10 on Tuesday

What would I do with 4 hours alone to kill..

1. scrapbook.
2. read.
3. write.
4. clean my house.
5. Christmas shop.
6. surf the net.
7. organize my scrapbooking desk.
8. sleep.
9. go for a walk.
10. watch a movie and eat junk food.

10 on Tuesday

The A Pile of Scrap prompt this week was to blog 10 random facts that you know (no googling allowed!). I wasn't sure I could do this one, these things were hard to come up with! But, after racking my brain for a while, here's my list:

1. Your hair and nails keep growing after you die.
This one doesn't really need much explanation, it's obvious why this one stuck in my head, ew.

2. On average people eat 8 spiders in their lifetime.
This one stuck out in my head because I have a ridiculous fear of spiders. I'm the jump up on the chair, scream like a maniac, and refuse to come down until someone kills it for me, kind of person.

3. Washing your hair with beer will make it healthier.
I remember this one because I always wondered why my mother kept one can of beer in the bathroom closet LOL. When I asked, she told me, so a while ago I decided to give it a try. It works! If you can get past the smell for a couple of hours..

4. Golf was originally "Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden".
The boys I grew up with were relentless with their sexist jokes. Come to find out, there was truth to it.

5. The most common dream is being naked in public.
Honestly, I can't say I've ever had this dream! And I'm A-Okay with that!

6. Willis Haviland Carrier was the inventor of the air conditioner.
I actually saw this as someone's facebook status this summer. Would I ever like to thank that man!

7. It is possible for children to grow significantly over night.
As a kid I always heard people say, "you look like you've grown since the last time I saw you!" And I've now noticed it with my own kids. I thought I was going bonkers until I read that it's true!

8. The average housewife/mother walks 10 miles everyday.
I can't say this one surprised me at all! No wonder I'm always so tired!

9. Super Mario Brothers is the top selling video game of all time.
This one however did surprise me. I expected Halo or something like that, but good ol' Mario Brothers! I myself always preferred Duck Hunt.

10. Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, was afraid of mice.
Why would a man who is afraid of mice create a giant, walking, talking mouse?! I guess we'll never know.

Ten Things Tuesday- two days late!

This completely slipped my mind until now!

The prompt for this week was to list 10 places I wanted to visit that I had never been before. So here is my list, in no particular order.

Scotland.
















England.















France.

Texas.















California.

















Cuba.
















-Hawaii.















-Alberta.














-Rome.















-Israel

Alyssa's First Haircut.

Yesterday I decided that it would be easier, for her and for myself, if Alyssa had bangs. Her hair was in her eyes way too much and I was pulling it back about a thousand times everyday. So I just went ahead and chopped em off =)She looks so grown up!

Before:


After:

Tuesday Ten.

This week's Tuesday Ten prompt is ten favourite games as a child.. So, in no particular order..

1. Hide and Seek. This was a favourite as long as I can remember, until, well until now really. Of course as I got older the game got a bit more elaborate (playing in the woods instead of in the house, in the dark instead of during daylight), the rules stayed the same.

2. Freeze Tag. Like regular tag, except there were two "its", a good and a bad. If the bad it tagged you, you were frozen like a statue. If the good it got to you before the bad it got to them, you were free to run again.

3. Duck Hunt. Classic. I loved this game, and got pretty good at it before our system broke!

4. Tetris. Love, love, love this game. Troy and I have an ongoing competition on his cell phone for high score!

5. Clue. If I were to play Clue now, I'm sure I'd find it quite boring. But at the time, I loved solving those mysteries!

6. Uno. My grandmother taught me to play Uno when I was 5 or 6, and we played it at nearly every family gathering from there on out!

7. Crazy Eights. I really got into crazy eights when I was sick in bed with whooping cough at about age 10. I would beg anyone around to come play it with me.

8. House. My friends and I used to love to play house, and what made it even better was my TCB (Taking Care of Baby) doll. This doll would cry to be changed, fed, or put to sleep. It was my favourite doll.

9. School. When I was really young I was forever begging my mother to play "school" with me, when my younger brother was born, I decided that I was too old to be the student and self-promoted myself to teacher, with him as my pupil. Poor boy!

10. Songs. This was played with my grandfather. I would think of a topic or word, as random as I could, and he would think of a song to go with it! I never won, that man knew a song for everything!

We went to see the fireworks on Canada Day as well, but sadly, we didn't stay long enough to get any pictures. Alyssa was terrified! She loved them last year, but this year she was so scared of the noise. Instead of telling us that she was scared she told me:

"Mommy, bunny's scared!"

Me: "Tell bunny it's okay."

Her: "Bunny, it's okay.. (pause).. "Bunny says it's not okay, Mommy!"

So we headed back home.

Bounce, Bounce, Bounce!

They had bouncy castles set up at the Canada Day festival this year. Alyssa was nervous at first, and just bounced on her knees, but after trying out a couple of different ones, she was bouncing with the best of them! Rylan loved it right away! His favourite part was when the supervisor yelled "okay, time's up! Everyone down the slide!"

I scream, you scream..

We all scream for ice cream!!

During a rain shower on Canada Day we had to find somewhere to go, so we took the kid's to a local ice cream shop to cool down. Alyssa was so hyper by the time we got out of there!

Hard at Work!

It's been over a month since I've updated my blog, bad me! So, I'm going to try and catch up a bit!

These are some pictures of Rylan that I took a couple of weeks ago, love them!

Uncle TJ & Aunt Kaya

My brother, Dryden, and my sister, Makayla, have always been very close with my kids. They spend a lot of time over at my house, since they only live about 5 minutes away, and my kids loving having them over to play!


Alyssa (7 months), Makayla (4), Easter 2008.

Dryden (12), Rylan (5 months).

Like Mother, Like Daughter.

My Mom and I have always been VERY close. She really is my best friend. I'm very lucky to have a mother like her, who never gave up on me, and who still doesn't. I appreciate her more than she realizes. We're so much alike. I ordered a sign online last week that reads, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother afterall." And that is so true. Now that I'm a mother, I see myself becoming more and more like her everyday. We look alike, talk alike, have the same sense of humour, even our mannerisms are the same. This picture shows that. We're both adjusting our sunglasses the exact same way as Dad snapped this picture from vacation a couple of years ago.



Basically, all this to say, I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day!!

Rollercoasters.

I was going through some older pictures on my computer this morning, and I came across some from a family vacation I took with my parents a couple of years ago. We went to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and they have some AMAZING rollercoasters. Since I was a kid, Dad and I have made it a tradition to go on every rollercoaster we came upon. I've never felt so alive as I do taking a straight down dive for a couple hundred feet. This is one of my favourite pictures of Dad and I..

Fond Memories.

I was thinking today about Puppy (my grandfather). He passed away when I was 13. He was known for his funny, and usually senseless, rhymes, poems, and stories. One in particular that I remember more than the others is this one that he taught me as a kid..

One bright day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
Two deaf policemen, hearing the noise,
got up and shot the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this story is true,
go ask the blind man.
He saw it too.

This was one of many and to this day the family laughs and jokes as we recite the poems he passed down to us. Everyone in the community remembers him fondly, I'm sure he didn't have an enemy in the world. RIP Puppy.

I wanna do it by myself!

Rylan's hit that stage where he doesn't want any help. Especially with eating. The last couple of days he's been refusing to let me feed him anything, which pretty much limited him to finger foods. So, I decided it was time for him to try using a spoon for himself. We were having brocolli and rice casserole. I didn't think he could make too much mess with that. Wrong.

The before.. Hmm, what do I do with that?..


Like this Mommy?



Aha!


Hands are easier =)


Mmm, brocolli!

We had a nice day yesterday after a few days of rain and grey weather, so we spent a lot of the day outside. My younger brother and sister were here as well, so the kids had lots of fun.

Bunny.

Bunny is a ragged-looking blue, well, bunny. His stuffing has gone flat and his fur is dingy, but he's still Alyssa's best pal. She's been carrying him around everywhere she's gone since she was about a year old. She doesn't like to be more than a few feet from bunny at all times. The only time she'll let him have a break is when we play outside, she says she doesn't want him to get dirty. A little late. He gets a bath at least once a week, but it doesn't seem to do much good anymore.

So far bunny has been to the US, to the zoo, and camping right along with us. And I'm sure he'll be on lots more trips as well, she doesn't seem to plan on leaving him home any time soon.

Just to give you an idea..

What should we play with today??

Boxes!! I was unpacking a big box of clothes today and was about to take the box out to the trash, when Alyssa had a meltdown, she wanted to build a house! So, that's just what we did! =)

Every second weekend.

So glad to have my kids back home with me. I don’t stop worrying the entire time they’re gone. It’s not that I don’t trust that they’re safe, it’s just that when they’re here with me I can check on them whenever I want to, when they’re away I’m handing control over. I’m not very good with that when it comes to my babies. I like having them close-by.

Aside from that, I had a good weekend though. Got caught up with some friends and got some cleaning done. Alyssa came back telling me stories about Daddy taking her fishing and all about the trout she caught. She had a great time. She loves to visit Daddy and Dino. Dino is her Daddy’s girlfriend, Danielle. Abby, Zachy, and Nafan (Abigaile (7), Zachary (3), anc Nathan (1)) are Danielle’s three kids. So needless to say, she’s got lots to keep her occupied while she’s visiting.

Rylan’s the only baby at his Daddy’s house, although his auntie is due any day now with a baby boy. Auntie and Ninny spoil him rotten though and there’s a park right in they’re backyard. So he just loves to go for visits too.

Me, I’m not so happy with it. It’s a nice break at first, but by Saturday night I just want them home with me. I guess it all just comes with the territory though.

I did it.

I called this afternoon and made the appointment to write my test for my driver's license. About time, huh? I'm nervous to drive, I'm scared I'll hurt myself or someone else I guess. Which is ridiculous considering I've been driving all sorts of other vehicles since I was a kid. Fourwheelers, snowmobiles, dirtbikes, even a motorcycle or two. It's just cars that scare me. But I finally broke down and did it. Now that it's just me here I need my license bad. The freedom that comes with it will be great. I can go whenever I need to. It wouldn't be such an ordeal to run to the post office, or the bank, or anywhere else I need to go. I've been independent in every other way since I became a single Mom, this is the last thread that makes me dependent on anyone but myself. Once I have this, I'll truly feel like I have everything we need to make it on our own.

Days like this.

On days like today I just want to curl up and hide. I'm utterly exhausted, and this head cold isn't healping. I need sleep. But that's just not going to happen, I've got 101 places to be and things to do. I can tell it's going to be a VERY early night for me tonight. It's times like this when being a single Mommy really gets to me. I have noone to "switch off" with when I'm sick or exhausted, noone to help make supper, or run an errand to take some of the load off. My exhusband wouldn't have done any of that anyway so it's not that, it's just that days like today the loneliness really sets in.

I am blessed.

Sometimes I don't stop to think about all the things I've been given, and how blessed I am. Aside from the obvious; that I have two absolutely beautiful children, an amazing extended family, and the best friends anyone could ask for; I also have been blessed with so many things that we all take for granted. I have running water that is safe to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over my head, good healthcare, and a free counry to live in.

More often than not we, myself included, dwell more on what we don't have than all the things we've been given. We take things for granted so many other people envy so much.

Woohoo =)

Jumped on the scale today, and I'm 1lb lower than my goal! 129 lbs =) A total of 36lbs lost. I'm smaller than I've been since grade seven! Now I just need to tone, not sure how to go about that one just yet, so far my focus has just been on getting the weight off.

The only downside to losing the weight is that none of my clothes fit me anymore, I need a whole new wardrobe and my budget just won't allow that right now. So I'm working on it a bit at a time, looking for good deals online. Can't wait for the ward sales to start up!!

Spring!!

We're loving the amazing weather we've had the past few days! It was up to 25 degrees Celsius yesterday, record breaking! I read in the paper this morning that the previous record was 15 degrees Celsius, in 1952! We've been outside lots and I'm really hoping the weather stays like this from here on out!

Scary part about the weather being so nice though is that fire season's starting early. Today my neighbors were burning cardboard outside and the wind picked up and carried the fire away. I didn't even notice until I looked out my window and there were firetrucks pulling up my driveway! The fire had caught onto the trees just on the other side of my driveway, not far enough from my house for my comfort! We had a house fire about 3 years ago that burned it to the ground, so I'm VERY nervous about fires. Thankfully, the fireman got it out pretty fast and all is fine now!

My Favourite Little Man

Rylan Dale Jonah was born on January 27th, 2009. He's such a little sweetheart. My cuddlebug. He's so great to other babies and kids too, even his sister! he's always bringing her toys and trying to share his snacks =) Sure they have their spats, but for the most part, he's the sweetest little brother I've ever seen. He's going to be a mommy's boy, and that's fine with me!

Princess Alyssa

If you ask her, she'll be sure to tell you. She isn't just Alyssa, she's "Princess Lyssy". Born on Sept. 4th, 2007, Alyssa Bethany Dean has been my light ever since. She can sense if I'm tired or having an "off day", and she's there with extra hugs during those times. She's two and a half now, but still my baby girl. And always will be, but I'm sure that'll she'll start getting sick of that when she hits 12 or 13. Her smiles, giggles, and quirkiness makes her who she is, and I can tell she's going to continue to have a great sense of humour. Ask her and she'll tell you, we're best friends =)