Snow!

Snow!
    Snow!
         Snow!
               Snow!
                                                   SNOW!!!

It won't be long before we'll all be there with

Snow!

 

That's right!  Snow!

 

We got our first snowfall this weekend. 

 

We had a very busy Saturday finishing up our Christmas Shopping and getting things done.  Kyler and Arnold did the dishes when we came home.  And before we left, Jack and Quinton raked the lawn.

 

It was perfect!

 

Now we have a nice clean yard and it's currently covered in snow.

 

I love snow!

 

It was great to get the kids outside and get them playing in the snow.  I love them enjoying the time outside again.

 

Yesterday was so darn cold though!  We had 2 indoor recess due to the rain and then one outside in the slush. 

 

I really do love snow!

 

It's great for the kids.  They have developed a plan for making hats.  And it's so cute!  I'm so proud of them!!

 

Anywho... I love snow!  I'm so happy we got it this early!

Slowing Down

I just flipped my calendar (late I know) and noticed that my November isn't as crazy as September and October.

Things are finally slowing down for us.

But this always brings on the "stress sickies" as my hubby calls them.

Stress Sickies (for someone who has never heard of this) is when you get sick from a lack of stressful things in your life.

This has always happened for/to me.  It's just one of those things I guess.  When I was younger and didn't know how to handle stress my body did it for me!  I'd get VERY sick.

Now it's just a "crappy day or 3".  Today was one of those days.  My body was just shutting down.  I knew I needed to get things done but somehow I just didn't want to get moving.

Thankfully, things are slowing down.

Sports clubs, cooking clubs, our "fit family fun" time, our swimming lessons and such all come to a close at the end of this month.  While I'm enjoying my kids going to these places I feel as though December is a good time to have things calm down.

I get to try and stay on top of working out for myself.  I get to try and stay on top of keeping my house clean.  I get to try and stay on top of making sure homework gets done.

All those things that seem less and less important as the school year goes on. 

I'm just excited to see how everything goes.

Now that things are slowing down I'm hoping to get a few things done.  Like cooking, baking, Christmas planning and most of all decorating!

After all... 2 more days and the Christmas stuff comes up!!

It's hard being a parent

These past few weeks we have had to deal with how to handle our boys.  Not just because they are boys.... lets be serious the "boys will be boys" is true, but because of school.

Last year was a hard year for Kyler.  We had pushed hard to have his teacher bring him to "team" and have him accessed.  Every time we asked for it to happen she would give as an answer that I was never to happy about.

Finally, at the end of the year we got it done!  Thank goodness.  We finally have our plan in place for Kyler's education.

This year started out bumpy.  We didn't find out until about half way through October that his new teacher hadn't even seen his reports!

oh man

Now we are getting the kiddo back on track!  We have had homework problems, agenda issues, and now test problems.

Kyler's homework wasn't getting done before.  We couldn't understand why things aren't getting done.  But now... we realized it has to do with his agenda not getting done.  Now that his teacher is on board with his he is getting his agenda done and signed EVERY DAY and he is doing AMAZING!  I'm so proud of him.

This past week he brought his agenda home every day, signed by the teacher, and had his homework done every day as well!  His treat was the haunted house on Thursday night.  I'm so proud!

Using his agenda is better now.  With it being signed every day and coming home for me to look at we are getting more done.

The bad part is we are still dealing with the affects of before getting the agenda done.

Today was another kick in the gut. 

Kyler brought home his spelling test.  We had problems with this before the agenda was being checked and so his mark... 3/13.  I just about cried!

And with report cards coming home any day now it makes it so much worse!

I'm just praying we can turn this around and get it better.

Tomorrow is his first test since getting on track with the agenda.  And we are just about ready!

Whoever said parenting could be easy was SO wrong.

Parenting is hard... especially when it comes to your kids in school.

While I may not have done well in school, or ever been the best student, I vow to be the best parent and stand behind my son.  If it's holding him up when he falls, I'll be there.  If it's holding his arms up in cheers, I'll be there.  If it's holding his hand when he needs encouragement, I'll be there.

I'll be there, even if it makes me cry when he does bad on tests.  And I'll be the first to post pictures of those tests that he improves on!

What do your kids do?

Today I realized my kids do ALOT in our home.

For example this weekend the boys did:

Their own laundry (bring it downstairs, put in washer *clothes only or towels only* and started with soap, flip to dryer *emptying lint traps* and started with bounce sheet in it, empty dryer to couch and put folded clothes away in their own room.

Made muffins (found bowls, ingredients, mixed in mixing bowl, cracked eggs, added water, mixed, put into muffin tins, put in oven.  Daddy took them out of the oven.  then put on cooling racks)

Did own homework (science, math, reading, etc)

Yard work (raked the lawn, put in bags, did some lawn cutting, put sticks out and put the bags and containers where they belong, did compost as well)

Did housework (swept the floor, did dishes, cleaned the table, put towels away, put kitchen stuff away)

Cleaned the front area (paired down shoes, organized area they change clothes, put donations into a pile, cleaned and organized the black container for toys, threw out toys they were done with or were broken)

"Winterized" their room (put their shorts away, went through hand me down clothes they liked, put all the clothes away, washed their sheets on their beds, made their beds with clean sheets, put up shelves in their room and downsized their "trinkets")


As you can see my boys do a lot.  I am so proud of them for being so helpful and so amazing when it comes to our day to day lives. 

We are blessed.  What do your kids do?

Got Bread?

A few years ago my dad reluctantly gave me the family bread maker.

It has such good memories.

When I was younger I remember my dad taking the bread maker with us on family vacations.  The one I remember the most is going skiing.  We would spend the day on the slopes and then Dad would make bread.  It was so nice coming home to the fantastic smell!  It was amazing.

We now have our family bread maker.

Our family has now been using it for a while now.  Almost 2 loaves a week.  It's very very rare we don't make bread during the week.

This past holiday we got a few loaves of bread from my parents.  We just finished the bread this morning and now are in need of a few more loaves :)

I guess it's time to start our family tradition again... and get that maker going!

Thankfully... it's a whole family thing.  The boys help make the bread and they love every step of it!

So tomorrow morning... we will have to start a new loaf so we have something for lunches this week :)

Happy Birthday To ME!

Today is my birthday.

To celebrate... I'm hanging out with a sick Mr. Q.

What a celebration right?

You know.... if you had asked me when I was 12 what I thought I'd be doing in 20 years... never EVER would I have thought of being home with my sick kid. 

I believe I would have thought something along the lines of having a big party with friends.  Or maybe being given jewelry or be going on a romantic vacation.  Or maybe just hanging out with my family.

But where I am in life... I'm not sure.

I guess I thought I would be a dentist (my first dream) or maybe a music teacher (my second dream) or maybe just a mom (my forever dream).

And here I am.  32 years old and home with my sick baby.

What have I learned over the past year?

Lets see, this could be a long list so I'll go for the top 10

10 - Gods love never fails us.  no matter what is going on or how we are doing His love is always there.

9 - We finally OWN a home!  While the bank still owns a lot of it, we are working to pay it off.  It hasn't been easy but it's amazing to make this happen.  I'm so proud of my hubby for finding this home for us.

8 - My family is amazing.  Not just my living family of 4 but everyone in our lives.  From my "other family member, Uncle Jack", to the babies we lost, to the extended family on both sides, to my neighbours who slowly become more like family.  We are all so blessed!

7 - Sometimes you have to fight for what you think is right.  And sometimes, you don't.  Its a matter of deciding what is the best thing to fight for and go for it. 

6 - My job, paid or volunteer, is who I am.  I will always be "Kyler and Quinton's mom" but now I'm Ms. V at school.  I'm actually part of the school team and I love it.  My job really is a part of who I am and I am so happy I can give back in this way.

5 - Eating healthy can be fun!  I know this one sounds silly but this past summer we worked on portion control (which we need to get back to these winter months) and eating fresh food.  We did great and the food from Mama Earth helped so much!  I actually like eating healthy now!

4 - As much as I want to do everything, or almost everything, I have to remember to give myself a break and ask for help.  I'm slowly getting there with things in our house, but I'm going to need to work harder on things in my life as well.  It's hard to ask for help sometimes.

3 - Spending a little time on me is ok.  I keep telling myself this but I'm slowly realizing it.  This year (school year), Lori and I have been working out almost every afternoon.  The past two weeks have sucked for it but we generally get in an hour 4 days a week.  I love it!  It makes me feel good about myself.

2 - I miss spending time in my kitchen.  For the longest time the kitchen was the dumping ground in our house.  And while I love having a house, the kitchen sucks... you can't turn around without hitting someone.  We have had problem after problem with it since moving in. But since us redoing the kitchen (hello $20,000.00) isn't possible right now we aren't going to be able to do it.  I have slowly started spending more time in the kitchen and I love it.  A lot!

1 - Some things are worth trying once.  Even if you fail.  Just to say you've tried. 


Well... I should get off this thing and take care of Q.  Thankgoodness for nap time while sick!

October 15th

Today is October 15th.  A few year ago I would just tell you that it was a normal day.  The day before my birthday!  The day that I would quiz everyone and say "So... what did you get me? Do you know what a special day is tomorrow?"

Now I know what a special day it is.

October 15th is the day that I celebrate my family, with my family.  We talk about Baby Casey. 

For those of you who don't know Baby Casey came into our lives in February 2012.  We found out we were pregnant.  It was so exciting!!  We kept it quiet during a big family get together in March and we were so good about not saying anything at all!

It was so cool.  We had been working hard to get pregnant.  Arnold and I had been going to fertility treatment centers and were doing a few cycles to see how it was going and what was "wrong" with me. 

Finally we were pregnant. We were told because a blood test came back positive with them.  It was awesome!  I was SOOO glad and so excited.

We even had an ultrasound or 3 :)  We got to see the little baby.  This little tiny body forming inside my body.  My body was making another human.  How incredible my body is!

Then on the last Wednesday in March, I started spotting.  I was so scared.  We called the health center and were told that we just needed to wait it out at home. 

After more emergency appointments with our fertility doctor we found out we were losing our baby. 

I remember laying on the couch crying.  Arnold holding me and crying and crying and crying.  I told Arnold I could never do this again.  I could never lose another baby ever again.



And then our lives changed again.

We lost Otis in November 2012. 


And I will never ever be able to do this again.


As a friend of mine has been saying:

"If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow, or a widower.

 If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan.

 But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child?" (from six feet under)

There isn't a name... nothing, not a single word in the English language is able to describe the pain, loss, and so many other feelings that are associated with losing a child.



Today, when you see someone who has lost a child, in pregnancy or as an infant, please give them an extra hug today.  They need it!