SPRING HAS SPRUNG

We have had an extremely busy easter. Pretty sure that's why I feel so crummy. Just a sore throat but I feel so sluggish with it. Steve and Dan got a hotel room for the day to watch some of the hockey playoffs. They like to do that once a year at this time. I was going to take the kids swimming there in the afternoon but after getting gas, standing in line to get our car registration for half an hour and then venturing to wal-mart looking for a birthday present, I was done in. Was suppose to go grocery shopping but I've put that off until Monday. Will still have the kids all home but at least easter will be over and hopefully the grocery store won't be as nuts.

Interesting story about my car registration but will get to that later. First things first. So we started our long weekend on Thursday. I dropped Hayley off at Howden's and grabbed Ashley. Took the 3 middle girls and Chelsea to swimming lessons. Then we had to run to get pizza for supper and to the $ store to try and find a few things, got a car wash etc....it was a big job with two 4 year olds, a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Then I get home and realize I have no eggs to make Abby's cake so I load them all up again and off we go to the grocery store. I spent the rest of the afternoon decorating cookies, and making Abby's cake. Then we had company for supper for Abby's birthday (yes my second baby is almost 5!!!!!!!!) and Mia and Wyatt stayed for the night.

My left over cookies. They were a TON of work. Should've decorated them the night before.

Abby and her flower pot cake. HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY PRINCESS!!! Not as great as Hayley's but I ran out of icing and the pots were kinda hard to make. The cookies were heavy too and started to tip so we had to take pictures fast. Poor Abby. I lost the candles!!! Oh well.

The next day we spent the entire day outside. Steve got some easter eggs and hid them all over the backyard and they had lots of fun together.

I am soooo happy that chelsea is comfortable walking around the yard by herself. Unless of course the dogs hang around her for too long. If they don't leave when she screams NO then she cries. She got stuck here. No way to get up through the snow :)

Waiting for Steve to hide eggs. Mia says "I'm so bored. Why aren't we doing easter things?" So we had to have an egg hunt.

Looking for eggs.

Glen and Jessica came later afternoon and we decided that since we were too tired to think about supper, we'd just go out. Supper was lovely until......

on the way home Steve did a half-hearted stop at a stop sign and got caught!!!! Thank goodness the guy was nice and Chelsea was smiling at him! He changed the ticket from 250$ (failure to stop at a stop sign) to 115$ (failure to stop before entering a primary highway) and gave us an extra month to pay. He also didn't care that my registration seemed to have disappeared from the glove box. I had found out on a previous occasion (I have a registration ghost thief in my van) that the fine for that is 2000$ and they can refuse to let you drive your car home even!!! This guy just said "Oh whatever. I have the info anyways and I see you need to renew it next month anyhow." Whew! Still.....an expensive supper.

Now I think it is all catching up to me and I am TOTALLY exhausted. I'm so thankful the weather is nice and the kids love to be outside.

So Jess picked me up one of these weighted hoola hoops and it is just about killing me. The bumps on the inside bruise you entire abdomen. I cringe when I do my 4-5 minutes a day. However, if I lose 2 inches in a month with it, it will be worth it. Plus I enjoy hoola hooping so it's an easy way to get a bit of exercise. Another interesting fact....the most bruise feeling pain is in the area where I often have such an intestinal blockage that I feel a lump. Well the next day I had bad diarrhea. Don't know if Jess just spread her disease when she was here (the bad tummy cramps. Thank you) or if the hoola hoop worked something loose!!! It's very very tender in that area anyhow.

Well I am going to sign off. Have my signature post-blog tea and think about supper. Love you all and thank you for joining me for a few moments.

Love Jen

A pictoral journey

Okay so lets be honest here. When we look at people's blogs we are looking to see pictures right? The words are just spots on a page, and if a picture tells a thousand words.....well here is my wordy blog for this week. Steve dug a path through the snow for the girls. Not sure why but anyhow, they enjoyed it. Here they are making 'toilets' in the snow.

Kylie thought this was a good idea. If she fell backwards the landing would have been okay. If she went towards the play house it could have been broken bones. She successfully made it to the other side.

So I went to exchange some stuff for Steve and I had to call him and ask him a question. Turns out I woke him up. Kylie was asleep on his lap, and as I was talking to him he goes "I can't find Chelsea"!! So he's calling her and she's not responding....the older 2 are in the tub, and finally he discovers that she has fallen asleep behind our bedroom door!! She shuts the door of whatever room she is in and she probably couldn't get out and when no one responded to her banging on the door (you all know how soundly Steve sleeps) she gave up and went to sleep. This was all at 6:30!!!!!! Some tired kids I guess. I tease Steve about his parenting skills. 2 kids in the bath and 1 missing and 1 sleeping while he sleeps!!!

On the other hand, something is wrong with our Kylie. She is falling asleep around 6:30, sleeping until 7, and then having a nap in the day. The other day she had 13 hours of sleep, laid down after BREAKFAST and fell back to sleep!!! She hasn't eaten much for 3 days either and has swollen glands in her neck. I am thinking growth spurt? But then in the back of my mind because of the lymph nodes, I get thinking mono!! Oh well....if it lasts a lot longer we'll run her in.

Back to pictures...

Abby has gone from hating the outdoors to loving it (thank goodness). She will even go out and play by herself out there. My child is growing lots of confidence. YAE! Finally! I was worried she'd be like me forever!

Here is Hayley and I playing a duet and then her playing a solo. She just learned her part yesterday. I was amazed. She is in a program called music for young children. Very much a focus on parent teaching. We both get extremely frustrated with each other so it might be private lessons next year. Right now it is an hour a week group lesson. She's only been playing for 8 months so I'm proud of what she has accomplished. Maybe 1 more year of this program. We'll see if we survive the last 6 weeks.

So that is all. Steve is upstairs putting kids to bed. I need to clean up supper dishes and have some tea.

Love you all,

Steve, Jen, Hayley, Abby, Kylie, and Chelsea.