pointe

Victoria (my cousin's daughter) has been so excited about her pointe shoes so she came over one evening with them to show Dominique. She gave a little historical overview of them and showed how she is learning to dance with them.












The kids were very attentive. I thought it was so cute how Dominique had taken a very ladylike pose to listen to her cuz. She also went and grabbed her dance shoes given to her from another cousin.






Beautiful, beautiful...

kid pics.

These little gems were taken by the kids all on their own, when I told them to take a picture or two of Brian remodeling the bathroom. I'm guessing Dominique was taking some liberties to ensure that the entire experience was well documented.













I'm trying to get all my postable pics up before we head out. It'll probably get pretty quiet on this blog while we travel and enjoy time in Texas!

Christmas excitement budding

We are about to head out for Saskatoon tonight so that we can celebrate Imogen's 4th birthday and a bit of Christmas cheer before we leave for Texas. And the grandparents are going to keep our grand dog for us while we are away. Dominique was sick yesterday so I am carefully watching her today to determine if she should go or not. She dragged herself out of bed on her own, got dressed and ate a bit of cereal then squeaked out "is today the swim party?" Poor girl, really wants to go, but she is much better today. She did have a slight fever, but nothing like yesterday. OH, go away stomach and sinus bugs!!


The kids are so excited and with good reason. Trips, family, Brian and I are excited too!!





Dominique the smart shopper should have been with me while I got my niece and nephew gifts. She just informed me that the gift I'd gotten a month ago for Imogen is something she already has! I wished I'd informed her earlier! But I figured out something last minute, so yeah!!





It's been pretty exciting, finding and being given gifts/thanks from work and kids. I don't work much, and yet got 2 gifts for my work cleaning the bank and a little something from the library and Brian got a couple of bikes from his boss!! So exciting. I'd been wanting to get a bike all summer and was going to use my birthday money once the Christmas mayhem was over. Now I can move on to something else on my wish list ;)

It also doesn't hurt knowing that we won't be having all the school schedule and early morning clean schedule and life as general schedule, but seeing sights and friends and family and lots and lots of special moments... ah, so nice to anticipate and enjoy rest/renewal/recouperation and regrouping. Especially at the end of the year, it's nice to reflect and go back and look forward...

Reindeer festival

Our school is so awesome! I took the kids to the reindeer festival this weekend. There were real reindeer! I actually didn't know that reindeer were real until I was an adult reading National Geographic- not even all that long ago! Then my cousin said they are also called cariboo! OK, heard of those.


There were tons of crafts at booths all through the gym, a couple of Christmas themed games, hot chocolate, ice cream sandwiches, cookie decorating, pics with Santa (we don't really do the Santa thing, but the kids still wanted to get their picture taken and it actually came out really nice) and it was all for free! We ran into lots of the same people we have known some, so that is fun.





I posted this pic to remind myself that I do love this munchkin. She's been pushing the princess complex a bit too much lately. She got me up about 5 times last night and about 8 times the night before and she's wanting me to carry her everywhere now, even from one room to the next. Then she'll want to bathe herself, dress herself and she went up on stage with her siblings who were doing their performance for GLOW- a Christian after school program Ivan and Dominique go to. She walked up with the big kids and I thought it would make a huge scene to try to get her down, so I let her stand up there with everyone else singing "away in a manger", not knowing all the words, just like her siblings.

Some days I've let the big kids help Emora get dressed. Dominique does better at the mechanics of it than Ivan, but then I have to deal with her wild, wild combinations. This day in particular was a doozy. Dominique creations all the way. And yes I did let them go out in public like this. But on school days, I do give Dominique a final, "yes" or "tone it down" on her wardrobe selections.






Goodbye little reindeers- see you next year ;)

Cousins' visit

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin Lin visited with her 3 kids. Jac's tooth was really loose, so she asked her sister Harley to try to pull it out. They tried many positions. Ivan was giving Jac the peace sign in the first pic to encourage her. It didn't come out that day, but I'm sure it's out now!














The kids performed for us, of course. We aren't quite sure what to call their ensemble- "youthful mayhem energy"- perhaps?

I remember my siblings and I putting on plays for our parents so it was funny to be on the receiving end.

It was nice to visit and Lin shared the best ever pizza making recipe. We've made it since and while I missed the ease of frozen pizza, I'm not sure we'll ever buy one again! Thanks Lin!

more creative madness

I don't know why it tickles my fancy to recreate something useful from an item that would have otherwise been discarded, but here I was at it again! Once Emora had her bed done, I realized she needed a bedside table. We were using her toy chest, but that wasn't practical since it opens from on top. Every day we were facing sippy cups and books all a jumble. Brian, knowing my fits of creative lunacy, had saved materials from past projects. Like the square he'd cut out of countertop for a sink he'd installed and the sink cabinet from the bathroom downstairs. To my credit (or inability to conjure up a good concept), I am allowing him to throw out the old sink (plastic) and toilet (in bad shape).

So back to the latest... I made a butterfly design to go with her emerging room theme and cut the design into the countertop. The cutting of each line into the top was the hardest part.


Emora and I painted black on the edges where I had carved away the top surface. I sliced tons of slits into the wings (the very hardest part)- so that I could put color into the wings. I'd paint each wing the desired color and wipe it off so that the lines are fine threads of color. I screwed it onto the cupboard which we made shorter and added a shelf to inside, then painted the white dots and several coats of gloss varnish. Oh yeah, I used a couple of buttons for eyes.





I am going to get her a lamp and eventually paint some butterflies on her walls, but we are not sure if we are going to repaint her walls another color first. That might be nice, since they are a bit of a drab blue tone now, as originally painted when we'd moved in. It feels nice to be making her room into something since she lived in the crazy everyone's room for so long. The tricky part is that she does not have definite leanings toward colors like the others' did. That makes it easy in a way because she is flexible, but then I don't know either what gives her joy as opposed to her just following along with what the others say or do. All with time, we figure each other and ourselves out I guess.

One thing for sure, she does not lack in personality and loves to make us laugh. Here's hippy girl with our pathetic effort of a tree. This is the top of our tree. Since we will be gone so much of Christmas and I didn't want to deal with a tree in Jan. when we come back, I let the kids decorate the topper of our tree with their own ornaments. Each year I either make them an ornament or let them pick one out from the store that they will get to keep and move out with some day. A friend told me of this tradition of hers and I thought it was so precious, I adopted it with ours. They are getting a little treasure trove of ornaments loading with memories of Christmasses past.

from chairs to beds...

These were chairs that were given to us as a vestige from Brian's past. He grew up with these chairs and matching table. Unfortunately the chairs were getting damaged. The seats needed to be recovered again, but the mesh backs were disintegrating, plus they were very bulky for the space we had, so I thought I'd use them and the mattress supports from a day bed to build a couple of beds for the girls.

First I took apart the 4 chairs and cut out the mesh back. I used a jigsaw to cut off parts not needed, recovered the seats and then recruited Brian. I had a hard time screwing pieces together and so did he. We quickly discovered that oak is very hard wood and went through lots of drill bits, but after much effort, we managed to make some durable pieces. I really should have been more attentive to detail and done lots more work to finish them nicer, but lost motivation in that regards and was moving on to another project.


Dominique's is pink. It has the seat part of the chairs as further support on the end of the bed.
With Emora's blue bed, I used the arms from the one arm chair we had to make a foot board also. Her's was a lot harder since the mattress support was shorter than the mattress, meaning that I had to add some extra pieces to the length to make the mattress fit. I also used two side pieces that we had left over when we took our bunk bed apart to make Ivan's bed and the guest bed. I stained the length pieces so they would match better.

The head boards arch away from the wall, which gives a perfect spot for Emora's nighlight. It is so pretty lit up at night.

Project #1

The kids seemed to recover quickly from their colds although there is still some coughing and tiredness lingering, but it's taking me forever to get over it! I've been trying to rest, taking naps each day, especially on the days when I just have Emora, but I guess that doesn't make up for being up most of the night because I can't breathe or because kid's need help at night or both. Brian has had a couple of days off work and that may be what gets me over this. Yesterday he went to the city and did our errands. Today he ran kids to and from school and did lunch, supper... while I slept- all day and I'm ready for bed again. Thankfully I slept today without the aid of Nyquil, which I have been abusing! I'd borrowed some from the neighbor when we discovered the pharmasies close early in the winter and didn't have the instructions. I took the regular dose and it didn't do anything, so 4 hours later, at 2:30 am, I took another dose and was then able to breathe and sleep. I did that a couple of nights and we got our own bottle, big bottle of medicine, only when I read it, it said do not overdose and to have only every 6-8 hours! After a night of 2 hours of sleep, I decided I did not die by taking 2 doses so close together, and pray my liver can handle it in light of the fact that I so need rest.

Happy that today, I got rest and I'm hoping for a good night of sleep. I think I'm finally on the mend...

Meanwhile, Brian got the bathroom done. The girls thought it was funny having a toilet in the guest room.


From a kid's perspective as they took the camera to document progress.












We are still going to make a couple of box shaped shelves and I'm going to paint designs on the white cabinet/bench hiding the water softener and sump pump.

Next up... bed pics and a side table...

more pics by Sheena

I loved how Emora was posing here. It was so ladylike and grown up. We didn't put her in this position, she did it all her own.


The did these poses on their own too.







And these ones!
My sweet girls are sleeping in their completed beds tonight. I'll have to upload the pics to show you the slow, ever so slow transformation. I'm a bad judge of time. I would think it would take us an hour to screw the pieces together and it would take half a day. I have to give tons of credit to Brian who was the brawns of the operation. He was also a bit picky about things like- it not falling apart or being weak- piddly things like that!! So now we have super sturdy new beds recreated from the bed supports of a day bed and 4 dining room chairs (all of which were falling apart). So exciting.

We are still recovering from our colds, so it may have to be a bit of a calm week again, although my cousin and I are swapping kids a couple of days so that I can get into the city solo on Tues. and she can go with just one baby on Thurs.