Still here...

Wow April huh...time flies! I am still here trying to survive these crazy 2 year old... Sanity still intact (barely), I'll try to be back for a better update soon...

iPhone Photodump...

Bowness Park...

Several weeks back we had some gorgeous winter weather...Snowy enough for winter acitivities, warm and Sunny enough to make it enjoyable...

We headed down to Bowness park for some skating on the pond...

It was a lot of fun...Blake and Leah didn't really love it since they were stuck in their stroller...they hate their stroller and we rarely take it out anymore...Houdini Girl can climb out mid stroll so its not really even safe for her...

Alyssa on the other hand couldn't get enough of it...She skated and skated and skated some more...She is in love with hockey and gets so excited every Saturday...she has really improved and can't get enough...Even after giving her all for a full hour, she always asks at the end to do one more lap when everyones already off the off...I am so happy that she loves it...I wasn't sure how it was going to go over but its been far better than we could have ever imagined...

We stayed for a picnic and a fire, and headed back out for some more skating...

The little couple talking about something...

The Wee ones over at Grandmas house...they love going over and playing there...They love their visits and sleeps overs...and Kirk and I love them too ;)

We even got to sneak in a visit with Aunt Wendy when she was out...

Blaker dreaming of the day he's big enough to have his car bed back...for now he plays in it down in the basements...Leah's is in her house from Santa...

Bath Time!

Rub a dub dub, 3 little cuties hanging in the tub...

Pretty self explanitory byt too cute not to share!

Look at that little face...Muahhh!!

A back wash from sister...won't they love this picture later in life!!

Hit and a Miss...

For a few months now, our Little Leah has been able to escape from her sleeping bag and crawl out of her crib...She can easily climb out and into her brothers bed, on the change table...really anything! I've found her on the stove, in the sink, on the Kitchen counters...and we've had to install a lock on our front door really high so that she can't escape outside! We thought for her own safety that it was time to switch her to a big girl bed...and we didn't think it was fair to switch one without the other....

We bought a Tinkerbell bed for Leah, and a Car bed for Blake...Since the room they share is fairly small we opted for the toddler bed size, we'll eventually have to move the girls together with bunkbeds...

The babies watched with excited anticipation for several hours of dismantling the cribs and assembling of the new beds, which was a pain in the butt... Blakes car bed didn't come with any hardware and Mama Leanna and Papa Murray who were there for the assembly, made a 8pm trip to Toys R us...When they got back home, Leah dropped a pretty important bolt down a hole in the frame that we couldn't get out...9:30pm and way past bedtime we threw in the towel and put his mattress on the floor...

What happened for the next few hours was a Party in their room...Jumping on the beds, climbing out...on and on and on...there was no sign of sleep so close to midnight we brough in the playpen for Blake who happily crawled in and went to sleep...Leah did end up sleeping in her bed for the whole night.... 

The next day we got the car bed fixed up and ready for nap time...and what happened over the next few hours was hands down the craziest few hours of parenting I have ever experienced...There were stickers ripped off the walls, blinds bent, their newborn picture above their change table was painted with diaper cream, the light kept being turned on, the closet was opened and all the nicely hung and folded clothes thrown every where...No less than 300 wipes shredded into tiny pieces, diapers everywhere...The destruction would happen in 2 minute intervals as I'd leave and give them a few minutes to try and settle themselves...They had no concept of what they were suppose to be doing...and while it sounds like I should have thought of these things before they happened believe me I did...they are just crafty enough to move the chair I had infront of the closet door out of the way and scale the shelves to things they shouldn't have been able to get! A thermometer dipped into the diaper cream as a paint brush...

Crafty Leah, very crafty!

Needless to say, I could not see this getting better any time soon, and had visions of this happening for hours on end through the night and for days to come...I literally almost lost my mind and even before Kirk arrived back home from work, the little toddler beds were in the basement and the cribs were reinstalled....

My sanity won the battle of the beds...Thankfully we haven't have any issues since...Leah can still crawl out and still does, we often find her in Blakes bed...I think we'll be keeping the cribs as long as humanly possible!!

The beds set up the first and only morning!

 Pipsqueak in her "Binkerbell" Bed...

 PAAARTTYY!!!

 The 3 of them did look pretty cute all tucked into the car bed...

 The only 2 seconds he stayed in his bed...

Their room looks awfully bare in these pictures...Its hard to imagine they could have found the trouble they did!!!

I would like to add for the record that Alyssa who is now 5 and been in a bed since she turned 2 has never once crawled out of her bed...EVER! She still to this day calls me when she wakes up to come and get her...

Flashback Friday...2003

We started 2003 in Mexico...

 Kirk had his beloved BMW...

 We spend lots of time with Baby Marko...

Erv got his boat, and Kirk thought it was his...

 A trip to Vegas...

Ahh so much fun!!

Finding the Joy...

Somedays I feel like I Rock this Stay at home mom thing...Somedays not so much...Some days I have an infinite amount of patience and somedays not so much...Somedays I can be a good mom, a good wife and a good housekeeper all in the same day even!! Somedays not so much!

Today was not a good day for me, no particular reason I just wasn't feeling it...Awhile back I stumbled on another Mama's Blog post (I think it was Julia) and it said something along the lines of

"Seek Joy and you will find it".

What a simple phrase...but somehow its changed my whole perspective on life in general...and more times than not, I can literally Find the Joy all day long!!

Since I came home from Vegas its been pure insanity around here...My Darling Kirk has been working like a mad man...Several all day meetings turned into dinner and running til 11pm, and sometimes issues arise that need to be worked on until they are resolved...Sometimes that means him pulling all nighters and around the clock working for days at a time...When that happens, I also have to step up my game...Being supportive and helpful to him as much as I can to help avoid even more stress...and take on Full time parenting...That is however the nature of his job and while it takes a toll on everyone, I have been trying to Find the Joy in situations like this to help me through the rough times...there is almost always some joy to be found...Thanks to his hard work ethic he has worked his way up to a position that gives me the ability to stay at home with our kids...and he Finds Joy being able to provide for his family...

The weather last week was something like I haven't seen for years! The day time high was -30! One night the temperature was -36 with a windchill it was -49...I'm not sure I've ever seen temperatures like that...I am a very social person, and this whole being stuck at home inside so much with not much adult interaction can drive me looney...Trust me its true, I actually at one point this weekend layed on the floor and yelled and kicked my feet like a 2 year old...Finding the joy with -49 temperatures with a husband who has been locked in our room working on a problem for 4 days straight, 3 housebound kids and a looney mother is no small feat...I often text back and forth with another Mama who has a 4 year old boy and almost 2 year old twin boys and we Joke..."Not finding the joy over here, how about you?"...Perhaps the combination of all of the above is the cause of my mood today...

Since adopting my new Mantra, I have been trying to find the joy in the smallest things...and it makes me Happy...Even on days where my mood is questionable...there is always room for some Joy!

Saturday Morning Pancakes...

Playing Lego in my Pjs with my kids at noon...

 Painting tiny fingernails and toenails...

Tea Parties...
A walk on a Sunny Winter Day...

Watching a tiny boy line up his tiny toy cars ever so perfect...

A glass of wine with my Hubby chatting about our days...

A loyal puppy who follows me everywhere...

A Starbucks Americano...

A bubble bath and my book...

Like many others out there who are choosing a Word of the Year, I am choosing Joy...

 I hope this year I am able to find the Joy in the small things and be Happy because of it...

 Life is too short to be anything other than Happy!