Pulling Pranks!

Today Nate's French teacher phoned me at my desk and told me that he was not doing well.  Not handing in assignments...really she was quite disappointed in his behaviour.  She even said that she was considering changing his report card grades!

I was really quite speechless and stammered my way through the conversation.  I was trying to think of why this might be happening as so far Grade 9 has been so great for him!

All of a sudden she told me that Nate was standing beside her and he totally had me pranked!!!!

WELL...this called for revenge so I hustled over to the secondary school to plant a big wet kiss on Nate.

Gosh I love that silly kid!  And I found out he brought his fart machine to school and had gotten few teachers.  Is this my quiet boy?!

My VP came along for video evidence :)

Photo Booth

We finally got to be a part of the latest craze at my cousin's wedding reception.  Very fun!

My cousins Daryl and Teresa were our zany cohorts.

Slowly But Surely

Down 15 lbs.

25 lbs to go.

Can I do it by Spring Break?
That is the goal!

Laundry 101

My Asian son, William does boggle my mind when it comes to his laundry.  His job is to bring his hamper down to the laundry room every Saturday and my job is to wash and dry his clothes.  I've been quite perplexed at the lack of clothes in the hamper on laundry day.  Very few 'underwears' and socks.  Rarely more than one top.  But his most frequent items are coats.  He has at least 12 coats (yes, I counted them in his closet!).  He loves his hoodies, jackets and coats washed.  We have told him before that it's okay to wash hoodies but wool, felt or heavy duty winter coats are not meant to be washed often and usually need to be dry-cleaned.  I was pretty sure we had made this clear last week but it appears he's still trying.  I found his expensive 'Roots' coat (with leather sleeves!) in the wash this morning.

Sigh.

 

A New Way to Read

It's been a while since I received my new Kobo but I am now just reading my first book with it.  Nathan had to load it for me since I am becoming technologically lame in my advanced age.  It's different to read on a screen and I am not quite ready to say if I love it or not just yet.  One thing that I know I do love is reading with it in bed.  No heavy book to prop up....very handy!

Now I need to get back to reading as it's a borrowed book and time is running out.

Bowling

My little buddy had a 'first' yesterday.

 

 

 

His preschool class went bowling.  He really enjoyed himself and after a little lesson in 'rolling' the ball as opposed to 'throwing' the ball he did quite well...even scoring a spare!

Missing the Hot Days of Summer?

Life Changing

As you probably know my longest and most bestest friends are Keri and Kori.  We have been fast friends since we were 13 years old.  I know them very well.  I know their family very well.  As a teen I ate at their dinner table, slept over at their house and went on numerous adventures with them.  They are the closest things I have to sisters.
My friends are hurting right now.  Their older sister Kristin is battling cancer and has a very big surgery coming up on Wednesday to remove her kidney. 
Could you please remember her in prayer?  She needs lots of prayer, her husband, four children and entire family need to be covered in peace as they begin this overwhelming journey.

Thank you.

Kristin is a self confessed 'word' girl and you can follow her thoughts, feelings and progress on her personal blog.

http://canadiankristinconnected.blogspot.ca/

Warm As Toast

I went downstairs on Friday morning and thought the house seemed a bit chilly.  I put the thermostat up to 20 degrees and after a few minutes nothing happened.  So I furiously started pushing all the buttons and decided that our programmable thermostat probably needed fresh batteries.  So amidst the morning rush of getting out the door I was prying off the cover and popping in new batteries.  At this point the program on the furnace was going to put the temperature back down for the day so off we went and I didn't give it another thought. 

When I got home that afternoon I noticed the house had a definite chill.  I went to check the read-out and it was a brisk 18 degrees.  Keith had been in and out all day and hadn't really noticed the house being so cold.  At this point I knew it was not good news.  We went to actually go and look at the old beast to find the pilot light out.  After calling my friend (who's hubby is a HVAC technician) and trying his advice we were still without our furnace.  The pilot light would NOT stay lit.  Thankfully we have our gas fireplace and our bedrooms upstairs all have electric baseboard heaters.  This morning Keith did a bit more research on the internet (what ever did we DO before Google?!) and found that it could simply be a case of needing a new thermocoupler.  Not sure what that is precisely but I do know that one's furnace needs one to work!  This part cost us all of $10 and Keith was able to replace it easily.  Thank goodness!  So we are all toasty warm and happy that we avoided a nasty expense right before Christmas.

The End.

 

Szechuan Shredded Beef Stir-Fry

Szechuan Shredded Beef Stir-Fry recipe at Kraftcanada.com

I made this last night for dinner and I have to say it enthusiastically received.  It was delicious, comforting and economical.
It's most definitely going into my recipe repertoire!
PS.  For our family of six, I doubled the recipe and tripled the sauce.

Cute Times Three!

I may have found a 'work around' for the picture issue.

Look at this cute little boy!  We have to choose one pose for his preschool picture package and it's been tough but we're going with the first pose. 

Which is your favorite?

Blogging Difficulties

Even though I just deleted my entire 2006 archives, blogger says my storage capacity is full and I cannot post anymore photos.
A post without a picture is dull.
Therefore I won't be posting until either this self-corrects or someone sponsors more storage for my blog!

Ciao.

Slow Speed Blogging

I've lost my blogging mojo.

It's been a heavy few weeks. 

I'll hope to be posting a bit more regularly.

Here's just a bit of an update.

 

 We've been doing family walks to enjoy the beautiful fall colors whenever there's a dry weekend.  Almost all the leaves are down now.  It's such a short but brilliantly gorgeous time!

 

 I made my first ever batch of homemade chicken soup.  Thank you Kori for the recipe.  It was so delicious.  The family just raved and raved about it!

 Liam's having some chest issues and is on two puffers right now.  Sadly his cough is crackly and his breathing is too rapid and shallow.  He's also on an antibiotic just in case of infection.  We received some excellent care at our local clinic and very speedy service at the x-ray department of the hospital last night.  He's been perky through it all which is a bonus.  I think that starting preschool has been a bit of an onslaught on his immune system.  Lots of new germs to fight off!

 These running shoes have had a LOT of kilometers put on them since late August.  I have been walking either on the treadmill or outside 6 days a week!  I can walk very fast now and Keith doesn't really like walking with me so much because he says I go too fast.  Since mid-July I have lost 13 lbs so the weight is coming off VERY slowly but that's okay.  I am committed and not going to give up. 

Nothing magical about it.  Basically, the formula has been 'move more, eat less'. 

 Which leads to me to trying to avoid the last of Liam's Halloween candy!

 

 

Today at work I had to make sure that Marci's skirt was regulation length!  Happily it was exactly 10 cm above the knee and she didn't have to go home and change.  All in a day's work!