i'll just slip a slice of deli meat under the door...

Today was ridiculous!!! I was walking around the house minding my own business, the kids were all playing downstairs (or so I thought). I walk by the bathroom and hear, "Mommaaaa???". I try to open the bathroom door, no luck...

Penny had entered the dark bathroom, shut the door and then opened a drawer, which prevented me or her from getting in or out of there. Complete LOCK DOWN. So I try to talk her out (for those of you who have children, trying to instruct a 23 month old to do anything is pretty difficult, let alone impossible!!!) Anyways, I leaned on the door hard enough to just poke a pencil through and flip on the lights, poor baby. With the lights now on, I noticed that there was a big bottle of baby powder that she had stood upright in the drawer preventing it from ever getting closed!! NOW WHAT?!?! I tried to stay calm and kept telling her to take all the stuff out of the drawer and then push the drawer closed, I kept telling her just push, PUSH!! From the other side of the door I hear grunting, she was pushing alright...this was getting nowhere! Well this coaching goes on for at least 10 minutes, then I start to really panic... horid thoughts race through my head...

What if she opened the drawer with my razors in it?

What if she dives into the toilet?

What if she eats my deodorant and drinks nail polish remover?

What if she goes into the shower and turns on the hot water?

What potential death traps lay awaiting in that drawer anyways?!?!

So I called Andy at work 3 or maybe 50 times in a row, explain the situation and tell him I'm ready to bust down the door!! He got here before I hung up. (good thing I've got connections).

So were are sitting there in our hallway and I wonder out loud, "Andy, what are we going to do?" Will pipes up and says, "Well, we could call the cops..." uhhhhh good one Will, we all started laughing (well I start laugh/crying b/c I was a complete mess..) and Penny starts crying! The clincher of it all is that she kept poking her tiny fingers through the crack at the bottom of the door and crying "Momma!!", it broke my heart right in half. So I'm sitting there bawling my head off and now Daddy is trying to explain to Penny what she needs to do, he tried for awhile a long long 10 more minutes...then it finally WORKED!! Our language barrier was broken! We open the door FINALLY to a most despicable sight...our snotty nosed, red-eyed tiny girl!! We hugged her so, SO tight. Then we walked in the bathroom and saw that everything Penny had removed from the drawer, she put in a nice organized line along her step stool, how considerate! Now I know how a miners' family feels when they get trapped underground... it's a horrible feeling.

On the other hand we could have just left her.... we do have other bathrooms. Penny could've thrived, we would slip her meals underneath the door and there's a toilet in there so she'd just have to figure it out... WHAT AN ADVENTURE!

I'm baaaaaack.

I refuse to believe it's been almost 2 months since last writing. Since my last post here are some memorable events that have taken place in our lives...

- We took a roadtrip to Billings MT, which turned into an improptu roadtrip to Yellowstone. why? because Billings sucks.

- Christian got dunked and the kids and I drove to Okotoks to see.

- the Barnwell Pioneer Day parade, which you get to see twice because it doubles back.

- Calaway Park.

-visiting with most of the Halliday Family

-Will started Kindergarten

- Aubrey's 4th birthday @ Spiderman's house aka Ric's Grill

- Halloween : Vampire, Cupcake Fairy and a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Here's another memorable moment:

Will's first defacing of private property, awwww how sweet....

My apologies for the lack of posts. The only thing we do in our house in the summer time is sleep!

We don't want summer to end.

BUT there are some signs it's winding down....

it's getting chilly

Andy went back to regular shifts since school has started.

Will has his first day of Kindergarten on the 6th.

oh boy. I'm going to be one of those moms that drops their kid off and then goes to her car and sobs at the steering wheel.

back from hiatus.

Yesterday was Canada Day! Can you guess where we were?

Me, I'm a big fan of Canada. So are all of our cousins and siblings. Penny on the other hand, is learning to love the Great White North.

our family on toes. dirty toes.

the happy one- Andy

the frowning one - Me

the suprised one- Will

the rude one- Aubrey

the nervous one- Penny

we all have our issues.

"Hi, I'm cute!"

It has been awhile. I think I'm back, BUT I'm not making any promises here people... The sun is just too warm, the little pool in the backyard filled with water is too refreshing, my skin is too white and the trampoline is too bouncy for me to focus on such things like: inside.

I have to enjoy it while I can, it might snow. I did say I'm a fan of Canada, I did NOT say I'm a fan of it's stupid weather.

sheesh

Well this post has been in the works for awhile.

I never bring my camera anywhere to document our lives and we all know that I cannot lower myself to another picture-less post, so I've been waiting until I get SOMETHING, ANYTHING to put on here.

And this is all she wrote...

We are riding and riding our bikes.

Aubba, my little sweet and sour girl. She's crazy.

We succesfully taught Olers to ride a bike in a day, it was the magic combo of the shoes and socks that made it all possible.

.... and we all got sick. real sick. fun times.

I tried to talk Andy into recreating this picture with him and I, but we were too busy barfing and OTHER (ahem...) to do so.

Mamma-Mia

I sure do LOVE to be a mom. At times, it well, sucks and is a hard job. BUT most of the time it is the BEST! I feel so blessed that I am able to have children. Especially the adorable ones that I have.

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the moms I know, you are doing a good job!

my simple life.

Have you ever just looked around your house and thought, "WOW, this place is filled with a bunch of CRAP!"?

I feel that way today. The kids have tornado-ed the playroom, I think every single toy is out! And last night while grilling up some chicken I went to look for my basting brush and it has somehow disappeared into the deepest darkest abyss of the kitchen drawer, never to be found again ( I bet it's downstairs in the playroom).

GARAGE SALE anyone?

At times like these I like to look back and remember my simple life. Living in a teeny house with 2 teeny bedrooms, 1 bathroom to clean and single row of kitchen cabinets, and I definitely knew where my basting brush was! In my old simple life I had one wonderful luxury and that was a beautiful garden. When Andy and I bought our first house I saw the flower bed and

thought about filling it up with grass seed. But the next month it started to bloom and my love affair with flowers began... I never would have thought I would love to garden. but I do. I love pulling weeds, watering, digging, planting and just admiring the beauty of a simple flower.

Our new house doesn't have a garden yet, and this time I get to pick and plant everything myself. I'm so excited to get a taste of my simple life once more. I have so many things to be thankful for.

OH, there's my basting brush!

He's FIVE?!

I've been trying to do this post for a LOOOOOOONG time. The pictures will just not download, so once again you'll have to tap into your vivid imaginations to paint a picture in your brains from my words, got it?

Will turned 5, well, all I have to say about that is that is went by fast . super. fast.

Will threw an awesome Angry Birds Party for his cousins and friends, we made balloon Angry Bird decorations, we played chuck a red angry bird pom pom at a stack of cups with green pig pom poms on it, and we even played pin the crown on the pig. Then finished it off with a big ol' slab of Angry Bird ice cream cake.

And if you have no clue what I am talking about well then, Welcome to Earth, we have ipods.

It was such a fun time. I still can't believe Will is 5 years old. He's like a man now pretty much. On the day of his actual birthday I got to go to school with Will for his special day, it certainly was special :) I loved every single second of it. Will is polite and kind, he is so smart and I love that tall and skinny little guy so much.

impromptu party

On Family Day we threw together a party for Penny! All of the Evansons' were planning on swimming at the pool that day, so Andy and I thought, "Hey, why not just get it over with ?!" ( I know it sounds like we don't care, but this is what happens when you are on your 3rd child)

So last second plans were made and it was PARTY TIME!!!

Swimming plus pizza plus a PERFECTLY SWEET ice cream cake that seemed to be just made for Penny and waiting for us in the deep freezer of the DQ.

equals SUCCESS!

That was so easy we might even throw Penny a 2nd 1st birthday party!!

a promise is a promise

I bet you did expect a post that fast! I am just that cool I guess.

I just wanted to share some of my latest creations...

As well as headbands, I also am dabbling into blindfolds...

ok ok ok...

Well it's been just over a month since my last post. I guess I should get my butt in gear and start doing more posts, or not, we'll see... I wish I could stay off of Facebook for more than a month, that would be an accomplishment wouldn't it!?

The past month has been a month of teething sorrow in our house, poor little Pen Pen, she is by far the WORST teether we've had. She's CAH-RANKY! earaches, snot face, diaper rash, name a teething symptom, any teething symptom, she's got it.

Fortunately, all days are not bad days. Here's the at home crew participating in one of our famous family movie nights. Penny just can't get over Will. She lights up when she sees him, Aubrey on the other hand is, well, we're working on being nice to our little sister.

Skills such as:

-Gentle patting on the back

-screaming in the baby's face, yes or no?

-Dragging baby aroung the house by the foot of her sleepers, should we or shouldn't we?

-Chokeholding baby , why it's wrong...

Needless to say, when Aubba comes around, Penny gets a little tense.

...and lastly we'll touch on my new love in life, crochet.

I've been cranking out these cute little headbands for young, old and inbetween.

I'm glad I found a little hobby that I enjoy doing. It's always fun to find a new passion and pursue it. Now all I need to learn is how to read those accursed patterns...

p.s. I promise to TRY to blog at least one more time this month.

ketchup

I think I forgot how to blog for awhile. Now I have to do some major recaps.

The best things that happened during Christmas 2010 are...

#1 - We were BUSY, from Dec 24th on we had a family gathering or dinner to go to every night for 7 days straight, we were fed well!

#2 - After Christmas was over Andrew shaved off his beard, Hallelujah!!!!!!

There really are more then 2 things, but since I've just started blogging again, I feel the need to ease back into it slowly. AKA I am too lazy to type right now.

I'll leave you with some cute pictures of our 2 sets of cousins we got to spend time with at the holidays! Those aren't even all of them!

The Aloha Anderson's

The Exciting Evanson's

Stay posted for the awesome adventures that 2011 brings!

be yourself...everyone else is taken

I let my kids dress themselves, this is a dangerous phrase. But I do. Somedays they look great, they can really suprise me! But some days they just look plain ridiculous. I'm sorry, once again no picture of the fashion faux paux's that I'm about to vividly describe, You'll just have to use your imaginations.

Fashion Victim #1 - Will

Today's wardrobes choices were as follows:

• underwear ( i think)
• pj pants with rockstar guitars on them
• blue basketball shorts over top of those pj bottoms
• one superman shirt
• one spiderman jersey
• one matching pj shirt to the before mentioned rockstar guitar jammies.
• fireman gumboots

Will and I even left the house today with that array...

Fashion Victim #2 - Aubrey

• underwear ( i know)
• a dress that was WAY too short
• one pj button-up shirt over top

So amazing. I wish that I had enough confidence to walk out of my house wearing tights with basketball shorts, a swimsuit top with my bra on the outside and a big fuzzy toque on my head with high heels on. Maybe I will one day.

I love my kids, they are awesome. They help me learn things everyday, like WHO CARES for instance and ACCEPT IT. THIS IS WHO I AM. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. DEAL WITH IT because World, I'm coming outside with ALL this and you can love me or hate me.

And really who can't help but love kids with that much fashion sense? And whose to say, maybe in a few years shorts over pj's will be all the rage.

Oh, these two...

9 months

Don't mess with her, she's spent time on the inside...

Penny Ray turned 9 months today. How can this....

...turn into this, so FAST?!?!

I like when my kids turn 9 months, they have officially lived in the outside for as long as they lived in the inside. It's just neat to think about.

Penny is crawling, climbing onto short things like boxes and stools and the first step of the stairs. She's pulling herself up to stand by things, she's letting go and balancing. She chews and chews and chews. She has the eyes of a hawk and picks up the tinyest little things off the floor to pop right into her mouth. She's clapping and waving and drool-y. She's sprouting teeth and her hair is getting all luscious. AND in 3 months she will be one year old.

Stop it already!

policemen

We like this video in our house...

What is a Policeman?

Narrated by Paul Harvey

buds

It's safe to say , that these 3 are crazy about eachother and I'm enjoying it while the feeling lasts.

I love Penny's face in the bottom picture, It screams out..." excuse me......WHY THE "H" ARE WE SITTING IN FREEZING SNOW?!?!"

Remember Remember the 11th of November

Have you ever had a person in your life that is AWESOME?

My Grandpa, Burns Wood is one of those people. How could you not be awesome with a name that is a verb and a noun?

My Grandpa's house is full of cool stuff, he like to collect things like indian artifacts, neat owl figures and glass grapes.

He has the best stories, he tell the funniest jokes, he can juggle and I for a fact have seen him walk on his hands (he used to be a gymnast). I could hang out with him all day and never be bored. He's smart and interesting and I love that guy.

I remember once in Grade 1 or 2 we were learning about Indians and my dad took our class down to the coulees, we were all gathered in a group of trees and then from behind a tree, steps a REAL indian chief, in a head dress and everything. It was Grandpa , he told us legends and I thought that my Grandpa Wood was native until I was at least 10 years old.

Not only is my Grandpa Wood all of those awesome things above, he's also a Vetran of WWII. So yesterday he was asked to give a speech at a Remembrance Day ceremony. It was wonderful. I've never REALLY appreciated the meaning of Remembrance Day, because like so many people in my generation, we've never fought in a war or lived in the time when the world wars were happening. Wars don't affect me, to me they are being fought far from where I live. So therefore don't really have a large impact on me. Yesterday at the ceremony I was thinking in my head how many of these things I've been to and how many times I've taken for granted the men and women who fought to make the land where I live a safe and peaceful place. Then 3 names came to my head....

Burns Wood

Ray Evanson

Bruce Bullock

In my grandpa's talk he mentioned that the greatest things that came from the war were children, he talked about the Baby Boomers and how their children are your grandparents today. He had Inga's kids and my kids join him up at the front and talked about how sometimes from bad things, LOTS of good things can come.

He spoke about Standing on Guard and what that means, and he really spoke in a way that helped the kids of the Barnwell School to relate. His speech was fantastic.

Burns Wood is a fantastic person.

sheer intensity

Best Picture of Aubrey's Life Time so far.

the fly swatter

I can't believe I'm actually doing this, a pictureless post AGAIN, this goes against everything I stand for. I just wanted to share a funny thing that happened at our house today...

Our big bay window is some sort of a breeding ground/vacation spot for flies this time of year. So lucky Will gets the job of being in charge of the "fly patrol". This morning there seemed to be an abundance of flies on the window so I told Will to, " Go and get the fly swatter!" After saying this Aubrey jumps up and says "I'll get it!!!" Great, this is going to be bad I think. As I imagine both kids running to grab the swatter and inevitably getting in a HUGE fight over it. But suprisingly, Will took off towards the closet where we keep the swatter and Aubrey ran into the kitchen (which I thought was weird, but whatever) So Will runs back and says " I got it!" then Aubrey says " NO, I GOT it.", she walks into the living room carrying a bottle of water.

So Will heard, " Go and get the fly swatter!"

and Aubba heard, " Go and get the flies water!"

So cute. I haven't laughed as hard as I did in a long time!

spooks.

Happy Belated Halloween!

I've once again been having a hard time uploading pictures, so these are just a titch late, like you REALLY care anyways. Unless you all were just DYING to see our awesome halloween costumes, then I apologize. So here we are all decked out...

Penny the Hunky Bat.

Aubrey was "Sally" from the Nightmare Before Christmas movie. I can't even remember how many times I had to explain who she was to people, I guess I thought EVERYONE whose ANYONE had seen that show, I guessed wrong. I guess. But for anyone who has seen that movie, Aubrey's costume was AWESOME, a dead ringer. Plus I sewed it! Pat on the back to me :)

Sorry about Will's inappropriate Ghostbuster Pose, this was the only one where Penny is looking, and boy is she CUTE or what?!?!

and this year I even got into the Halloween spirit, dressed as my favorite thing of all, a cupcake!

We trunk or treated on Saturday at the church and then on Sunday we stayed home and handed out candies, lots and lots of candies! Halloween Love.