Photo Challenge Day 6 ~ Shopping

 

Christmas shopping has spilled onto my dining room table making it very and awfully messy!

Photo Challenge Day 5 ~ Today's Temperature

 

This what 8 degrees celcius looks like through Nathan's window.

Photo Challenge Day 4 ~ Joyous

Photo Challenge Day 3 ~ RED

This is my tree skirt.  It's not super pretty. Actually it's a wee bit ugly and rather plain but it's something my mom made out of her old bedspread a long time ago.  Growing up, I thought my parents had the most beautiful red velour bedspread.  When my mom updated their room from the sleezy velour look she couldn't simply toss out this material but had to remake it into something else.  She is Mennonite and we are the pioneers of reduce, reuse, recycle system!  So this tree skirt is nostalgic and therefore it happily will sit under my tree until I can part with it!

Christmas Challenge

I got this idea from another friend and blogger, Sonya.  I am a litle late starting so I'll have to post Day 1 & 2 together. 

 

 Day 1 is my view in the living room on Saturday as I took a few moments to sit and read.

 

Day 2 would be the Sound of Music.  I do realize that this movie hardly qualifies as a holiday film but when I was a young thing it was shown on TV every Christmas and so therefore it's a Christmas memory for me.  I remember laying on my Grandma's red shag carpet and watching it on her console TV while the adults all visited and laughed in the background.  Extremely fond memories!  I love every song in this movie and will torture my children often by breaking into a Sound of Music tune when they least expect it.

 

Production Week!

I will  not be available physically or mentally next week. 

The chaos otherwise knows as production week begins Monday!

Pulling Pranks...the Conclusion

And so, Nathan came home from school yesterday bearing a gift card from Starbucks.  Mrs Drew had told him to take me on a date to make up for such antics.
Ahhhh...I love Mrs. Drew!

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!

 

Soggy Halloween

I can't remember the last time we had such a wet Halloween.  For years and years it's be clear and frightfully cold.   This time it was mild so we didn't freeze but we got soaked to the skin. 

Liam was the only one walking the streets as Chad declared himself too old to go out.  Nate hasn't gone out for years as he's never liked Halloween.  They stayed home and answered the door since Keith was out working...aka chasing down fire setters!

The same costume from last year was recycled.  Liam has a closet full of wonderful costumes but insisted on the pumpkin again.  Fine by me.  It's a nice warm outfit and the hood kept his little head warm and mostly dry.

 

The evening before Halloween we introduced William to pumpkin carving.  He did a pretty good job for a first timer and we were even happier that he didn't slice off any fingers in the process.

Formal Day

Our first dress up day of the school year and it was formal day.  My kids don't own really formal clothes so we made do with an old tie (wide-style!)from Keith's closet and a white dress shirt for Chad.  I own only two dresses so the options were pretty limited for me.  I wore my spring/summer dress with bare legs and absolutely froze ALL day!

 

 A certain teacher at our school had no idea how to tie his tie so Marci had to help him out.  I admit that even I could not help him.  I guess we could have always looked it up on Youtube!

 Black was the color of the day.

 Marci and I took turns wearing her fascinator.  I can assure you it wasn't made out of the feathers of the dead bird that was found at our entrance this morning!

16 & 61

Time for the October birthdays!  I had my family over for my mom's birthday.  I made the requisite dairy-free, beef-free supper and dessert.  Ham, salad, buns, veggies, and scalloped potatoes.  Did you know that one can make delicious scalloped potatoes without any dairy?  They were so good that I don't think that I'll go back to the old kind.  For dessert I made a lemon poppy seed bundt and a chocolate cake. 

 

 

 William's first birthday in Canada!

 

 

 After supper we gathered in the family room to watch Amazing Race.  As you can see my children become limp rags when given back rubs. 

Not sure if Liam's back rubs are equally as relaxing as Grandad's!

At Attention!

This past week our entire campus has been hosting the EEC team.  External Evaluation Committee for those of you who don't know the lingo.  Independent schools such as ours are inspected every 6 years by the government to be sure we are following on educational laws and policies.   We need to prove we are worthy of the funding we are granted by the government!
So for the past several months we have been going over everything with a fine tooth comb making sure all 'i's' are dotted and 't's' are crossed.
Today was the final day and as I attended the final de-brief along with all staff I was very proud to hear that they found our schools to be excellent in all areas.  Phew!
The EEC team was delightful to have around, very friendly, kind, funny and didn't really make you feel like you were under the microscope.  It was a good experience, yet I am really glad it's behind us now. 

Thank You Day

Still Blooming!

My garden has no idea it's October already.  This has been the best Indian summer in ages!

Liam's Party

Liam had a small but enjoyable party for his 4th birthday.  We all had fun watching him opening his gifts and playing with them.  He quickly found his favorites and so did the guests!  Who knew a $4 blow-up robot head from Liquidation World would be so popular?!

 

 

Liam is really into dressing up so this knight costume was well received!

 

 Liam requested a chocolate cake with Hot Wheels.  This is what I came up with and he was very happy.  So I was happy.  Not my best work but decorating cakes never has been my forte!

 

 

A week post-party this is the number one gift which was from Nathan.  A motorized Hot Wheels track.  He plays with it all the time!

And now this is the last year I will call him 'baby'.  Once they are five (in my books anyhow) they are all 'growed up'!!! 

Just Own Up to It!

I had a situation today. 

This is the email I sent to a real estate agent:

Hello ****,

I had the unfortunate experience of having you ride my tail and honk at me through a school zone (Cornerstone Christian on Downes Road).  Not only was that very rude but bad advertising as your name is plastered on the back of your vehicle!

This is the email I received in return:

Rachel,

I would like to apologize if I upset you over an obvious misunderstanding this morning. It was not my intention today to leave my house and upset anyone on the way to work, including you.  I don't really like it when those things happen to me, either.  I hope your day improved after our encounter this morning. If I had your name and contact information, I would gladly forward you a gift to apologize.

 

All the best to you and your family,




One word to describe her response:  LAME!