Culinary delights and other frights.

Today Kylie finally got her voiding cystourethrogram done. She laid on an x-ray table and watched the TV on the roof while they put in a catheter and emptied her bladder. Then they filled her bladder with dye until it was completely full and had her pee into a bedpan so they could take pictures of where the dye is going. My poor little princess. She is soooo tough and hates to cry in front of people she doesnt know so she's whispering ouch ouch and tears are leaking out her eyes. Then she got stage fright and couldn't pee so her tummy was hurting that much more! Finally she peed and the whole ordeal was over. Whew! So we headed to the next building to her urologists office where he says she has reflux on the right side. That means the urine washes back up towards her kidneys a bit. The good news is it's low grade so they can fix it with a minor little day surgery. So now we wait a couple months for that and then hope its a long time before we have to visit the stollery again! (our children's hospital). Thank goodness for a friend and wonderful husband who looked after Chelsea for me. This whole process took all day!!

So here's some pictures I dug off my phone. A little culinary delight. Thought I'd cook up a little asian salmon since the kids like fish. Turns out we only like white fish. Had to choke down the salmon to pretend I liked it so the kids would eat it. Chelsea did like it. The others gagged along with me. Too much fish taste. The glaze would've tasted nice on chicken though. Or halibut.


My culinary fright. Trying to make some psychadelic cupcakes as a trial for my daughter's upcoming peace sign birthday. They were heavy and I dropped them getting them out of the oven!! Good thing it was only a trial. They did look cool though.

Family day back in Feb. Went to the leisure center for swimming and playing fun.

Kylie's class and siblings took a fieldtrip to the Royal Alberta museum. Kind of neat if you are into culture and that kind of stuff :)

That small stick beside the big tree is Abby on the carpet lift. Trying to get a pic of the bright hot sun

Nothing quite as awful as waking up from a nap apparently.

Glen's injury has really aged him!!

Will let this be all for now. Time to make some hotdogs and rush off to piano lessons.

Love to all,

Jen

Another weekend bites the dust

Its hard to settle the kids tonight when its bright as day outside. However, I LOVE that it stays light later. It means that spring is well and truely on its way. Everything is melting and the sun has more heat to it and the birds are chirping....ahhhhh. Steve even managed to get the trampoline set up again.

This weekend went pretty quickly! Steve took Friday off. We went skiing. Well...Chelsea and I sat on the patio in our t-shirts and watched while the others had fun. It was absolutely GORGEOUS! The thermometer said it got up to +19 but I think the weatherman claimed it was only 12 or so. It was so great that we stayed from 10-4!! Then the other Campbells came for supper (with the exception of Glen who was having more x-rays of the foot he destroyed in hockey).

Saturday Glen got called in to have his surgery and Jess went with him so the cousins got to bond again for the day. They even got to sleep over. The kids were really good. Everyone got along really well. I did learn, however, that when you are getting 7 kids ready for bed you'd best start at 5:30 with baths etc... I wonder what happened when people had 12 or 13 kids. I guess the older ones helped a lot? Huh. That's a puzzler.

Anyhow....that's all that's new at this house so I will leave you with some photos.

Hayley has her grump on for some reason

tshirt weather








Every little girl needs a rocking horse.

Winter wonderland

Its another winter's day today. Beautiful temperature wise but snowing and icy. The nice thing is that the temps are supposed to stay above 0 even overnight all next week so spring seems to be coming!!! Can't wait for summer. We might even get to Florida again in August. Not often we get to go twice in one year!!!!

This weekend we went skiing again (or as Hayley would say, 'Mom I don't ski!!' same difference). WE went with Grant and Raeanne Miles. They have girls Hayley and Abby's age and a boy Kylie's age. The girls did really really good. After her lesson Kylie begged me to go on the big hill. I said "can you do big turns? Cuz if not you have to stay here on the learning hill." She swore she could so I let her go up only to watch her come barreling down the hill full speed with no attempts to turn OR stop!! So she spent the rest of the night on the little hill showing how she really COULD do big turns. Guess I should have asked if she had any fear or knowledge of consequence. The kid just doesn't care that she could break her neck!! Hayley improved HUGELY! She can actually go down the hill now and even went on the chair lift. She just needs to learn how to turn now. Abby is confident as usual and does really well. She went on the bigger hill too. Chelsea....well we just won't talk about her. She had a big freak out when we went outside and she got a few snowflakes blowing in her face. Litterally screamed nonstop until we walked through the chalet doors. So we had to sit inside the whole time where she was quite happy to drink hot chocolate and eat banana bread!! GRRRRRRRR!

Flurries and the Flu

This week has been a doozy! Friday night/Saturday we got over a foot of snow in one big dump! Had to take 'dad's monster truck' to meeting on Sunday or we wouldn't have got out of the subdivision. The kids have enjoyed it. It's been cold but not too terrible. The flu hit this house too. I can't complain though....I think it's been over a year since we've had the stomach flu. Kylie was so big about it. She walked into our room, puked all over our bed (that was really sweet of her) and then just laid down beside the bed with her bucket. No tears or complaining. Chelsea is coughing up a lung too so we're happy just to stay home by the fire for a few days.

A pictoral Update

I got to go on a date with my hubby the other night. It was so much fun. We played dress up the Steve doll. Isn't he handsome?

We had a wonderful time with our dear sister workers. This is Carmine skating with the girls.

Chelsea doesn't want the red support thing anymore. This hockey stick will do.

Marion reading to the girls.

I love this picture because it looks like big Steve holding a mini Steve.

And.....SOLD! To the highest bidder. The trick to kijiji is paying the little bit of money to get it on the top ads. Then you suddenly get an influx of people looking at your ad and it sells less than a week later. We got about $250 less then we said we'd take but at least its gone! (as of Thursday)

Family day tomorrow. Have a WONDERFUL day with your family.

Warning: Just needed to vent.

I need a holiday somewhere really hot where I can soak up some real vitamine D. I'm feeling blue. My children and I have been trapped in the house for too long with no spouse/dad around, I've been cleaning the house and doing laundry for a week....it was clean for meeting and then my disrespectful children destroyed it in no time flat....now we have the workers coming (this is the good part) and I get to start cleaning all over again. Then Chelsea shot me in the face with a nerf gun and I lost it!!! So Steve took the kids and ran. Hope he brings home food. I'm hungry. Don't you wish you were here?

The Telus World of Science...

Today was quite an experience. We decided to go get a membership to the science center so we could go play whenever we wanted. Invited aunty Jess and kids and a few friends and their kids. It was soooo busy. I thought it'd be good since it was just the surrounding area schools that had the day off, but apparently Edmonton schools planned the day out too. Anyhow, the kids still enjoyed it. Stayed for about 4 hours. We started in the IMAX with the showing of rescue. I thought it was interesting. Some of the kids thought it was great and others thought it was scary. I should have known, being that we can't even get in the CAR WASH line up without Chelsea having a meltdown, that the IMAX would not be for her. So we had to stand in the stairwell where she couldn't see anything or she'd scream. Little brat. Thankgoodness she fell asleep half way through and I could sit down!

Our little computer geek :) This is a new area. Really neat kids area. The airplane area was the biggest hit.

Flying the plane.

Chelsea dreaming of going somewhere warm

Abby chatting up the security guy :)

Kylie putting luggage through the scanner.

Chelsea drying her hands after getting drenched in the water area.

So then we tried to go in to the star theater to learn about stars etc... yeah we didn't even make it to the doors and she had a fit!!! So we sat outside and waiting for everyone else to enjoy the show.

Overall it was a pretty good day. Tired the kids out good. Now we can go any time for free and pay half price on the IMAX shows so I think we will get some use out of the membership. It includes 2 adults and 4 kids which is unusual but perfect for us!!

Also got my gorgeous watch from Jess. Will have to take a picture and post it. Time for tea and supper. I'm ready for bed but guess I will wait until Steve is home and head out to the grocery store. UGH!

Steve's been rubbing shoulders with the high faluten (sp?? haha) people of our city with a little party last night and a luncheon function today.....oh to have the life of a working man. Hahaha. No...wouldn't trade him places.

Have a spectacular day.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY!

I'm sorry mom C, still no pictures of me. Some day. But I can share a part of me with you...

Just have to share cuz this is so exciting to me (my husband gets soooo sick of my house designing) HA!:

I have spent probably 5 years searching for the perfect house plan and designing my own....I have finally found my dream house. Ahhhh.....some day.....maybe? Maybe not but hey it's a fun hobby. The only thing I would change is to turn the office into a large [ shaped stairwell since we want a basement.

Today was such a gorgeous day. In fact it was so gorgeous that I washed all the windows I could reach inside and out. That would be 9 windows!! My shoulder is now KILLING me. I'm hoping I do NOT inherit my father, mother, and sister's shoulder issues. So far, I'm the healthy one! I'd like to keep it that way. Unfortunately when I'm as old as they are, I may fall apart. I have always been able to dislocate my shoulder but it has never hurt until today. Could simply be overworked as I also helped Steve take all the decals off his truck. What should have been an easy job, is not actually as easy as it looks! He heated them up and then we peeled them off but the adhesive remover didn't work real great so we had to scrub it and scrub it and scrub it.....you get the idea. Now it looks beautiful though and ready to sell.

We get to have our workers next week so we're excited about that. I think there may be a lot of meeting changes coming up as there has been several elders meetings lately so I'm excited to see the new list. No idea if or when it'll come out but I may just ask :)

So my kids have Thursday and Friday off. Anyone want to come entertain some kids? Steve won't even be home much as he has an open house at work Thursday night with the company who nominated them for "construction company of the year for work under 50 million." So I guess he better go. Then he is celebrated hockey day in Canada as is his tradition every year with a game of shinny during the day and supper out with the guys to watch the oilers game. I think the kids and I will go to an IMAX Thursday. Anyone want to join us? Then Friday we might go skiing. Then Saturday we are going to stay home.

Here are a couple picture for you. Chelsea having her Sunday afternoon nap, Kylie skating, and a video of Hayley teaching Chelsea to skate. She is doing soooo good now. At the beginning of the season she couldn't even stand up!

Oh and I found this hillarious statement while browsing for poems about girls to put with my girls picture....

A good answer to give those overly smug parents of children of both sexes when they express sympathy for your lack of ability to produce a son: "If the good Lord thought another man was needed in my house, He would send one."