If I had one wish then it would be.......

A Happy, Happy birthday to Haley!

Last week, on February 26, we celebrated the amazing day five years ago when Haley was born into our family! I held it at an indoor playground and invited her friends from church and our neighbors(neighbours-for my Canadian friends). An indoor playground, for those of you who don't live in subarctic temperatures, is just what it sounds like; it is a glorified McDonalds playlandso of course the kids loved it. I did this to make this party stress free for me, but I decided if you are like me nothing is stress free. I also came to the conclusion that throwing a party is a lot like renovating; everything takes way longer and costs way more than you think it will, but totally worth it in the end(i.e. the butterfly cupcakes shown later in the post). We missed our good friends (and Haley's boyfriend), Luke, Grace and their mom, Melissa who was sick and couldn't make it. 9 of Haley's other friends did come though, and the party turned out really great! Here is some of the fun captured in pictures.

Carson as he landed at the bottome of one of the slides from the picture above
they had a moonwalk and my neighbor, Linda, and I were playing on it after most of the kids had left. So much fun! This is Haley and I waiting to slide down with her!

Melissa, the dessert decorator and some butterfly sprinkles saved the day when I started running out of time, patience, and whole pretzels while making the butterfly cupcakes. I love it so much. Thank you!

Here they are.........the butterfly cupcakes. I emailed some of my family and friends a few days before the party for any ideas they had for cute butterfly cupcakes. Almost all of them responded immediately, and this is one of the links my amazing friend Faith sent me. Thanks girls for all of the great ideas, it was hard to choose with so many cute ones. This came from a website that I am now in love with called http://www.brightideas.com/. The actual link to this particular cupcake is http://www.brightideas.com/birthdays/themes/butterfly/cakestreats/ . Mine didn't turn out like the picture, but close enough and still got rave reviews!

Make a wish!

Here is Carson sucking all of the icing off of who knows what number cupcakefor the night

And this is him feeling sick a little bit later. Could it be all the junk he'd eaten?? Notice all of the frosting still around his mouth. Hey that's what parties are for!

"when you come crash ....into me, yeah"

Sorry everyone(well at least the 5 of you who actually still look at my empty blog). I got a few comments and emails wanting to know what in the world I was talking about when I posted the title to this. Well, the answer is I started to do a post(I know -it's a miracle) and was interrupted as soon as I started( I'm not saying by who, but you can guess). I somehow posted it without meaning to. So, yes, I did get into an accident. It has been many a moon since those words have come out of my mouth. And yes, it was my fault. Although, this is not an actual picture of the accident, it is a rather accurate substitute photo of what the other person's car looked like after I rear-ended her. I didn't think it would have gone over too well if I had said "hey do you mind if I take a couple of pictures of your car for my blog?" Now while many of you who know my past, (and I mean a long time ago), driving record, this is probably really funny. Well, I wasn't laughing that night, I was hysterical! Long story short, everything worked out. I had signed up for accident protection a little while ago and had forgotten about it. So when I called the insurance and they told me that my first accident was covered because I had put the protection thing on my policy and that my rates would not go up, I screamed into the phone and told the agent that I loved her. And then when I told Brad he said he loved me. So that is a great ending to what could have been a really bad situation. By the way, the lady I hit was 5 months pregnant and luckily she, the baby, and I (my kids weren't with me) are all okay. I hope that clears everything up and now stay tuned for more posts.

p.s. Unfortunately I wasn't talking about the same kind of crashing that Dave Matthew's is talking about!

Halloween tricks and treats

I have recently learned that both of my children suffer from a rare disorder called "Brad Rice Syndrome", or otherwise known as "I can't stand for my hands to get dirty syndrome". Don't be alarmed if you, or your children, have been in close contact with mine, it is NOT contageous and studies have shown it is a genetically inherited disease. Haley's case is very mild and selective; for example she is okay with covering not just her hands, but her entire body in paint( See photo at end of post). However, putting her hands into pumpkin guts is out of the question. Carson's case is far more severe. He cannot stand to have any medium(i.e. food, paint, glue,etc.,) on his hands, especially not pumpkin guts. So I tried to "trick" them into cleaning out their pumpkins with their hands, but to no avail. Haley ended up with a spoon, and Carson disappeared completely from the whole process. I think toy trains were much more interesting, and cleaner, than pumpkin carving.

You want me to put my hands in there?

Haley only appears to have her hand in the pumpkin. Trust me she isn't touching anything in that pumpkin. It is all part of the illusion of Halloween.

Next on the agenda was painting squash ghosts. This they both really liked, at least until Carson got some paint on his hands and decided maybe this project wasn't for him either.

So now for the "treats". We made sugar cookies and Carson stuck around for a while for this(although he asked me for "a wipe" about 50 times.)

P.S. Right now there is no known cure for "BRS (Brad Rice Syndrome) but as you can see with serious and persistant intervention progress can be made.

Presenting their Royal Highnesses

Here they are......the King and Queen of 99 Royal Appian Crescent patiently waiting to go trick-or-treating. Haley of course knew what that meant and when I explained to Carson that people would put candy in his spider bag he said "wooow, cool"! Boy it only took him one house to see what I was talking about and he was off and running(literally). They had great fun first going out with Brad and then I wanted to take them out too. Few things are better than Halloween!

The emporer needs new clothes! Once trick-or-treating was over, not only did Carson's costume come right off, so did everything else(except Haley's crown).

Chudleigh's Apple Farm

A week ago, Monday, the kids and I went to Chudleigh's Apple Farm. I was introduced to Chudleigh's when I went a couple of years ago with my good friend, Faith, when she lived here in Toronto. Another good friend, Melissa, and her kids, Grace and Luke came with us this year. We were a little late in the season for picking apples; It was more like apple hunting than picking, but we had a great time anyway. There is a couple of big slides in a hay playground. You can also go through a hay maze, see the farm animals, go on hayride out to the orchard, play on big tractors or in the huge sand area, and pick pumpkins(there weren't many left, we kind of missed out on that too.) Here are a few pics of our little farm adventure!

Melissa with the kids(L to R) Carson, Grace, Luke, and Haley. Ready for the hayride to start!

Carson had way more fun picking the apples off the ground and throwing them than he did picking them from the trees Good thing, because there weren't really any apples in the trees anyway.

Haley found this big perfect apple and was so happy. Too bad she'd rather die than eat an apple, or any fruit for that matter.

What a bunch of ANIMALS!

Notice all the apples in the trees? Ummmmmmm, no.

I love these slides as much as the kids do. WEEEEEEEE!

I was sitting down watching while all the kids were having a hay fight, but it turns out that throwing hay all over me is much more fun.
This is me : "Carson. Grace. Look here. Smile. Haley look up here. Hey Luke, look buddy. Come on guys. No, Carson sit down. No, up here guys. Say 'I love pumpkins'." And as you can see they did everything I asked them to do. Right! This is what you get when you try to force 4 kids ages 5 and under to take a "cute" picture with the pumpkins at the end of a long day of playing. Not interested!

Party for Jesus

A couple of weeks ago, Haley got her first invitation to a birthday party that will be held on Sunday. So we had the talk about what we do on Sunday and going to birthday parties is not something we do. So, tonight we were riding in the car and we had this conversation.

Haley: Mom, I saw Nikki's mom at school yesterday and I told her I can't come to her party.
Me: You did? What did you tell her?
Haley: I told her I couldn't come because I have to go to church on Sunday and learn about Jesus.
Me: Well, I am really proud of you. I know that was hard for you.
Haley: But, mom, I really want to go to that party.
Me: I know you do. But we don't go to birthday parties on sundays. We go to church, learn about Jesus, and do quiet activities at home with our family.
silence for a minute
Haley: Mom. I know! We could have a party for Jesus on sunday. That would be good wouldn't it.
Me: yeah maybe we could do that. But that is what Christmas is; It is celebrating Jesus' birthday.
Haley: Oh, well can we decorate with streamers? Do you have any Barbie streamers? And we can use them to decorate the Christmas tree for Jesus' party.

So I hope you all learned something here. It is okay to have a party on Sunday as long as it is for Jesus. Thanks, Haley

Happy Thanksiversary!

Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving and also mine and Brad's 9th wedding anniversary. (Shout out to Brad's brother and his wife, Katrina, it was also their anniversary-2 years!) Having both occasions on the same day was good and bad. Good because Brad took the whole day off of work and we spent time as a family, but bad because there was nothing open, so we couldn't really do anything fun. But somehow being together was enough for me. Cliche'. So, Brad being the thoughtful guy he is, had these beautiful flowers delivered the Friday before, and I really was surprised. I want to brag on him a little and tell everyone how much I love my guy! Not just because he sends me flowers on our anniversary, but because he has sent them many times over the years for no reason at all. Because he has more patience for me than anyone I have ever known. Because he is smart, funny, hard-working(a little too hard-working), loyal, generous, forgiving, understanding and dedicated. He does the dishes, vacuums, folds laundry, and makes dinner every Sunday. He makes me feel loved even when I don't love myself. He holds me as long as I need him to when I cry(and you all know that is a lot) and listens no matter how stupid and looong my stories are. For these reasons and so many more, I could not be happier to be his wife.

He also had a flower delivered to Haley to tell her he was proud of her for not crying on the bus(but that's a whole other story)