The Piano Player and the Solar System

The other day, I am working on some house work, and the boys are in the family room playing. After a while it starts to get quiet, so I go to check on them and find only Sheepie out playing. This leaves me to wonder what exactly has happened to FP. Eventually, I find him standing on the ledge of his bathtub, using bath crayons to colour this.
I was so impressed, that I couldn't even bring myself to scold him for not asking to us the special crayons. As you can see everything is very detailed and well drawn. I particularly have to laugh at the planet, 'Urcular'. At first I couldn't figure out what he meant by it... but after some thinking I realised that when he hears us talking about crescent and circular shaped moons, he is hearing the world, 'urcular.' He just thought we were talking about another planet. So I give you the 10th planet in the solar system.

And here is just a really cute picture of Boy, since he's kind of been MIA lately. He's just being his cute usual self. Here, he and Hubby were taking a minute to play around on the Piano and I caught him sitting there all by himself.

He has also discovered this last that he can pull himself up all by himself. It's terribly cute...Now he just needs to learn he can sit back down again, after the fact.

Sheepie makes breakfast

The other day Sheepie made the other kids and I a lovely breakfast of whole wheat blue berry pancakes, organic vanilla yoghurt with sliced pears, bacon and pear juice. It was delicious....

As you can see, Boy greatly enjoyed his brother's cooking... and this is a fairly clean shot of him.
The breakfast got such great reviews, Hubby worked from home the next day, so he could get in on the breakfast action. Sheepies menu that day... Steel cut oats with freshly chopped apples, whole wheat waffles, bacon, and popcorn.

Last week as school, the kids had theme days all week. Friday was 'Wacky Day' so the boys put together these little outfits to wear. Frog Prince sported froggie jammies, a Lightning McQueen wetsuit, an apron for a cape, and the cap and leg guards to his knight outfit.

Sheepie can be seen sporting a set of jammies, with athletic shorts and his suit coat over top along with mismatch knee highs, a blue blankie cape and Nemo hat.

Both of their clothing lines will be available at the 2009 Fashion Week.

Chronicles of a Froggie Quilt

((okay, blogger is being a pooh head and keeps resizing my pictures weird, so if they're all pixalish and oddly shaped, sorry.))

This is how I spent the month before Christmas: If you will recall Frog Prince announced that Santa was going to bring him a twin sized Froggie Quilt for Christmas this year.

This is the day the quilt took over the family room.

All the blocks are made; time to start putting it together.

Christmas Eve arrives and the quilt is only just all put together. However, realising there is no time at all to actually quilt it, Hubby and I decide to sit down and tie the whole thing...at 11 pm.

In the end FP got his Christmas wish, and he's slept with it ever night since.

Mission Accomplished

The room is clean and nearly toy free (okay there are still way more than I'd like, but it's better). Besides as my friend said, ' it seems like this happens about every 4 months with you'. So maybe in a few months there will be even fewer toys.

The old kids room is clean, Boys room is clean, the laundry is almost done (except for the stuff in our room) and the rest of the house is clean. I just need to haul the toys we are saving back out to the garage, and then sort through and post all the stuff we're selling on ebay... then I can start: our room!!!!

It was our goal to have the whole house cleaned by this weekend. Even though it looks like our room blew up, we may still yet meet that goal. Cross your fingers!

Goodbye toys

Think happy thoughts for me today.... we are cleaning the boys room and getting rid of toys....

If you don't remember exactly what an ordeal that is Let me take you on a trip down memory lane.


give me strength

Today was the day....

Today FP went in for his five year check up.... I've never seen a kid who was as big a weenie when it comes to shots as that boy.... he needs to go to an optomologist... and have his eyes looked at a bit closer, but otherwise he was great.. right now he, having just finished cleaning up the toys in the family room is zooming around the hard flooring in the dining room on his bike Santa brought him.

Boy also went for his 9 month check up and is healthy as an ox... he had been sick this last week with a flu bug that was going around so he had a ranging (like I've never seen a rash this bad, even working with bed ridden medical patients--okay maybe I've seen some in those cases) diaper rash; it is slowly clearing up, but the doc said it was a mix of a fungal/bacterial/diaper rash and as such will take three different creams to clean it up. With his darling face though, you'd never know how unhappy his nether regions have been.

Sheepie was kind of in the background today, but was sweet as can be about it. He had an accident last night and so kind of had a rough start to this morning when he woke up cold and soaking wet... but he quickly recovered and later in the day suggested to m e that 'maybe he shouldn't wear his favourite jammies to bed tonight just in case it happens again,' that way he'd still have them to wear to their Primary PJ's & Pancakes party tomorrow at church. That's using some forethought, Sheepie. It seems the last couple of days he's mostly just lived over at their little activity table. Nana bought him a playdough kit for Christmas that had lots of eyes, arms, legs, and various other things that you could stick into lumps of clay (think Mr. Potato Head meets Playdough). It's been really fun to see all the different things he's come up with, and it was even better when Wednesday he came home from school and had announced that they'd made more playdough.

By way of adventures for me in the last twenty four hours..... last night I went to fed the dogs who were outside and it quickly turned into a disaster. I need to set the scene by saying that we'd spent about 5 hours on New Years Eve/New Years cleaning our carpets and they look great.... So back to last night... I open the door ,set out their food, and think I've closed the door all the way. Apparently not... Spyder (devil animal that she is) had got into a pool of paint in the garage that spilled and hasn't dried yet because it's been too cold. (when it was so cold the can popped open from freezing) and bursts in the door, paws now blue with paint and runs full speed through the house, across the clean carpet and finally crawls on top of a sleeping Sheepie, getting blue paw prints all over his clothes, Hobbesies and Frog Princes new quilt, and woolen pea coat. There were other casualties--- like my bathrobe and a pair of Boys pants -- but those were minor in comparison. I, frankly, never care of that dog steps foot in my house again, and seriously think, if I could find her a good home, I'd get rid of her in a heart beat.... Sheepie's dog or not. I did manage to scrub most of it out of the carpets-- I can still tell where all the spots are--Hobbesies, and the coat.... but Sheepies shirt is a total loss, and the verdict is still out as to if I can get it out of the quilt....

Today I got all of my dishes sans a load that will consist of a couple really big pots and pans done... which means that if my hubby will unload the dishwasher when he gets home all the dishes should be done by tonight and I can get most of the laundry folded tomorrow when I clean the house.

I think I might have also broken a bone in my foot today. We cleaned out our utility/cleaning supply closet the other night and have a bunch of stuff (like pieces to the boys cribs for when they convert into beds) leaning against the wall... I pulled open a nearby cupboard to put away some stuff and it somehow brought the whole slew of heavy metal and wooden objects down on the exact same spot on my foot.... Lets just say it's a good thing Kate's trained herself not to swear because otherwise I'd have sounded like a sailor in a slop house....

That's about it for The Mighty C's... we're all just waiting for Hubby to get home from work now so we can have supper and play a new game we got from my sister in law for Christmas.

Here are some recent 'fun in the snow' pictures:

Not quite dead

I have to wonder where my blogging mojo has gone lately? I really wish I could get out of my funk of being behind and then not wanting to try to play the catch up game. I have Christmas pictures I should post and then there is 'the quilt' and I just don't want to get caught up in the 'should haves' so here we go.

It is now 2009 and as such I am not going to worry about any of those things I ' should' post. If I get to them great. If not, well then it's just not in the cards. Instead I'd like to take a minute and reflect on just exactly what is going to be happening this year in the blogosphere of 'Kate the Great'.

This year I promise you will never see a post apologising for the fact that I've been too busy enjoying life to blog about it.

This year I am going to get some of my 'spice' back in life

This year I am going to celebrate the good in life and laugh off the bad.

And this year I am going to excel and finding the magic that only my family can create.

***

Want to know a little secret... I have decided something else about this year as well. I won't call it a resolution, because really, who keeps those (okay except that I did actually read the entire Book of Mormon this last year ) anyway, lets just call it more of an introspective though on reality and the presents to come. Here's the secret:

I have always struggles with the constant worry that in my journey through motherhood I would loose 'Me' and become just 'Mom'. I've always worried that if I didn't maintain some sort of life away from my kids I would cease to be the me that I was before them. Well guess what; no more of that. I have decided:

I want to loose myself in motherhood

Now hold your horses all you, who are my girl power feminist friends out there, you can pack away intervention tools. I am not saying that I will never do stuff that doesn't revolve around my children or I won't do anything for 'me' anymore. I simply mean that I have always worried that I would lose me, but really is there, or has there ever been a static me out there. Moreover look at what these phases in life present by way of adventure and growth.

We start out in life as people who really does think entirely of themselves, and that is a good phase, no matter what anyone says. It's healthy and good and I loved every minute of that phase. And then we learn to think of another person (spouse or signif. other) as someone who is all together more important than we are. I never had a problem giving myself entirely over to that phase of life either, because it felt like in finding someone else to love and worry for I was just expanding me. Again, wow... great.... But I think women worry about motherhood and that they will somehow lose themselves in it and at the end of the 20+ years of taking care of our children we will look at ourselves and wonder who they are.

Why would I not be 'mother' entirely when in reality it fleets by so quickly? Why would I want to worry about not soaking and revelling in every moment of sticky fingers and bedtimes kisses (and even moments like time out and teaching that poking your brother in the eye isn't the best way to solve a fight) when before I know it they will be gone and I can never get them back. And as if it was true of marriage that in giving my interests to another my 'self' grew, why would it not be true of the three people in this world who are as much a part of 'me' as anyone one person will ever be.

And then what happens when those monkeys are finally grown up and gone and I am left wondering who I am... I ask myself the question would I really want to be the 'me' that I was at 21 when I am 45? No way; the best part that after I've tucked away the 'full time mom' part of my life I can start from scratch and figure out exactly what I want to be and become.

So really this was long and probably boring if not confusing; but then again, if you're not inside my head I bet a great deal of what I post about is both boring and confusing.

But the moral of this story is that I have decided that it's not worth worry about what will happen to 'me' because there is no such thing as a constant, static Katie, and the more I embrace that the more I get to find new and exciting things that I can be at any given moment in life.

Honouring the Prince

Okay, so I know I am almost exactly a month late getting around to celebrating Frog Prince's birthday, but I figured it was better to be late than never say anything about it. 

As you've noticed I've changed my background to something appropriate, and I would like to declare to the world how amazing my big, grown up five year old is.

Five years flew by so quickly, and I can't imagine what I will do when another five have gone.

It is one of my goals for this week to sit down and recount his birth story here, since I've never written it down anywhere (one of the many many goals--including the great toy purge of 2009 )

For now, I leave you with a little video I put together of FP over the years. We like to document the kids lives with tonnes of video and photos and then make them into DVDs... this is just a smaller clip from on that ended up being about twenty minutes.

So I know it's late but....

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROG PRINCE.

** I might pull this down later today quickly and reupload it. it seems that in the upload the music kind of got splotchy a few times. If it's down when you read this, it will be back later.