Baking!!!

I'm on my annual baking spree. My ambitions for this year include 7 types of cookies and 4 different bars. Whether this all gets done before tomorrow night, I dunno. But I'm certainly gonna try! So far, I've got 4 batches chocolate chip cookies, 4 batches peanut butter cookies, 2 pans of peanut butter rice krispie squares, 2 pans of brownies and a pan of cafe au lait bars completed. I've also got dough for 2 batches of sugar cookies in the fridge. Those, for sure, will be done tomorrow (well I guess today now lol). I also hope to get the cherry spiral cookies and rocky road squares done. Everything else would just be a bonus.

Brianna is a Timbit!

Brianna's having a blast in her curling lessons. Today they had the year end Christmas party and the kids got their vests with their names on it. Brianna is just tickled and won't take it off lol Lee asked to day if she's enjoying curling and wants to stay in it... I don't think there's any doubt of her sticking it through for at least the rest of the year!

Screw The Diet!

Ok, so it's Christmas. Who the hell can stay on a diet now!?! I've totally fallen off the wagon and gotten ran over it anyways, so I aint even gonna bother now. Christmas eve is in a week, I start Christmas baking on Monday (7 diff cookies and 4 diff bars) and we have 2 Christmas dinners to go to. Not to mention all the junky crap you get for Christmas and all the leftovers everyone is stuck with. Yup, screw it!

On to baking, a much happier topic. This year, as always, I'm making a bunch of stuff and sending some in to Lee's work. I'm also sending a bunch into mom's work and will probably bring a bunch to Grandma Hart's (if there's any left by Christmas Day!).

I am making:
- Fudgy Brownies
- Cafe Au Lait Bars
- Rocky Road Squares
- Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Sugar Cookies
- Cherry Spiral Cookies
- Chocolate Coffee Cookies
- Chewy Skor Cookies
- Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Devil Bites

No wonder I say screw the diet lol

On To Computer Number 3....

Yesterday mom's laptop would no longer load an internet browser. The net was working fine cause my weather eye loaded and was giving the correct weather, but Mozilla wouldn't load. Even went so far as trying Internet Explorer, no go. *sigh* Thank cripes, we got my dinosaur of a laptop (which we didn't think was even internet capable!) to work with the net. Now I don't know if there's a wireless card in it cause I have my modem cable plugged into it, but I don't care! I still have net! I sooooo need a new computer....

Mom moves in!

Mom's moving in today. It'll be a great money saver for both of us. She won't be paying her rent but she'll be bringing down ours by paying part of it. No idea when she'll move out, but we know it'll be at least Spring before that happens. Who wants to move in the winter!

It's a hell of a lot easier to move 1 person into a 3 bdrm house than it was to move 4 people into a 2 bdrm apartment back when we first moved to Cornwall! Most of her stuff is going in the basement and she's taking over Isaac's room. I really wish I had been able to paint it first, but I've been so busy with our first few weeks of homeschooling. Oh well, maybe we'll try to move around stuff later...

Remembrance Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Today we remember the fallen and the ones who have served. Bow your head and honour them with a moment of silence at 11am today. Freedom isn't free. Someone had to pay for it.

Die Cold Die!!!

Ugh! Been sick since Friday. Evil cold has also spread to Olivia who is miserable poor baby! It's not really terrible, just stuffed/runny nose and a cough but it's enough to be freaking annoying!!!!

Hockey, Hockey, Hockey!

Mom won hockey tickets for last night's game from work so we had a mommy/daughter date. Lee pouted over having to stay home with the kids, but we have plans for him and mom to go later and me stay home with the kids.

It was Canadian Forces Appreciation Night so there was loads of all branches of the military there and they had a ceremonial puck drop. We also finally got to handle the giant flag as it went around for Oh Canada! YAY!!!

We lost, but it was still a great game! Lot's of crazy plays and luck floating around out there! All the while it was snowing like crazy! Turns out we got next to no snow at home, but in Ottawa there was loads! Mom and I had a mini snowball fight after the game.

We went to the back parking lot for autographs and several players stopped. We collected David Hale (pictured), Jesse Winchester (pictured), Matt Carkner, Mike Fisher (pictured) and Zack Smith's autographs. Finally got home at 1am to get up at 7am for curling this morning!

I love my insurance agent!

Got some papers in the mail from my insurance for the renewal of my car and house insurance. Couldn't figure out which number was my new premium amount (turned out the one I thought it was was right), so I called them. After we get it all sorted out (with a $30 drop in my premium amount) she asks if I have a full driver's license. I tell her I don't drive at all, but Lee's had his license for 22 yrs. She says, I'm gonna make a phone call, we have a new Preferred Customer program that you should qualify for and it would dramatically drop your premium! I'm thinking another $20 or so off would be awesome!

She called back about 5 minutes later and say great news! You ARE qualified for the Preferred Customer program. Wonderful! Your rates are dropped a lot, ready for it? $122! HOLY CRAP! My current rate is $224, so this is freaking great!!!!!!! Over $100 extra in my pocket every month!!!!!!!! Ah, I love a great insurance agent!

Grocery Bills

This has been brought up on several of my boards over the years and it continues to boggle me. I keep hearing of families of 3 spending $600 a mth, families of 6 spending more than $1000, ect...

I am feeding a family of 4. Currently I'm still buying school snacks/juice boxes, ect... for a school child. I'm also feeding a labourer. He eats roughly twice what a average "desk-job-man" would eat. He has to. His job relies on the amount of calories he consumes. I, personally, am a lover of food (could be the reason part of this blog is about the diet I struggle with lol). Then there's the baby, who on some days, eats close to what Brianna eats!

When you add in the amount of food Lee alone consumes, I am essentially feeding a family of 5. But even going by an actual count, I'm feeding a family of 4. We spend roughly $200 a month.

Now, I am not one of these super crunchy house-wives who lives and breathes for natural/homemade everything. I mean, yes, we have a garden, but seriously? It's like 6x8 feet. It gives us slightly more than we can eat in a summer. With the exception of this year's green peppers, we usually never have anything left from the garden past October. I don't make most of my own grain products. I mean I like baking and will occasionally make muffins or quick breads, but for the most part I buy store bought. I buy store bought everything with the exception of what the garden provides during the summer. And even then! While I buy a lot less, I DO still buy fruits and veggies from the store during the summer!


I don't keep livestock, so I buy all my meat and dairy from the store (some of the biggest expenses at a grocery store too!). I also buy a lot of convenience foods. I don't soak beans, I buy canned. I buy boxed foods once and a while. I buy things like Mr. Noodles and Kraft Dinner (Mr. Noodles especially lol). 

 I buy a lot of brand name products. I DO buy some no name, but honestly, most of my foods are brand name. I don't deprive us of certain foods (eg. meat and dairy) to save money (ok, I will go once and a while without cheese because of the expense). We DO eat vegetarian sometimes, but it's because we LIKE it, not cause we're skipping meat to save money. Heck, I bought pizza pockets this week lol

I truly DO NOT understand how a lot of people are doubling (or more) our grocery bill. And especially my American friends! I remember (before the big passport broohaha) I LOVED shopping in the US for groceries because of how CHEAP it was! For example. A HUGE block of velveeta cheese is $6 or so. Here, a block 1/4 of that size is $6. A savings for 75%! I WISH we had American prices here!


I truly DO NOT mean this as an insult to my friends whose grocery bills are higher than mine. This is honestly a bit of pure confusion. Maybe cause we are used to living off of so much less money per year than some of my friends, we are able to make our grocery budget stretch further. Maybe my friends eat fancier foods than we do. I just don't get it.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

RAWR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bad day for Brianna. Grounded for life or so....

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

We have had such a rainy September. I'm sick of it! Spring is supposed to be rainy, not fall! Grrrr.....

Brianna has started walking to and from school by herself. She's very proud of this fact. She asked yesterday if she can stop at the mall, so we had a big discussion about why the mall is not a place to "hang out" and the fact that at her age she wouldn't be allowed to anyways!

Olivia is saying more words. Her newest one is pretty. Now everything is pretty lol She's also climbing more and getting into more trouble!

Sickness....

Last week Brianna was home from school for 2 days with a nasty head cold. Olivia picked it up a couple days ago and now Lee and I are starting to feel it. I hate head colds!!! Thankfully Brianna was fine after 3 days, so hoping Olivia's almost done and Lee and I don't get much of it :( I'm soooo not looking forward to winter colds/flus!

Library Cards!

We made Brianna's dream come true today and her and Lee went out to get her a library card. You'd think we just gave her free rein of the toy store LOL I took her back to the library later today to pick out some books and she was all how much is it? We get to take them for FREE?!?! It was awesome! And I explained how we could come back all the time to return our books that we've read and take out more and you'da thought I had given her the moon!

Homeschool???

I have been seriously researching homeschool this past week. It has always been in the back of my mind since before Isaac started school, but now, after homeschooling Brianna this summer I am seriously considering it. So many aspects of it impress me and encourage me. While I love Brianna's school and her teachers, I just don't look forward to the coming years in school. Brianna's previous behavioural problems diminished over the summer and have started coming back again as school has started. So many things to ponder. My biggest concern is her French Immersion. I am looking into some options for that right now. This is totally a middle of the night rambling, will go into more detail as I go....

:(

I didn't hit my goal for Sept 1st. Still stuck in the 180 range. BUT! School is starting on Tues so I'll be have to get moving again. Even if I don't work out otherwise I'll be doing my power walks again. So! Maximum 175lbs by Oct 1st! I don't think this'll be a problem because I'll be exercising again. Wooooo me!

$19.90

That's how much Brianna charged to Lee's cell phone. Now she gets to pay me back. Roger's thankfully took the charges off my phone, but I need for her to learn that doing things like that costs REAL money! If it happens again, Roger's won't take the charges off so I want to make sure it won't happen again. So she gave me all the money in her kitty bank and paid off $12.90. Still owes $7 but is willing to work extra chores to pay me back faster. Let's hope she actually does it!

Awesome Sale!

Value Village had a 50% off sale. Perfect timing too since it's back to school! Let's see what I got:
For Lee:
2 work shirts
1 nice polo shirt
For Brianna:
4 pairs of jeans
2 sets of pjs
2 sweaters
1 long sleeve shirt
1 jean jacket
For Olivia:
3 pairs of pants
1 pair of overalls
1 dress
2 shirts
1 sleeper
All for a measly $52!!!! Other than winter boots, Brianna is set for winter and Olivia's well on her way!

New System for Brianna

On Wednesday I hit rock bottom with Brianna. Nothing major happened, she didn't do anything super terrible, I just had enough. Nothing has been working. So I asked my girls for advice and here's what one came up with... Dr. Phil-ing her. I guess it's a matter of stripping her to nothing and making her earn everything.

So I started with her room. All the posters and such came off the walls, no stuffies on her bed, only one pillow, ect... The radio and night light stayed, but only cause I can't punish Olivia. Then the toy room... the only things in it now is the two booksheves (empty) and the vacuum. Everything else is in Isaac's room with the door locked.

All choices have been removed from her. She will eat a only certain times and only what I tell her. No more do I want an apple or an orange? She will wear whatever I put out for her, no pink or blue shirt choice.

She was very upset by this of course. Especially the prospect of no stuffie to sleep with and no choice over snacks. All was explained to her, how she could earn her things back, ect....

Wednesday and Thursday were a LOT better, but still full of the little things that she knows she can't do. Today was a great surprise. She listened well, finished her schoolwork and chores in a timely manner and so on. So I rewarded her with some Leapster time while Olivia napped. I went upstairs to hang with Lee. Brianna asked if she could get Olivia out of her crib to play with her. I thought sure! I was so happy with the sudden good girl behaviour. Then I went downstairs.... She was ignoring Olivia, watching tv and she had eaten a chocolate bar. *sigh*

So she got her mouth washed out with soap for lying about the chocolate bar (which she then admitted) and grounded to her room for the rest of the day. She was very remorseful this evening. Hopefully we'll get the good behaviour back now!

Wooooo!

Yesterday's weigh put me at 180.8lbs!!!! Only 2.8lbs to my goal! Hopefully I can hit it by next Wednesday :D

A Great Day!

Started out the day at the lowest weight I've been in close to 9 years! I'm down to 181.4lbs. Getting closer and closer to my goal of 178lbs by Sept 1st! YAY!

Next on the docket was bill paying. Currently all of our bills are up to date and paid! Such a good feeling after the summer we've had! It's so great to be finally caught up. Now we've got to work on September.

I'm looking into possibly getting a part time job. Lisa did up a resume for me and I'm going to bring it to a few places in the mall. That location would be perfect as it's only 4 blocks away so no matter the weather it's just a quick walk. Lisa's gonna be basicly "on call" as a babysitter in case I have to go to work and Lee's not home yet. I'd really rather stay home with Olivia being so little, but the extra money would be nice too. Maybe even just something until after Christmas.

Sorting Clothes Again....

Got to go through my fall-ish clothes to sort between listing on my Cornwall boards on Facebook or bringing them to my awesome consignment store Echo Trends. I got an offer on my crib set, $30. Not terribly happy with it but will take it if she doesn't bite the $35 I counter-offered.

I also need to go through the toy room again and go through all Brianna's craft stuff with her. Obviously the craft stuff isn't for selling but then I'd know what to be replacing. The toy room though.... we went through the whole toy room and got rid of bunches of stuff and there's still sooooo much that hasn't been moved all summer = not being played with.

I went through Olivia's toys last night. Put away all the baby-baby toys in the basement and got rid of a few toys for selling. I wish stuffed animals sold better.... I've got loads of those!

Ladies Night!

We finally managed to get Kate to Cornwall for the weekend. Me, mom, Lisa and Kate all went to mom's house to drink wine, eat pizza and play Rummoli. Very little Rummoli was played (Kate won btw!). Some pics :)

On a Shoestring

Budget that is. Lee's hours at work are finally starting to be a little more normal. Well, at least he's close to getting his hours. However, now we've got to catch up on all the bills we're behind on! Thankfully other than fresh stuff to buy each week we've got lots of food stuff. And Brianna's almost ready for school. So while we're kinda hard up right now, things are looking better finally!

Ugh! Rain...

I wanted to do laundry today. Woke up this morning, it was all overcast and looking like rain, so I put it off. Finally around 2pm it still hadn't started raining so I figured it was just gonna be an overcast day, let's wash the laundry and hang it, it'll just take a bit longer to dry. Start up the washing machine, it's not even half full and the rain starts *sigh* Thankfully it's supposed to stop by morning so hopefully I can get it all done tomorrow!

Cheating

I caught Brianna cheating in her school work today by looking at the answers in the back of the book and copying them. She's been working in these types of books for years and never cheated before. I am so disappointed. I tore out all the answer sheets from her workbooks and she is right now writing an essay on cheating.

I told her that the books she's working in right now are Grade 2 books. She should know all of it since she just finished Grade 2. She says "you know I didn't pay attention in class!" I told her that was her fault not mine. She claims it's not her fault either. Gee, who's fault could it be then?!?!

I plan to work with her teachers in Sept to get all unfinished work home so it can be done. I don't care if they want to mark it incomplete against her school record, but the work will be done! When her school work all came home in June, I couldn't believe the amount of work in there where not a single answer had been done! I don't know how on earth she's getting Cs and Bs on her report card. I don't think she's doing enough work to get even those grades!

She's gonna be in for a big surprise in Grade 3. I am totally cracking down. She'll have her school work at school, whatever work she doesn't have finished at home and her work books. I will not have a child who in only Grade 3 doesn't do her work. I wouldn't mind at all if it was that she *couldn't* do the work, but it's the fact that she *won't*.

Mont Cascades!

On Friday we went to Mont Cascades water park. We were gonna go to the new one near us but it's not done yet and it's $30 where as Mont Cascades was having a 20th anniversary sale of $10 per person.

The weather was not that great, cloudy, cool and threatening rain all day, but that just meant there was less people there, which meant the lines for the water slides were also less! I think the longest anyone waited in line was 2-3 minutes.

The water was COLD but after a few rides you got used to it fairly quickly. I'm not a big rides person (read: a big chicken lol) so I mostly hung out with Olivia. Brianna loved it. She had a great time and could go on most ride by herself if the adults wanted a break. Her favorite ride seemed to be the racing slide where up to 4 people could go down at the same time. Lee won most often cause of course he's the heaviest, but mom and Brianna won a couple too.

They had a Subway there, which was awesome cause usually parks like that have overpriced French fries and burgers and such. It was nice to get real food. We brought our own drinks and all sorts of snacks, but when one spends 6 hrs somewhere you need a meal in there too!

It started raining lightly a couple times, but really, no one noticed. After all, it was a water park! Everyone was already wet.

We managed to get Olivia to nap in her stroller, a big job in itself! She only slept for about 30 mins, but after she woke up I brought her on a kiddie slide. She seemed to like the slide, but the water was so cold I didn't bring her up again. She didn't mind lol Since the park was so un-busy, we let her run around a lot with us chasing her. She thought it was great! She loved the little sun chairs they had set up all over the place which were low so she could get in and out of them herself.

Before we even left the parking lot, Brianna wanted to know if we could come back! I'd love to if it wasn't an hour and a half away. Especially this summer while it's only $10 a person!

Olivia's 1st Birthday Party!

So I'm a week late posting this *blush*

It was a great party! Several of Lee's family came (except his parents) including all of his grandparents. Olivia actually did very well with all the new people. Lee's uncle Steven (who Olivia's never met) was actually able to pic her up and she didn't freak out!

We just visited with everyone for a while before present time. Olivia was very interested in them. She got some little fake flowers as decoration on a gift that she was madly in love with that almost outshined all the other gifts lol She tried to run away with several gifts as if someone was gonna take them from her lol

I changed her into the first birthday outfit (the same overall shorts and onsies that Isaac and Brianna wore on their first birthday) for cake. I made her a butterfly shaped smash cake and a matching butterfly cake for the big cake. She was totally weirded out by the smash cake and while she'd eat the cake off my fingers, she didn't want to touch it herself! We put her in the pool after which she thought was great until she tripped and landed face first in the water. Then she had enough.

I changed her into dry clothes and we visited a little more until she needed to go for a nap. It was a long day for her as she fell right to sleep!

One Year Ago...

July 18th at 10:30pm, my water broke. I was sitting on the porch and actually heard and felt and "pop" in my lower belly. Since my first labour lasted 84 hrs and my second labour lasted 24 hrs, I wanted sleep. So without saying anything, I convinced Lee we should go to bed.

Around 1:30am, July 19th, I woke up to contractions. Nothing serious, 10-15 minutes apart and very mild. Annoying enough though, that I couldn't sleep. Came downstairs to do some reading. Around 4am my contractions were still very mild but slightly stronger and around 10 minutes apart. I took a bath (which btw, didn't seem to affect my labour at all, no change in pain or relaxation, so obviously a water birth is not the way to go for me.

Continued relaxing on the porch reading my book. Since they were still quite mild, I figured I'd wait til at least 6am to wake everyone that way all could get a good night's sleep.

Around 7am I actually had to start stopping what I was doing to breathe through contractions... time to wake everyone up. Went to wake up Lee and told him the baby was coming. I went to wake up Brianna and got hit by my first hard contraction. I actually had to sit down for that one! Brianna was great, getting up with no argument and packing an overnight bag to go to Auntie Lisa's.

Suddenly my contractions were 5 minutes apart and I had to lean on something to breathe hard through them. Lee called mom to drive us to Ottawa. She showed up at 8:30am and we left. All of a sudden it felt like the baby was bearing down and I felt the need to cross my legs tight during contractions so she didn't pop right out! The pain in my back was so intense, I knew right away, back labour again (same as Brianna). For that matter, my back hurt more than my belly during contractions!

As we were hitting the edge of town I couldn't take it any more. I told my mom we weren't going to make it to Ottawa, to pull over and call for help. My mom immediately picked up the phone to dial 911. We pulled into the truck stop on the way out of town at 8:41am. My mom told Lee that the 911 dispatcher wanted him to check if I was crowning (thankfully maternity shorts are easy to pull off even sitting in the car!), nope, nothing yet.

After what seemed like an eternity, the ambulance showed up. We had to wait through a few contractions until I felt ok enough to get out of the car, onto the stretcher. Lee and I went into the ambulance and my mom went to drive Brianna back to my house to be watched by the neighbour, then come back to the hospital.

I remember the ambulance guy trying to take off my watch. He couldn't figure it out. Thankfully I am never without my watch so took it off for him even through a contraction with my eyes closed. He said he needed to insert an IV in case they needed to do a C-section. I laughed at myself then, knowing the baby didn't need one, she was on her way out with every passing second!

We got to the hospital at 8:54am. A nurse in the ER came up and I remember her taking half a second to lift the gurney sheet to check for crowning and all of a sudden there was yelling and we were being rushed upstairs.

After what seemed like an hour, I was settled into a bed in the delivery room and the nurse asked if I wanted to push. I told her "for quite some time now!". She said I could go ahead but I insisted on having my legs held, they put up the leg stirrups. Even in my pain induced fog, I knew that wasn't enough. Sure enough, one push, baby crowned and I almost kicked the nurse in the head! This time, a nurse grabbed the leg Lee wasn't holding. Pushed again, Olivia Christiane was here at 9:01am!

My mom showed up about 5 minutes later, even beating the dr by 10 minutes! She was disappointed to miss the birth as she had been there for the others, but Olivia was in too much of a hurry! Olivia weighed in at 6lbs 7.5oz and was 18.5in long.

Lee later told me that she was born face down. I told him that was normal but very strange since I thought I had back labour (in which the baby would have been face up). I guess my back is just that messed up, that even with a normal labour and delivery, I'm gonna feel like my back is being ripped off. Let's hope I don't have actually back labour next time!!!

Happy 11th Birthday Isaac!!!

Isaac's actual birthday was yesterday (the 16th) and we had a little party for him today!

As soon as he came in he wanted cake lol I made the cake he wants every year, white cake with blue icing. I wrote his name in green as I always do too. Unfortunately the kids were so impatient to eat it, I didn't get a before picture.

First we did gifts. The book he got, he got as another birthday gift but I told him to just take it to the book store and exchange it for the other one he was looking for. He was super excited for the Lego set Grandma got him cause he had been looking for that one. Brianna bought him the Zhu Zhu pet Nugget that he wanted and we also got him a little lego type dump truck. He set to building the Lego set while I got commissioned to build the dump truck.

I made the children eat lunch before cake (the mean mommy that I am lol). Isaac had to make sure I brought enough candles for his cake (cause of course I'm gonna forget that he's 11). Once we sang Happy Birthday and Isaac blew out the candles we dug in. I made Olivia little bitty cupcakes from leftover batter and she wasn't too impressed. Hopefully she does better with her birthday cake!

Got loads of pics including a good one of all 3 of them and my annual "how tall are Isaac and Brianna" pic.

For Once, Lee's Sick

Which never happens. My and both girls could be sick as dogs and Lee'll be perfectly fine. Well last night he started getting sick. We think it was the frozen strawberries left in the fridge for too long that he ate. So he's off work today. Olivia and Brianna think it's great that he's home but of course he's just lounging on the couch.

Gotta get the last of the birthday shopping done today!!!

Slight Break in the Heat

Instead of it being 45C, it's 35-40C. Not much, but something. I've taken to taking cold showers every afternoon at the peak heat. Poor Olivia's been running around and sleeping in nothing but a onsie. Brianna's in the pool for hours a day. Lee's finally getting some relief at work. As of tomorrow he's allowed to wear shorts to work! YAY! I'd die if I had to wear jeans like he always has.

Isaac's birthday is coming up on Friday and Olivia's in Monday. We're having a big birthday visit this weekend. That reminds me... I need blue icing dye for his cake! We've had some RSVPs for Olivia's birthday, but Lee's still worried most of his family won't show up.

Olivia's been sick. She just got over Roseola and a fever of 105F and now she's got some kind of stomach bug, poor baby. She's not really eating, but thankfully she's still drinking/nursing a lot. Brianna's got some random cough but nothing else.

OMG The Heat!!!

We are going through a massive heat wave. I hate it! We have had the air conditioner running on full blast since Saturday and it seems like we don't have one at all :( It's been about 45C (115F for my American friends) all week. We're expecting storms this afternoon to break it up but while the sky looks threatening, it aint doing anything. I think we're gonna spend the weekend at the beach!

Brianna's 8th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Brianna!

Her birthday was this past Monday and we had her party on Sunday. She had a blast! We had a great turn out of her friends and her cousins, Kyle and Tanya, were finally able to make it since they now live in town!

Sunday was the start of a massive heat wave in the area so we set up the pool for the kids. Brianna's guests weren't even here yet and she was asking to go in it! As soon as lunch was done we set them loose. Lee thought up this great scheme that me and mom would "plot" with the kids to get them to throw Lee in the pool. The kids thought this was a wonderful idea and of course Lee pretended to know nothing about it.

Brianna wanted a Littlest Pet Shop cake this year so I bought one of the sets that come with a bunch of accessories and made up a little scene on her cake. She thought it was great!

She was so happy with her gifts. Her favorites were some craft sets from her friend Lyric, the Zhu Zhu baby that Auntie Lisa got her, the baby skateboard Lee and I bought and the *real* baseball and bat from Grandma.

Happy Canada Day!

yesterday.....

I was much too tired after the festivities to post last night so here we are!

Canada Day started out as a normal day since nothing goes on in the mornings. So Brianna had her schoolwork, Olivia had nap, then we had lunch. THEN it was time to pull out the Canada Day fun! We got dressed in our Canada Day outfits (or just red clothes in mine and Lee's case), tattoos applied (even for Olivia!), hair done up (well, Lee wouldn't let me do his lol) and off we go!

We went down to the park where Brianna saw those big blow up playground things. We said she couldn't go cause the lines were miles long! Maybe later. We saw Auntie Lisa at her volunteer post in the bingo tent and then went to see some petting zoo animals. Brianna was thrilled to feed them and even saw a pink chicken (her fave!). Olivia wasn't too sure about these big animals but she was keeping a close eye on them!

We went back to the house for Olivia to nap and Brianna went 2 doors down to play with some kids visiting. Lisa and Steph showed up for BBQ and fireworks. After the baby woke up Lee took her for a bit of a walk, when he came back he said the lines at the blow up things we're a lot shorter so he'd take Brianna back. Unfortunately the reason they were so short was because they were about to close :( Poor Brianna

We did up a huge BBQ and sat around chatting waiting for the fireworks. I put Olivia down and she actually went down easy so I figured great! No problems later. WRONG! I went inside to get a drink at 9:30pm and she must have heard me and woke up and started fussing. I sent Lee up to try to get her back down, what does he do? Brings her outside! So Olivia got to see her first fireworks. She was totally enthralled! I figured the loud noise would scare her but no way!

Thankfully once all was done we had no problems putting the girls to bed. I was pooped! I went straight to bed and I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Summer Vacation/Homeschool

Brianna's last day of school was Tuesday. So yesterday meant the first day of Summer Homeschooling. It took me forever to write up the curriculum! But, I now have work for her to do everyday (save a couple of days that we're out of town) until school starts again.

So far it's going over pretty good. She loves the money part that I made for her. We have several "homework" books for her to go through as well as the rest of her math text from school. Even by the end of the summer we'll still have homework pages left! I'd like to continue the school work even once school has gone back, probably on the weekends.

Girls Day Out!

No babies or boys allowed!

We went to pick up one of those awesome Ikea kids chairs that are egg shaped and have a closing canopy on them... Brianna loves it! It was supposed to be for her birthday but she had to get it early so I could make sure it was big enough for her!

Next stop was a hair cut! Her first cut in a salon. I finally convinced her to go short. I guess every time I talked about cutting her hair short she was thinking like Lee's hair. Noooooo, a normal girly short hair cut! She's madly in love with her new hair.

Then we went off for some shopping. Brianna got new shoes, toothbrush and toothpaste (she's still at an age where that's exciting lol) and a new skort. We also went out for hot chocolate and donuts.

All in all, a great day! We discussed how when he behaviour is good, we like to do this kind of stuff with her. How if he behaviour was good over the summer, we could do this kind of stuff more often! Hopefully that sinks in!

Broke the $250 Mark!

Wooooo! I've sold over $250 worth of stuff so far! It's certainly helped. Almost 1/2 of it is in the savings account and the rest has helped pay bills and groceries. We're almost done the basement too. I'll probably get the last of it done tonight *fingers crossed* Brianna caught me taking pics of sale stuff and insisted on being put up for sale lol

Brianna's almost done school. She pouting about it lol We've come to an agreement for the summer. She'll do homework books through Olivia's morning nap. I'm hoping with her home all the time too that her behaviour will get better too. The stealing has gone down to a minimum but the temper tantrums are still high. So we have lots to work on over the summer. Hopefully the behaviour will get better and we can work on any weak spots in school work.

We're all excited about Canada Day coming next week! Olivia and Brianna got some new Canada Day clippies from a contest I entered.

Lee's work has slowed down. He's now getting home before 4pm almost everyday! Waaaaay better than the after 7pm he was doing. The girls are loving him being home!

My dieting has sucked lately. I need to get back on track. Thankfully I havn't gained, but I totally blew my Father's Day goal. I was still off 2lbs. My current goal is to get to 178lbs by Olivia's birthday... only 4.2lbs to go!

We're getting close to the Birthday Season! I'm done present-wise for Olivia and Brianna. I have everything but food for Brianna's party (and I think I need some icing color too). I still havn't done anything for Isaac's birthday but at least I found some of his gifts. And I really need to make up and send out Olivia's invites! Brianna will be taking her invites to school on Monday.

Father's Day Weekend

Hot weekend! Hot in weather, hot in sales, hot in general!

Went to Ottawa to see Isaac on Sat and so Brianna could see Gilles. I promised Isaac and Brianna last visit that if it was nice next time, I'd leave Olivia with Lee so we could go play outside without having to worry about keeping an eye on Olivia. We got to go outside with Isaac and Brianna playing on the sand hill and the play structures but not too long after we went out did it start raining :(

Father's Day dawned a sunnier day. Brianna and I made breakfast in bed for Lee and Brianna gave her gift to him. She picked out a pretty pocket watch back in March that says Dad on it and insisted it was perfect for Lee. He wore it all day. We had a BBQ while Brianna was at a birthday party and Dylan came over for supper and to go swimming. Olivia wasn't too sure about the pool at first and had me in a death grip but soon discovered all the people to look at and splashing to do!

Getting along in the basement. We're up to 5 bags of donations and 6 bags of garbage now.

Moving to the Basement

Last night I started clearing out the basement. Got bunches of stuff garbaged, donate-abled and sellable. Did more tonight and majority of it was garbage :( Why on earth did I keep this crap for so long?!?! Well no more! My packrat days are OVER! It'll take a lot longer than the closet but I am tearing apart that entire basement! So sick of all the junk! Hopefully I'll have lots of sellable stuff and be able to make lots of money too!

Brianna had a rock bottom crappy evening. *sigh* I'm so sick of it. I just don't know what to do about her anymore....

Getting Better!

My head cold is moved completely into my chest and is much less bothersome now! YAY! Brianna did stay home again due to her sore stomach. Mine was a bit sore today too so I wonder if we ate something funny or just have a bit of a bug along with our colds. She claims she's all better now though and going to school tomorrow.... we'll see in the morning lol

I got some more selling stuff listed and sold. I'm so excited about how much I'm selling! May not seem like much to some, but every $ in the savings account is more than I had before! Tonight seems to be a big selling night for me. I've had 4 separate buyers questioning me in the last 20 minutes!

I promised Lee I'd make him a treat today but was busy with the kids during the day so only got to it now. Making him Cheater Black Forest Cake. YUM

Sick Day

My head cold has moved to my chest. Ewww. However, it seems to want to hang around in my head longer. Thankfully I have a fresh prescription for my asthma pumps. Feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest :(

Brianna was home sick today too. We started walking to school and she was walking like a hunchback cause her stomach hurt. I kept asking if she wanted to stay home. Nope, she wanted to go to school. Finally when we were almost there she says maybe she should stay home. Silly girl, in love with school! She took a nap at the same time as Olivia and seemed much better when she got up.

Lee got home at like 1:30pm today! I couldn't believe it! Kinda sucks cause it means he only got 7 hrs today. Hopefully he at least works til 2pm tomorrow.

Started sorting through crap in the basement. Got another bag of garbage and 3 bags of donate-ables! I am soooo sick of keeping crap in hopes of *maybe* using it a zillion years from now. So out if goes! I've been putting aside stuff I'm actually keeping and stuff to sell but otherwise the rest of it can get out of my house!

A Little Behind

So I'm almost a week behind here! Oops!

New landlord says we don't get to use the porch AT ALL anymore. No chairs out there, no more cross stitching, no more reading, nothing. He wants it empty. WTF?!

Did Brianna's hair up in 32 braids. She loved it! The next morning we took her hair out and she's in love with the waviness of it! I'm guessing we'll be doing that hair style often lol

Olivia is walking around more than ever now. Getting really good at standing from a seated position without anything to hang on to. Got pigtails into her hair several times now. Trying to get better pics though.

Lee's still working crazy hours. He did get off before 5pm 2 days last week. It was so nice to have him home! But, I'll admit, this overtime is certainly helping with the bills!

Cleaning out the bedroom closet.... what a job! I've been working on it for the last 3-4 days. I've already got 2 bags of garbage and 1 bag of donate-ables out of it. But I'm getting there! I'm about 3/4 done and there is SOOOOO much more space in there! I'm hoping to be able to get all my for sale stuff in there rather than having it our in the bedroom.

Speaking of... my selling is going pretty good. Already got money in the savings account and putting more in this week. I'm finding new stuff to add to the selling pile everyday!

Selling off to a Good Start!

I posted only some of the things I have to sell late this morning and have already made over $40 pending pickup! YAY! I've still go bunches of things to take pictures of and list but now I'm getting excited about listing stuff rather than dreading it.

Asked the after school program today about having Brianna in it 5 days a week until the end of the school year. She's only off it Tues and Wed but with Lee's new hours it screws up Olivia's nap times. Normally I'd put her down for a nap around 2pm and leave her here with Lee while I pick up Brianna at 3pm. Now I've got to put her down at 1:30pm and wake her up almost an hour early to go get her. With the after school program though, Olivia's naps would be perfectly fine since I don't have to pick up Brianna til 6pm.

Brianna had a good day today. Did her chores with no complaining, and even helped with some extra ones! Hopefully this is a sign of things to come!

Another Day, Another Dollar

Lee's back to work after the weekend. At least he got some sleep though... the 3 of us napped yesterday afternoon while Brianna played in Isaac's room. Supposedly he'll be home by 5:30pm... I doubt it :(

Even though Lee said he'd do the dishes over the weekend he didn't get any done so today has been a cleaning day for me. I've got 2 loads of laundry done, 2 loads of dishes done (and the 3rd soaking) and 75% of the porch done.

I've really got to get the pictures of clothes taken and list everything on the Cornwall selling board. I got pictures of everything else at least. I really wanna make some $ off this stuff. We're supposed to be yard sale-ing this weekend too.

The day started off bad with Brianna getting up at 2am to eat a peanut butter sandwich. Dead giveaway was that she "wasn't hungry" at breakfast. Let's hope we can get chores done and the rest of the day through without picking fights. She's finally earned enough stars to go to the park for an hour so it would be nice for her not to be grounded tomorrow so we could do that after school!

A Visit From an Old Friend

So Lee's old High School buddy Leslie came to visit yesterday and overnight. Lots of fun to be had! We had a big BBQ and some drinks. Once the bug were biting too much we moved from the back yard to the porch. In my cleaning spree yesterday I kinda forgot to eat (lol) so ended up feeling like crap. I think being tired didn't help.

This morning we had some bacon and eggs for breakfast (and I informed Lee that I expect the sausages and pancakes he didn't make, for breakfast tomorrow!) After some pictures in the yard we said our goodbyes for now. Hopefully we'll see him again later in the week when he's back in town!
Off to Ottawa! Had a great visit with Isaac. We went upstairs to play, something I think we'll do more often cause there's toys there that Olivia can play with too. Isaac and Brianna had loads of fun playing with some ride on toys, racing around. Had a great lunch of leftover BBQ *YUM*

Much Better Rest of the Afternoon

So Lee's coming home early on Wednesday was a fluke. Last night he didn't get home til 7:30pm. Supposedly he'll be off by 5pm today which would be nice cause Leslie's coming.

Brianna had a much better time after her little timeout. I made brownies and she helped me make 2 different kinds of muffins. I still have to make the frozen berry dessert I was supposed to make yesterday.

Got my workout in last night. God my upper body strength sucks. I'm lifting 3lb weights and almost died lol I think I'll squeeze in a little workout between laundry and cleaning since we'll be kinda busy tonight!

Another Day Home

After spending yesterday picking nits out of Brianna's hair we are on about the 8th washing of her hair to get the vaseline out. Happily, when I checked her hair last night I did not see any nits. But her hair still looks like she hasn't bathed in a month so I kept her home again. She helped by sweeping and washing the floors after I explained to her that while yes, the floors are normally Lee's job, we are doing his chores because of the insane hours he's working now.

Life was going great until she decided that in order to keep Timmy out of her wet floors that she'd lock him in the linen closet and spray him with Windex if he tried to get out. OMG I swear I'm gonna be bald.

So she got to sit on her bed doing nothing with Grandma watching while Olivia and I went to the grocery store rather than coming with us and getting a treat after. She did do fairly well upstairs though. She's now in the tub washing her hair again. Hopefully we can keep having good behaviour so she can help me bake while Olivia naps.

Oh! And Lee actually got home at 5:30pm yesterday! Soooo nice to have him home "early".

Getting Kicked off of PRMR

Arrrrgggg! I am so pissed right now! On Monday, I did my update on PRMR as usual. I went back Tuesday morning to check it over and found that Syd posted at 8am (5am his time) that I made mistake and he was fixing them. WTF?! Who gets up a 5am to check a game?! So anyways, because of this the Forum Hosts have decided to kick me off PRMR and make a whole new board with a whole new host account. The Forum Host zmailed me about it all full of I make mistakes, I don't get along with Syd, blah blah blah. Humans make mistakes people! I check my updates but when someone's getting up at 5am to find mistakes there's no way in hell I can find them and fix them! And I never talk to Syd, how can I get along with him or not? Holy crap I'm peeved.

On a high note I'm down .8lbs!

New Landlord

So the new landlord took over today. He's a non-smoker so now I can't smoke in the shared porch. Crap. I mean, it won't be so bad right now cause it's warm, but the winter is freaking cold! I'm gonna see about extending my back deck up to be able to put up some weather sheeting just to block out the wind.

Lee got home a whole 1/2 an hour earlier today. Said something about Monday - Friday now. So is that *this* Friday? Leslie's visiting this Friday so that would really suck. Hopefully it starts next Friday since a bunch of guys worked Sunday this week. Would be good for the pay cheque though. Especially since this landlord (Sebastian) isn't gonna be like John and let me pay over the course of the month. So hopefully all these hours will let us pay this month's rent quickly and have at least most of it for the 1st next month.

Made another chocolate banana bread today for the freezer. Used raspberry extract, goes with chocolate so why not. Think I'm gonna make Peanut Butter and Honey Muffins tomorrow. Maybe another bread-type thing too.

Brianna's home to help me tomorrow. Discovered nits in her hair tonight *sigh* So she's got a head full of Vaseline and tomorrow we'll wash it out with vinegar and pick nits. Hopefully we'll get it all in the first shot. But at least she can help me with some baking.

First Day of New Hours

Lee didn't get home til 7pm! What happened to 5am-5pm??? So he was gone yesterday for 15 hrs. And this is how it's gonna be til all VA's work is finally caught up... on TOP of doing their own work! Poor Lee! He got to take a shower, spend about 10 minutes with Olivia before she went to bed, spend about 20 with Brianna before she went to bed, on the computer for an hour then went to bed himself. Only to get up at 3am to start all over again! *sigh*

Olivia is an absolute crank today. I dunno if it's the crappy weather or what. I put her down for 2 seconds and she screams like someone ripped off her arm! Maybe it's teeth. She is walking more often now. Rather than dropping to a crawl she'll walk if it's a short distance between where she's going. And she's loving to clap now. She figured it out a few days ago and we always sing Patty Cake when she does it, she loves it!

After a week off, whole new hours....

Havn't been around since Lee had the week off last week. Got a call Saturday night though that he'll be going back to 12 hr shifts from 5am-5pm *!&@#$& The hours will certainly help with out financial situation but he'll essentially be home and awake for 3 hrs a day :(

Olivia has started walking with greater accuracy! She has walked a distance of up to 6 feet! She's soooo proud of herself too! I got a short video yesterday but am trying to get a better one, then I'll figure out how to post it here. Olivia also had her first bowl of spaghetti! Typical results lol

Brianna is doing pretty well on her behaviour chart. We're still having some issues but it is a lot better than before. She has already earned enough stars to go to the park for an hour! She'll be sleeping at Grandma's in no time!

I'm stuck at 183.2lbs. Weigh in this morning said the same as last week. I guess that's better than a gain though! I did some weight work last week but was also so busy getting ready for the mom sale! I did pretty good there too. Sold the bassinet and rocker and some other smaller things. Even got a custom cross stitch order! I'm about half done it already so the customer should be able to pick it up tomorrow!

Arrgggg!

After my "YAY Brianna" post it was discovered that she stole twice today. First I caught her stealing chocolates from my desk, then Lee discovered that she stole 2 juice boxes for school. I am so lost on this stealing thing. I *need* her to show improvements or I'm gonna start pulling out my hair!

On another crappy note... it is so freaking HOT! Lee insisted on going to feed the ducks. Well I aint gonna be doing that again when it's still 32C! We got back over an hour and a half ago and I'm finally cooling down. The upstairs must be cooling down though, Olivia only fussed a minute or 2 before going to sleep.

I *really* need to get back to my strength training. I have skipped it for the last 2-3 wks. I'm still walking (not as much cause of the heat and too dumb to think to pull down the treadmill), but of course my body is used to walking so I really need to go back to adding something else. I'm gonna do a day of legs and abs, then a day of arms and stretching, then go back. My clothes are looser and the scale is moving but I don't seem any smaller to me. Lee says he can tell but I can't.

A Pretty Good, But HOT Weekend

Haven't been here in a while but things are going pretty good.

Saturday we went to Ottawa to see Isaac. Not 5 minutes before we arrived, Olivia fell asleep in the car. So Brianna and I went a head in and mom text me to come get Olivia when she woke up. Took some new *all three of the kids* pics.

After the visit we dropped Brianna off at Gilles and went to go visit Kate. Olivia had a grand ole time playing in the dirt while Lee cringed lol She was filthy! We had Taco Bell for supper.... bad idea. Holy salt! I came home and drank about 5 glasses of water in half an hour!

Sunday promised to be a hot day. We planned to BBQ so mom and I each took out bunches of meats to throw on. Olivia had decided that grass isn't so bad and will now crawl around in it. She loved mom's water bottle and kept trying to drink from it. If you helped her, she thought it was great fun to drink the water and dribble it down herself.

After the BBQ mom took Brianna down to the park to feed some birds. Brianna was all excited to see some goslings but no ducklings yet. The seagulls got pretty close to her as she threw out the bread. Brianna got a bit of a scrape when her and Grandma were playing hip check and she fell.

Holiday Monday was even hotter. Got all the crocheted blankets for the mom sale washed and line-dried. Now just gotta finish up our cross stitching and make up some more bows.

Lee took Brianna over to the Splash Pad that opened up this weekend. She thought it was great that she could walk there in just her swimsuit. Apparently she met a bunch of her friends from school too.

We got the air conditioner in on Sunday but the upstairs is still pretty warm. Olivia is not appreciating the heat. We have her sleeping in just onsies but she's quite fussy at night because of the heat. She's also quite clingy during the day. I'm hoping she pops some teeth as a result of this!

Brianna did pretty good behaviour wise this weekend. She got all 3 stars on Saturday, picked a fight with Lee on Sunday so only got 2 stars, but again got all 3 stars on Monday! YAY Brianna!

And just a funny shot of Olivia being silly with puffs in her hair lol

GOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!

Wooooooooooooo me! I hit an surpassed my 10lb goal by .4lbs! I am sooooooooo excited! So now I'm set up with my new goal of 5lbs by Father's Day.

Lee installed the new washer and dryer today. The washer actually has a working hot water hose so I can once again separate my clothes and wash my whites in HOT! Woooooooo! And even though it was a nice day I had to do one load in the dryer just to see how it works. Lee started calling it a piece of junk cause the cycle was almost over and the clothes were still wet and it seemed there was very little heat. Crap. So I fiddled with the settings and found one that works! Lots of heat and perfectly dry clothes YAY!

Brianna had a fairly decent day. Picked a stupid fight with Lee over wiping up a mess she made. Why do kids pick the hard way?! It would have been sooooo much easier just to clean up the mess she made, properly, the first time! She's having a sleep over with Grandma tonight. I know, I know, she hasn't hit 50 stars yet, but it was a planned event.

Lee's on vacation! I get him for a whole week now! We can't really afford for him to take time off, but I do love when he's here. Where's that winning lotto ticket?

I finally got around to cleaning out the toy room. Got rid of 1 big bag of garbage and to big bags of stuff for the Agape. Looks soooo nice in there now! Tomorrow when we get home from Ottawa I'm getting Brianna to go through the stuff I left behind and take out anything she's not playing with. We're also getting rid of the air hockey table. She loved/s playing with the one at our visits with Isaac but so rarely plays with ours so GONE! It'll be nice to have that space. It's not huge but it would be an extra 4x3 feet! YAY!

Almost a Good Day

So we had a mostly good day....

Took Brianna to her hearing test. While the tech said the vibrations weren't as high as she liked (but didn't explain that at all *sigh*) her hearing is perfect :S HUH? So what's with the yelling and the odd accent??? The yelling she said is common enough that she sees at least 2 kids a week for, but she couldn't explain the odd accent. So we'll go back to Dr. Joseph June 17th for a follow up of her feet and ears and see what he thinks.

Come back into town and pop by my old friend's house to check out the washer and dryer we were discussing yesterday. Not as new as I thought it would be but her dad gave me a "warranty" on them saying he'd give me my money back if I don't like them within 30 days. Sold. $100 for a washer AND a dryer! They even delivered them to my house! I can't wait for Lee to install them tomorrow!!!

Tried Value Village for new shorts as mine are starting to fall off even though the scale hates me. No go. God I hate buying clothes! Thankfully I've got a few shorts that still fit. Supposed to get hotter over the weekend and hit 30C by Tuesday! (And somehow I've got to get Brianna to wear her sneakers/inserts to school in this heat!)

Came home, ended up having to nurse Olivia since I didn't pump this morning and was gonna blow up (and at that point I'm too engorged to pump). So I guess she'll start her noon sippy feedings tomorrow. We both went for a nap while Lee sat on the porch watching Brianna play outside. When we got up Olivia and I went to the grocery store while Lee and Brianna played a game on the computer (since she had been good all day). Come home and Brianna's playing on the computer by herself, obviously Lee was happy with her.

Made a totally awesome chicken bake for supper. OMG yum! Starting to massively heat up in the house so we've got all the windows open. Olivia highly protested going to sleep cause she was hot and sweating in only a onsie. Maybe we should put in the air conditioner? Get Brianna to get ready for bed. I'm on the porch and hear: LEE!!!! Go inside and all I can smell is Lee's cologne. *sigh* Lee's done what I did the other day and turned off the bathroom light to ignore her tantrum. Ensuing fit. In the bath tub again. Finally get it out of her that she just wanted to smell it. So I showed her how she can smell the cologne anytime she likes without having to pour it down the drain and waste is. She thinks it's wonderful that she has permission. (WOW, another time where ASKING is better than just doing something).

Soooooo hoping that we can make it through the WHOLE day tomorrow being a good day!

The scale finally moves!

Forgot to post this morning that the scale finally woke up and I'm down .4lbs! Still .8lbs away from goal but at least it's moving again! Hopefully I can hit that .8lbs on Friday! My next goal date is Father's Day so I gotta get my butt in gear!!!

Child Slavery Day

So Brianna's home today working. She swept and washed all my floors this morning and as soon as Olivia falls asleep she's gonna weed the gardens. She ended up having to sweep and wash the bathroom floor 3 times cause she didn't do it properly. And I know she hates weeding.

She's already be caught stealing twice today. This morning there were Gusher wrappers floating around (I knew I never should have gotten those). Later she was supposed to be washing the kitchen floor and she was into my chocolates on my desk.

Hopefully we can get around to making up her chart. Between her screaming match yesterday and her stealing and chores today I havn't even told her about it. She loves charts so I'm really hoping it works.

Had to go get more chocolate bars for the school fund raiser. Mom asked for a new case yesterday and it's already 1/2 gone! I'm bringing our other box to Gilles tomorrow to sell until I bring Brianna by on Saturday. With any luck I'll need to ask the school for another case on Monday!

New Plan

So had my meeting with the principal.... he approves of me giving Brianna a strike against her field trip and wants me to tell her teacher as well. He suggests a short running behaviour chart. Running no more than 2-3 days before a reward and using no more than 3 behaviours that we want to change. He approved of Brianna's desire to watch tv as a reward because it's obviously something she really wants and will work towards.

So we're gonna do a sticker chart with No Stealing, Not Arguing with Lee and Doing Chores Without Complaint as our behaviours. She can earn up to 3 stickers a day. If she earns 6 stars she can watch a movie or get 1.5 hrs tv time. If those 6 stars are earned in only 2 days one of us will play a board game with her. If she earns all 3 stickers for 3 days in a row she can have 1 hour of computer time. 25 stickers and she gets another reward (I'm going to let her have a say in this reward) and at 50 stars she gets a sleep over at Grandma's.

I didn't get to do up the chart with her today though cause she decided to have a screaming fit for over an hour about whether she should get out of her grounding early or not (can you guess what the answer was?). It was almost 8pm before her chores (that she started at 4pm) were done (properly).

Tomorrow she is staying home from school and I'm putting her to work. Child slavery! She'll be able to find out how easy the chores she has are! And of course, she'll have to do school work in there too.

On a good note, I did manage to walk from my house around the park and the Civic Complex to the clock tower in 20 minutes. At a normal walk this would take around 35-40 minutes. So YAY! I need to get back to my stretching and strength training at home though. And I really need to look into dusting off my work out videos *sigh*

Olivia gave me a fat/bruised lip this afternoon. She got all excited about the picture of me and Isaac on Lee's nightstand that we gave it to her to look at. Well that was apparently *too* exciting and she started swinging it around and my mouth got in the way. Thankfully doesn't hurt, just annoying and looking bad.

Principal Day

So while being grounded for stealing, Brianna stole again. This time the bottle of strawberry syrup. So she was told she wouldn't get the peaches for dessert she was told she could have if she behaved. Ensuing fit.... Since our kitchen sink is broken Lee had to do the dishes in the tub and was drying them on a towel. We started to tidy them while Brianna grumbled at the world while sitting in the tub fully dressed. Brianna decided to finally be nice and handed Lee a bowl. Then the world ended in Brianna's mind because he didn't say thank you. *sigh*

Conversation on the porch about her behaviour led to her deciding she didn't have to steal, just ask.... gee really?!

Meeting with the principal is today. Gonna tell him about what's going on a home and that while her behaviour is good at school, I've issued her a strike against her Zig Zag Zoo trip.

On another note my weight is still a no-go for change :(

Still no to the goal

Weigh in this morning.... no change *sigh* Which means it hasn't changed in a week. I was even 500 calories short yesterday! So peeved with myself. I was even commenting yesterday how the shorts I bough a couple mths ago are now falling off. I should do my measurements and see if inches are falling off and it's just that the scale hates me.

Brianna's stealing has hit an all time high. She stole a family sized chocolate bar from her school fund raiser at 5am and hid it under her pillow to eat. I swear she's grounded for life. I can't wait til Thursday so she can have her hearing test. If she passes it great, I know it has nothing to do with her hearing. If she fails, great, we can fix a problem and hope it solves some others.

A Trip Back to the Farm

Took the girls to visit the farm and Grandma Hart. Grandma Hart was thrilled with her copy of Olivia's 9 mth pic. Went out to "visit" the cows. Olivia was enthralled. She just stared the entire time. Brianna of course made friends. A brown cow and calf were on her list today. The calf kept trying to lick off her arm and the cow played shy.

I had a moment of relief for the poor cows as each one had the milkers put on. Some of the udders were HUGE! Course, I'm pretty glad my pumping output isn't 22+ *kilos* of milk per session!

Stopped at Lee's parents house again. As usual his mother pretended Brianna and I weren't there. Brianna as usual went to play in the corner with Dylan's toys and talked to me since she's otherwise ignored. Thankfully it was getting close to Olivia's bedtime so we didn't have to stay long. Olivia fell asleep on the way home but I was able to nurse her back down.

I did manage to salvage my diet from Godiva death but having just soup and toast for supper. I know Lee wants to have popcorn and watch a movie tonight though. *sigh* Here comes more salt! I'll try to behave myself.....