Overdoing It

I took the girls to Calaway Park with some friends last week.  I think I may have overdone it.  I ate a snow cone, hot dog, slurpee, a bag of popcorn and a bag of cotton candy.  Then of course we did a few rides.  The roller coaster was even better than I remember.

Anyway I paid for it that night...

Speaking of night time trips to the bathroom Cali has been pull-up free for three nights now!  She told me one night that she didn't want to wear them anymore and so far we have been good.  We are so proud of our big girl!

Back in Pink

After about a week of wet sheets Cali is back in pull-ups...

So we will try again in a few months.

However she is removed from her pull-ups  first thing in the morning.

That's It!

She sure is cute, however EXTREMELY lazy!

Cali has been potty trained during the day now since March.  However in the morning she uses her pull-ups for as long as she can.  This morning she used it to poop in while she was playing.  She is LAZY.

Effective immediately Cali will no longer be wearing pull-ups at all.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

Had a Bad a Day

This was our theme song today. 

I was up late last night with a teething Lexi.
I was woken up early by my Calla Bella Baby.
Cali smeared yogurt all over herself and the floor.  (This was after she was dressed for the day.)
Lexi continued to cry/ scream all morning.
Cali got changed then washed... then peed her pants.
Lexi had a blow-out.
Cali got rewashed and dressed for the third time.
Lexi continued to cry through all of this.
Cali was standing on a chair behind the fridge door drinking milk.
I opened the fridge.
Cali fell off the chair and spilled milk on her baby doll.
I called Ed and I started to cry.
Cali started to cry.
Lexi was still crying.

Half an hour later:

After another half hour I was asleep.

We slept for 4 hours.

Cali wet the bed.

Our Yu Adventure

Yesterday morning was beautiful. Ed went to the driving range for two hours while I prepped for our trip to Edmonton. Ed returned home and we were on our way by about 1:30pm. Since Lexi has to be rear facing for another 6 months we decided to take our Neon as the body is bigger than the Jetta. When we all take the Jetta my knees are cramped against the dash.


Anyway so here we are on our way to the City of Champions when Ed starts complaining about the car. He told me that the car wouldn’t go any faster than 100km/h. Since the Neon is getting old it really doesn’t like to go fast and I will rarely push it past 100, so I suggested that he not drive faster than that. I didn’t understand that he meant the car wouldn’t really go any faster than that. As we continued on Ed couldn’t go any faster than 80 km/h. At this time we felt we should turn around and go home. So we stopped in Olds, filled the tank, and headed back home on the country roads.

As we continued on our way back home our max speed was becoming less and less. We found that we could only go about 50 km/h and we were really struggling to make it up the hills. Finally our max became about 20 km/h and Ed suggested that I call a friend to come get the kids and me as we were only about half an hour from home.

As we putted along I asked Cali to say a prayer that we would get home safe. Not a second after this prayer my cell phone rang and a friend of mine was on her way to rescue us. We continued to putter along and then it started to rain. Then the rain quickly turned to freezing rain and wind began to blow. The freezing rain then turned to snow and Ed decided it was time to pull over and wait to be rescued.

With winds reaching the speed of 100km/h, and wet snow surrounding us, we waited. Due to the white out conditions our rescuer got lost. As I am always prepared for long car trips I had packed cookies, bread, apples, and lots of water to snack on. We also had plenty of blankets, and each other as sat in the car but our poor rescuer was all alone.

As Ed and I worried about our friend Cali filled the time in with wiping the condensation off the windows, singing songs, and eating snacks. To her it was a great adventure filled with cookies. Lexi also was a little trooper for everything she needed was there as well. I am just so glad that Lexi is a breastfed baby otherwise we would have been in trouble.

About an hour into our wait Cali informed us that she had to pee. I suggested putting a pull-up on so she should pee in it. Cali wouldn’t go for it. She was a big now and that was that. Luckily I packed a potty in the trunk… but it was in the trunk. Ed offered to go and retrieve it but he couldn’t open his door because the wind was blowing so hard. So I jumped out in my flip-flops and grabbed the potty. I sat the potty between Ed and me and Cali had a pee. Then a few minutes later she told me she had to poop. So we repeated the process and Cali had success. I opened the car door and flung the poop into the storm. Then a few minutes later Cali informed me that she had to poop again. Once again more poop was subjected to harsh weather outside. I am so glad that I thought to pack the potty.

After about four hours (that actually few by) our friend came to our rescue. The weather remained crumby but we made it home safe at an average speed of 30 km/h.

All in all everything went well. Ed was able to get a ride out to the car today and brought it home safely. Let me tell you that car will be replaced ASAP.

Thank Heaven for answered prayers, good friends, and family that can make you laugh even in the worst weather. With every adventure we are building memories.

I am Behind!

I've fallen a little behind on my blogging; So this a super-post many things to update!

First a little Cali update.  She spent the weekend with her Grammie and Papa.  It sounds like she had an action packed time!  While she was there she drew a picture of our family that I want to share.  She looks like Rollie Polie Ollie, hey?  Cute, cute!  I love it when kids start to draw. 

I also love that she made me skinnier than Ed!  Haha!  Speaking of which I am joining the Biggest Loser contest in town starting in January.  I plan to win!  I will also keep you posted on my progress as well.  Maybe I will be skinnier than Ed again!

Cali is working on potty training again.  The M&Ms are helping this time... more incentive than stickers!  Hope it sticks!

Here is a cute video of her singing the Alphabet Song.  Little Miss Entertainment!

Lexi is 5 weeks old and has porked out; she is now about 11 lbs!  She is also wearing size 6 month sleepers.  She's so much bigger than Cali was it will be interesting who ends up being bigger in the end.  Her one month Chinese party is this weekend.  Hope you can make it!

I finished reading "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova.  Excellent book a bit longer than I am used to but fully worth it!  I was little disapointed in the ending... I would have made it different.  I won't give details so I don't ruin it for anyone.  So email me and we can talk about it if you like.  I love to talk books! 

Also did I mention that the book isn't scary?  For anyone who is like me: I was a little afraid to read it but I will assure you it's not scary... I found it suspensful, but not scary.  So when the movie comes out in the new year I taking Ed to go see it.  So he will now what I was up to all weekend.

 As I mentioned in a previous post I am only reading children's literature this year to give my brain a break.  The Historian was not planned it just happened...

Anyway I am now reading the Harry Potter series.  I remember during my first year of university my friend told me that her little brother was making her read it because he thought it was such a great book.  I thought "oh look a nice little kid's book".  A few years later is popularity exploded.

I never read the books being swamped with school work.  So I decided to read them this year, thinking that all the hype would let me down.  Well they are as good as everyone says; what an imagination J.K. Rowling has.  She is simply amazing, I would love to read more of her books.  Anyway for anyone like me they are certainly worth the read.

So I think that I have updated this enough for now.  Must get back to Hogwart's.... or my kids...

Our Basement

So I ventured down to the basement and took some pictures of the progress. I am really excited to have the extra space!!!!

This is the view looking down the stairs into the basement.

This is our bathroom!


This is one of the bedrooms. I plan on this being Cali's playroom until she is old enough to move down to the basement.


This is going to be the spare room and Ed's office.

This is the family room where Ed can have his big screen tv and his video games.

The guys are coming in this week to put up the drywall and crackfilling. So having basement finshed it feeling real! In other news Cali went potty today all by herself... but I still think being fully trained is a ways away....

Potty Training in Progress

So today I decided to get serious about the potty training. I went out and bought reward stickers and a reward album. Cali is all about the stickers. I am pleased to report that we now have six stickers of progress in our book and one accident. I think that's pretty good; I will continue to report our progress. I found a great link to a few potty training songs if anyone is interested:

http://ca.pampers.com/en_CA/learning/pdf/LyricSheet_PPTDayCr_v1.pdf

They are pretty cute! Anything to motivate our little ones, right?

I am terrible at making banana bread, absolutely horrible! So today I decided to try a new recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com. It turned out lovely! Nice and moist with a soft top as oppose to my usual crunchy brunt one. I did burn the bottom though... but that's because I got distracted while it was in the oven. What a surprise getting distracted with a toddler in the house :) Anyway here is the link to the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Sour-Cream-Bread/Detail.aspx

I will be sure to add more recipes that I like. I think that we could all use a few more good ones! Thanks for the feedback Chantelle!

Here are some new pictures from this year. Just click on that cute little picture below to get the slide show going.

Feb 09

Stupid Facebook

Okay, I have been spending too much time on facebook. So I decided to turn my attention to my blog. My poor blog!

Not too much has changed around here besides Cali. She is getting so big, I suppose she is no longer a baby. She often tells me her name is Cali and demands to do things on her own by clearing stating "self, self". She can pull on her own pants but often misses the back part, so she walks around with her diaper hanging out. Potty training is... going... today we had a great morning, no diaper but then this afternoon we had an accident. Oh well there's always tomorrow.

Work is great for both Ed and I. I myself an experiencing information overload. I have taken 4 courses in the past two months and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Although I must say that my assessments and knowledge base are much improved.

Ed and I are both looking forward to our holiday in the summer. We plan to take a trip home to Nova Scotia. We are going to meet Uncle Steve there, I haven't seen him since he moved to Scotland in 2006. So this will be Cali's first encounter with her Uncle. I am excited to smell the ocean breeze... I had a dream about it last night. Only 5 more months!

This is a new video of Cali wearing my glasses that she broke... they are hers now. Here she is seen talking about the importance of using coupons before they expire. Something I have a hard time with.