Day 332

This afternoon my parents came over for Ryan's birthday. He was really happy to see them when he got off the bus. We had his favourite pizza for supper and then left over cake for dessert. He got some great presents from Oma and Opa as well, but I think his 2 favourite were:

A book about bullet trains

And what every kid loves getting...money!

Day 331

More than 2 kids in the house 2 days in a row is just 2 much! lol Today I am watching a friends girls for a few hours and it's craziness all over again in the house! She watches kids for a living and I don't know how she does it without going nuts :P

Here they are during a quiet moment...lunch

Day 330

Today Ryan had his party with some of his friends from school. His cousins were supposed to come too but they cancelled, which is ok because it was total craziness here with just 6 kids, I can't imagine if there were more!

The party them was "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" so I had a few food games organized for the kids. Here they are playing "Pin the meatball on the spaghetti"

and a "what food am I" headbands game

and of course, blowing out the candles on the cake!

Day 329

I spent about 10 hours making and baking this cake for Ryan's birthday party tomorrow. He requested a "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" cake. The "meatball" is a chocolate covered rice krispie treat, the top layer is vanilla and the bottom is chocolate fudge, both filled with cream cheese icing.

Day 328

I found this car decoration at the dollar store. Rudolph the red nosed Sunfire. Hmmm...How embarassed will Wally be driving with me? :P

Day 327

I spotted this broach at the second hand store in their jewellery case and I had to have it. I was instantly drawn to the beautiful green colour. It's missing one or 2 gems, but nothing crucial. I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I'll definitely keep it as one piece because I think it's antique, but I'm thinking of maybe attaching it to a hair comb or something.

Day 326

While Wally and Ryan waited for the bus they heard a strange noise coming from the rock garden. I saw them going over to the side of the house and wondered what was going on, so when Wally came back in I asked him what was up. He told me that there is a strange animal in the rocks making a weird noise. So I went to go look with him, and there was nothing to see. I asked him if he was trying to fool me, and just as he tapped his foot on a rock, this thing popped his head out and screamed at us. Hello heart attack! I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures and a little video as well. I got out my North American Mamal Guide and was able to ID him as a mink. Isn't he cute?

Day 325

So the stairs and upstairs hallway now have their new carpets installed. I also peeled off the wall paper upstairs, which was the same ugly pattern that was in the kitchen, and tried out the same tea stain technique, but this time using food dye instead of coffee. It turned out very light and subtle. I'm not crazy about it, but anything is better than that ugly wallpaper.

Day 324

We're getting some stuff ready in the house for all the visitors we'll be getting on the weekend for Ryan's birthday party. I had the idea last night of switching my desk with Ryan's. Mine was one of those ones that had doors that closed. I bought it when Ryan was young to keep him off my computer because he kept screwing it up. I hadn't closed and locked the doors from him in ages, and Alex isn't interested in my computer at all so I decided it would be better in the living room where we could hide away the computer an all the junk when we had people over. It was also so small and squishy, I just never got used to it. It feels so much better having my big desk back.

Here are the boys playing in the desks in the kitchen while Wally and I vacuumed the spots where they were going to go.

Day 323

Today I needed to pick up some new carpeting for the stairs at a near by store. On Wednesday we got the flyers and the one from this store said that "Santa" was going to be there greeting kids and giving them a little toy today. So I packed up the kids and braved the crazy winds. Alex ran right up going "Santa! Santa!" and he gave Santa a big hug. Last years Santa was a bit scary and Ryan was apprehensive about seeing him again, but they got a new guy this year and Ryan was a lot more at ease with him. One of the employees took some pictures of the boys, and she will send them to me by email. This is the one I got before they wanted to open their present.

Day 322

We're doggy sitting my parents dog for the weekend. He's not allowed on the couch at his house, but our dogs are allowed on our house here because we have a blanket for them. So he was looking longingly at the couch so I patted the cushion and said "Come on up Barkey!" He rolled around like crazy, he loved it so much LOL

Day 321

I got some spiced pine cones at the dollar store and have them set out in the living room. Now the house is starting to smell a lot like Christmas. Only 44 days left!

Day 320

I made this construction sign and stuck it up on the window of the bathroom door. Ryan's party is next Saturday and we still have a bunch of stuff to do in order to make the house look descent by then. I should have just printed out another huge sign and stuck it on our front door. This house is always going under some fix-it or repair job.

Day 319

Her is a picture of the inside of my fridge...because I had nothing else to photograph today.

day 318

I found a new elf for my Elf on a Shelf project today. He has wire in him so I can pose him. I tried to pose the other one, but he just kept flopping over all the time, so he's not going to cut it.

 

Alex decided to decorate Julian...

Emma being a lap cat

Day 317

Shopping today, the kids were thrilled to get the rocket cart at Zellers.

Day 316

This morning I made us something for breakfast called a Dutch Baby pancake. It was so yummy. It puffed up like a yorkshire pudding, but was chewier than a pancake. I served it with maple syrup and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

Here it is flipped out of the pan:

and all cut up ready to eat:

Day 315

Here is a cake I made today for a San José Sharks fan. Not getting any crumbs in that white icing was a serious pain in the butt. Even though I put a crumb coat on first to seal in any stray crumbs, every time I smoothed out a section, another crumb seemed to pop out. I was in there with my special tweezers picking them out and re-smoothing. It took forever!

Day 314

Today I sat at the top of the stairway watching my son play trains in the upstairs hallway. As I sat there, I started picking at some old wallpaper that my cats had scratched. I picked, and I pulled thinking "Bleh, I hate this old wallpaper." It was all over the stairway and on one wall of the kitchen. My husband put it up around 1989 before I had even met him. So I picked some more, and pulled some more, and the next thing I knew, I had torn it all down.

So I stood back and looked at what I had done. I thought that even the paper that was left behind looked better than the ugly old country pattern that used to be there. It even felt soft and reminded me of faux suede, but it just looked unfinished some how.

So I took a break and had a tea to think of what I was going to do next. And as I poured the hot water over the tea bag, I thought "Hey, don't people use tea to give paper an aged look?" So I grabbed a bowl, threw in 2 tea bags, poured over a little bit of boiling water, grabbed a 2 inch foam brush and did a test spot. I liked it! It had a great streaky look to it, yet, it was missing something...So I thought, hey if I'm using tea...why not use coffee as well?" So I grabbed another bowl, threw in 2 teaspoons of coffee, poured the hot water, grabbed a sponge, and started dabbing the coffee soaked sponge over the tea streaked paper...Perfect!

5 tea bags and 6 teaspoons of coffee later, I went from this (note that I never really took pictures by this wall because the wall paper was so ugly, and when I did, I cropped most of it out):

To this:

The house was built around 1853 and has the original beams and walls exposed. I find it gives it a nice aged look, and that it fits with the house  What do you think?

I'm also replacing the stairs runner next week! Can't wait to get rid of that ugly thing too! 

Day 313

My hair is really thin so every time I try to put it in a bun, it looks like I have a pencil eraser on my head. Seriously, it looks ridiculous. So I heard something about using an old rolled up sock to make the bun look bigger. Ryan had a lonely mismatched sock, so I decided to try it out. I really like the way it looks, but I still find it a bit small looking. I think the next time I end up with a mismatched sock, I'll try it again.

Day 312

Today we dropped Alex off at daycare because we wanted to do a big cleaning upstairs before winter came. In the span of about 2 hours in the morning Alex had ripped one of his favourite books into a million pieces, peed on the kitchen floor, pulled the door stop off the wall and then clogged the toilet. We knew we would get nothing done if he was around so I put him in the car and dropped him off at our trusty baby sitters house.

Wally and I spent 4 HOURS cleaning the bedroom alone, getting rid of stuff, and packing other stuff up. The amount of dust was crazy. I don't think our room has ever been so clean so I took a picture of it. We didn't even get a chance to get to some other stuff we wanted to clean out such as the closets and coat rack down stairs. Oh well, next week!

Day 311

I'm going to be doing a cute little thing with the boys this Christmas that I heard about on the internet. It's called "Elf on a Shelf". Basically you buy a stuffed toy elf and tell the kids that Santa sent him here to keep an eye on them and report back to the North Pole every night on their behaviour. At night when the elf comes to life, after his trip back to the house, he can sometimes get bored and mischevious, so in the morning when the kids wake up and he freezes, he will sometimes be found doing silly things. I can't wait to do this. It will be great to tell the kids "Is this something the elf should be telling Santa about?" whenever they misbehave. I'm also already thinking up some funny things they can find him doing in the morning.

This is the elf I found at the store today, and the tag he had also had a little description on how he helps Santa. He's a little small though as it says he's basically an ornament. I'm going to keep looking for something that might be bigger or will be easier to position.

Day 310

Alex miraculously got better overnight, everyone was home, and it was a beautiful day, so we decided to get outside and try to get a family picture done for this years Christmas cards. I must have taken a million pictures and this is the only one that turned out semi decent. Alex kept being a grouch, wouldn't look at the camera, and insisted that Wally hold him. In the meantime, Ryan kept opening his mouth big so that everyone could see how many teeth he lost. I don't have the energy to get everyone all dressed up and try again, so I guess this is what we'll use this year.

Day 309

Well I found out why Alex fell asleep on the couch yesterday, he was getting sick! Today he ended up with a fever and just felt yucky. He spent a good amount of time just laying on the couch and/or sleeping. When he was awake, he didn't even face the TV which is unheard of!

Day 308

As I was washing up in the kitchen, I spotted these little gold finches in my black eyed susans. They're all picking out the seeds and fattening up for winter.

After I was done, I came into the back room to find that Alex had fallen asleep looking at the Sears Christmas Wish Book. I wonder if he's dreaming about what Santa will bring him?

For supper we had baked salmon steaks with a Garlic and dill lemon sauce that I made from scratch. It was to die for delicious. The steaks were huge and I ate the whole thing!

Day 307

The stray we took in has been named Emma by Ryan. She had a bit of a rough first day, as she was scared, and all our other cats were in her face trying to get a sniff of the new comer. She had no fear of the dogs however. She's all settled in now and by day 3 she was making herself at home all over the house. She still tries to get outside and managed to sneak out twice, but always came running back about an hour later when I called her. I'm sure she'll quite enjoy the life of a house cat soon enough.

Day 306

When I let the dogs in this morning, I noticed that one of them had left this body print in the frost.

The boys spent the evening wrestling. I didn't mind this time because they were both actually having fun. Usually Ryan is too rough with Alex and I end up having to yell and seperate them.

Day 305

I decided to colour my hair today. I always make it darker in the fall. I couldn't find my usual dark colour, so instead choose one shade lighter which is Natural Medium Caramel Brown. It turned out to be more of a reddish colour...more like a dark strawberry blonde. I'm not crazy about it, but, meh, I'll live.

Day 304

I took a peek in at Alex tonight and found him sleeping like this. It made me laugh. I wonder if I look like this when I sleep.

Day 303

Halloween! My favourite holiday! Today I put the finishing touches on our costumes, we carved our pumpkins and I roasted the seeds, and then we ordered out pizza for supper.

Here we all are in our costumes ready to go out

Day 302

Today I finished working on Alex's Halloween costume. He is going to be the cat in the hat and Wally and I will be joining him as Thing 1 & Thing 2. I'm not 100% happy with the costume, but for one night in the dark, it will do.

Day 301

Today I brought the cupcakes to Ryan's school and the teachers said I could stay and help out if I wanted. I had a great time with the kids and even stayed for their surprise lunch (pizza!). Ryan also loved having me there. When I left after lunch I got a big hug and an I love you from him. Awwww!

Here he is doing one of the Pumpkin activities with his friends

Day 300

Tomorrow I'm bringing cupcakes to Ryan's school for their Halloween Party. I can't wait to see all the kiddies in their costumes! I made sure the cupcakes were Halloween themed. I Think the kids will like them :)

Day 299

Wally and I volunteered to carpool for Ryan's school field trip. We brought Alex with us and had room for 3 more kids. It was a quick drive and the kids stayed occupied with a Spongbob Halloween DVD.

The place we went to was called McMaze. We went through a cornfield maze, took a horse wagon ride, and everyone got to pick a pumpkin as well. It was a beautiful, albeit windy day but all in all a great time.

Day 298

Today Ennie, the stray we adopted, finally goes to get her spay done. The poor girl really didn't like the drive down, but at least now we don't have to worry about any more kittens.

Day 297

Wally was home today and the kids had no school, so I escaped for a few hours an met up with my mom at Wal-Mart. It was fun shopping without having to reel in a kid, or yell at them to stop doing this and stop doing that. :P Once we were done, we shared some McNuggets and fries for lunch and parted ways.

Afterwards for supper, I made Ryan something we have been talking about for ages...Green eggs and Ham!

 

As you can see he still won't take off his Waldo costume except for school.