Kids room

I should be sleeping, but I am not. I wish I was able to, but sleep has already become a thing of the past for me. Luckily, I must be in that nesting stage because I still have quite a bit of energy throughout the day and have been accomplishing so much lately. This weekend we set up the babies room, I made a bunch of freezer meals, made tons of muffins, reorganized the bonus room and still had time for a date with my husband! I don't see sleep coming anytime soon, so hopefully this energy lasts a while longer, I still have a few things to tackle on my to do list.

I started this project in January I think. At the time I wasn't even pregnant, wasn't really thinking of being pregnant, and was really excited to make a fun room for the kids. The room that is now the babies room was going to be the kids playroom....well now it is another project that I am working on!

This was Donovan's room, it was all blue and had a truck theme. When the kids begged to share a room so they could have bunk beds, we decided, why not? Then I started thinking, what is a gender neutral theme? This is all I could come up with. Thankfully the internet is full of resources and it all pulled together nicely.

I am not an artist, but I found this awesome website that sends you outlines for murals. All you have to do is trace them and paint them. I traced the room in January, painted a little and then decided to have another baby. Well....I did not work again on this room until July I think. Now that I am feeling a lot better, I have been able to complete it and the kids are really happy about that! I am pretty proud of myself too, it was a lot of work, but SO worth it!


I love the window valences. I have since put one on the other window. I found some bamboo and rafia and went at it. It was actually a lot of fun making these.

The mural had no sun anywhere....I figured we couldn't have a beach room without the sun, right? Well I was SO excited when I found this sun light. It is perfect for their room!

I have started the babies room. Jeff painted the room for me, we set up the crib and furniture this weekend and now I am getting to the tracing. Hopefully this one won't take me 8 months to complete!

Where to Start

Well, it has been a while. A lot has happened, obviously, since my last post. I don't even know where to start, so I will just update all of our current news.

We recently returned from a trip to Florida. We love it there, it is such a great family vacation. I would love to take the kids to Hawaii, or Mexico, or Jamaica (Donovan asks to go there because a girl in his class went), but every time we look into a family vacation, we always end up back in Florida. It's the fail proof vacation. It's fairly inexpensive, it's almost always hot, and there is so much to do to keep the kids and me entertained. Jeff would be happy sitting in the hotel room all day reading, so he doesn't count. This time the trip was not geared around Disney, as sad as that made me. We were able to use Jeff's Hilton points from his traveling last year and we got 7 nights free, so we picked the hotel with the best swimming pool and this is what we got.

Let me tell you....I don't think swimming pools get much better than this. I am NOT a swimmer, in fact it has got to be my least favorite thing to do with the kids. With this pool, there was a huge lazy river, so we didn't have to do anything, just follow the kids down the river. I had an air mattress and it was heaven. There was a water slide...which I couldn't go on, but the kids got to go and the loved it. The hotel was gorgeous and the staff were so friendly...I would definitely stay here again.
We did manage to get one day of Disney. At the beginning of the year they announced if you give a day, you get a day. So if you volunteered a day you would get one free day at Disney. I signed up right away. The plan was to take the kids by myself, but then something happened (more on that later) and our plans changed. So Jeff kindly volunteered a day so he could come with us. I am so glad he did. I think he enjoyed Disney this time around, but he will never admit that.




Donovan got to ride Splash Mountain for the first time. He was finally tall enough. He was scared at first and spent most of the ride ducking into Jeff, but he loved it in the end and wanted to go again. I really wish I could have gone with them, but it was a lot of fun watching them as well.

Before we left the kids each got to pick 3 characters to meet. That was all we were standing in line to see, no exceptions. Clara picked Tinkerbell, Princess Tiana and Minnie Mouse. Donovan picked Goofy, Mickey and Donald. Lucky for us, 4 of those characters are at a character meal, so we forked out the outrageous price for one of those meals, and we didn't have to stand in line at all to meet them. That was nice. The line up for the fairies is always really long, but we went early enough that we didn't wait long at all.
Donovan was SO happy he got to meet Terence. We had never met him before and he was the only one Donovan wanted to sign his


We spent the weekend hanging out in the hotel. On weekend evenings they have a movie by the pool. We watched Ice Age 3 while the kids swam in the pool. They had popcorn for everyone, which was a really nice touch.
I got to spend some time shopping, which was super fun. I have been working more lately so I had a little more money to spend on this trip. I splurged on a couple of big ticket items that I am really excited about. After a weekend of hanging out we went to Sea World. We have been to Florida 2 times before this, but never visited Sea World, so this time we went. The kids loved it there. Jeff and I, not so much. It was super expensive there and the entertainment was not so exciting. I don't think we would ever go back there, but we are happy we can say we have been.


The kids got to feed the dolphins, it was really neat. That was the highlight of the day for me.



We spent some time exploring different Disney hotels, they sure have some amazing hotels. We also spend a couple of evenings at Chip and Dale's campfire sing a long. We roasted marshmallows, made some s'mores and got to meet Chip and Dale. It was lots of fun.






However, all trips come to an end. I must admit, I am planning our next trip already, but it will be a while this time. Not until next October and I think we will leave Jeff at home...we'll see.

Other news....we are pregnant. That is why I couldn't go on a lot of the rides with the kids. We thought we were done, but I guess we are not. Just found out it is a boy. I figured it would be since we moved the kids into one room around Christmas time and of course we picked the boy room for them. So I have been working really hard at painting the kids room to a neutral beach themed room, which is going to look awesome once I finish it. But...I am left with a pink room. Of course the baby is a boy, more for me to paint! Plus we can't agree on a boys name. Good thing we have 4.5 months to figure it out!!

We are headed to Victoria with my office in a couple of weeks. I am excited to have a vacation with just Jeff. It's been a rough few months with me being so sick that we haven't had much quality time together. Good news is I am starting to feel better, so hopefully we can really enjoy our time away.

Rough Week

Well I feel like a baby, but it really has been a tough week for me. We had to make a really hard decision, but we know it's the right one. We listed our new house today in hopes that we can sell it in a reasonable amount of time. It is so tough for me because this is the house we built for us. We put everything we wanted into this house and besides the fact that it is WAY too big for us, it is everything we could ever need. However, we just couldn't sell our last house, and paying two mortgages is just not going to work for the rest of our lives. We figure we can't sell our last house, hopefully we can sell this one. We know we are going to take a loss on it, but hopefully not too much. Good thing is, we are young and will easily bounce back from this in a few years. Although, I have to admit, it will be really personal to me when some one has something bad to say about this house, as I truly love everything about this place. In the end, it's just a house and we are extremely grateful that we are so blessed to have everything we have and that we have a great house to move back to. Here's hoping that our house sells! I will miss living so close to a couple of really good friends but hope that we will find the time for each other even if we don't live as close anymore.

Just when I was thinking the worst part about my week was losing my house, I had a wake up call. My grandma fell and seriously hurt herself. My grandparents are extremely healthy for their age, but every now and then, something happens that reminds me they are getting older and I need to treasure all the time I have left with them. It has made me realize that I don't dedicate enough time to them, and I don't spend enough time helping my kids get to know them. My new goal is to spend more time with them and help them out more than I do. I take for granted that I have them in my life and I want my kids to remember their great grandma and grandpa long after they are gone. They are great people and very entertaining to be around.

Now I can't just post negative things, especially since I haven't posted in so long. So here are some things from this week that I am grateful for.

I am grateful for my kids. I love them so very much and I had so much fun planning Donovan's Cars birthday party this week. I can't believe my baby is 3!

I am so happy for a loving husband who does so much for me and our family. He truly is the best husband I could ask for. I am so grateful he has such and amazing job that pays him so well and provides him with great opportunities.

I am grateful for family. I love that Jeff has such a large family and I know that we can count on them for anything. I have spent the last few days watching 2 of our nephews and they have taught me so much. It has been a lot of fun getting to know them a little better. Although, I must admit, I am grateful that they have been as good as they have been. They sure have made it easy for us.

I am grateful that one of my very best friends has bought a house in the city again. I have missed her so much and I am so excited to have her back! I feel so selfish saying that, but I honestly am extremely happy about it! Edmonton's loss, my gain! I am also grateful that we might be living in neighboring communities, it sure makes it a lot easier to move.

Turns out I have a lot more things to be grateful for then to complain about! So I will just quit complaining now!

Hello From Disney World

We are having such a fun time in Disney World. Not only is the weather way nicer here than back home, but it is SO much fun!!
It's only our 3rd day here, but we have a lot of pictures already. I can't wait to share them all!!
http://disneyphotoshare.com/myglobe/8D67623B2486624E31

Here is a sneak peak for now!!
Please know that it is not really snow, just Florida's way of pretending they have snow at Christmas! They honestly have fake snow during this light show we were at! We definitely didn't need that.

Clara Turns 4

Clara turned 4! I can't believe that she is that old already! I truly love how much fun she is and all the things she teaches me, but I sure miss my tiny little baby. So now that she is 4, she is a very important princess. Everything should go her way, because she is 4 of course. She wants to buy everything she sees in the store, and will often have a fit when she can't, that is also because she is 4 now. Those are her words, not mine! Every time she has gotten into trouble this past week, she responds by telling me, "well you know I am a really big girl now, I am 4". Nice. Seriously though, she is the best 4 year old girl I could ask for. She is so full of love and happiness that she is constantly reminding me what the important things in life are. She is always telling me how much she loves me and the four words, "I love you mommy", still melt me heart every time she says them. She is a smart girl and it always amazes me how much she learns every day. I love her so much and I loved watching her on her birthday, she was so happy and had so much fun, and that is what being a kid is all about!!


So we celebrated by having a pirate and princess party. It probably would have been just a princess party, but I realized that there were more boys she wanted to invite than girls, so we made a slight change. It worked out perfectly.

These are the invitations for her party. I spent a lot of time planning them out, but I am so happy they turned out so well. They were a big hit.

Here is a picture of her on her birthday, early in the morning. I arranged for princess Aurora to call her and wish her happy birthday. It was absolutely priceless to see her face once she realized who was talking to her.
Here is a picture of most of the kids at her party. It was almost impossible to get them all to sit in one place, so this was the best I could do. I never did a head count, but I know there were a lot of kids.

Here are all the princesses from the party. It was so fun to see them all dressed up. It worked out well too, because we didn't have an duplicate princesses!

We took the kids on a treasure hunt and this is what we found! It was almost impossible to break, like most pinatas are. Jeff finally went at it and beat it pretty hard. Then the kids got to go scrambling for the treasure inside.

I did not attempt to make a cake, and I probably never will again. I have accepted I am just not one of those moms. I love the look of homemade cakes, but mine are just a disaster. I hope my kids don't hold it against me when they are older. My mom always made me my cake when I was little, but I just don't have it in me. It was SO easy to just order this cake, and pick it up, and it was really yummy too!

Here is my very own princess Aurora. I was getting ready to take a picture of her and all of a sudden she starts posing like she is a super model. I don't know where she got it from, but it was something to see. I showed Jeff the pictures, and he asked me why she wasn't smiling in any of them. It was true, no smiles, just serious princess faces. What a funny girl!

Halloween Dance

We went to my sister in law's elementary school dance this weekend and we had a blast! It was fun to dress up in our costumes. I bought them last year and I have been waiting to wear them. I am so happy we got to go out in them! Donovan was a little afraid of all the people, but Clara danced up a storm! She even made her way up to the front where all the big kids were and partied it up with them. It was hilarious! She is quite the spunky dancer.

These are pictures from when I first pulled the costumes out. I was worried Clara would be mad she wasn't going to be a princess, but she loved the fact that we all had matching costumes! I couldn't get them to take the costumes off for the rest of the day. It was really cute! Then we HAD to pull out the Incredibles movie and watch it in our costumes. That was a lot of fun. Donovan even fell asleep in his costume.

Update

We are alive and our lives are returning to some sort of normal level. I figured it was time to update our blog, it has been way too long.

We took the kids to ride Thomas and Donovan still doesn't stop talking about it. He LOVED it! He loves trains. It's so cute to see him so happy over something so simple.






We kicked off the summer by taking a trip to Vegas with my office. I am so fortunate to work for the orthodontist I do. I worked with him before I had Clara, and I always wished that I had found the office sooner. I feel so lucky that they were in need of a part time employee, so I work Mondays only. It's a nice break for me, and I love my job. I love the girls I work with, and I love working for my boss. We got to stay at the Bellagio and we had a sweet room with views of the fountains and strip! It was a much needed trip as both Jeff and I were at our breaking point before this trip. Jeff has been working crazy hard and lots of hours and has spent some time out of the country.

View from our room

So we couldn't sell our house, but we sure had no problems renting it! We had tons of interest in renting. It was crazy how many people we heard from and are still hearing from. We rented the house for a year as of July 3 and we didn't take possession of our house until July 17th. So we had 2 houses and nowhere to live. Thank goodness for parents. We moved in with Jeff's parents and we felt very fortunate to have that option. We are extremely grateful to them for letting us invade their space. Also thanks to them for allowing me to potty train Donovan while living there. One day he decided he had to pee in the potty and there was no turning back. He's doing pretty good. He still has accidents, but I'm really happy with his progress.

As you can imagine, the kids were great help with packing and moving. Here they are here, showing us how much help they really can be. Or how much they can get in the way...however you choose to look at that.

We have made many trips to Calaway Park. Too bad we moved so far from there. The kids love Calaway. Hopefully they will love the lake here, and then it won't matter that our trips to Calaway are few and far between.


What would July be like without Stampede breakfasts?! I took the kids to a couple, and they LOVED it. I think their favorite food is pancakes. Seriously. We took a day to go to the Stampede with my mom. Mainly to visit Dora and Diego. I tell you, that was pure chaos. We got there and the line was CRAZY long and they told us they couldn't guarantee that we would get to meet them. I figured, I came all the way to the Stampede to meet Dora and Diego, we were going to meet them! So, we stood in line for 2 hours!!!! We did get to meet them though. Poor Donovan wasn't sure at first. Finally he went and gave Diego a high five. As we walked away he screamed, he wanted to see Diego. He whined about it for about 2 hours after the fact because he didn't get to hug Diego.

Donovan riding his pony. He got on the horse, lifted his hat up in the air and said 'Yee haw' It was really cute.

So...now we are living in our new house. It's WAY too big for our little family, but it's super nice and we are happy to be here. I imagine if the market ever picks up again we will be selling the house and move into something a little smaller and more affordable, but at this point, we are here and we are loving it. We are almost unpacked, but we don't have blinds yet. I procrastinated on that, and now I am regretting it. It gets SO hot in here. So today we put sheets up that Jeff's mom lent to us. It may not be pretty, but it sure feels better now. Once we are completely settled, I will post pictures of the house, but right now it's too messy, it would be embarassing!

Hopefully my next post will be sooner than 5 months from now, but I make no promises!!