poor blog

I sure have been neglecting the blog lately. After the accident my back and neck have sure been bothering more than I thought they would. I've been going to physio so hopefully things will improve soon. Not to mention a certain someone is keeping me up at all hours.

We have been renting apartments for over 5 years now. It sure would have been nice if we would have bought 3 or 4 years ago when we were thinking about it, but what can you do! There are some really good things about renting an apartment and some really bad.

GOOD
-when something breaks, I just make a call and someone else comes and I don't pay anything
-we don't have to worry about heat or water bill
-if I spill on the carpet, I wipe it up, but I really could care less, which brings me to my next point
-I wear my shoes on the carpet all the time
-we don't have to shovel any snow or rake leaves

BAD
-LOUD WALKERS UPSTAIRS!!!
-$4 a load for laundry
-the walk from the parking stall to the apartment and up 2 flights of stairs in the winter seems very long and cold (and will seem longer and colder with 2 kids)
-I can't paint the walls
-it is soooooo hot in our apartment and there is only so much I can do about it.

I could easily come up with many more BAD things, but there is an end in sight with this apartment living so I'm getting over it.

Now I have a story about why I do kinda like our apartment right now.

I'm gonna go all over the place with this. I went out on Saturday for a Girlie Night. I came home to the most wonderful surprise. The stunt James has been pulling lately (as in for the past month!) is to be awake for an hour or 2 in the middle of the night. Sometimes he's content and babbling away, other times he's just fussy and whining the whole time and occasionaly he is GRUMPY! We have had him in our room the whole time and even if he's happy it's hard to really sleep through his jib jab. Like I said, I hate apartments, I'm so sick of them, but as far as apartments, we have a good one on some levels as mentioned above. We have not one, not two, but THREE storage rooms, and a nice size bathroom closet. So back to my story. I came home to find the storage room right beside our room ALL CLEANED OUT with room for James' bed and a chair too! We have been trying to find the time and energy to do if for a month or two now, but Derek has been soooo busy we haven't had a spare moment. And I wasn't about to take on this task myself with the large items that had to be moved. Also, I was sooooo excited I let Derek have an extra soda. It really isn't that great for the night yet. It only means now I have to get out of bed and walk instead of roll over and put in his soother, but I'm still happy abut it. Now we have some room to breathe in our bedroom with that playpen out of there (yes, James sleeps in a playpen because I really don't want Alli out of her crib yet and have to do some disipling to keep her there) and we can actually talk in bed instead whisper for fear of waking the beast! So I am very happy about that.


I'm so very excited right now because I am going to pick up my friend Melissa in a few hours! We were the BEST childhood friends. We met somewhere around the monkey bars in grade 1 and were inseperable for years. The first thing I think of when I think of us as kids is BARBIES! We were CRAZY about barbies and played them day in and day out untill our legs were asleep and cemented into the kneeling position. She moved to Las Veags after grade 7, and we slowly lost touch. But have been in really great touch (as far as email, blogs and facebook go) for the past couple years. So we are just going to pick up where we left off 12 years ago. I'm so excited for this weekend!

Ok so I just wrote A LOT! hope you enjoyed it ALL! Here's a few pictures of this and that.

Give him a second of your attention and he's smiling.



Here's the craft we made with the stuff alli gathered on her walk in the river valley with grandma forever ago. She wasn't into having her picture taken, so I jusy propped it up!



Alli and Lucy with all the pumkins grandpa grew in his garden.



He torments her already. Did i mention he is trying to crawl and sit up these days? This kid has got to learn how to relax.



This picture looks like James almost has some hair, but he really doesn't have much. He could really use some to hide that ridge in his head!

miss alli

Thank you Jacklyn for the earings!



i'm slightly behind, but i still had to do this post...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLI!!!!



Things kinda got screwed up last week with the crash. I was without a car for a few days so I didn't plan anything for Alli's birthday on the actual day, the 11th. But it was ok because we had an AWESOME party for her when we were down at my parents with Lucy who turned 2 on the 5th. With a Barbie cake and all!




I felt bad for like 5 minutes for not doing anything on the day of Alli's birthday, then I realised...SHE'S 2!!! She will never remember. Plus we have been having so much birthday cake the past weeks I'M SPENT!!! Alli is going to wonder where the cake is next week. She is so good at blowing out candles too.



On Thursday, (her birhtday) during my 5 minutes of guilt, Alli was asking for ice cream. I have no idea where this thought came from. She usually only asks for it at Grandma's (because Alli knows where it is and my mom's feeezer is on the bottom of the fridge and she can open it and find it.) or when she is watching sesame street and they say ice cream, which is why i hate sesame street ( the whole cookie thing too) It was 5pm when she got this idea in her head. I had no idea as usual what supper was going to be, and i happened to have ice cream because of the cake lately, so i thought WHY NOT?! So Alli and I ate ice cream right before supper and i'm pretty sure Alli thought it was the best present. Your welcome for the view directly into my beautiful mouth.



Ok, so I cannot believe my little baby is 2! And I can't believe that she is not my baby, I have another! It is a little ridiculous I will say. Now that I have a 2 year old I will tell all things i love about her right now that i can think of this late. ( not the things that drive me crazy, because there are a FEW of those too)

I love:

-the wake up call I get in the morning. "maam...Maam...MAAAAAM"
-when Derek tickles her she's laughing but says Daaaad, like she is so annnoyed and just humoring him.
-she sings! oh goodness she SINGS! sometimes it's songs like twinkle twinkle and jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but mostly is just made up randomness and it's soo funny to me
-her fake laugh. if you've ever heard it, you know what I'm talking about
-and she does her fake laugh EVERY time she hears other people laugh
-EVERYTHING is a phone. a book, a pen, a cup, a toy car...the list goes on. she holds it to her ear, say hi, does the fake laugh, and her favorite phone saying lately...oh great!
-she's always asking where James is, so concerned, and very cute.
-she plugs her ears when James is crying in the car, or says "JAMES SHHHHHH!...Coome On!" ( I have no idea where she gets that from...really)
-she always seems to know where derek is. Dad school. Dad fuball. Dad work.
-the way she runs around the room in excitement saying the name of whoever she thinks (or maybe hopes) it is everytime someone rings our buzzer
-when we go shopping she pulls stuff off the rack and says awwww cuuute, and then looks at the tag.
-she picks out her own clothes...oh wait i'm not saying the things that drive my crazy
-derek wanted to contibute one...that she sleeps throught the night, for the most part. (he's rocking james right now)
-she asks for oats (oatmeal) every morning for breakfast
-she's obsessed with shrek, thunder, diego, spaghetti, baby dolls, trucks, dragons, dinosaurs, coloring with a pen or pencil (no crayons)on any paper that isn't a coloring book, and the word "ok" to name a few.
-the way she grabs my hand and says "Hand" to drag me to wherever she wants
-she likes me to sing songs before bed, and then as soon as i'm done she says Again, again. Really i'm thinking she just wants to stay up later.
-when she kisses me and says i love you, it's the BEST!

Ok, ok my list could go on and on, but i better stop for fear of losing my readers. She cracks me up on a daily basis. Also, she keeps us on our toes. She copys EVRYTHING!!!
I just want to pause this stage (most of the time. come on, she is 2 and has some pretty serious meltdowns daily)

I wanted to dig out a few pictures to put up for us all to reminise, so i have been going through my iphoto for the last half hour looking at Alli pictures. Then I thought, I'm reall the only one who wants to reminise, and if anybody else does, I have been doing this blog for a long time and it is pretty much ALL pictures of Alli. I will say i sure am glad Alli grew hair. I forgot how bald she was for that first year. Looks like James is outta luck in the hair department for a little longer.

It's official. Our car is nonfixable. Now we have to buy a new car, sooooo annoying.

thankful

I decided to post again today. To make up for my neglect of the blog over the past couple weeks.

I feel like thanksgiving was yesterday so he's my thankful list.

I'm thankful for...

#1 My talented sis in law Rhonda who takes BEAUTIFUL pictures, that I can't wait to see! And she was the one who jazzed up my title thing. She's a bit of a computer whiz and "taught" me how, but my eyes glazed over pretty quick. My fault not hers.

#2. My bright idea to switch babysitting with our neighbors once a month. They have 2 little kids just like us. Taylor is 3 and baby Hannah is a month younger than James. Now Derek and I can go out once a month guilt free and no paying a babysitter either! Plus Taylor and Alli play pretty cute together.




#3. My family. I love them all! My mom was up after Sadie was born with Susie, and was here for my birthday. So she babysat while I went to the gym, we went shopping, she cooked a yummy supper, and Alli helped her make me a cake! I made a last minute decision to go to Raymond with her and we had a fantastic time as usual.




#4 That we are all safe. We were in a little car accident on our way home on Monday night. We were about 20 min from Edmonton and there was lots of traffic. We had to slow down suddenly, but the car behind us did not. So we go hit from behind with enough force to push us into the car in front of us. I'm stiff and sore and so is Derek but we are all ok. Our car is probably not fixable. I'm going to be annoyed, i can see it now.

#5 James slept! James cried and cried until we got home on Monday night. And then he slept, and he slept and slept. I was totally being a worry mom because he slept through the night and and most of the day. Which is not like him at all! But really I was so happy that he did, because I was a little stressed all day Tuesday, and it was nice not to have him fussing and squirming. Don't worry, he was back to his lively personality at 5 am today!



#6 Surprises! I love surprises. But for some reason I usually ruin them for myself somehow. My brother Pete came home for the weekend from Vancouver. That was a fun surprise, (and so was the lady friend he brought along!) and minus my middle of the night rant to him (sorry i was out of it) we had a great time. Alli once again cried around him. So weird, she never acts the way she does around Peter, and she was the same at Christmas. She must get the vibe of the torture he put me through as a child and wants nothing to do with him! She did let him feed her cake, and that was about the only time she wasn't running for me whenever Peter looked at her.



# 7 ANOTHER little nephew! Derek's sister Mindy had a little boy Kade on Sunday. Everything went well. They live in California so I'd love to meet the little guy soon, but....well, they live in California.

#8 This is an unthankful. Sorry to ruin the mood of all the positive and grateful, but my week has been crazy and I just need to vent this one.
Alli likes to sit on the toilet lately, and she is refusing her diaper at times. So she is ready to potty train right? I seriously have to hold her down kicking and screaming and fight the diaper on when she is in the no diaper mood. Today in the early evening she did a large #2 in the diaper and was in the no diaper mood. Well, I have no car so I have no big girl undies for her yet. I thought, ok, lets give the old no diaper will remind the child she has to go right?

Everyone reading this is wondering if I'm going to go there, and yes I am, you know where this is going next.

I was asking Alli often if she had to go potty and she kept saying no. About an hour and a half after the diaper had been off she took me up on the offer. She sat on the toilet, did the usual, sit and make a few pretend noises ( they are hilarius, she pretends to push) and then "All done!" grabs the toilet paper and pretends some more with that and flushes. She actually did that twice, but nothing real. WELL, the diaper had been off for about 2 hours now. I had just got my sweet little James down for a little nap, but he woke up and was crying so i was in trying to settle him without picking him up. I was bent over him when I hear Alli "Oh no mommy, oh no." I turn around to the disater before me. And maybe if I wasn't already a bit irritated by James crying, I would have responded better. I see the mess, and it is a MESS! I yelled NOOOOOOO ALLI NOOOOOOO!!! I grab her and run her to the toilet, but it is too late, the job is done....on my bedroom floor and one of my t-shirts (which did not make it to the wash, straight to the trash). She is crying a bit because I scared her with the yell. So I get her in the tub and give her the scrub down while James is wailing at this point. After I settle James and get Alli dried off, the diaper is on within seconds, I think Alli actually helped me a little in putting it on.

All the while Derek is at mutual painting pinatas.

So am i now doomed with the whole potty training? I think I scared her into never wanting to poop again. When I was pregnant with Alli i was totally nervous for 2 things about kids. Labor (which I got to skip with Alli and had just a taste of it with James) and Potty Training. The dreaded day is here. My laundry costs $4 a load, do I really want to do this? I'm taking advice. Where do I start? And don't tell me the nakedness worked for you, I don't want to hear it!

I'm off to do a final scrub of the carpet.

another

someone had a birthday....





i was away for a week and it has been a slightly crazy since we got back. i promise to post soon...