gasp!

You know how after you get married your spouse points out all kinds of things about you?  Well one of my things is that I gasp, quite often.  I don't even notice it.  I tend to do it the most while I am reading, as I get quite involved in a story.

I remember one incident early in our marriage I was reading "Shopaholic Ties the Knot" by Sophie Kinsella.  At the beginning when Suze throws the bouquet at Becky and when she catches it she realizes that is it a proposal from Luke!!!  GASP!  Ed ran in our room to check if I was okay, as he was often doing during those first few years.

That was a couple of years ago now.  It has become apparent that Ed has grown accustom to my gasping. Last night as I was reading "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, there was a lot gasping going on.  Ed would just glance over and casually ask what happened in the story.

Marriage is great.    

As an aside I love to read and I can't wait for Cali to be able to learn to read books on her own.  I found this great little show when I was Utah a year ago.  It's called "Super Why" each super hero has a "power" that is required to tell a story.  It's great!   I just wanted to share it and I am so glad that Cali loves it as well.

Stats

I was reading my friend Marni's blog the other week and discovered that you can check your stats on your blog.  So I found out that we had viewers from Mexico, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, Australia, Finland, the UK, US, and of course Canada.  I thought that was so interesting.  I didn't think many other people besides my parents read my blog.  Thanks for the info Marni!

Lexi's First Birthday

Gosh I am hoping that Santa will bring me a new camera this year... *hint, hint*

I have not been able to take pictures of the girls for the last little while since the camera won't completely turn off or on.  It's stuck somewhere in the middle.  Yes, Dad I did change the batteries and it's not helping.

So for that very reason here are Lexi's first birthday photos a month later.  A big thanks to Papa for being our photographer.

Here is Lexi with her cake.  Yes I know it is in a bowl and not professionally decorated.  She doesn't look like she cares though, does she?  Anyway the cake turned out this way due to this little product I picked up.

This is a Pampered Chef "Kitchen Spritzer".  Great idea, saves money and the environment if you are a PAM user like myself.  I was really excited about it and used in the cake pan.  Anyway this first time user didn't realize that you need to spray WAY more than you did with the PAM.  I figured that out after this event when the cake came out in several pieces instead one nice cake.  The spritzer and I are now friends, needless to say we were not on Lexi's birthday.  To reinforce if you ever buy one of these you need to spray until the pan is dripping with oil, then you are good to go.

Anyway like I said Lexi didn't care.  Enough gab more pictures...

Lexi enjoying her cake.

It tastes the same no matter how it looks.

Bath time after the cake.  (I gave Ed a haircut, this is the best picture we have of it.  Again would LOVE a new camera.  And yes I am that cheap, I cut my family's hair.)

Lexi opening her gifts with Grammie.  She got a her own Dolly and The Princess and the Frog movie.  

So that was about it for her first birthday.  I know no theme.  Maybe next year.

Winter Tires

I picked up my van and brought it home!  It is now sitting outside the house waiting for us to use it.  It won't be today... I am not heading out again until this weather improves which should be tomorrow.

The ride was very smooth.  I had them put on new winter tires the van before I took it home, great idea.  Cali and Lexi didn't make a sound until we were just outside of town.  Got to love the DVD player.  Cali can no longer reach my seat with her six foot long legs (or something close to 6 feet).  Everything was great no complaints thus far.  Only advice I have is don't give chocolate to a 13 month-old in a new car... I have a bit of a mess to clean up when it warms up outside.  It was cute though, little chocolate smeared face, hands, snow pants, sweater, car seat, van door...

Anyway as we are deep into winter weather here in Alberta here is a tidbit of info that you might find useful if you don't already know.  I just learned that you should change your tires to winter ones when the average temperature reaches 7 degrees.  I didn't know that.  We had always changed our tires when the first snow flies.  So 7 degrees... we have been waiting much too long.  We will be sure to do that next year.

I Have No Opinion

A Vehicle Purchasing Fairytale

As I posted last week Ed and I began the hunt for a mini-van.  After the afternoon at that dealership we knew what we wanted in our van.

So I went home and hopped on autotrader.ca and kijiji to see what was out there.  So on Monday I found one that I was interested in and contacted the dealer for a test drive.  I set up a time for Thursday evening to come in and take a look.  The dealer called me on Wednesday night to tell me that the van had sold but they had a similar van that I might be interested in.  When I asked for further details about this van he told me that he would call me back.

About an hour later he called me back with details about the van.  Strangely enough this van sounded quite similar, in fact it sounded like the same van, same make, model, mileage, year, colour... only this one was $2,000 more.  What are the chances of that they would have two of the exact same van that I showed interest in?  I believe about zero.  Slimy salesman.  When I checked auto trader the next day the posting was exactly the same only the price had changed.

Enough of those guys.  I searched again and found exactly what Ed and I were looking for for $6,000 less in the other end of town.  We set up an appointment and took a look at it today... lucky we did.  Someone made an offer on it over the phone while we had it out for a test drive.  Lucky for us we were there in person and the manager had our credit card in his hand.  Even after we were got back another couple took the van out for a drive and wanted to make an offer but it was already ours.  Phewf!

So we are the proud new owners of the mini-van you see in the photo above.  The only problem now is waiting until Tuesday.  Cali was pretty mad that she didn't get to drive in it tonight.  Soon enough we will be on the road in a true momma-mobile.

      

The ABC song

Yesterday the girls and I went grocery shopping.  It was Cali's job to hold the eggs and ensure their safe arrival to the car.  Being a typical 3 year-old she dropped them when something better came by.  Two eggs were cracked when we got home.  Being the smart mom that I am, I took those two eggs out and put them in a small bowl in the fridge to remind myself to use them quickly.

This morning as I was moving things around in the fridge being careful not to spill the glass of milk Cali put in the fridge, I knocked the eggs out.  They landed on the floor and cracked on top of our leapfrog fridge phonics toy.  So I wiped up the mess and and rinsed off the toy. (Note to self: leave cracked eggs in egg carton.)  

Today during lunch the toy started singing the ABC song repeatedly.  The ABC song causes Lexi to dance.  So Lexi is dancing and trying to eat at the same time.  As the song played over and over it became faster and faster, so Lexi was dancing faster and faster in her high chair, much to our amusement.  Finally the song became very high pitched and very fast and died midway through.  By this time I think Lexi was getting a bit tired.  

Anyway I disassembled the toy and it is now drying off on the counter.  Hopefully it will have a second chance because watching Lexi dance to the music is just so cute!