perfect Saturday

 

It's only 10:30am and so far today has started out as a perfect Saturday morning.  Let's start at the beginning...do you see what's on the calendar for today, April 28th?  That's right, nothing!  I love plans as much as the next person but once in a while it's so very nice to have an empty weekend.

The papers are already delivered.  Kyle and Jillian are playing Mancala (very nicely I might add, absolutely no fighting...Kyle is being very helpful in teaching Jillian good strategies). 

Leah is playing with her current favourite toy.

We have muffins baking away in the oven.  I had a few mixes in the cupboard so each kid had their own bowl and muffin batch to mix...we have blueberry, lemon poppyseed and apple cinnamon.

As for me, I'm getting caught up on laundry and planning to do a much needed drawer shuffle in the girls' rooms.  I also want to put away all the winter jackets, boots and accessories (finally after getting snow at the end of April!).  Jeff is almost finished his current MBA course which means family time this afternoon.  Bring on the rest of the weekend!

Lazy mornings

One of my favourite things about being at home with Leah is our lazy mornings.  There are some days we need to be up and going of course.  But many mornings we have time to just hang out.  And this is what Leah likes to do...make a comfy spot on the couch surrounded by her blankets and stuffies, have some breakfast and watch her tv show (lately that's Jake and the Neverland Pirates or Mickey Mouse Clubouse).  This is my chance to get on the computer and check email, facebook and my new obsession Pinterest. 


I just love seeing her all curled up and cozy.  Even though she's getting bigger every day, this picture reminds me she still a little girl who just wants to be snuggled.  It won't be long before Leah will also be a part of the morning rush out the door for school, so I love watching her enjoy this time while she can.

random

I haven't had a chance to blog much, but here's a few random pictures and things from around the house these days...

This is what we woke up to on April 24!!

Jillian is taking an art class at the local rec centre and this was her first project...a mosaic mirror.  I absolutely love it and convinced her to let me put it on the mainfloor instead of her bedroom.  I'm looking forward to the rest of her art class projects (they will be working with a different medium each week).

Leah received this Creative Cakes lego set for her birthday and she LOVES it.  I get new and interesting cakes and cupcakes presented to me each and every day

I finally tackled the basement playroom on the weekend (I was encouraged by having my Father-in-law visit as an overnight guest because the futon in the basement in our guest room!).  I started out by tidying up but quickly realized nothing had an actual home anymore as everything had been so jumbled up by play.  Which is good, I'd rather the playroom get use than not.  I figured a fresh start was needed so I rearranged the play area then dumped and reorganized each bin.  Now it's much easier for the girls to find what they want and they have room to play.  I wonder how long it will last looking like this?

reading area and dressup nook (do you think we have enough princess and fairy dresses??)

Thirty-eight

Today I turn 38 and I couldn't have picked a better way of celebrating than with family and friends.  I woke up with my 3 best buddies climbing into bed to sing Happy Birthday and give me homemade cards and gifts...new Pandora charm for my bracelet along with Pandora earings and a beautiful swarovski necklace and earing set.

Leah had her buddies Emily and Eric over after gymnastics to hang out for a few hours.  When Carol came to pick them up she brought me these beautiful birthday flowers!

My parents came over later in the afternoon and we all enjoyed dinner (take-out of course so I didn't have to cook) and delicious chocolate mouse ice cream cake (yep, Jeff is good at birthday shopping)

Now the kids are in pjs and snuggled on the couch for family fun movie night.  Defininately couldn't have planned a better way to celebrate!

expanding our empire

Kyle had been anxious for a paper route and one became available in our neighbourhood earlier this year...20 papers, perfect size.  And it's been going well, we deliver on Saturday mornings and Thursday evenings.  The Thursday paper is a bit of an ordeal as there are a lot of flyers to put together before delivering.  Plus the street is a bit of a walk for us.  Recently the route on our street became available and I debated for a little while as it meant more than doubling the number of papers we need to put together (already I've been getting some whining from Kyle at times, and bickering between the kids as they work on it together).  But convenience won out and we've changed our route to this one, we are now delivering 46 papers.  Jillian has been quite helpful with putting the papers together so I decided the two big kids will split this route in half in terms of work and pay (I on the other hand seem to do a good chunk of the work for free!).  I love that Leah loves to get involved too.

The recent Saturday paper delivery went well...we'll see how things go this Thursday when we have a small mountain of papers to put together.

The Easter Bunny was here!

This morning I was woken up by 3 kids who were excited to come downstairs!  Thankfully EB dropped by our house last night to fill the baskets and filled our plastic eggs and hide them all over.  Between the 3 kids (and a little bit of help from Jeff and I) the hunt was over in under half an hour.  Then it was time to break open some of those eggs to enjoy some sugar for breakfast. 

Soon it will be time to go to church to celebrate this glorious morning with our church family (and partake in another egg hunt).  This afternoon we will head out to Nana and Granda's house to visit with Alicia.  What a beautiful day!

they are pros at this now

This week we once again had a film crew in the house along with a whole bunch of other people...folks from marketing, Whirlpool, Rogers...it was busy in my little house.  This wasn't live thank goodness, I was able to do a few takes each time to get it just right (or as close as possible).  The kids were a part of this one as well and at one point they needed to mic up Jillian.

This one will air in a couple of weeks so I'm anxious to see how it all turns out.  It's going to end up being a 1 minute segment on the show.  Kate was the segment producer, very nice and helpful.  She commented about the kids being very cooperative, especially Jillian who was following all suggestions very well and just loved being on camera.  Which does not surprise me in the least, Jillian is defininately my drama girl.  She is also very artistic and creative, I wouldn't be surprised if she does go towards the dramatic arts when she is older.

Overall this green challenge so far has been a lot of fun...new appliances, me getting to write which I love, and our family getting to be a part of something fun!

Four

Four years ago I had no idea the whirlwind that was about to hit our family!  I remember when Leah was born I felt a sense of our family being complete.  But even then I had no idea in how many ways Leah would complete and enrich our family.  She has brought many people into our lives who we might not have otherwise met.  It is because of having a third child we had our lovely nanny Sam, who even though we don't see her all the time is still a part of our family.  While I did already have an amazing group of friends from Kyle and Jillian, because I was one of the few in my group of to be absolutely crazy smart enough to have a third I have met a whole new set of friends through Leah.  It's amazing how many ways one little person can change your life.

Proud new big brother and big sister 4 years ago

Four years later I have these 3 amazing kids. 

And despite normal boughts of sibling rivalry (watching tv has become a competitive sport in our house!), I see how much they love and stand up for each other.  I hope they will always have the strong bonds I see between them today.

getting measured in on our height wall

38.5 inches tall!

(a bit shorter than both Kyle and Jillian at the same age)

Leah - you are sweet, smart, confident, kind, funny and loving.  Being your Mom is one of the greatest joys of my life.  You make me smile every single day.  And I'm certain there are many more surprises life with you will bring to our family...I look forward to each and every one of them!

~~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ~~

Edited to add in a birthday recap of Leah's day!  We started out with breakfast and playtime at McD's with Keira...Leah's birthday buddy (how much fun is it to discover a best friend who lives across the street and shares your birthday!?).  The girls have been fast friends ever since we met 2 years ago, it was a lot of fun to get together this morning with Sophie, Keira and Sadie for breakfast.  After that it was visiting Daddy at work (and I got to visit with Wendy).  Then to the sticker outlet to pick out some fun stickers and on the way home from all that fun Leah fell fast asleep in the van.  Tonight Leah opened her presents from all of us and we had her favourite meal for dinner...mac and cheese with meatballs!  And finally another round of Happy Birthday and cake after dinner.  It was a fun day for my little 4 year old, hopefully the year ahead holds lots of fun for her as well. 

The Cat in the Hat knows a lot about birthdays!

For Leah's 4th birthday party we combined several of her favourite things...friends, gymnastics, the Cat in the Hat and food!  It all came together in a fun afternoon for my fun loving girl and all of her best friends.

They started out in the gym on all the equipment and ended up singing happy birthday to Leah under the parachute...

Then upstairs for food and cake!  I always make a birthday cake for each of my kids based on whatever theme they want, and with Leah's Cat in the Hat theme I decided to try out fondant for the first time...it was surprisingly easy to make and use (thank you pinterest!).

Since we are a part of the Great Green Challenge, I wanted to make Leah's party green. This means I made everything as non-disposable as possible...loot bags (insulated lunch bags with reusable snack container), tableware (regular plastic dishes for the kids, my summerware was perfect for adults), tablecloths (found some great deals for these and will store to use for future parties), serving ware (pulled out all those platters I have in the cupboard) and decorations (no balloons here, I made tissue paper decorations which will be repurposed as playroom decorations). We ended up with only the smallest bag of garbage, a few recyclables for the blue bin and we filled a compost bag for the green bin. Overall being green was much easier than I though it would be, I will defininately be doing this for all future parties.