I had a bit of a shitty work week. Good and busy, but I had my issues. All is well and it's the weekend! Yesterday we just hung out at home. Chris rented a movie, Paul Blart, Mall Cop. We never ended up watching it so we watched it tonight. Totally corny of course, with Kevin James as a writer and starring in it, and Adam Sandler as a producer. The boys fell asleep pretty early. Next we watched Quantum of Solace. Dad came over today to lend us his movie rentals.
Chris worked until noon today then took advantage of the free dump day and got rid of our bits of rotten fence that he ripped out. We're going to put up a new fence soon so he's getting rid of the old one. He and his Dad made a few trips and he took Cooper for a ride for the last one. I dragged my butt around the house for most of the day. I finally got my butt in gear and took Carter out for a ride. I went downtown to buy new jeans for Chris and myself. It's awesome to find a pair of jeans that fits. It took about six or seven tries but I found a perfect pair.
For supper we had McDonald's; Carter and I picked it up on the way home. After we watched the Mall Cop movie, I went on the computer and bumped into Jill online. We have hardly even chatted in ages, and decided to get 'together' online and do some scrapbooking. Good way to get me back in the swing of that again too. I did this page:
We chatted until after one and now I'm just about done for the night. I sure hope we start to make it a habit again! I'm hoping for some nice weather tomorrow. Might take the boys to church. If it's nice out we'll do a trip to a park somewhere.
Well it's still cool but it was a beautiful day! After work I actually hung out with the boys for awhile. Someone's garbage bag across the street had been ripped open by birds or something this morning and with the wind we had garbage all over our yard and on the street when I got home.
Chris had picked up all the stuff in the yard then I grabbed a garbage bag AND GLOVES and picked it up off the street. I went across the street to bring back the neighbour's garbage. I hope they don't mind, but it was theirs to start with!
The boys had a great time playing outside. I tidied up the Jeep and Chris started to take apart some more of our rotten old fence. We're going to be putting up a new fence this summer (I'm hoping there might be a Dad-for-hire that might be reading this!!!) And if said Dad feels like putting in a new toilet we'd hire for that too! :)
Work was good today. Since we have a summer student helping out, I was able to do a long-awaited organizing project. Now if only I could stay on task when I attempt stuff like that at home!
I took Carter to Subway to get him and Cooper a sub for supper. Chris and I were both still full from lunch. I fed the kids and they still wanted to play outside. I did a Wal-Mart run for some groceries. I came home and shortly after Cindy stopped by with a couple of the kids for a quick visit before she had to pick up Zack from work.
I folded some more laundry while the boys had fun playing with the laser pointers I picked up at the dollar store. Talk about cheap entertainment. Cooper broke his in the first ten seconds and I had to MacGyver it back together with the broken button taped onto it on the outside. The threads are so flimsy that they kept falling apart. I'm sure they'd be okay with proper, regular use but give my kids something delicate and they'll break it for sure. When the kids were getting ready for bed, Cooper knocked his on the edge of the bathroom sink and one of the batteries went down the drain. Crap. I tried to use my MacGyver skills to retrieve it but it didn't work out.
Both boys brushed their teeth (thanks to the lovely dental gals at my office who gave Carter a 'brushing log' at his school to track his toothbrushing.) I've been getting both boys to brush their teeth twice a day and they get to put either a sun or moon sticker on the chart. It's working! Now they're both snug in their beds. Somehow I OMGMISSEDTHETWOHOURFINALEOFDESPERATEHOUSEWIVES. I have no idea how I could have forgotten it. I guess we just were having way too much fun on Sunday visiting family! :) I found out I can actually watch it on CTV so I'm going to give that a try tonight.
Well well well...lookie me. I've found my way to the blog two days in a row. Really, these days all the days seem so similar. We're still waiting for spring/summer, which sucks.
Today was another timewarp day at work. I took Carter to school and picked him up today since his walker wasn't available. I had an eye appointment late this afternoon. Looks like my distance vision is still perfect but I'm needing to adjust my reading distance... (READ: I could use some reading glasses any time now). She suggested that if it starts to bug me if I start straining too much that I can just go get the glasses. I'll think about it. I'll stop by her office again and look at frames. I'm curious to know if it would make enough difference to provide relief. We'll see.
We went to Mom and Dad's for supper and had a delicious stew. (Thanks again!) After supper we visited for a bit then came back to town to go pick up a lottery ticket. Some lucky son of a gun won forty-nine million dollars tonight. Apparently the winner bought the ticket in Edmonton, which means we didn't win it!
Both boys went to sleep without any hassle tonight. We watched the Idol finale and once again the second place winner is a far more talented singer as far as I'm concerned. I seriously think the votes mean nothing and the producers just handpick their winner at will. I brought up a few baskets of laundry from the basement and started folding. There were about a dozen towels, a pile of clothes for each kid, a pile each for Chris and me, plus blankets and cloths etc. I made it through the towels and kids' clothes and took a break. Yeah right. I haven't gone back to it. Now I'm off to bed so I'm sure it will still be waiting for me tomorrow!
Oh Lordy this is gonna be a workout. I'm going to try to start by going back to Carter's birthday and try to fill in the blanks to catch up. Much of it will be documented in pictures...except for the parts where all three of my boys got a tummy bug and spent a few days in the bathroom!
I spent much of last week planning for Carter's birthday party, which was held a week after his actual birthday in order for the bowling alley to be available. We opted for an evening glow bowling party. I did these invitations:
For some time Carter had indicated he wanted a robot cake for his birthday. So in keeping with the theme I did the invitations and planned on making him a cake. There's a gal in a nearby town who does PHENOMENAL cakes and I bow down to her cake prowess. She uses fondant and makes incredibly fancy cakes that are more than worthy of an appearance on Ace of Cakes. Plus, my creative scrapping friend Amy had recently posted on her blog how she had made a fondant cake. It turned out gorgeous. Her first try was incredible. I was so inspired.
That afternoon, I had to pick up Cooper early from the sitter's house since he started vomiting. He had thrown up twice there already so she called me. He seemed okay for the moment so I drove over to tell Chris what was going on. If only I'd gone straight home...the poor kid barfed in the Jeep all down the front of his jacket and his car seat. Ugh. I pulled over to make sure he was okay but told him to hang in there and I made the mad dash home. I carefully extricated him from the vehicle and planted him in the bathroom for an immediate bath. I put all his clothes in the wash right away, and put him in the tub right away. Chris, bless his heart. cleaned up the car seat when he got home. He got sick a couple more times but since the last time he was sick, he somehow learned how to run to the bathroom and puke in the toilet. Bonus!
I followed Amy's instructions on how to make the fondant. She was sweet enough to email them to me and I (so I thought) followed them to the letter. I was so gooey and stuck to myself trying to knead the melted marshmallows into the icing sugar that I almost started to cry. Good thing Chris gave me some encouragement or I'd have dumped the lot of it. If you ever make this stuff, for one, sift the icing sugar. Two - when it says grease everything with the shortening, grease it well...don't be shy about it! I actually phoned Amy across the country to make sure I had everything right before I got started.
I managed to get myself unstuck and re-greased everything and kneaded it some more. Unfortunately the only gel colour I had in the house was red, and there wasn't enough left to make it really red. I ended up with a lovely bright pink blob of fondant on my first try. I was feeling pretty elated at this point.
I did a couple more batches the next night. Since I couldn't get my hands on any black gel colour in this town, with Carter's suggestion and blessing I opted to make a light blue robot instead of grey. I made a batch of blue fondant, then a white one. I divided the white one to make separate colours for the accents on the robot. I was pumped. Each batch of fondant was more bright and smooth than the last. I was so ready.
I was going to bake the cakes that night too, but Puker Number Two (Carter) sprang into double-ended spewing action. On. The. Living. Room. Carpet. Yikes. Poor kid. He hates barfing (who doesn't) and I started to give him a bath. He sharted and I had to start the bath over again. Chris hates first of all the kids' being sick, and second of all the vomit itself. He gets all antsy and agitated and I wish he'd just take off until I had everything contained. I moved the couch and scrubbed the carpet. Thankfully I was done with the fondant process for the evening. Carter, as opposed to Cooper, will just stand in one spot and spew. He gets very upset at having to stand at the toilet. So each time I knew he was going to throw up I positioned him in front of it. At one point he actually stood in the middle of the kitchen floor and proceeded to barf. Oh...that one was after Chris had given him a drink of orange juice after the first puking episode. Oy vey. Into the tub again. Both ends going. Sheesh.
That night I ended up staying up with him all night, until at least 4:30. He barely slept before that, and each time he awoke he needed to get sick again. It was a rough night. Good thing/bad thing I was off the next day...good thing so I could keep him home with me but bad thing was it was his birthday party day.
By lunchtime on Friday he was starting to perk up. I gave him the option of going to school, which would afford me some extra time to work on his cake, which I baked that morning. I took him to school and came home to continue working on the cake. I managed somehow to slice the cake into layers so I could put icing in between. I made delicious butter cream frosting. That ended up being about the best part of the cake. I rolled out the light blue fondant and sculpted it onto the 'body' of the robot. Not bad so far. Then I used a half a round cake for the head and was cutting pieces for the bottom. I was attempting to make something that resembled the robot on the birthday invitations. Once I realized how difficult a process this was, and that it was not pretty, I conceded defeat. The round and small square cakes I made for the additional robot parts rose higher than the 'body cake'. The fondant went on fairly decently, however there were little lumps of icing sugar showing here and there. (SIFT!!!) Before I went any further, I stopped. I still have all those lovely other colours of fondant in the fridge staring at me each time I open it. It's been long enough since my epic cake failure that I might get the courage to do something with it. We'll see.
I spent the next hour or so on a quest for a cake. In the meantime, Carter's school had called. He still wasn't feeling well and had fallen asleep. I picked him up. Some of the partygoers were concerned there wouldn't be a party but there was no way I was canceling!!! Carter had a long rest for the rest of the afternoon. I picked up two cakes for the party. I was going to try to cut a robot out of fondant to lay on top of one of the cakes, but that didn't work either. I ended up printing the robot from the invitations and standing it up in the cake.
By the time it was time to leave, I gave Carter some Tylenol and we headed out. We dropped Cooper off at Kelly's house for a visit, along with a loot bag, which was very well-received. We went to the bowling alley and the partygoers all arrived except two. One who heard Carter was sick and whose daughter is immune-compromised and didn't want to take any chances, and one who heard the party was cancelled. I don't know who told her that but judging how it looked when I carried Carter out of the classroom, I can see how they would think that. It was a nice small group. It's so hard to decide who gets invited to these things, with twenty kids in the class. We opted to invite a few who had invited Carter to their parties, and drew names for the remainder for a total of ten kids. So with Carter there were seven kids there.
All was well for a bit. Carter wasn't up to eating...not even the yummy cake! He opened presents and started to lose steam. By the time we started bowling Chris had already taken him to the bathroom a couple times. Dang. He almost made it through the whole bowling game and would have little spurts of energy. The kids seemed to have a blast. Of course with only the black lighting, my pictures are pretty much crap but here they are anyway! I don't have permission to show all the kids so here are a couple of Carter. I took a couple with the flash that turned out a little better, but the cool glowing effect isn't there. Both ways didn't turn out well...
The weather that day and the next was crappy. On Sunday, however, we got all our butts out of bed and went out. We took the boys to the park, where I took over a hundred pictures. I feel a slideshow coming on... It was also Auntie Lurdes & Uncle Cliff's fortieth wedding anniversary on Sunday. Mom called me the night before to invite us to come out after supper for dessert, but that she needed a cake. Need a cake, you say? I HAVE A CAKE!!! A perfect cake that my clairvoyant tendencies told me to get as a backup cake for Carter when I wanted to put the robot on it. I never ended up doing anything with it and we ate the other cake for his party. I printed a greeting to put on top of the cake and it was lovely. Here are the pictures from the day...it was a great one!
Since Sunday (long weekend) Chris got sick. He was pukey and poopy all day yesterday. Thank God he felt better this morning andd went to work. The weather sucked yesterday anyway so we wouldn't have been able to go out and have the same fun we did on Sunday. Chris was feeling really low. I ordered takeout from Pizza Hut for supper. The pasta was great and I tried out their buffalo wings. Not bad, but not good enough for the price. I went to bed early last night and slept through until Cooper got me up at four-thirty this morning. I managed to squeeze in a bit more sleep after that and got up to face the day. The day RACED by. I had lunch with Kelly and her friend Sabrina and brought a snack to Chris...thanks to Dad who offered to take Carter to school today for me! :)
Well, all that lovely minutiae has been my life this past week and a half. Time to wake up and go about your day! :)
My boy is officially six today! As of five thirty-eight this evening. He got a phone call from Grandma first thing this morning, and Grandma and Grandpa are taking him for lunch and then to school.
I have some errand running to do including delivering birthday invitations to his classroom at lunchtime.
More later!
We had a family party for Carter. I picked up a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Carter was happy with the new hat he got, along with the gifts of money which have gone into his bank account. The most entertainment seemed to come from the collection of water guns from Auntie Lurdes & Uncle Cliff...THANKS ALOT...I need a special mop just for these things! :)
Wow the days really run together when I don't blog every day!
Yesterday was a banner day. We took Cooper to school for the first time last night. There was a 'Welcome to Kindergarten' workshop at the school. It was held in Carter's classroom, the senior kindergarten room. We left Carter with Kelly so the event could be all about Cooper.
Earlier, Kelly and I took the boys to the blood donor clinic. I was rejected again, due to an iron count that is too low for their standards. That Mother Nature sure is a PITA!!! Kelly and I always seem to take turns being able to donate. The timing still worked out well. Chris went home to shave and shower and met up with us at the clinic. The boys had more than their fair share of goodies and Chris had arrived just before Kelly was done with her donation. We sat and had a snack with Kelly then we took off with Cooper and left Carter with her.
Cooper seemed to like the idea of the classroom in general, particularly because of all the toys. He didn't really want to follow along with the stations we visited but it must have been very overwhelming for him. The place was packed with families. It will be exciting to see how he interacts when it's really time to start going to school. No, I didn't take any pictures; it was really quite chaotic in there!
Well, we've been finally getting some spring weather, but today was a cool one, including a threat of snow which thankfully hasn't happened. I worked on some birthday invitations for Carter's birthday, which is tomorrow but we're having the party on a later date. I'll be sure to take pictures of the birthday boy.
Chris's Dad joined us for supper and picked up A&W food. Unfortunately someone there doesn't know how to read, since I wrote down the order for the kids and me for Chris and his Dad to take with them. My burger wasn't plain and with my absolute loathing of condiments such as ketchup, relish and mustard, my burger still remains intact. I grudgingly ate my onion rings and a few of the kids' fries. I had started cleaning the bathroom when they arrived, and continued cleaning after supper including sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor, a task that was long overdue. I also migrated a big bin of toys back to the basement. Little by little they work their way back upstairs and the kids' room ends up overrun. It looks fairly decent in there right now with the work I did on the weekend to clean out the closet.
Well, it's already tomorrow, so here's a little Happy Birthday wish to my boy! Happy SIXTH birthday, Carter!!!
Wow. That was a fast month. On the weekend I rented the movie Bride Wars. It was okay. Average chick flick. On Saturday I took Carter to a birthday party. Mom and Dad came over to hang with Cooper until Chris came home from work. The bowling party was fun. Carter had a good time.
After the party we came home. For supper I grabbed McDonald's for the boys before I went out with Cindy, Kelly and Mom. We went to another quarter auction and met up with a few more girls there. We had fun, and all won prizes, even Mom won a special door prize. (chuckle chuckle)
On Sunday Chris had planned to go out four-wheeling. I opted not to attempt taking two kids to church so the boys and I hung out at home for most of the day. I needed to go to the grocery store to pick up stuff to make an oriental salad to take to Cindy's house for supper. After the grocery store we did a Tim Horton's run and drove down to the lake to check out the ice. Or lack thereof.
On the way home the boys commented on the park and I pulled over so they could play for awhile. They had a blast. Yes, I have pictures but haven't uploaded them to the computer yet. I will. We came home and I got the stuff ready for the salad. Carter crashed on the couch until we left. Chris got home and didn't have much time to nap.
We went to Cindy and Bob's for supper and Zack's and Bob's Mom's birthdays. We had a veritable FEAST as usual. Massive amounts of ham were consumed and much remained. There were salads and homemade baked beans. But the desserts were the kicker. Homemade fudge with Skor bits, at least four sugar pies (becoming my favourite) and carrot cakes. There was a 'spare' cake that I brought home to take to the office today.
We came home absolutely stuffed, and just in time to watch Desperate Housewives. The boys took turns zonking out; they had played pretty hard with all the kids at Cindy's house both inside the house and outside.
Today the morning FLEW by at work. At lunch Kelly and I walked downtown for chips then walked to pick up Carter and walk him to school and back to work. It was a beautiful day today. After work I picked up the boys. Carter's hair has been turning into quite the little mop so I took him downtown for a haircut. I just wanted it trimmed a bit so it wasn't so shaggy. I'll be sure to take a picture of him tomorrow since I spazzed and didn't grab the camera when I was thinking of it today.
When we got home the boys played outside and I took a walk to the grocery store for hamburger buns. I stopped at the video store to pick up the movie Hotel for Dogs for the kids to watch. I came home and we rounded up the kids. Chris barbecued the hamburgers and I made coleslaw, which the kids had quite a bit of. I was both pleased and amazed! Little did they know it's all-vegetable!
The boys showed little interest in the movie because they were preoccupied with wanting to play Guitar Hero with Chris. Chris played for awhile and even with the loud volume, Cooper fell asleep. Apparently he didn't nap today so that made for an early evening for him. Carter started fading too and crashed on the couch. Chris was left on tour all alone and shut it down in time to see the end of Dancing With the Stars and Castle. He fell asleep too and now I'm just left watching House by myself. I'm not even sure if I'll make it to the top of the hour.
I did these two scrap pages at least two or three weeks ago for my April CT duties. The month has flown by so fast that I realized I needed to post them if they were going to be for April!
On the way home today, it was snowing these bizarre globs of snow. One of my Facebook friends said her Mom called them pancakes. Really, it was like pancakes were falling from the sky. I think it all melted but if it's still able to snow out there, I'm not calling this weather spring. Since I'm posting this after midnight, it's officially May now, and I will not tolerate any further winter weather. It's sunshine from here on in.
We chatted until after one and now I'm just about done for the night. I sure hope we start to make it a habit again! I'm hoping for some nice weather tomorrow. Might take the boys to church. If it's nice out we'll do a trip to a park somewhere.
We chatted until after one and now I'm just about done for the night. I sure hope we start to make it a habit again! I'm hoping for some nice weather tomorrow. Might take the boys to church. If it's nice out we'll do a trip to a park somewhere.
