be cut and the bottom two feet replaced. The back room is going to have the floor (a raised sub-floor) replaced and recarpetted. Our laminate floor will be torn out and replaced. I don't know what's going to happen with our lovely green wood paneling that passes for walls inside the basement area. It's going to be a minimum of 4-6 weeks before we get to use our downstairs again. *sigh*

It was all rain/ground water, not septic water. We didn't lose anything really valuable or important to us, other than the jumping couch. And, well, it will be fun. The only problem I see is that Tyler starts night school next week, and it might be hard to do his homework in the small area that the four of us will be in constantly. Other than that...I didn't have to pack everything or move it out. I don't have to do the repair work. I don't have to do much, except suffer the noise, the people, and probably sign off of a few days of work (not great, but that's one reason being a Teacher On Call is a good thing, only monetary repercussions).

Fare well, all. I'll post pictures of the flooding when I get the chance.

When it rains, it pours...and apparently floods too!

2007-01-02T01:23:00.001-08:00

Well, the past couple of weeks we've been cleaning, and that's a good thing for many, many reasons. In the cleaning process, I've been getting things organized a little better - the children's toys, for instance, are not in a basket on the floor in the basement, but rather in little baskets on shelves. And, they're not currently strewn about the floor. Other things had gotten piled up downstairs too, just because we were focused on bathroom things, etc instead of daily things. Added bonus is that we have a fully functional bathroom upstairs (trim, mirror, backsplash and a single towel rack are all that are left to do, and I was hoping on getting all but the backsplash done this week) to go with our tidier house.

Tyler went downstairs to get the children's inhalers this morning, and stepped into a very large puddle. Some of you may remember two years ago our basement flooded, but was kind enough to keep the water out of the main living area. Not so this year. In fact, the main living area downstairs is under almost two inches of water, and the basement/laundry area is another couple of inches deeper than that. But, because we've been organizing...I don't have a large basket of children's toys to dry out, I don't have a pile of recycling that's soggy to move, I don't have plants flooded on the floor...and we've got a lot of other stuff safe too from raising it due to the flood two years ago. We're going to have to get rid of the futon, which is quite disappointing as it has been a great jumping area for the children (Quentin has given Jade jumping lessons, which is very, very adorable. They both jump off the cushions and 'crash' onto the mattress.) But, if that's it, that's okay, I think.

So, yay for the weather to wait until we'd cleaned up and had a usable bathroom upstairs! Happy New Year!

The Sweetest Thing

2007-01-02T01:23:00.000-08:00

Tyler was upstairs putting Quentin to bed. Jade was downstairs with me, almost pretending she'd be going to bed soon too. Suddenly, she gets off the couch and wanders away. I let her go thinking she's just going to play. She starts making an excited word, so I look, and she is holding Quentin's prized crocodile "Barbara" and shaking it at me (in as much as she can with her limited size). "Yes, that's Barbara," I say, not comprehending. "Yes, that's Quentin's Barbara," when she doesn't stop. Off she goes, up the stairs (with me following), up the next stairs (split level), down the hall and into Quentin's room where she gave him his crocodile knowing that he likes to sleep with it. He was very glad to get Barbara, and said "Thank you Jade" to which she responded "Thank you" using sign language, and very happily/proudly came back downstairs.

Children, teaching (rambling), and illnesses

2006-12-22T00:16:00.000-08:00

It's been forever since I updated, for which I apologize. Life sometimes gets in the way. And sometimes it's just procrastination too, I'll admit that.

I've been sick. Lost my voice last month, almost did again last week. When I was growing up, my best friend got bronchitis two or three times a winter. and I never got it. A few years ago, a friend got bronchitis, didn't see a doctor, and it turned into pneumonia. I got that. So now every year I get pneumonia (minor cases, but needing antibiotics half the time). And a sinus infection. And I don't get rid of it easily either. I need the heavy-duty antibiotics to rid myself of the pain in my face.

My children get seasonal asthma. (Makes me hate visiting the mall where the smokers crowd around all entrances.) Once I get my illnesses, the children do too, and once they get something respiratory, it turns into asthma. They go on their inhalors and after a couple of months, it's gone. Not too bad. Except, the part you don't often hear about, when it's bad it's accompanied by a ferocious fever, lots of coughing, vomiting, lack of the ability to eat, and general misery. Jade got that last week...the day the power went out actually. Two days of frequent cool baths, lots of cuddling,lots of Tylenol, and not much in the way of food except mother's milk. Poor girl. She's over it now, except for the coughing although that has lessened too. Quentin didn't go through the bad stuff this year, just the frequent coughing.

I have been teaching a fair amount. Middle schools aren't as bad as I used to think they were. A school I thought I didn't like I'm finding has definitely grown on me. I like being at the same schools because it lets me build some collegiality with staffs too. I miss that. I have been mostly at three high schools, with a middle school here or there. Students are confused when they have me for Chemistry, then Math, and then English. I find it's easier to get to know some of them. I actually crossed paths with a new teacher who said she ran into problems with her classroom management during her practicum. After taking a course on it, she realized that she didn't build a rapport with her students. In this day and age, when there are five billion job options out there, why go into teaching if you're not going to try to connect with your students (and I don't mean in a Tom Ellison way)? Why teach? The only day I seem to have forgotten to start off by connecting with the students, happened to be a day I was in a friend's classroom, and boy was that awful. I worked with her (volunteering) for years, and the first day I'm officially in her class, I blew it big time. Learned my lesson...don't take anything for granted.

None of the private schools have called, except the one who called me a few times in October, but always when I was out on another call for the District. They haven't called lately. My old school hasn't even tried calling. :( Not that I'm not working enough, because I am, but, you know.

I get interesting coincidences when I teach. After the tiny school I taught in, I ran into one of those students as I went for an interview at another school, and then saw her and her brother when I was subbing there. The last school I taught at, one of my students ended up being one of my students from the little school. This time, I'm in a class and get a name I don't trust myself to pronounce. I look at him, and ask if he has another name because he looks rather familiar and maybe I had him in another class in that school where the teacher left his americanized name. No, he says. Then it turns out he used to, when he was my student at my last job. I am one of the worst for placing a person when they are out of context.

Quentin is "so exciting" about Christmas. They had their Christmas party at the daycare today and both children enjoyed it. I got some beautiful decorations for the tree that they made (yes, Jade made me one too). Like most children, they both love opening presents when they get them. It will be a few years before any make it under the tree before Christmas Eve. I'm still trying to find the ones I hid a few months ago though, one for a friend and one for Jade. I've looked in all my special hiding spots and just can't find them. One day I'm sure.

Bathroom update: we bought a new light fixture so I will have some more patching, priming and painting to do. The counter is cut, the cupboards are built and in place. We still need to put on the door frame and door, put the heating light back in, hang the shower rod, put the safety bars into the tub, put in the sink and faucet, and the trim at the bottom of the walls. Other than that, it looks just dandy.

Be well, Happy Solstice, and Merry Christmas if I don't post again until after the day.

I'm a fruitcake!

2006-12-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

Are you surprised?

Take this

Quiz

.

Snow, kids, tired, Santa, no decorations or tree yet, work, next Sunday pageant, Quentin is the cutest and best shepherd, 10 am, same church, love you all.

Snow

2006-11-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

The sky is nicely lit by the reflections off the snow. I just measured and we received well over six inches of snow today. That meant a giant snowball in the front yard, a little snowman in the backyard (the thought of having a snowman be knocked over like last year in the front yard is too painful, so we are only going to build them in the backyard now, although Quentin was afraid someone will climb over the fence just to knock it down), some sledding on the sled we happened to purchase last Monday, and the driveway being shovelled twice - not that you can currently tell.

Jade enjoyed the snow. Quentin loves the snow. Being on the sled was one of the most wonderful things I think he's experienced, from his reaction. Jade enjoyed the sled too, until Quentin decided he liked falling off of it, and that meant taking her with him and pretty much landing on her. Not so fun for Jade.

I signed off of work tomorrow, the children will not be going to daycare, and Tyler's walking to work. There are just too many people who don't know how to drive in the snow that will be trying to whether schools are open or not. No sense tempting fate.

Love and snowballs to you all.

Voice to spare? Anyone?

2006-11-18T00:28:00.000-08:00

All week I've been a TOC for Chem 12 and Math 11 and LOVED it. The students were generally wonderful. (One of them even tried to get everyone to give me a group hug as it was my last day today.) The only real problem? I haven't had a voice for the last two days. Not so easy to instruct when one cannot be heard. Everyone in the house has this...although Jade barely has a whisper of a cough due to those antibodies she ingests everyday. Okay, I'm the only one without a voice...the boys just have the accompanying coughs.

Jade has been walking, no more that a few steps at a time but we're not rushing her. She has another tooth, but it's not the eye tooth (which should be next in line), it's a very pointy molar behind it. Go figure. Her favourite words right now are 'hat,' 'tap tap tap' (the title of a story which is repeated throughout the story), and 'wolf.'

Quentin has named his ghost (the one he was going to carry when he was a pumpkin for Halloween, then left it at daycare that day...but he had the ghost basket anyways). His frog with red eyes he named "Red Eye" so are we surprised his ghost is named "Eyebrow"?

The bathroom is primed, and the ceiling is painted. I was going to paint the walls this week, but got that call to work all week as the teacher went to spend time with his newest son. I wasn't going to say no. Next week...if I can move. Then we get a toilet installed! Yay!

Heading to the island very, very early in the morning and I need to iron and pack. Take care.

Belated b-day pics

2006-11-05T08:04:00.000-08:00

Jade enjoyed opening her presents. If you look closely at the one with the big orange/green/many colours toy, you'll see there's a little blue thing under Jade's right ear. That is a pretend phone on the toy that she is making a call on.

Her birthday cake was made out of a layer of cherry jello, and a layer of raspberry jello mixed with whipped cream, decorated with whipped cream. She wasn't feeling all that fabulous that day, and I thought jello was something her tummy could handle. I was right. I think you can tell she enjoyed it!

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

We had 24 visitors this year...our smallest number yet! I know there was a year we had only 28 at the house, but 24 is a new low. We even were giving out handfuls of candy, play-doh (little cans of it), and plastic toys (cheap halloween skeletons, bugs, etc...80 for two dollars).

Both children have head colds, so that wasn't much fun. We went to the mall for a quick 20 minutes of trick-or-treating after getting home from daycare. They only had it from 4 to 5, and we didn't get home until 4:30, but we got a nice little batch anyways. When children aren't allowed more than one piece of candy/chocolate a day, they don't really need to gather too much. Jade stayed home and handed out candy with Mommy while Daddy and Quentin went door-knocking.

The pirate is from a cool little pirate party we went to on Sunday. People from our music class invited us. I even managed to poison Daddy with an eclair. It was important as he was from a different pirate ship than I was.

Hope your candy day was fun!

Happy Birthday Miss Jade E.!

2006-10-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

Pictures from her last day a zero-year old girl. Now she's one. The way things seem to go, I'm sure next week she'll be 20. She wasn't feeling well today, not that you can tell from these pics. I hope she's feeling better for her birthday, but if 20 minutes ago is any sign she won't be in top form. Losing the contents of ones tummy is not the way for a child to spend their birthday.

Jade is growing up so quickly. Took her first step and a half unassisted. Obviously knows how to pose for a camera. Knows how to let people know what she wants without being rude or noisy, and won't let other people take away what she believes to be hers. Has a number of words, between eight and ten I think (not that everyone can understand them, but I can - ball, book, mom, dad, that, duck, her version of button for her belly button, a word of her own for Quentin, and...) She dances to music she likes and can keep the beat to a song. She enjoys books. Jade LOVES splashing her hands in the water. She likes going swimming, to gymnastics and music class, plus daycare where she gets to play with other children and gets all the attention. She can blow kisses, can whistle a little bit, and sings while she walks (holding hands). Her favourite thing to do is to climb, it doesn't matter if it's stairs, a chair, the couch, or a stool to get to the bathroom sink. And if she isn't allowed on the one set of stairs, she'll just move to the other ones.

Happy Birthday Jade. May you continue your life with the same amount of smiles, intelligence, love and charm that your days are filled with now.

Floweriness

2006-10-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

This week's updates

2006-09-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

No, the bathroom is not finished. I've got a fair bit of work to, which I'll do on my next day off, then we paint and put in the cabinets. Yay!

Yes, I've actually had work this week! I know, I'm shocked. I even worked on two days in a row. French immersion middle school. Because I know how to teach Socials in French, although it was also English, Math and French. It went well, so that was good as I was a little worried about middle school ages, let alone teaching in French. And yesterday's job was a half day of Science. The teacher was so impressed when he returned mid-class and found everybody working that he said I could be their Science TOC from now on. Woohoo! And, I have a call for tomorrow. Yay!

Jade has a new tooth (5 now), can stand on her own, and walks on her knees. Yesterday, something that parents of little little ones might understand what it means developmentally, she pretended! And thought she was funny. She bit me, something we want to discourage as soon as it starts so she doesn't start biting people at daycare. So I told her not to bite me. So she sat their and pretended to bite me over and over (without putting her mouth on me). It was funny! Of course, I couldn't encourage even that because her brother was watching, and he doesn't always get when other people are pretending.

Quentin is smart and funny and wonderful.

I'm needed. Take care all.

Fancy Quentin

2006-09-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

As promised, Quentin proudly displaying how adorable he is in his fancy new suit. And a picture of Daddy and Jade, just because she looks so cute. Yes, Daddy looks cute too.

My little flower girl

2006-09-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, she's not a flower girl quite yet, but we have a dress and that's what it's all about, isn't it? My dear friend Taira is getting married this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend and Jade's going to be making her way down the aisle for it. She likes the dress, as does her brother. Quentin decided he wanted to get a fancy dress too and be a flower girl like Jade. You know, anything for attention. So, we broke down and got him a fancy boy's outfit so he can feel special too. Pants, a shirt, an elastic tie, and a vest. Tried it on in the store and he likes it so much he wanted to wear it home. Don't have a picture of him in his outfit yet, but you can be sure I'll post one. Or five. Taira, let me know what you think... :)

Happy Birthday Grampa!

2006-09-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

It's my Daddy's birthday today. Happy Birthday Grampa! Lots of love from all of us, and here's a toothy picture like you asked for the other day.

Daycare

2006-09-07T09:13:00.001-07:00

These pictures are Jade's first pear last week. (The first piece of fruit that wasn't cut up for her.) She was playing with our box of apples, and found a pear that we had put in there. She started chewing on the stem, so I turned the pear so she could bite the side. She went back to the stem. I turned it again for her. Well, that time she broke through the skin and realized that it was something rather tasty. I had to put her in the high chair as she started making quite the mess.

Jade is now at daycare for her third full day in a row. She is doing quite well there. Tuesday when I was dropping the children off, I passed her over to Naheed to hold while I helped Quentin with his shoes. Jade refused to come back to me for a good-bye hug and kiss. Nothing but smiles at Naheed, even when she got put in the high chair for breakfast. Barely looked at me. It's a good thing, of course, that she enjoys being there so much but I miss having her home with me. And yes, she does show that she's missed me when I pick them up.

The children are going to bed earlier these days, which is kind of nice. Even Jade is going to sleep before 9. Of course, when they get up around 7, they need the sleep. And we're going to bed before 2 or 3 in the morning, which is nice too. Two nights in a row now we've been in bed before 1. An amazing thing. We're hoping to get it back to midnight before too long. It does help that I can do things around the house during the day, but doing things earlier at night definitely helps.

Take care all.

Daycare

2006-09-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Jade is now at daycare for her third full day in a row. She is doing quite well there. Tuesday when I was dropping the children off, I passed her over to Naheed to hold while I helped Quentin with his shoes. Jade refused to come back to me for a good-bye hug and kiss. Nothing but smiles at Naheed, even when she got put in the high chair for breakfast. Barely looked at me. It's a good thing, of course, that she enjoys being there so much but I miss having her home with me. And yes, she does show that she's missed me when I pick them up.

The children are going to bed earlier these days, which is kind of nice. Even Jade is going to sleep before 9. Of course, when they get up around 7, they need the sleep. And we're going to bed before 2 or 3 in the morning, which is nice too. Two nights in a row now we've been in bed before 1. An amazing thing. We're hoping to get it back to midnight before too long. It does help that I can do things around the house during the day, but doing things earlier at night definitely helps.

Take care all.

Film got taken in - Pre-Christmas pictures

2006-09-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

I have five rolls of film running pretty much the last year that I'll give you snippets of over the next few days. And maybe, I'll even throw in a recent picture or two of Jade so you can see how she's grown. Jade couldn't have been much more than a month, if that, in these pics.

Bathroom progress

2006-09-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

Aha, the blog lords are pleased! I can upload pictures again. (Deleted big old pics and reduced the size of these ones.)

Order of pictures are....Tub at the moment, tub on August 22nd, the day that the walls of the tub were ripped out, etc., main bathroom area now, main area as it was Aug 22. The floor had been a boring off-white with some marblish streaks linoleum self-stick tiles (that some genius thought to put down using tar). All tiles are grouted and sealed, and the tub got caulked today. I did the caulking, and I do a fairly good job of it, if I say so myself. The problem? I've developed a latex allergy over the years. Caulking is latex. I use my fingers to smooth it out. I have very itchy, almost numb feeling, almost painful, very sensitive fingers right now, and we've even been swimming that's how clean my fingers are.

Don't you wish your bathroom was this spacious? Who needs bathroom amenities like sinks, faucets, toilets? Seriously, it's looking fine and we are really appreciative of the work that has gone into making the bathroom purty thus far.

Stupid Squirrel

2006-09-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

Let's see...I guess it was the Friday before last that I was backing out of my carport and, well, ran into a clay plant pot with my passenger front wheel. In my defense, I've got much less room in my carport than I should due to construction stuff, a bathtub, a stove and various other odds and ends that normally aren't there. Anyways, that wheel starts making odd noises while I'm driving. My thoughts? "Crap, what did I do?" It's mostly making the sound when I'm braking, and especially when I'm braking and turning the wheel. I decide it must be the brakes, not what I did, because they haven't been replaced in six or seven years. I did get them checked two years ago and was told then they were fine, so I wasn't being reckless, but the noise, the grinding and the weird stiff pulling sort of feeling the car was giving made me take the car in by Monday morning.

They take my wheels apart, and show me that my brakes are only 60% wear and at this rate are good for probably another four years. They do the maintenance stuff, and $30 is it. (Apollo on St John's in Port Moody. If you have any problems with your car or any regular maintenance stuff, go there. Really great service and very cost efficient.) So, they put my wheels back together, and as they do, the mechanic has a nut fall out from behind the rotor. No, not a metal nut like you'd expect, a tree nut.

You might know I already dislike the squirrels in my neighbourhood, the big black ones that aren't native to the area, because they cost me a ton of money last year to get them out of my attic. They were going up the outside of my house, middle of the back wall, not climbing fences and bouncing over, but climbing the wall. So now I've got a squirrel that has planted a nut in my wheel for winter storage. Bothersome. But, I know my brakes are fine, and I go on my merry way.

The next day, the driver side wheel is making the same noise. And it's hidden so well, I can't see it. Tyler can't see it when I take it into his work and he puts it up on the jack. They have to take the wheel apart at the mechanic's and dig it out (it wouldn't come out in one piece it was so well in there). They did it for free.

The one on the left is whole, and was the first nut. The second one on the right is only half a nut, as it broke coming out.

Did I tell you I don't like squirrels?

My first morning alone in a very long time

2006-09-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

I get to post a little update because Jade is with Quentin at daycare. Just for a few hours today, but that doesn't mean I'm not very lonely. She was happy to be there, smiling away in the high chair as I was leaving. Quentin, who has been attending daycare for two years now with few problems over the years, was bawling his eyes out at me leaving. He's pretty tired, but still.

Yesterday we went to the PNE with Granny, Daddy joined us after work and Granny went home around dinner time. Quentin loved running around the hay maze, Jade loved the animals. We didn't really like the crowds too much. Quentin played a fishing for frogs game and won himself a frog that he just adored. (He also played a different game to win Jade a cute bird that she likes rather a lot.) He was hugging it tightly, or having it hop on everything around us, that sort of thing. Then at the end of the night between Jade's diaper change and Quentin and I going on one more thing (giant inflatable slide), it disappeared off the stroller. Lost and found was already closed for the night, and it wasn't turned in in the inflatables lost and found. We're hoping for a phone call today to say they found it (yeah right.) He didn't forget about it though, so we might have Granny go fishing for frogs this weekend when she visits the fair again.

Our "oh yes, it'll be no problem to get everything done in two days" bathroom renovation is nowhere near completion. It's looking good, and we're very grateful for everybody's help. But, right now we have a tub (no fixtures so it can't be used yet), wall tiles that still need to be sealed and caulked, and floor tiles that need to be sealed. Note that I didn't say toilet, sink, counters... It's fine because I knew it was going to take longer than two days, regardless of what anybody said, but I'm not sure when the completion date is now. Especially when we don't even have a counter to put in the bathroom.

I'm officially on four schools' and a school district's TOC (Teacher-On-Call) lists. One in North Van, one in Vancouver (Arbutus and 10th), one in Surrey, one in Burnaby and the Coquitlam school district. Let the random phone calls begin! Okay, okay, I know, they won't start for a couple of weeks, and that's if I'm lucky, but I'd still like to know that I'm going to get some work.

Okay, I'm going to go clean off the last bits of extra grout from my bathroom floor and call to see if I'm bringing my car in to get a nut removed from the wheel (yes, a tree nut) today or next week. I'll explain later.

Take care all.

Quick pics

2006-08-25T02:26:00.000-07:00

A Quick Update

2006-08-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

We've had a visit from my brother and his family, which was wonderful, Tyler's birthday, our 4th anniversary, Quentin's birthday which included a trip to the aquarium followed by a family barbecue where his cake was a Nemo/Marlin and Dory decorated cake made by me, which I didn't take a picture of...duh, he loves his new slide and many other presents, we're in the process of all the stuff for putting in the new bathroom (tub and fixtures gone, sink/counter gone, tub walls gone, new tub with giant chip in it in our carport...), Jade has her two top front teeth - one last Monday and one this Monday, we went to the aquarium with Melanie and Mike today to give Dad and Pappy time and space to replumb the bathroom...

And we went swimming tonight where I had Quentin 'floating,' then got him kicking his feet and the most amusing paddling of the arms (complete with head bobbling through the air side to side...I can't describe it in words - ask me to demonstrate) and told him that was close to swimming. He starts heading towards the stairs so we can go put our feet in the hot tub, and he decides to swim. He actually did, until his face bobbed under and he panicked a little but was still valiantly trying to swim until I pulled him up. Rather impressive, really, for a first attempt, especially since he held his breath. He didn't even splutter when I pulled him out of the water.

Jade's trying to talk. To the point where I belched after dinner tonight and she made a deep 'urrrr' sound to try to imitate me. She'll imitate sounds/words, plays with her brother and wants to do everything that he does, and she's eating a LOT more solid food these days. Looking good for going to daycare in that area. Not that Mommy is looking forward to that. She's really not. Jade's new favourite food is nectarines.

I tried to load some pictures, but it's not letting me tonight. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow. Take care all.

Camping without a fire

2006-08-11T00:48:00.000-07:00

We ended up being rather glad we were only camping for one night. The lake had swimmer's itch and there was no water available (we knew about the water ahead of time.) There was a fire ban in the area that I didn't find out about when I checked the internet before we left in the morning. We didn't have a campstove to bring with us, and figured that the campfire would be much more efficient than trying to cook over a little hiking stove. I'd made a pasta salad to have for lunch and we ended up eating it as our dinner Tuesday night, so it all worked out fine. The very kind staff at the campsite heated up our water for us in the morning so we could have our instant oatmeal (far cry from the leftover potatoes and eggs I'd been planning on cooking - but I forgot the eggs so that's okay too.)

We were at Horne Lake Provincial Park. http://www.hornelake.com We checked in, then went to our assigned spot to find people setting up camp already. I offered to go back and get another spot, but they insisted on moving. Good thing too because when I parked in the spot Quentin looked out the window and said "This is the perfect camping spot." It was sprinkling rain off and on, but the tarp kept off the very little that the trees let through. We hiked up to the caves, although didn't enter any and Quentin enjoyed the suspension bridge we had to cross on the way. We watched the fish jumping in the lake. The woods had those really tiny blackberries that grow on the ground, the tastiest huckleberries Tyler or I have ever eaten, as well as the tastiest thimble berries ever - better and stronger flavour than the best raspberries I've eaten. There were only two other families staying at the campsite, and two large groups that were far away from us (couldn't hear them at all), so it was nice and quiet. A little surprising because they had been completely booked for the long weekend.

As it got later, Jade kept giving me a look asking when we were going home so that she could sleep. She wasn't getting the concept that we were spending the night there, although to be fair, I didn't exactly explain it to her and I should have. Bad mommy. She ended up sleeping well after I rocked her to sleep. Quentin enjoyed the adventure. We went to bed far earlier than we do at home, around 11:30, so I was awake for most of the night, freezing, and I found out in the morning that while the sleeping pads stayed under Jade and Tyler, and my head, not so under my body. Paid for that one today. Worth it though. It was a very enjoyable first family camping trip. Hopefully the first of many.

We then went up to Campbell River to visit my grandmother and my aunt. Saw some great old photos of family members which I'll hopefully be able to post some of soon. And then came home to arrive here sometime close to midnight. We are all so tired still, that Quentin actually put himself down for a nap this afternoon. He gave up naps months ago.

Welcome to my sister, Holly. I'd say she's my American sister, but I happen to have two of those - her on the east and another on the west. (I didn't get that wrong, did I?) As a person who gets her American news from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, I find her blog to be an interesting perspective on what goes on down south.

Time to sleep. Take care all.

Family time again

2006-08-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

This time you're going to have to wait for pictures though. I took my film camera instead of my digital. I think I have close to a dozen rolls of film hanging around waiting to be developed.

My sister, Traci, and two of her sons, Mitchell and Jaden, are in town so we went back to Debbie's house for another day in the sun. Traci is Terri's twin sister and while I've always had difficulties telling them apart, Jade had no idea what was going on. She'd stare back and forth between the two trying to figure out what was going on because she could tell there wasn't a mirror there. A little overwhelming for a little girl. Quentin was given warning so he wasn't quite so taken aback. He was very cute though. At one point I asked him why his shorts were wet. "One of the ladies did it. It was one of the twins." In his perfect enunciation of every word. Traci has been living in Grande Prairie, so that's why we haven't seen too much of her, just like Jason. She has decided that she is going to move though - to Halifax. Her mother's family is from there, and many family members are there for her, so it will be good for her.

In other news...

The adventures have begun. Yesterday Mike and Melanie came over to help us out. Tyler and MIke spent a few hours erecting Quentin's playground/fort/thingy. The frame is up and most of the platforms are up, just no safety rails or ladders to climb to get to the platforms. By most of the platforms I mean each platform is 3/4 finished, not that 3 out of 4 platforms are up. Melanie assisted me with a little shopping I had to do, and then we played Scrabble for a bit. She was going to assist me in making jam, but the time was not there for that. So, after she left I made strawberry, blueberry and strawberry-blueberry jam.

Today we went to Kim and Jeff's to pick up a bit of camping equipment as Tuesday we are heading to the Island for a day of camping, and a day of visiting my grandmother. Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend before pakcing everything up for the trip. Thursday we will be spending time with Tyler's mother who has been away in China. Friday I'm getting things prepared, including a cake, for Saturday for a barbecue we're having to celebrate Tyler's birthday on the 13th and Quentin's birthday on the 12th. Kris, Maria and Annika will be attending, so that should be good as Quentin hasn't met Kris or Maria, and I have yet to meet Annika. You know things are a little off when you need to re-meet your brother and his wife...lol.

Then there's bathroom renovation and a large family barbecue all before the end of August. I thought I'd get a nap again next Sunday, but it's Tyler's birthday, so he should get the nap not me. So maybe Monday next week. I needed to get out of the habit anyways before I start heading to work.

Take care all.

Rambling blog gone

2006-08-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

And replaced with a more upbeat rambling blog.

Jade climbs stairs, hardwood or carpet. I forgot as she was learning how to get off the couch that teaching Quentin how to go DOWN stairs was quite easy because I taught him to go off the couch backwards from the beginning. Not sure how quick she'll pick up on how to go down. And before anyone says, no, sliding down on her behind is not a safe and effective way to go down the stairs as we have very slippery, hardwood stairs.

Something unique? She is the only babe we have ever known that actually says "Goo goo." I'm fairly certain she is just trying to say "Good job" as I say that to her fairly often, but it's very cute. I can tell if she's talking to herself or someone else as she tries to mimic the falsetto that people feel the need to use when talking to dogs and babies when talking to people. She also enjoys singing. If we're at church, any time the congregation starts singing, so does she. Or if she's playing the piano at home (which she loves!) Jade is teething again and I do expect her top two front teeth to be peeking through by the end of next week. The one should be out any day now.

Quentin is his wonderful, intelligent, inquisitive, daredevil self. He enjoys visiting the library. He tried to go down a slide today (very small one, thankfully) while wearing shoes, and standing. He is enjoying learning bits of sign language and randomly demonstrates them for Jade, even signs that he makes up. This makes interpreting Jade's sign language increasingly difficult.

Okay. Time for sleep. Not so overwhelmed by the world today. Thank you Matt. Thank you Maria. Thank you Jade and Quentin.

Take care all.

Jason and Rochelle

2006-07-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-27T01:17:00.000-07:00

Look! It finally let me post these!

And again, pics gone to appease the blog lords.

When family comes to town...

2006-07-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

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.asp

I 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

2006-07-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-21T01:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-07-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-13T02:47:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-02T01:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Driving

2006-06-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

"Quentin, I love you, but you're driving me insane."

"But I'm not old enough to drive."

"So quit driving me insane."

"But there's no sane here."

A Tagging

2006-06-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged, and therefore, here is a list for you.

I AM: perpetually tired, but generally happy with my life
I WANT: to know I will have enough work for September
I HAVE: a wonderful family
I WISH: for long, happy, healthy lives for my children
I HATE: ignorance
I LOVE: my children, my husband
I MISS: my dad (yes, I still have one, but they played two very different roles in my life, and I miss him a lot)
I FEAR: that I do not do enough
I HEAR: Quentin and Tyler on the Splash n' Crash
I WONDER: what the future holds
I REGRET: that my sister doesn't talk to me before making decisions, even though she says she will
I AM NOT: the person I once was
I DANCE: regularly with my children. Unfortunately, they haven't learned swing yet
I SING: "If You're Happy and You Know It" many, many times over the course of a day
I CRY: but not as much as I used to
I AM NOT ALWAYS: sane
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: food, impossible wedding cakes (no eggs, flour, white sugar, milk...)
I WRITE: in my blog
I CONFUSE: everyone at least some of the time
I NEED: to make dinner now
I SHOULD: clean my house
I START: many household tasks
I FINISH: when I need to, and rarely before

Your turn!

Some Quentin stories

2006-06-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

First off, because I feel it's the most important one (I'll end with the funniest one to leave you on a light note), one with a request. The request? One I made when Quentin was an infant, but apparently it needs to be made again. Children learn from what they see people doing, or by what some people allow them to do so do not show them or encourage them to do things that they should not do. Children do not really know the meaning of moderation (if one person can do something to one person in one situation, everybody is allowed to in every situation). Please do not bite/nibble/snuffle/suck on/snack on any part of my children. It teaches them to BITE. Because he has seen someone else doing it, Quentin decided today to 'snack' on Jade's toes. I repeatedly asked him not to, but I kept turning around at various times today to see him doing so and Jade not being too happy about it. The last time left Jade crying her head off with deep tooth marks on her foot.

A happier story. Quentin was purple today. No, it wasn't paint. We found some Okanagon cherries at a produce store today. YUMMY! We brought them home, and I decided to give Quentin a refresher on how to eat cherries, as I think he's old enough now to not need me to take the pits out for him. Well, I was right. Unfortunately, he needs to be unclothed to eat them. Popped one in his mouth, and instantly there's a big blotch of cherry juice on his shirt as he tries to take the pit out without swallowing any juice, or even biting through to the pit yet. My fault, I should have known better. Unfortunately, he happens to be wearing his favourite shirt. Off it goes. With the potty training complete, pants and shorts don't really fit him, and he's wearing one of the few pairs of shorts that do. Off they go. And the brand new Curious George underwear with them. There's purple coating his face, it's in his hair, it's from his fingers to his elbows, down his chest, on his legs, all over the floor (tile, it's okay.) We went outside and played with his new Slip and Slide, aka Splash and Crash, in a vain attempt to clean him up. It partially worked.

The story that's so funny it will probably be told at his wedding. We went short shopping for Daddy tonight. Daddy's in the change room trying things on, then coming out to model them for us. Quentin is being a standard little kid going in and out of the changerooms too. Daddy comes out, holding up his t-shirt so I can see the waistline of the shorts he is trying on, and says "So, what do you think of these?" Quentin comes out of the same changeroom with a big smile on his face, holding up his shirt, shorts and underwear around his ankles and in the exact same tone as Daddy says "So, what do you think of these?" I had to turn around I was laughing so hard. Kudos to Tyler for keeping a straight face, because there was no way I could.

I love my boy.

And then there was one...

2006-06-25T00:57:00.001-07:00

Child in diapers, that is. Quentin is completely out of diapers now. He made it through last night with only wearing underwear to bed. No more diapers for my little boy. Daddy, the diaper rinser, is quite relieved. Yes, sometimes there's a little accident, but not because he's not trying to get to the potty every time, and they're not every day.

Yesterday I made a strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Apparently it's a good thing I did because it is Quentin's favourite cake! I've been baking chocolate cakes lately for my friend Shannon's wedding cake. It's next weekend, so there have been a few cakes cooling on the table that Quentin can't have, and not just because there's wheat flour in them. I wanted to make something that used some of the strawberries we brought home from my Gramma's house last weekend, and made the cobbler. Even though he'd been sneaking some of the crumbs of the chocolate cakes, the first bite of the cobbler Quentin exclaimed "MMMMM, this is my favourite cake!" Better than anything he'd had before.

Jade is coming along fine with food, with crawling, with climbing, with babbling... Definitely different than Quentin who was content to sit until he started walking, pretty much. She wants to move. The only food she's tried so far that she doesn't like, or at least doesn't keep down, is bananas. Tofu was a definite hit. As were the lingonberry popcicles we made from the IKEA juice.

Apparently I'm going through a midlife crisis...Tyler doesn't know who his wife is anymore. I actually purchased a bright pink tank top a few weeks ago that I wear. Last night, I bought a skirt that I will wear fairly often because it's quite comfy. The skirt is above the knee unlike all the ankle length skirts I've been buying and wearing in recent memory. Tyler says he's going to divorce me as we obviously got married under false pretenses.

Take care all.

The Scam Man Cometh

2006-06-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

So...the scam man came to our door today. I read about a guy, maybe this one, in the paper a few weeks ago. Apparently this has been in the local papers too, not just the major ones. A guy asks for some money to 'top up' what he needs to keep his car from being towed away, just a few dollars...$8.50 in this case. (He said he'd leave some tools as collateral, but I didn't see a car, hear a tow truck, or see any tools for that matter.) When he comes back, he needs enough to get his car out of the impound lot. The story I read was that the little old lady became wise when he came back and got upset she didn't have enough money, and she ended up hitting him with her purse.

How did I know it was the scam man? There's nowhere near our house that would have a car be towed on a Saturday. Secondly, there's nobody named Craig that he could be a nephew of on the entire street. And no, no there isn't a Michael at one of the houses next to me that he could ask for money from either. Then there's the nonsense about he was just in a car accident (wouldn't he need the tow truck then?) Helped that he ran away as soon as Tyler came up the stairs, although I'd been about to close the door on him at that point. I did report him to the RCMP, where the dispatch lady said that she'd read about him herself and she was glad I didn't give him any money. A police car was patrolling the area within five minutes.

Yeah.

Fun and Games

2006-06-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. But yes.

Saturday we made a day trip to Campbell River to visit my grandmother. A long day, especially as it was my third day in a row without a nap, but that's okay. Well worth it. This is the grandmother that I looked identical to when I was an infant, and therefore Jade looks like her as she looks like I did. Quentin had fun and did not want to leave. Of course, he spent a lot of time in the backyard with Daddy playing badminton with the new set of toys he received from his Great Auntie Susie, and he didn't want to stop playing badminton.

On the way back to the ferry we stopped for a few minutes in Qualicum Bay. Every time we go to an ocean beach, I try to show Quentin the fun of finding those little crabs whenever a rock is turned over. We hadn't found any crabs in the many times I had done that for him, and I wanted to prove to him that I wasn't completely insane. We didn't stop at the tourist beach, but rather a smaller one and we hit the jackpot! Not only were there tons of crabs under the rocks, but we didn't even have to flip rocks because this beach was just crawling with them. To top it off, there was a little tidal pool that had itty bitty little anemones in it. I think I might have been more excited than Quentin!

I had found him a very nice shell when we first got there, and he wanted to get every other shell that he saw. So, I told him that he already had the prettiest shell on the beach. After that, even if I asked if he wanted one that was really nice, he said no because he had one already.

Other amazing things...we passed a ReMax that had a 3D balloon on the side of its building, and he pointed out "the balloon like on the benches." You know, the ads on bus benches? He also noticed the giant gnome was holding his hand to say "stop." He is amazing and astounds me constantly on how much he knows, how much he connects ideas and concepts, and just how wonderful he really is at times. I love that little boy.

Jade is saying a few words. She will repeat 'Up' when we pick her up. She says "Mom." And she also says lots of phrases that have a definite meaning...whatever they mean, including one we're sure is a repeat of us saying "I love you."

I stopped by Terry Fox again today. Apparently I left my folder behind on the desk of the teacher I subbed for, and she was kind enough to call and let me know. (I didn't figure it out and don't know if I would have.) So, I poked my nose in to say hi to my old counsellor. He's going to put a good word in for me to get one of the jobs that they have open. He always would have done anything for me. For that matter, pretty much any of the counsellors would have, but he was the one that was assigned to me alphabetically. I think half the staff is Terry Fox grads from various years. Definitely a school that had some school spirit.

In other news, my dad says his eye surgery went well today. I haven't seen him, but he says it's all good.

And in other other news, my sister and her children could use a few prayers as they start life on their own. It's going to be hard as my sister tries to find a place and the children get used to not living with their dad and I think some prayers would help as it's not a happy separation.

Take care all. Hug your loved ones.

He did it! Hooray!

2006-06-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

He did it! He DID it! (insert spanish)

No Diaper Days have paid off! Not an accident today. Yesterday he panicked when we were at the mall...not that he wanted to use the toilets there, but decided as he was really about to go that he "liked the potties now." (Too late.) Even when he wears a diaper, more often than not he's been saying he has to go.

This morning, he decided without me telling him it was time that he had to go. He told me, as he was sitting on the potty that he was going poo. He's said it before. He seemed a little more earnest this time and said "I'm going two, Mommy, pee and poo!" I got rather excited, then remembered he's said he's going poo before and asked if it was for real. No. Darn, oh well, another time. Then he stood up and lo and behold! YAY! I kept telling him how proud I was of him. Shortly after he asked me if I was so proud of him and then said "I'm so proud of me too." Adorable.

Okay, I forgot to flip it, but you get the idea:

Driving home today, from the backseat I hear "no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no." Very calm. "What are you saying no for, Quentin?" "I'm looking for a crescent house." The no's continue. "Do you see one?" "No." "Have you ever seen one?" "No." And the no's continue.

Peek a boo with Jade?

And one last picture because it's so darn cute!

Surreal

2006-06-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

My first TOC call for Coquitlam was to a school I had never heard of before. Only two years old on top of a hill in Port Moody. The office staff and students were nice. The Business Ed teacher said hi to me in the hallway (I knew that's what she taught because that's what she taught at Fox all those years ago.) That was as welcoming as it got. The teacher even came back early and didn't say much to me.

My second call came bright and early yesterday morning. To Terry Fox. I had checked out the staff there as I was looking at the schools I was applying for jobs at, and noticed two teachers were former classmates of mine. I later had this corrected to three. Lots of teachers that were still there from my years as a student, so it was going to be a little odd. Especially when I was trying to figure out why this Science teacher was telling me to leave the students' work in Room 103 on her desk. Why would she have a desk in an English classroom? Then I remembered the move the school made. Still the main ladies in the office from ohsomany years ago. Go into the Science Dept. office, and everyone is incredibly nice and welcoming. The students were nice. The teachers were nice. I was home again. Not enough to make me want to stay away from my daughter longer than I had to, but I appreciated the opportunity. And hey, my grade 8/9 Science teacher was there. And another teacher had just been given a lovebird named Fry from a student. Fairly new school, and chalkboards in the classroom instead of whiteboards and incomplete trolleys for AV - definitely Fox.

Received an e-mail that my old band teacher is retiring. The party is next Friday at the Wild Duck Inn. Nice and classy - lol! Not sure if I'm wanting to attend, partly because of the venue, but it might be interesting to go for a little while.

Take care all.

Grace

2006-06-13T01:46:00.000-07:00

I don't really want to post because I love having that picture of Jade being top center, but I know I have copies and can scroll down and everything else including the fact that there should be more updates.

As I am officially a Coquitlam School District TOC, I am eligible to apply for all their teaching positions now, and had to get my computer access stuff in order to do so. (Although I did get a peek at the postings thanks to a friend of mine.) Many problems and communications with technical support later, I get an e-mail saying that everything is fixed and thanking me for my patience and grace. It's an odd word to have used, in my mind, although I do appreciate it. At the end of the school year last year, one of my vice-principals, Matt Beimers, said that when he thinks of me, the word 'grace' comes to mind. This little e-mail brought back the warm fuzziness of that compliment. It's not a word I would have ever used to describe myself. In fact, at one point during my post-secondary career I had three close friends of mine, within a month time period, each tell me I wasn't a nice person. They weren't trying to be mean, really. I think they were trying to say I didn't always have much tact without having any themselves. It's something I still think I have troubles with and do make conscious efforts to amend, so to be told that I have grace is quite nice. It is definitely something for me to try to live up to, and something to keep those cockles of my heart warm.

And in other news....what you're really here for:

Potty training is going amazingly well. Wednesday through Saturday, very few issues. Of course, he won't have a bowel movement in the potty and actually didn't have one until he was in a diaper and asleep one night. Not a normal occurrence. We used diapers on Sunday because we had the prostate cancer walk and lots of driving. Quentin still asked to go potty when we were at the family gathering in the evening, even though he was wearing a diaper. Daycare isn't too thrilled with the idea of him wearing only underwear (we can't go in and out if we go outside to play), but I'm not thrilled with the idea of not being very consistent. How will he learn if he's in a diaper two days a week?

Jade is saying "mom." Just like her brother and unlike most children, mom is the first word. Most children say "dada" first, but not our kids. She repeats sounds that Quentin makes to her at times. Sometimes those are just high pitched squeals that Quentin is getting her to copy, but she does try to communicate.

Okay, time to sleep.

Take care all.

More pics for your enjoyment!

2006-06-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture from every month, starting at the bottom in February, up to tonight at the top.

Long Promised Pictures

2006-06-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, if April can post pictures without even having a computer, I better post some pictures too.

The sweater says "Little Princess." I think that says it all.
Everyone needs a weird bathtub picture, don't they?
Two little cuties in sweaters that Granny knit for them.
One of the last nights he slept in his 'little boy bed' (the crib stayed beside it so he didn't roll out). The big grin is because I gave him a pillow case, instead of just using the bare pillow that I made him a long time ago. Of course, now he refuses to have a pillow case on, but at one point he was thrilled with it.
This is Quentin dancing with Jade to his music class cd.