A Different Good Friday Than Expected

Today was a little bit of a different day than expected. Not because of a new baby, no. Because we had a plan for a family outing. There is a joint ANiC Good Friday service in the town of Lennoxville on the South Shore (of the St. Lawrence River - we are on an island in the middle of the river). Because it is an hour's drive and it starts at 5, we decided that we needed a plan.

So instead of leaving at 3:30 or 4, we decided to leave around one, find a park, play for a while, find a McDonalds as a special treat for supper, then go to the service with kids who would be pretty mellow and not hyper and cranky after an hour long car ride.

Well, first of all, we started out in the wrong direction. Then, when Dave got off the highway to get turned around in Lachine, the car started vibrating. Dave stopped to see what was wrong with the tire, and couldn't see a problem. Then 2 min. down the road, the car stopped moving. The axle was broken. So we weren't driving to Lennoxville after all.

Instead we had a completely different kind of adventure. One involving a tow truck. And kids riding in the back of a taxi. Then realizing that Dad had the keys with him, in the tow truck, on his way to Canadian Tire. And breaking into our own house through the kitchen window (no, I didn't climb in myself, I boosted Andrew - I have my limits when I'm 9 mos pregnant).
Well, climbing through the window was so cool and exciting that everyone needed a turn. Aaron followed Andrew. Andrew unlocked the door and Emma and I went in. And Emma and I had a discussion that went something like this:

"Car wheel broke!"
"Yes, that's right, the tire broke on the car and we had to stop. The tow truck came to carry our car away to get fixed."
"High up."
"Yes, the tow truck was lifting our car up very high."
"No Macdonalds."
"Nope, instead we came home in a taxi."
"Window."
"Yes, we climbed through the window."
"Emma's turn."
"You wanted a turn climbing through the window?"
"Yeah."
So, we put a chair by the window on the inside, went outside and opened it up again, and I boosted Emma in through the window.

A lot of people say they feel sorry for Emma, as she is the only girl in our family. It seems to me sometimes that she gets the best of both worlds. All the cute clothes and softies and doll quilts to herself. Plus all the rough and tumble play she could want. Even climbing through the window to do her part in rescuing us.

[Un]Productive Saturday

Or would the proper Postmodern Punctuation be Un/Productive? Not sure. Okay, enough obscurity.

In any case, I had plans for today. I was going to get work done on my Fab Little Quilt (I shall have to show my progress on that sometime). I was going to finish editing my chapter in the Crosstalk Daycamps Manual. I was going to fold the laundry (I say that every day . . . that way one day it will get done). And then the boys decided to start playing one of their favorite games this morning - Softies in the Kingdom.

Softies in the Kingdom is one of those wonderful games entirely invented by Aaron and Andrew. It involves all the stuffed animals in the house, and it has been ongoing for over a year. Sometimes there are dramas involving lost family members that need to be reunited. There are dragon attacks, spy missions, burned down houses and destroyed communities that all require the entire relocation of the softies from room to room all through our house. Usually by the end there are bears and hippos and tigers and monkeys strewn all over the house in every room as they have become casualties in some epic battle or natural disaster, and the whole thing ends with a few lone survivors and a massive clean up operation.

Unfortunately, Aaron has determined that there are just not enough scary bad guy softies. There is one giant tiger and one dragon puppet, and other than that, there are no really evil looking bad guys. So, today Aaron decided it was my assignment to solve this problem.

I agreed, with plans of making little round black dots with horns and fangs and red glowing eyes (the three things required of the softies). And so I started cutting out pieces and fusing fabric to webbing and getting things ready.

And Aaron walked by and asked, "But where are their arms?"

So I cut out arms and started sewing again, and I got the faces fused and stitched on.

Aaron walked by again and asked, "Why don't they have any legs, Mom? They need legs."

So I cut out some legs and started sewing the horns and legs together, when I realized that if I just added some claws, then they could "roll their terrible eyes and bare their terrible teeth and wave their terrible claws". And at the very end of the day, we ended up with these:

Terrifying, aren't they? Here they are devouring my bills and looking at a takeout menu - guys this bad obviously don't cook themselves.

And here they are hanging out on a shelf, waiting for some cutsie softies to come by so they can jeer and make clever remarks.

I photographed the process of making these guys, if anyone's interested in a tutorial . . .

Oh, October, how I love you.

I really do love October. Not only is there all the beauty of leaves and the fun of warm weather clothes, but there is my birthday and Halloween. This year Dave was very, very sweet and threw me a surprise party with 15 adults and about 15 kids, all crammed happily into our little house. He managed to get everyone into the house with food and convince them to clean the house in under an hour. Impressive, no?

Here is me, with my mouth open (as always - that's why you never see photos of me - I'm always talking in them) chatting with some of my friends. I didn't have anyone's permission to post photos on the internet, so I figured this was pretty unclear of everyone else.

This past weekend we went to visit the cousins in Ontario. They had a LOT of fun, and both the drives were pretty decent. Here we are at "Crossroads" - the buffet resteraunt Grandma and Grandpa love to take us to (I remember going to it when I came out to meet Dave's parents when we were newly engaged).

The other great thin about visiting the cousins is the space - Dave's brother has a big house (compared to ours) and about an acre of yard that back onto a neighbouring farmer's woodlot. He's been given permission to make paths through the woods, so its a really fun place to play. The kids could be loud, they could run around and they could have a kind of freedom we rarely get in the city. It was great.

Finally, we had Halloween. Here are the finished Jedi costumes. I decided to pick up some brown fabric and make the full Jedi gear. The underneath part is the yellow upolstery fabric I already showed you. The brown is a great basket weave brown cotton gauze that drapes really nicely.

The full costumes were a little too much for me to take on. I spent all my spare time for over a week sewing these, and the house was turned upside down by the time I was done. I've almost go it back in order now.

Emma wore the ancestral cow costume. I don't have blog photos of it, but both Andrew and Aaron have worn this costume for Halloween. Emma went to about half the amount of houses as the boys, as I had to carry her and I'm not that spry right now, but she had fun, anyway.

We went out with two of Andrew's friends - a twin boy and girl. One is in his class this year, and one was in his class last year. Our street is not much for Halloween, being mostly apartment buildings. But one street over and one block south it is Halloween central, as it is all houses and all the kids from the apartment buildings need to trick or treat somewhere. In three blocks (both sides of the street) we had lots of fun and candy for my still quite little ones. There were lots of costumes to look at (both kids and grown ups), decorations everywhere and even a haunted house set up in someone's yard. A super fun time was had by all.

The not so fun part of October has been the appliances break downs. I think I mentioned that our fridge broke down over Thanksgiving weekend? Well, last week, just as we were getting prepared to go away for the weekend, our washing machine broke down. The part Dave thinks we need is on order. Sigh. I was hoping to sew this afternoon, but instead off I go with my four baskets of laundry to hang out at the laundromat. Sigh. Have a great week!

Two Smart Things In One Day

Ironically, today I was just emailing to Kris, telling her that I don't post over at Clever Mamas anymore because I feel like I just don't know what I'm doing as a parent. And then, I do two smart things in one day. Score. You want to hear them (of course as soon as I write them down they will never work again, but oh well).

Emma is feeling sick today (although this photo of her falling asleep at the table is from this weekend at the Smith's house). At bed time she just wanted to nurse and nurse, and since she's almost two I'm trying to wean her. I went to get her a cup of water as a substitute, and I realized that I had lemons in the fridge. What is more comforting, and gets rid of yuk quicker than honey and lemon in warm water, I thought? So I put a dab of honey, a squeeze of lemon and some warm tap water in her sippy cup instead of plain water or milk. Two sips, one cough, and she was off to sleep. Why didn't I think of that two children ago, I ask you?

Often, my children really are like this photo: they play together pretty well. Although you must know that the contents of two of those bowls were all over the couch and floor as soon as I turned my back to load the dishwasher.

But sometimes they fight, especially the older two. Often it stays at the "you're a poopy head" "You're a baby" level, which is frustrating enough, but other times it degenerates into physical fights. Right now, Andrew has a much longer reach than Aaron, so he can pin him and win almost every time. Aaron is one of those "Bad attention is better than no attention" kind of kids, so he will bug his brother just to get any attention from him when he hasn't seen him lately (like, for instance, when he's been at school all week).

Lately, because Andrew has a loose tooth and is extra grumpy, he tends to loose his temper and pound on his brother a lot. Like, several times a day a lot. Today I was tired of it, and I needed a new solution. So I decided that I would take one lego guy away every time he lost his temper with Aaron. This worked for a few times, until Aaron figured it out. Well, what is more fun than watching your brother's lego guys get taken away because of you? So Aaron started pestering Andrew.

After I took away the fourth lego guy, I got wise to the deal. So I said, "You know what, I am tired of hearing fights and insults coming from this room. You must play over here by the bed, and you must play over here by the bookshelf. You are not allowed to talk to each other until you have something nice to say. If I hear insults or threats coming from the room, I'm moving someone out of the room."

What do you think happened? Silence for a while. Two boys who really needed a little space from each other but didn't know it playing happily in their own worlds. And about 20 minutes later, their two games meshed into one and they were playing together again. And they played together happily the rest of the day.

So I guess not being able to play with your brother unless you can be nice is the most logical consequence for constant bickering. It just took me a while to work it out.

And here is a cute photo of Emma with the crown Aaron got her for her birthday last year, because he loves dress up, so he wanted her to have some dress up of her very own. He pulled it out of the bottom of her toybox and she had fun wearing it the other day. Awww.

This is what happens when I try to do crafty things during the day . . .

So, there is this fun English Paper Piecing Hex-Along over at Lily's Quilts and I decided to try a few blocks - there are a lot of fun variations on the standard hexagon / star patterns. I'm not good at drawing straight lines, so I decided to just work with the templates she's found (they're listed in the QAL instructions) from the quilt that inspired the whole idea. 

Well, being lazy and, as I said, not very good at drawing straight lines, I decided to take the template sheets down to the local copy shop and have the guy there photocopy them onto card stock for me - thus alleviating the need to copy them onto index cards or cereal boxes. Inevitably when I do that I start with even sized diamonds / hexagons, and then they slowly get more and more warped until they will hardly join together.

So today I was taking a little break and cutting out my templates, when I had a little bit of company decide to do his own project with the hexagons:

 Because who wants to just watch Mom cut out hexagons when you can co-opt the scissors, cut out your own hexagons and make them into a monster (he did the big hexagons - one is ripped in half for the head - and I did the small ones and of course made the arms).

 Do you see the template labels on this side? Fun, no?

Aaron is at that age where he is brimming with ideas, but doesn't yet have the motor skills to make what he can see in his head. Its that glorious age of, "Mom, I want to draw a knight!" "Okay, draw a knight." "NO! I want YOU to draw the knight!"

So you draw the knight, and half way through the four and a half year old bursts into tears because the knight is not RIGHT. It is not precisely the knight he has pictured in his head . . . Sigh.

Apparently the hexagon monster was just right, however. So, now fun sewing to show you, but one contented little boy.

During this busy month we've been . . .

Keeping busy at home while Dad was away . . .

building cities in the sandbox after the rain

at the local awesome splash park

playing outside the new pool on the ramp

Then venturing off to Bible Camp to hang out with our friends (nothing like having a beach right there during a heat wave ) . . . .

spending our 25 cents at tuck

got my friends to take this one to show my awesome multi-tasking abilities (notice the half bound quilt on top of the stroller?)

Andrew and Aaron were especially glad to see their friends from church whose parents are volunteering at the camp for four months

oh yeah, and recovering from the stomach flu (I will spare you the gory details of two sick children in a tent - fortunately / unfortunately this was the night Dave showed up back from Italy) . . .

you might be wondering why there are no blankets or sleeping bags in this photo . . . don't ask. Really.

and, of course, setting up a Lego brain surgery lab . . .

I have a finished quilt and an amazing swap package to post about, too, but they deserve their own posts.

Hello again!

Well, summer has finally started, and I am feeling like I've caught up enough to blog again! I spent the early part of the week catching up on sleep, de-cluttering all the toys and clothes we don't need anymore and re-arranging the boys' room. Where we used to have the bed, I made them a little reading / playing nook:

And the bed is now against the inside wall of the room, making it feel a little more cozy (note how nicely I got them to make the bed this morning . . . )

I had a lot of clothes to declutter. Its not that I've bought a lot of clothes since we got here, but two things have happened:
1. the children decided to grow. I know they do that way too fast. and since Emma is probably baby number last, we don't need all those baby clothes anymore.
2. people gave me clothes. I love it when people give me clothes. The problem is that the boys are developing their own styles now, and won't wear clothes that don't fit into their personal styles. So about half of the clothes we can use, and the other half we can't.

My apologies for the picture quality -- our camera is slowly dying

The other big new development is Emma's budding independence. For a while she would start screaming and fussing whenever I went to put the tray on her chair so she could eat. I thought she wasn't hungry. On the contrary, she just wanted to sit at the table.

On Tuesday we took the Metro to check out the kids' section of the Jazz Festival (which was awesome -- too bad that due to construction it is far away from any music that was playing at the time), and Emma insisted on doing everything herself. She wanted to go into the bouncy castle with the big kids. She wanted to go down the slide with the big kids. On the way back she insisted on walking down all the stairs to the underground tunnel below the Place Des Arts herself, on getting on the metro herself, and - funniest of all - on sitting in the seat not on my lap, but all by herself. Here she was, this tiny little girl in little dress, sitting next to a huge lady. She was looking up at the lady as if to say, "Yes, that's right. Here we are, two big people sitting on the metro together." It was priceless.

For the first week of summer, Andrew is at a Day Camp put on by Crosstalk Minsitries at our church. I sent Aaron, too, even though we're paying for 3 days of babysitting. The topic is the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, and Andrew is fascinated by the idea of the Holy Spirit. He has a lego flame, and he has taken to sticking it on the head of one of his Lego guys and pretending that the guy is filled with the Holy Spirit. We have to discuss wether the Holy Spirit would win in a battle against Storm Troopers, and I hear him yelling, "I can defeat you because I have the power of the HOLY SPIRIT!" Its pretty funny.

Whew! Real Life has been Busy!

Hello, friends! Well, this full time job thing is busy, especially when you throw Easter in the middle.

These are Easter eggs we dyed at church -- I took all the Sunday School kids and did this craft with the help of the youth group so all the teachers could sit in church on Easter. It went pretty well, except when word got out among the moms that we were taking the kids to the park and they panic-ed about Easter dresses getting muddy.

These are the Easter baskets I gave the kids -- they only got a few candies and some lego guys (that was their request) so everything is gone already. These are based on the pattern by maya made. I bought this organic duck canvas a long time ago at tonic living , and didn't ever get around to using most of it, so I was happy to use it to make these cute little baskets.

I've been shopping in the shed this weekend. These are, ironically, clothes for Emma - leftovers from her brothers. I figure with a few cute flower appliques and ribbon trims and we can have a cute little brown and blue and grey wardrobe for Emma. Fortunately I was more given to buying the boys brown over blue. And a little blue never hurt any girl's wardobe, now did it?

I also found some shoes that might fit Emma (well, the yellow boots were hers already). Can you tell she likes shoes -- she started grabbing them before I could even snap the photo. I love these little See Kai Runs so much I may have to pick up a girly pair. The pair that does fit her are the completely wrecked blue and red ones.

The boys had a perfectly lovely day pretending that they were soldiers -- complete with lego guns, goggles and helmets, hidey holes behind the couch and in the bike storage (and even in their fort for a while -- imagine that). And, of course, as you can see from their lovely faces, war paint and blood. Sigh. Boys. But they were happily busy all day long with this game, so I didn't complain, I just scrubbed them up well before church.

It A Beautiful Day . . . Don't Let It Get Away

Good day, friends! Spring has sprung in Montreal and after 7 months of looking and substituting and interviewing, I finally got a sick leave fill-in, teaching grade 9 and 10 English. This morning was a good day. The sun was shining, the temperatures were warm, and the kids were excited about the world. So excited that I had to send them out to play at about 7am to stop them from thumping back and forth on top of our basement tenant's head. Emma had to go out, too, although she mostly stayed on the deck:

She loves her yellow boots and her little baby right now. Lots of "Boos! Boos!" and "Bebe! Bebe!" (with proper French accents, I might add). The sun was so warm and beautiful.

The boys were busy hacking at the snow and swinging sticks around and jabbing at things.

Meanwhile, with the door open I got to stay inside to make pancakes

and drink tea from my favorite new cup. I really need a cool tea cozy for my teapot, don't I? I keep meaning to make one, but I can't decide what I want it to be like. Maybe I should just be like Jane Brockett and make about a dozen of them.

All this was possible because of this great door we have between the kitchen and the rest of the house. That way we could shut the door and keep all the cold and noise and sand in the kitchen (it was "warm" -- as in 5 degrees Celcius ). I love the stuff on the wall in that little corner, and shelf, but there's stacks of paper there right now, so I'll save it for another day.

This is the sweet beam of sunshine that visits our back deck in the early morning. I think this spot is going to need some chairs and a table for early morning tea / coffee sipping in the summer. Stay tuned for changes here eventually.

Well, I'm off to make seating plans and read the Quebec Sec 4 English Language Arts Curriculum. Is it weird that I get excited reading about learning goals, reader response and literary techniques? If there's such a thing as an English nerd, I am surely one.

Emma got her first set of barrettes the other day. Aaron was kind enough to open the ENTIRE package for her, so she then insisted on putting every. single. barrette. in her hair. She was a little butterfly head.

Some days I wonder if this girly girl is really my child.

But she's cute, so I think I"ll keep her.

I finished my sewing machine cover, finally. I had thoughts of doing some fancy-smancy quilting around different sections of the cover, but I'm feeling  a little burnt out, so I just straight line quilted it instead, then machine stitched the binding on to make it go fast.

I think it looks cute anyhow. It makes me happy to have it done and on the sewing machine.

Aaron tried to pull it off and use it for something, and said, "Hey, how come this thing doesn't come off?" Um, so you can't mess with my sewing machine anymore, son.

These are some new fabrics I picked up from Fabricworm.com to be part of Emma's big girl quilt. But then I decided that I need to make these into a little drag-around quilt for Emma instead. I saved out some yellow / orange ones to go in her big girl quilt, and pulled a few from my stash to co-ordinate with these purple / red / pink fabrics. These are so sweet. The pixies are lovely and whimsical, and both the mushroom and dandilion prints are so detailed and subtly coloured. I really love this collection.
  When I first got them out of the wash and was folding them, I was trying to distract Emma while I did something else, so I gave her the stack and told her they were "Emma's fabric". She had so much fun unfolding them and laying them out. Then she would lie her head down on the pile she had made, put her head up again, pick them all up and then lay them out in a different order. I think she might have seen Mom play with fabric a time or two . . .

And just to be fair to all my children, here is Andrew. He is definitely moving into the "real boy" stage now. Silly humour, expansive energy, and random teeth coming in and out of his mouth are all signs of a new stage in life. Then again, the energy is nothing new, is it?