quick update

This weekend I have 3 days off – not only 3 days off – but 3 days with no possible way I can do any work. You see we are going through a major IT system change over (we were acquired by another company a few weeks ago so we are moving onto their systems). So we were told to leave all laptops, and blackberries in our office on Thursday night and we have no access to them until 7:00 am Monday morning. I have to admit that I was going through a bit of withdrawal yesterday. But today I am doing great. It’s nice not to be thinking “I should be doing some work now”. This morning the kids and I took Koda for a walk – we were on a mission to find the perfect colour to paint our front door and garage doors. I didn’t find the perfect colour but I did get some ideas. On the way, we walked by the Woocks house and picked up Jenna. She came home with us and she and Kenzie took Sandy outside and played in the tent (I put a tent up in the front yard yesterday).

Then they came inside and watched a bit of TV while Sandy took a nap on Jenna. (by the way, that is the remnants of a tattoo on Jenna's cheek, not dirt).






After that we decided to go to Michael’s and stock up on a few more crafts since Michael’s is having a big sale. It was fun. We got a ton of fun stuff super cheap. There’s not much better than that!

So CJ spent his morning driving to Oakville and back. My mum’s friends were giving away some old furniture. These are the same people that previously gave us a beautiful oak bench. This time they gave us an oak dining table and a matching hutch. So CJ took the van and picked everything up. They wouldn’t accept any money so … we didn’t want to offend them by arguing – ha! Anyhow. I was really pleasantly surprised when the kids and I got home from our shopping trip. The table is perfect for our little “craft area”. We used to have a small round table there but this one fits much better and the matching hutch is perfect for all our craft stuff. I love it when people want to give away stuff. So here it is….





Here’s the hutch…


And inside..


And in the drawer…


In other news… Sandy is still adorable as ever. She loves to play with Kenzie’s little braid.






Seb is doing well and loves to play on the computer. I am probably biased as his mom, but I gotta say he is so friggin smart…. This week he asked me to explain to him what is outside the universe and outside the galaxy etc. Try explaining a 4th and 5th dimension to a 4 year old. Then yesterday he was trying to get his head around the concept of a point – i.e. the corner of a cube. He said to me “so how does it work – at the very tip is there a small circle cause it can’t be a point at the very tip”… Talk about making my head spin.

Last Day of Summer 2009

So… today is the last day of the summer. That is just crazy to me. Yesterday was a beautiful day but there was something in the air that just reminded me of the fall – maybe it was a smell, or the fact that the morning was really cool and crisp before it got warm In any case, I am just not ready for the summer to end. Yesterday I spent a long time tending to the plants out front. We haven’t had much rain lately and everything is really dry. I gave all the plants a good soaking, did some dead-heading and fertilized the planters. This morning they already looked a lot better and healthier. Here are some pics of Seb helping me….





It was a weird weekend. It went by way too fast. I was in the office for about 6 hours on Saturday so that probably has something to do with the fact that I feel jipped (sp?). I just brought in a really big project last week. I am super thrilled about that but I am also completely overwhelmed. I can barely keep up with the work I have let alone take on more. It is so much work and I don’t know how we are going to get it all done by the deadline. I have been totally stressed out about that and having a hard time sleeping at night. So my plan for this week is to focus and get the ball rolling and try to hand off as much of the work as possible.

In any case, yesterday I got to spend some time just hanging out with the kids. We went to the park and I took some pics of our monkeys….










My grumpster




The kids are doing pretty well. Kenzie seems to be struggling a bit at school. Not necessarily with the school work – more of a confidence thing. She is in a class with only seven other grade 2 kids and the rest are grade 3s. She seems really insecure about school stuff (like a presentation she has to do for the class in two weeks). She is also sitting at a “cube” with a kid who was in her class last year and he is known for being a bit of a bully and he seems to be getting on her case. So my heart goes out to her and I wish I could make everything better for her. I am going to call her teacher this week and see if we can have a chat.





Seb seems to be doing well. We got a note home from his teacher last week. It said “Sebastian threw out his applesauce because he doesn’t like it”. For some reason this note just cracks me up. I stuck it up on our fridge. I can just picture him having a little “discussion” with his teacher and stamping his foot when she told him to eat his applesauce and him saying “I hate applesauce”. Ugh… I pity his teacher. Although she seems to be a seasoned vet and I am sure Seb has met his match in her.


In other news… we have a new family member. Her name is Sandy. She’s a funny little cat. Was the runt of her litter, but seems to hold her own in our household. She weighs 0.46kg (1 lbs) and Koda (75lbs) is scared of her and runs to her crate whenever Sandy hisses at her. She seems to “bounce” everywhere she goes and has the cutest little meow and the loudest purr ever!

the last month

It’s been a long time since I blogged. I guess I fell off the wagon there for a while. The month of August just kinda flew by. We had a good time when we went camping. The weather was good but we had a rain shower or two – which I am actually really happy about since we rented a pop-up trailer and the rain made it that much more worthwhile and appreciated. Here are a few pictures.

Kenzie and Soph in front of the pop-up


Breakfast


Inside watching a movie on a rainy afternoon


Playing with lego and eating pop-corn inside


Looking for frogs


Seb. Kenzie, Rachel, Eryn and Jenna practicing the splits


The gang on the beach


Some of the kids


CJ the scrabble shark


Guitar playing


Pretty girls


Snuggles after a long day


By the way – a pop-up is totally the way to go when camping. I think both CJ and I are in agreement that if we can afford one next year we’d like to get one.

CJ had a very healthy August. He stopped drinking, has really gotten into mountain biking, is running again and is all about eating healthy. I just need some of that to rub off on me now.

One Saturday a couple weeks ago Kenzie and I went shopping together. We ended up at Michaels. I had a $200 gift certificate to spend. I bought myself some scrapbooking paper and then Kenzie and I went crazy picking up all kinds of craft supplies for the remaining $$. Kenzie LOVES crafts and she is so artistic. So she and her friends have been having a ton of fun doing lots of neat craft stuff lately.

While Kenzie loves doing crafts, Seb is into building things. He is quite good at it too. He totally knows how to follow directions on these toys where you build a car or truck or airplane etc. I picked up a new game/kit for him the other day and he has been spending a lot of time making stuff with all the pieces. Very cool.

The worst part of August was that both cats died (within the last week). Well, to be honest, we had to put Miranda down. She has been peeing in our house now for over a year. We have put up with it for so long because I just couldn’t bring myself to have her put down. But then she started pooing randomly in different parts of the house – under a bed, in theh middle of the floor. It just couldn’t go on. We had her tested a few months ago for bladder infection/UTI, etc. and it wasn’t that. We tried the kitty prozac (clomicalm) for a while but that only worked for a couple weeks and Miranda was completely out of it when she took it. In any case, I took her in and it was very humane and she didn’t suffer so that is a small blessing (she was 17).



Then there was Miro. She hasn’t been looking very well for a couple weeks. The last couple days she basically stayed under our bed. I gave her water thinking that maybe she was missing Miranda. But then on Saturday night she was dry heaving and yesterday morning she looked terrible (kind of limp and like she was drooling). CJ brought her to the emergency clinic and the doctor examined her and found a lump. While CJ was on the phone with me and we were talking about what to do (it was going to cost between $1000 and $1500 to have her stay over night and have tests done), the vet came to get him and told him that she was in the process of dying and won’t make it through the day. Apparently, the vet gave her some anesthetic to “move the process on faster” and CJ was with her when she died. I totally wasn’t expecting that or ready for it.

I was awake a lot last night – couldn’t sleep. I was pretty upset about the cats. Mostly, I was wondering if Miro had been in pain or uncomfortable for a long time and I just didn’t notice. I hope that wasn’t the case. The kids took it well – I think Kenzie was more upset when Miranda “died” than when we told her about Miro – which is surprising cause Miro and Kenzie were close. Miro slept on her bed/pillow with here every night from the time we moved here. In any case…. It’ll get easier (I hope).

Today was the kids’ first day of school.


They were both very nervous yesterday and this morning but everything went well in the morning. This year we didn’t find out who their teachers were until this morning. (In the previous years we found out about a week before the start of school). Seb knows a bunch of kids in his class – including his “girlfriend” and two little boys from our street who he loves playing with. He’s been put in a class with a new kindergarten teacher. She taught Sophie a couple years ago and Helen says that she is AMAZING!. So that makes me happy.

Kenzie knows a few (maybe 3 or 4) kids in her class – although she’s in a different class than her best friend, Zoe. They put her in a 2/3 split though which has me a bit nervous. She is still supposed to get the grade 2 curriculum, but being in a split class where most of the kids are in grade 3 seems like it might be challenging for her. A) She will be up to two years younger than some of the kids in her class (she’s only 6 now and will be in class with some kids who turned 8 at the beginning of this year), and B) she already is very hesitant and insecure when it comes to her reading. The good thing is that she knows her new teacher (she was the choir director last year) and Kenzie seems to adore her. Sue said that she’s a great teacher – very calm and organized – which is exactly the kind of teacher that Kenzie needs. So we will see how it goes. I am anxious to pick the kiddo up this afternoon to see how their days went. I might even leave the office early and pick them up when school ends (no YMCA) so they can tell me all about it.