Pictures of stuff!!

My stamping/crafting area (hubby's tools weren't put away :/) The open, organized basement! We need to do some more renos down here, its stuck in the 80's

My fun new toy, don't know it's official name, but I LOVE it!!! And it spins!!

And this is what I made after I organized my tools!! I think its home will be our bedroom!! (I don't know why they don't open bigger, but you can click on My Stampin' Gallery on the side and see a bigger image I hope)Quick Update: Kids were sick last week, Em and Lex had flu symptoms for 4 day, (Lex at the beginning of the week and Em at the end of the week)and Noah had it only for a day. Bre had an ear ache somewhere in there too, but her and I and daddy all managed to not get the flu. We pretty much stayed home, cept for the odd thing, and made sure we washed hands and stayed in only one part of the house! We went for a quicky visit to the farm, and are now ready to start a new week!! No more sickness!!

My MOM ROCKS!!!

Just hafta tell you that! She was here for 2 days, and we accomplished so much!! Her main goal was to organize and purge my laundry area, and maybe move into our office/ exercise room! But we did sooo much more. Her intentions were to do everything, but I couldn't let her do everything. So we worked together, she did the majority of organizing and moving things around, I cleaned my washer and dryer area and organized the shelves beside them, and vacuumed, and helped throw things away and worked on laundry all day. We came out of there with I think 6 garbage bags full. AND we moved the exercise equipment out of the office and made the office area my new stamp room!!! I have a room! It might not be all mine, half hubby's and his computer junk, but it is a room, and it has a door!! Now all I need is a locking door knob, and it will be all good! I want to go to Michaels tonight and Staples to look for a better paper storage system. I need one for my 12x12 paper and for my 81/2x11 stuff! I have grown out of my other storage compartment!

AND she also painted my entry way and stairwell!!! No more bright yellow, it is now a neutral gray, that looks different in different lighting, same colour as my living room and hallways! LOVE it!!

The basement looks amazing and has so much room now that it is organized and my stamp area is outta there!!! The whole reason we bought this house was the openness of the basement! The kids were playing football down there yesterday!

I will take pictures and share sometime, when my life settles down a bit!!

Mentally Drained and Field Trips!

That is what I am this evening, I don't know why, maybe it is spending the evening with a 9 yr old who is having melt down after melt down (which is unusual), maybe it's after spending the day running from here to there, listening to children bickering, or just plain old non stop talking. I'm tired. I'm hardly ever like this lately. Don't get me wrong, I had my times when I was tired like this, back when my kids were 5, 3, 2 and new born. I know there are days like this when one home schools, but like any other mom, or human, I'm allowed to not like these days and just want to quit. I don't want to do anything, and my mama is coming tomorrow to help me organize some of my long lost rooms. Which I am ever so grateful for, and I am hoping tomorrow will be a better day! I need to get down on my knees tonight and pray, cause otherwise it is going to be a very very long week. As we have to be out for two more field trips, after the one this afternoon.

I'm loving field trips, it's fun to getting out and mingling with other mothers, and having the children play and 'socialize' with other kids! We haven't done very many field trips in the past, mostly cause the kids were little, but now that they are all older, and not as crazy out in public, it is easy to go out. It still makes it for a long day, cause when I am out with all four of my kids, I kinda get in panic mode, hoping that they behave, that they don't get lost, hoping that they don't get hurt, or hurt someone else by not paying attention to what they are doing. I get very stressed when taking my brood out, and besides I don't like answering the questions like "No school today?" or "Where do you go to school?" It does get tiring after awhile! So I tend to stay home, which is one of my favorite places to be!!

I still haven't had time to upload pictures and videos to a online photo album place. I looked once, but was on the wrong laptop, so I couldn't upload any pictures. Don't worry, I will share, once I find a place!!

I will leave you with one picture from our vacation, one of the things that was my favorit thing to do, sit and listen to the waves crashing against the rocks, and starring out at the great big ocean!!

Where do I even begin??!!

Let me start of by saying that I tried to blog while we were gone, but it wasn't working, the computer and we only had working internet at 2 of out 5 spots.

We had the most amazing time, honestly, it was awesome. Our first real family vacation in a very long time!! We were gone for 12 days in total. We surprised the kids and left Friday after hubby got home from work. They thought we were leaving early Saturday morning! They were soooo excited, I wish I would have videoed it. We drove about 6 or 7 hrs and stopped in Fort McLeod for the night, and slept in our vehicle....ya, we won't do that again. I think I only got 3 hrs of sleep. The kids fell asleep about an hr before we stopped...but as soon as we stopped they woke up, ya, at nearly 1 in the morning, all 4 kids were awake in the back seat. My darling hubby crashed as soon as he put the truck in park! So here I was with 4 wide awake kids at 1 in the morning. I tried to fall asleep for well over an hr, and was almost in tears at one point cause I was mad at myself for not planning on getting a hotel room. But if I were to do it over again, I think I would do the same thing, it was an experience, one that we had to experience in order to decide never to do it again with 4 kids!! We all eventually fell asleep, and at 6am were ready for our second day of our journey!! By the time we reached our hotel room in Abbotsford, we were in the truck a total of 27hrs!!! We were ready for a 'break'!

We had an amazing trip, no one got sick, even though hubby started the trek with strep throat. We all remained healthy and no one was severely injured, a scrape here and there was it. We had fun hotel rooms, almost all with kitchens! We did well with eating out too. That is a big kicker for money, besides gas. We managed to eat out once a day for over half the trip, 7 days, and for 5 of the days, we only had 2 meals out.

I could go on forever, we saw Orca's, a few Grey whales, sea lions, 3 bald eagles, on the ocean. We went to the Vancouver Aquarium, a Roughrider away game, enchanted forest, skytrek adventures, had supper at my husbands cousins restaurant in Banff, went to Drumheller and climbed the largest Dinosaur in the world, walked on a suspension bridge, went to the most amazing concert I've ever been too, Chris Tomlin. It was so much fun. I can't even begin to choose what pictures to share....maybe I will make an online photo album or something, I will let you know!!

Tuesday we get back to our regular scheduled day to day life, and dream of our next vacation.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, safe travels!!!

Honesty!!

I hafta tell you, I read a lot of blogs, sometimes I skim over what people write, sometimes I actually take the time and read it. I read one blog posting tonight that I wished I could write like. Maybe not so long winded, but I wish I could write so, Honestly!! Here is her blog, My Charming Kids

There is a part especially that stood out for me:

"I think that sometimes, many times, exceedingly often, for one reason or another, we think one thing in our heads, but say quite another with our mouths. Sometimes we aren't totally honest. And please don't get me wrong. That can be a good thing sometimes.

And there are other times when not being frank and honest can also be beneficial, if it protects boundaries you have set for yourself.

But other times, you just grow sick of having to watch what you say. Sick of not being totally honest. Like me. Tonight. And the irony is that even though you catch flack for not being honest, you will also catch it when you are honest. It is a completely stupid no-win situation and that's why I'm crabby! I've put a zipper on my lip and have refused to spend every minute of every day defending the stupid freaking lies that some people see fit to spread about me. I have focused on the fact that I am comfortable in who I am. That my husband loves me. That God has redeemed me and it is His opinion of me that ultimately matters. I have tried to take the high road, show my maturity, not stoop to anyone's level and refuse to get involved in unnecessary drama. I have been hurt, back stabbed, and ridiculed and have made the decision to fugetaboutit."

There are things I choose not to write about in my blog, if I'm having a bad day, or having a personal struggle with certain issues in my life, or if I'm just not in a good mood, but sometimes I wish I could. Or sometimes I wish that being honest doesn't hurt so much. I have always been a non-confrontational person, they (confrontations) really make me sick. There may even be things in my life right now, right this very instant, I am struggling with, or that has brought me pain deep inside. It makes me sad to think about it. I wish I could be honest, I wish that when I was honest, it didn't haft hurt so much. All I do know that God knows my heart and has redeemed me and it is His opinion of me that ultimately matters!!

One last Hurrah!

We went camping this weekend, and couldn't have asked for better weather! Wow, every morning was glorious, and every evening was just as fabulous! I did end up going to bed earlier than I usually do, which was ok, I suppose. I feel pretty proud to have accomplished something pretty big! I took the trailer out to the Park myself, and set it up all on my own. Hubby stayed and had to work Thursday and Friday and we went out Thursday afternoon. It was sad to not have him with us, first time ever, but I was so glad to have been able to accomplish something I was scared to do. It was fun to spend time with my mom and sister before the men arrived!!
I'd have to say that Sunday morning was one of the best mornings, even though it started of chilly with the fog, and clouds, it turned out to be a fantastic morning, walking to the lake with my mom and dad and sitting and watching people fish. We saw one lady catch a fish, and the kids loved that. The kids played on the park, and we went to the restaurant and had a drink, and then walked back to our site and made lunch with some of the leftover stuff we both had! I hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime the day before, so it was the best meal for me all weekend. These were our neighbours, you'd think they had a few kids around (mom and sisters campsites combined in middle as the common area).

These little guys were most annoying this weekend.

I don't think have anymore camping trips planned for the year, just maybe here and there at our parents for a night or two. I'm kinda happy to pack up the trailer, but kinda sad, the summer went so fast. I'm looking forward to a real vacation, no making meals and washing dishes afterward.

We went to my nieces 4th birthday party on Saturday and this is the card I made for her the morning before we left. The pink flowers are on pop-dots so they are raised a bit higher, and there are 4 of them cause that's how old she was turning (and pink is one of her favorite colours) yes, I do quirky things like that on some of my cards.