Blue-eyed beauties 3-2-1

I wish I could say I’ve been busy slaying dragons and conquering new skills, but no. Mostly just housework, hanging with the littles, and reorganizing my house. Actually, we shall restate that first bit. I have slain a dragon. Our playroom. I have completely reorganized it into an entirely unbeautiful and very functional toy storage system a la Rubbermaid, that makes it way easier for the kids to spend five minutes cleaning up. Instead of me spending two hours reorganizing every toy into it’s special spot, I have a bunch of buckets that are either by theme or by type, and they get one at a time, and if they want another they throw everything back in the Rubbermaid first. Pinworthy and beautiful? Not particularly. Functional? Absolutely.

I’ve also been working on skills, actually. Firstly, on my houseworking skills. Let’s be real here – it does not come to me naturally. If I strike you as the homemaker type, I apologize. In reality, I am the artsy fartsy type, and if I leave myself in my natural state I tend to sit up every so often and wonder what the heck happened. I’m forcing myself to create new habits and routines and so far I’m doing pretty well. I mean, two steps forward and one back – I have a toddler and a baby after all.

Secondly, I’m giving running another go. It’s actually just happenstance that I took it up in the New Year. That’s just when my husband and I came to the conclusion that going to the gym was not fitting in particularly well in this season of my life. Jackson has been clingy off and on, and my husband struggles with him when I’m gone, and that’s stressful for everyone involved. So in lieu of not having a whole gym available we opted for a second hand treadmill. I’m nearly done my second week of it and I’m getting stronger, faster, and yes, losing weight as well. But mostly I’m feeling more energetic, which is really helping with that housework skills thing… especially since I’ve got less sleep lately than I ever got when Jackson was a newborn. C’est la vie, and this baby season is long days and short years, and all the snuggles and laughter are totally worth the lack of sleep.

However, I have resolved to do or create something every day, even if it’s just a photograph. So, on a particularly crazy day, I pulled out my dslr and took pictures of my crazies. Then I edited them another day. Every day a little bit of something! Running and creating even just little bits, that’s what’s keeping me in a happy, healthy place (mentally and physically) this cold cold winter.

How about you? How do you keep in the happy healthy zone?

Very important and fascinating things

I know you all keep coming back to this blog because I am so fascinating and witty and I do exciting things like come in contact with poop and fold laundry and make sandwiches. So here’s some more of that adrenaline-inducing stuff, illustrated with unrelated pictures of our annual Rake Up Leaves And Jump In Them photos. You’ll be excited to hear that this year, not a single leaf or bug found its way into my bra. And also, it’s snowy and longjohns-cold outside, so don’t think this is what it’s like here right now.

First of all, in exciting and earth-shattering news, I’m caught up on my blog reader for the first time in literally months. It took a lot of skimming, ‘mark all as read’ on some blogs, unsubscribe to others, etc. Any blogs that posted as many advertisements, Todays Deal At This Deal Site Is, etc as regular posts in a week got the boot. I was sad to see some go, but some of the blogs I unsubscribed to were craft blogs that posted once or twice a day with half of that trying to get me to buy something. Drives me loco. I totally understand that getting free stuff and/or money is enticing, but if I want a shopping blog, I’ll sign up to a shopping blog. I even have… Bargainmoose.com anyone? :)

Equally exciting – okay, more exciting – is that I have been focusing on my health and fitness since the end of October. When Olivia weaned herself (aww, I wasn’t ready, but she dropped one feeding after another and eventually lost interest entirely.) I gained about 8lb in one month… ouch!! ! ! ! !!! and was suddenly pushing it in size 12 jeans. I’ve been eating clean and working out two to four times a week and I’m nearly in size 8 jeans now in early December. About 7 weeks, nice! (I can button the size 8 jeans but have muffin top.) I’m focusing on health and strength, rather than weight loss, and while the weight loss excites me I am treating it as a byproduct/reward for healthy living. And oh yes… I graduated high school as a size 12. :) I’m so proud that I can barely do five REAL pushups, when I could barely do girly pushups to begin with.

I recently read something in a fitness magazine from a mother who had turned her lifestyle around from couch potato to fit, and she said something along the lines that it suddenly occurred to her that by being obese, she was modelling to her children that it was acceptable to be obese and to not care about your body. That really struck me. I have thought a lot about health for the last few months, and I think it’s so important to teach your children how to love their body no matter what their body type, but also how to take care of their bodies. Nicole and I have a big bone structure. I always thought of it as big boned as in destined to be fat, but recently I’ve been thinking it’s more like an athletic build! My husband and his brothers are all built that way too, and they are big STRONG men. I want to be a STRONG woman! I want to dance in my kitchen with my kids for a solid half hour without losing my breath or skipping a beat! I want to race my daughter up and down the hill and only PRETEND to let her win. And I want to teach my daughters to be passionate about their HEALTH rather than their SIZE. If my daughter asks me why I exercise, I tell her its because it’s good for me, NEVER because ‘I’m too fat.’ Exercise isn’t a punishment!

I actually quite enjoy going to the gym. Nobody there expects me to wipe their bum, ever. Utopia. I only make it out about twice a week at the moment, but I try to make the most of the equipment when I do. When I’m at home, it’s pushups, lunges, squats, etc… all while being attacked by small human projectiles. It’s exciting and painful simultaneously. Ask Nicole to show you how to exercise and she’ll do strange random repetitive motions while grunting like its taking everything she’s got. Flattering indeed. I find many little home-workouts on Pinterest or bodyrock.tv for free! Then I get a lot of variety in my workouts, my body never knows what's coming, and I feel like that helps get results.

Whew! I got a little excited there! I have been doing a lot of reading, and thinking, and thinking, and reading. I haven’t really had anywhere to channel that except internally, though! I’m not always sure how much I can say without coming off as a jerk ;) No judgement for anyone else… these are just my thoughts as I feel like they apply to me! Other people’s perspectives have inspired me and I hope mine is either inspiring or boring, rather than getting anyone’s undies bunched.

Lets go back to these photos… Olivia was not too impressed with her first Leaf Pile Jump. The above picture is her trying to run away.

This above picture is a little bit more accurate. See those arched brows? Not impressed. Now watch her run away again.

Don’t worry, we were watching her the whole time, and my brother was loitering behind the scenes (he was not being photographed because his hair was not pretty. My brother is kind of Maintenance, lol!) so Olivia The Adventurous was supervised quite well.

I really am making progress on this whole ‘back to blogging’ thing. I have some projects ready to be photographed and blogged, and I’m about 80% done clearing out my horrifyingly messy storage room craft room as of today.

I literally iced Olivia’s birthday at 9am for her 10am birthday party. Whoop whoop!  I did a bit of a faux-ombre, I have seen all these lovely ombre cakes floating around on pinterest. I just iced the cake in the light pink, then mixed more red into my icing to darken it up. I put some darker pink icing around the bottom of the cake and then went around a few times with my icing spatula to blend it in the middle a bit. And then I took it back down a few notches by randomly spewing icing doodles on the top like a pro.

Faux-ombre. Fombre. I think it’ll catch on. Remember where you learned the word. That’s right, the ever-fascinating and rarely long-winded blog of Laura V. PS, do note the fruit platter. If you only buy one snack food for your next little kid party, buy a fruit platter. Or make one. I was trying to be healthy, and we put the fruit platter down and this tiny little hoard of small children descended on it and made it vanish. They wanted it more than the cake. I wouldn’t joke about something like that.

Oh, just so excited!

I just got the sneak peek of the family pictures we had done this weekend, and I am just so excited about them that I have to share! Click the below picture to see the rest at Amy’s blog. If you’re looking for a photographer in Southern Manitoba, Amy does a great job. She’s fun and friendly and easygoing. And my kids loved her and totally worked the camera for her, you don’t see any of that going on when MY camera comes out!

Confession: I have no pictures of my ten month old up in my house. However, the second I get this DVD to my house I am printing this particular picture in HUGE and hanging it up! I love the colors and the feel, Amy suggested this particular spot to sit and it turned out delicious!

(Once you get to Amy’s blog, click a photo and the rest will come up in a slideshow)

The hat Nicole is wearing in some other pictures is one I bought secondhand for $3 and I whipped up the flower for it the morning of the pictures with, I’m not gonna lie, various scraps of fabric and tulle from my craft room floor. Tadaa! You’d never guess it was trash-to-treasure. On the DVD there will be pictures where Olivia is wearing a brown crochet hat with a similar clip, different flower and only one though. She was slightly less willing to wear her hat than Nicole was, ha.

My slliiiiiiiightly OCD self put an obscene amount of a bit of time and thought into the color scheme. The outfits for the girls were bought for Sunday clothes and for fall pictures but everything else was just scrounged up from the house to compliment the girls’ outfits, the feel of them, and while we decided on this location last minute I kind of had it in the back of my head all along and suggested it to my hubby a few times... We shot the pictures at the beautiful home of a family friend, just perfect for pictures, don’t you think?

Summertime, and the Living is Thrifty–fun&games

Sometimes the best kinds of thrifty fun can happen when you go with your impulses and use the most basic things you have available. Blanket forts, reading a favourite book with crazy voices, and simple sock puppets are all examples of simple, classic fun you can have with your kids. So put a no-TV-before-noon ban on this summer and cruelly force your kids to play like you did when you were a kid!!

Some more simple fun:

Small socks taped onto a headband.

Nicole declared that morning that she wanted to be a bunny. I was in the middle of folding laundry and possibly even had a baby sock in my hand right at that moment, so I thought, meh, why not?! If I had done it to show you a sweet, aesthetically pleasing project, I would have probably at least done matching socks. More likely there would have been felt, and glue, and a perfectly pretty project. This, however, was just good clean fun, 100% for Nicole’s benefit!  

She had a blast; other variations can be using long socks tucked into waistbands for tails, add extra arms to be a bug or spider with stuffed pantyhose (save your torn hose!) - pin the waist area to a shirt and then use yarn to connect the end of the pantyhose arms to your children’s wrists. They don’t care if it looks ghetto, it’s all about the fun!

Don’t have a pool? Pull out any bucket and fill it with water. No, your kids cannot swim in a bucket of water, but you’d be amazed how much they enjoy just having water play! Also, there’s nothing wrong with picking up the $12 pool from Toys R Us and tossing it in your backyard. I empty and refill mine almost every time we use it, since you put so little water in it its no big deal. Plus its clean water so I care not if they decide to drink half of it, or if they go straight from the pool to their beds.

Pool noodles + sprinkler. Most people have sprinklers, and you can pick up a pool noodle for about a dollar, maybe two dollars, depending where you go. Your kids can have an epic battle with the sprinkler; you would not believe how long they can keep themselves entertained this way. Bonus, if you’re cool with it and they’re between four and six (older can generally wield them well enough to sting), they can do epic battle with each other. It is pretty hard for one four year old to hurt another four year old with a pool noodle. Careful though, you know your kids best, and some of them can figure out pretty quickly how to get enough momentum to do some damage.

Kids love to be the epic hero in their own mind. Whether its a battle against the sprinkler or a rousing game of the-carpet-is-made-of-lava, they eat it up. If you feel really sneaky, you can incorporate this into cleanup – set a timer and tell them its a bomb, and the only way to diffuse it is to clean up all the toys in time. Then tear around the house crazily with them, shouting at them to hurry, quick, we’re running out of time! The most ridiculous things can become awesome in your kids eyes if you’re willing to jump in there yourself and act like a looney toon.

Take costumes outside. Obviously this only works on cooler days for some costumes. I am working on building up a dressup box; you can find costumes right after halloween on clearance, or you can often find a great deal at a garage sale. The above costume I bought for $2 at a garage sale. Acting like a wild beast of the forest takes on a whole new level when you’re actually outside. Dress like pirates and go to the park, the play structure is your ship and arrrr, matey, thar she blows! You don’t even need a dress up box for that one; cut up some playclothes to be more ragged, tie on a bandana, and whip up an eyepatch. Be adventurers and pitch a tent in your backyard (or if you don’t have a backyard, pitch a tent in the park! You might get some strange looks, but who cares? Just grin and explain the game and that you’re not moving in for an overnight stay ;) lol). If you do have a backyard, you can even sleep in the tent.

Later this month I’ll show you how to make a temporary tent out of four emptied & cleaned 4L milk jugs, some sheets, some twine, a bunch of clothespins, and either a laundry line or a tree branch. 

What’s your favourite simple kid-pleasing game? We are always up for more ideas around here! 

These are the memories

These are the moments I love my camera for. What a great way to preserve a time when the most mundane of chores is something absolutely fascinating!

Of course, you always miss things as the photographer. Chris told me afterwards, when I showed him this picture and he expressed his delight with it, that he’d had to stop mowing at one point to laugh. He knew the girls were watching him, so he’d stopped and waved at Olivia. She got so overly excited that she flailed about, lost her balance, and her face smooshed against the glass. Then she sloooooowly slid down the glass, face still smooshed against the pane.

A few peeks into Christmas Eve

 

Nicole and the gift she picked out and wrapped for her grandma herself. (note the hair… I put some of the curly ribbons I wrapped all my gifts with in her hair so she’d match it! lol) Nicole in her Snow White heels. This picture gives me the giggles. Chris and I both got pink Snuggies from our gift exchange people. They did not coordinate, this was a coincidence. lol. And Chris was given that hat for Christmas, but he’d already bought the exact same hat for himself a few days earlier. Now he won’t let me get in the car unless I wear the matching hat with him. lol. Nicole and I a-snugglin’ before we left to go home. My charming little monkey at suppertime.  (that’s my ‘little’ brother AJ on the left there.)

Nicole this morning… wrapped herself up. My favourite gift!

It’s a White Christmas!

 

  Given that I live somewhere that is commonly referred to in sitcoms when making jokes about cold, snowy places… I never thought I would have an exclamation point behind a statement about a white Christmas. But thus far we’ve had the bitter cold we’re famous for but only a smattering of snow, enough to finally make it bright in my house again (a little sun reflecting off of a lot of snow makes a biiiiig difference) but not enough that you couldn’t see the dead grass poking up.

Just yesterday, though, all this snow rolled in! So we’ ve popped it into 4x4 on the SUV (and then popped it out again, cos really, we can handle this stuff without it, what a waste of gas) and pulled out the shovels.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! I don’t know what you’re all up to today, but we’re learning about Christ’s birth (or trying to… so far we’ve established “Jesus’ birth…” “JESUS SAKE AMEN????!” and that today is Jesus’ birthday. “No, it’s Nicole’s birthday!” “No, your birthday is in July. Today is Jesus birthday.” “Oooooohh…” (sad and dejected) “You can still keep your presents. Everyone gets presents on Jesus birthday!” “YESSS!!!”)

I think next year we’ll have a bit more luck. I’m looking forwards to seeing her face light up with comprehension as she grasps what Christmas is really about!

And for supper, back to Grandma’s house we go (we were there last night to open gifts) for Christmas Dinner! I’m pretty lucky, I’ve been doing Christmas Eve gifts and Christmas Day dinner at my parents for 23 (or i guess 24, since i’m an october baby!) years now and my hubby sees no reason to change that!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL…. well, lots and lots of sweating to work off all this holiday joy, if you’re anything like me. sigh.

Christmas Presents!!!

We wound up opening gifts saturday night, sort of a last minute decision. We had  times set up to open gifts with other people and at other places, but for some reason we had never really set a date for ourselves this year. See, we don’t like to do gifts on the 25th, we like to focus that day on Christ’s birth, and it’s hard to do that if all you can think about are presents. I had been planning on going out after we’d all gone to a family dinner, but Nicole was so wired already we figured may as well. Above you can see that I did a good job – Chris is one of those folks who are impressed more by the thought than anything else. Curse him. I got him some ‘really stupid’ computer games and he was pretty psyched. (He and I have vastly different taste in computer/video games, and we affectionately refer to each others’ as ‘really stupid.’ Like, “I thought it looked really stupid, so I knew you’d love it.”)

Nicole started off being her usual enthusiastic and polite self. “A present? For ME?! THANK YOU!!!" I LOVE IT!” 

After we’d all opened a gift she got so excited about the opening that she just wanted to open everyone’s gifts. She didn’t even care what was inside! Well, except the Little People House, that she was pretty psyched about.

(try to disregard my horsey facial expression above. I must have been whinnying with joy or something.)

My gifts from Chris were all fitness gifts! A Wii Fit Accessory kit, and Your Shape for Wii. It’s a fast-paced workout that I would classify as definite cross-training. Cardio, strength, yoga, yadda yadda. I’ve done it three times now and I would say that it will likely produce results, all the pieces are there. If you pick it up and do it regularly, you must be eating pure lard if you don’t notice a difference within a few weeks. Also, whatever it is that Jenny is doing on the front of the box, you are not required to do that. So don’t panic.

Afterwards, I cleaned up wrapping paper and read the manual for my new game while Chris and Nicole colored in her new ginormous coloring book. (That, by the way, is the one downer about the Wii. If you’re anything like me, you like to up the anticipation by reading manuals for things cover-to-cover all excited-like, as if they’re some sexy romance novel or the flyers. However, Wii games tend to be so “Uh, durr” intuitive that there’s rarely anything in them… sigh. I remember the days of my youth when I could spend a good half-hour reading a nice Legend of Zelda instruction manual…)

All in all, it was a very nice little impromptu family night. I’m looking forwards to the traditional Christmas Eve gathering at my parents, where we will do a gift exchange. I’m looking forwards to watching Nicole “in her element.” She tends to be the delegated Christmas-present-distributor, as well as the assistant-unwrapper. As the only Small Person in MY extended family right now (well the only one we have access to) she is the star of the show, and she loves every minute of it.