3rd Annual Spring Party

The sun finally showed its face today and gave us the most beautiful day that we've had in months so that the kids could enjoy their annual Spring party.  The snow melted and dripped from the eavestroughs and made our steps and pathways puddly and wet.  The kids squealed and ran and threw snowballs and built snowmen all without complaining of cold fingers or ears or toes.  They are certain that our Spring party has brought Spring to us and maybe they're right, maybe it's finally here. 

 

Here's what we got up to today...

 

 

 

Could those little faces look any happier to be out in the sunshine.

 

 

Nothing fancy on the menu.  I was pretty pleased with this cute little fruit plate though.  And the kids were excited about their little butterfly cupcakes that they decorated all by themselves.  Emma and Walker decided that all they wanted were puzzle sandwiches made with white bread.  I don't buy white bread so when they get it, it's a pretty big deal.

 

 

We made bird feeders made out of cute princess and race car shapes.

They were a little messier than I anticipated.

 

 

They also made these little flower, fairy headbands that they played with forever.

Walker opted to have a flower vine wrapped around his sword so that he could be the fairy prince.

 

All in all we had another successful Spring party and hopefully the warm weather will keep up and bring grass and blossoms sooner rather than later.

 

And because there were no pictures of Lillian here are a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!

Over the last few nights we have been watching "Mary Poppins" a little bit at a time before books and kisses and bedtime.  How I love those old classics!!  What I love more is watching them with my children and seeing them enjoy them as much as I do, particularily the music.  They made me rewind this scene over and over again.

 

 

And I would give anything to own this dress!!

 

 

Happy Things

As a warning this post is going to be a little on the whiny side so if you don't want to read my whining you should stop now. 

Today has been one of those frustrating, exhausting, never ending days that seem to occur more and more often as our Edmonton winter drags on and on into March.  The snow has piled higher and higher over the last four days and the sun has rarely shown its face to help break up the dreary monotony.  On top of that, despite my optimism in the last post, we went nearly two weeks without any midnight puking incidents only to have Emma wake up with it again this morning.  Then with three children in tow I had to take Bridgett to the vet so that they could do this to her.

Our groomer didn't dry her well enough last week and that led to a skin infection all over her back.  Needless to say we are not very impressed.  Neither are the kids.  Emma had to wait in the van while we finished up in the vet because the sight of Bridgett was making her feel sick to her stomach.  Walker just keeps hugging her head and repeating "poor baby, poor baby" and Lillian cries and scrunches her face up every time she looks at it.

 

A couple of years ago, right around this time of year, when winter was starting to claw its way into my soul and my risk of going stir crazy increased each day I started a daily routine of writing down the things that made me happy.  It helped me appreciate all of the little things that I was grateful for despite the fact that temperatures continued to drop and snow continued to fall.  Eventually my mom and sisters joined me and each day we emailed them to each other.  We called them our "Happy Things".  I looked forward to reading what had brought joy into the lives of my favorite women each day and it brightened even the coldest and gloomiest days.  Over time as each of us started our own blogs the routine slowly ended, but today I thought I needed to get my happy things out of my head and down on paper...or computer...or whatever.  So here they are...

 

- a furnace that keeps us all toasty warm and cozy and that can be turned up when Walker refuses to wear anything but underwear.

- Netflix, that entertains the older kids so that I can get a few extra minutes of sleep after being up from 4-6am and how excited Emma was when she found Tinkerbell on it.

- a strong and healthy body that allows me to shovel our driveway without aching and hurting

- my meticulous and diligent shoveller.  Walker always gets his boots and mittens on as soon as he sees me out shove ling so that he can help.

- phone calls from Allan as he drives home from work (hands free of course).  It makes that last 30 minutes before he gets home bearable.

- perogies with cheese sauce and broccoli

- Lillian's spontaneous squeezes and kisses

 

I guess we can wait a little longer for Spring, but only a very little bit longer.

 

The Dreaded Stomach Flu

Since February 13th we have been dealing with one sick child after another.  For whatever reason when the kids got the stomach flu this time around it only affected them in the evening.  I spent night after night up with one child and then the next holding their heads over buckets or cleaning up soiled sheets, pyjamas, pillows and blankets.  At one point Emma threw up every night for seven days.  She was soon followed by Walker and then Lillian.  Luckily Lillian recovered quickly and was only up for a couple of nights but even she was sick enough that she got to the point that she would cry "my bucket, my bucket" when her little tummy would start to hurt.  Today I finally feel like we are coming to the tail end of it.  However, the fact that Walker went to bed at 6:20 tonight makes me think that his sweet little system still has some kinks to work out before he will be fully recovered like his sisters.  So there may be a couple more sleepless nights ahead but tonight is the first night in weeks that I don't feel bedtime looming over me like a puke filled cloud ready to rain down on me at 2 o'clock in the morning.  Sorry, that was graphic, but seriously I have done at least 30 loads of laundry in the last 3 weeks and only 8 of those were regular non-flu related loads.  Today felt more normal, with Emma anxious to go to school without complaints of stomach cramps, Walker eating everything in sight and anxious to be out and about like usual and Lillian being her usual goofy self.

It is amazing that this blanket isn`t fused to his body with the amount of time that he has spent wrapped up in it since getting sick.

 

Every day Walker helps Lillian pull every last one of her board books out into the middle of her bedroom floor.  She returns to them all day long or pushes them through the bars in her crib and then leads me by the hand to her room and says ``night, night`` which means that she wants to be in her crib with her books.  I love that we have another little book worm in our home.

 

 

This kid is talking up a storm and it has made things pretty interesting around here.  She can ask for nearly anything she wants...cheese, banana, book, Pooh, snack etc. which has taken the guessing out of things and made life easier.  However, she has also learned to say ``please`` and with that has come the expectation that anytime she says please she will get whatever it is she is asking for.  If she doesn`t get her way she clenches her little fists and hollers at the top of her little lungs until I can appease her with something else...usually a graham cracker or fruit snacks.  Hopefully I can figure out how to nip that behavior in the bud as soon as possible.

 

Well, here`s hoping that health has been restored to our household and life can go on as usual.  Wish me luck!!