Happy Birthday Jamie!!

So tomorrow, December 1, is my wonderful husbands 24th birthday. He made me promise that I wouldn't post on Facebook, and also that I wouldn't do anything on his birthday like a blog post. BUUTTT he failed to include the days before or after his birthday :)

I just want to take this time, really, to celebrate him. He is an amazing young man. He works hard, he plays hard, he's just all in and 100% amazing. He is sweet, and caring, and so funny!! James always makes me laugh, and smile. He can cook, he can dance, he can run and jump and play with our toddlers and have more fun than they do. He's a good friend, my best friend. He lets me talk as much as I want, sometimes, and takes me for drives when I beg just to get out of the house. He lets me pick the movie on date nights, and encourages that I get desert. Not to mention he can make the best ones ever. I dont even know how I'm going to surprise him with a treat tomorrow as his would be 100% better than anything I can come up with.

I love this man. He is amazing and wonderful. Thankyou Jamie for spending the past 5 years with me, and giving me your forever.

A great Idea!

For a sweet holiday idea, check out magicsanta.ca. You can make a very personalized card for anyone that you love. It's a great site, and the video is fantastically done, and very magical and christamsy. Our kids loved it! Thanks James for the idea :)

I did it!!!

Yesterday, November 24, 2010 at 12:30 pm, I did it!! I finsihed my 50 000 words for Nanowrimo. I honestly can't believe that I actually did it. I never finish these sorts of things, and so this time it feels almost sureal. Things get in the way, time runs out, life moves on. But not this time. I wrote the minimum of 1667 or more everyday, averaging about 2000+ words/day, and I did it. Early even!!! I am so excited. The novel itself is not finished yet, by far. I still have more writting to do, and then of course revision, and then more revision, and then editing, and then another revision, before I might even consider it being "finished". But I feel great about this, one huge giant step in the right direction.




I was asked by someone if I would recommend Nanowrimo to anyone trying to acomplish a similar task. And I would have to say, absolutely. Free yourselvs!! Give way to a month of literary writting abandon, feel free to suck!! Forget PERFECT and just write. There were 100s of times where I would say I don't really like this part, or it's not flowing here like I want. But instead of going back and trying to fix it, to make it PERFECT, like I always do, I just plugged on ahead. That's the idea, forget the mistakes, forget the junk writting, just get the word count done. All of that will still be there in the end. I promise :) And also, forget the nasty pile of dirty dishes, and the toys on the floor, and the crumbs that everywhere, and the laundry that needs folding. It's just one month. If you can't honestly give those things up, then be prepared to be staying up late. There are days where the minimum word count is hard to get. Where it feels like pulling teeth every single word that you type. And sitting here, thinking about everything else, is not going to help. Doing everything else certainly won't. Nanowrimo is about a month of forgetting everything and writting. Of course, I have kids, so I can't forget EVERTHYING!! But we bought some Grilled Cheezes from M&M meats, 1 minute grilled cheese in the microwave, you know, things like that. There are ways to make life easy with little planning and little effort. But now that I'm done I really have no excuse to leave those grose dishes and not sweep the floor. But then again I just wrote 50 000 words. So I'm feeling pretty darn great about that :)

November!

November photos are up :)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=15819313&l=b431ef6117&id=772160580

Snow Day!!

Winter has come early!!! By about 2 months. It's Nov 20 and we have snow!! And I really mean snow. Not those fake fluffy rain flurries that fall but never stick. We have actual, real, crunchable, throwable, play-in-able snow. So I packed up the kids, layers and all, and treked out to the park. We even took our our tobogan, which proved to not be so great on the small little hill we had at our disposal. But we had fun. I pulled the kids on it through the snow. David made lots of snow angels. The snow wasn't great for packing, so we couldn't make a snowman, but we made a snow mountain. And then the kids squashed it. Highlight of the day! lol These are great kids :) We had so much fun. And now, I'm tuckered right out. They're still good to go, but then they didn't have to push a buggy, two kids, all their gear, and a tobogan to and from the park.



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The Road Less Travelled

I love to walk! I am so very fortunate to live in a beautiful part of town. Out here it is quiet, and pretty, and there are so many different places to walk. I'm also very lucky to have an amazing stroller. More on that another time I hope, but this buggy is seriously amazing.

One of our favorite loops is a 1-2 mile hike around the highfield farms out here on the peninsula. The view is amazing. The road is beautiful. And the walk is all up hill, which is great for my glutes! This is one of my favorite routes to do. Thanks to Corrina who discovered it. She knows all the best ways to go walking. I love when we go together, she always takes us on a new route.

Our walk



Walking alone, through the paths we choose, I always think of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. I realise that the poem is a metaphorical referance to life and choices and concequences instead of simply just walking along a path, but I still think of it, every time.

Our view



Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

My Beautiful Happy Family

On Friday we had family photos done. Or we tried to anyway. Our kids are so busy, that going anywhere and getting them to stop is a huge challange. We found a really wonderful lady to do our photos, Vicki Pallan http://vickipallan.wordpress.com/ . Here's the sneak peak, I think she did a great job! We had a fun time. We headed out to Royal Roads, where there's lots of scenery and nature and beautiful architecture. We payed extra to head into their italian gardens, which gives access to something like 42 acres of gardens as well. It was beautiful, we had a great time. My hair started firzzing out by the end, but oh well. Thanks Vicki, and thanks James for aranging the day off, and Thanks Mom for working on your birthday so we could go.

Half Way There...

It is November. For those of you who have not yet caught up on my updates, I am doing NANOWRIMO. You can check them out at nanowrimo.org. National Novel Writting Month, 50 000 words over the 30 days of November. I have been told that I am crazy, brave, but mostly I've heard wow what the heck are you thinking! 50 000 words, I cant even do 1000. Really it's not just 50 000, it's the small steps, the gradual increase of words. Approx 1667 words / day will get you 50 000 in 30 days. 1600 is not so much of a big deal. Grantid with two kids it can take me all day sometimes, but so far it's been pay off. I am 28 000 words and 57 pages into my novel. I am in the middle, and I am stuck. I have my beginning, I know my ending, and I know what I want in the middle, but now that I'm here I'm stuck. I dont know how I'm going to go from what I want into making it into my reality. Again, A+ in procrastination. I am on here afterall :)

Remembrance Day

**You'll have to stop the music to hear the video.

Every year since Jeff has been in the army, we've gone down to watch him march on Remembrance day. We also stand in the exact same spot. (Well accept for last year, when he was in Afghanistan). I feel greatful to be able to go and watch as they parade through the streets of downtown. Jeff is in the Scotish Regiment, which is like a parade unto itself. They have their own band, a dog! And this year, most if not all of the people in the regiment are Afghanistan veterans. Thank you to those brave souls.


Remembrance day through the years :
2006


2007



2008

The Veterans from WW1 and WW2 : Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou


2009 : Jeff in Afghanistan


2010

The medels you see them wearing here show that they've served in Afghanistan. Our modern day veterans.

Lest we Forget....

The eleventh month, on the eleventh day, at the eleventh hour

I have few words that can sum the whole of my graditude to the brave souls who have, and who are fighting for me, for my life, for my freedom. To you, I say Thankyou. Although, it is not enough. There are not enough words in all the languages, spoken by all the peoples of this world. You are heroes, you are the people of legends. Your stories will spread from horizon to horizon, praised throughout the heavens. To me, you are amazing.

President Hinckley said: “Even when the armaments of war ring out in deathly serenade and darkness and hatred reign in the hearts of some, there stands immovable, reassuring, comforting, and with great outreaching love the quiet figure of the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world. We can proclaim with Paul: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come…Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).”



We can remember that “this life is but a chapter in the eternal plan of our Father. It is full of conflict and seeming incongruities. Some die young. Some live to old age. We cannot explain it. But we accept it with the certain knowledge that through the atoning sacrifice of our Lord we shall all go on living and this with the comforting assurance of His immeasurable love.”




He has said, “Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me” (D&C 19:23).



"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" - Eve Merriam

Soooo...

Remember to turn up your volume! :-)

Alright, so I realise that it's been a while since I've been on here. I had all these big plans of sitting down and blogging every day. I even made a list of ideas to blog about, I'm totally not even kidding.
Blog Ideas:

SUV of strollers
The Simple Things
Hair Bows
A Day in the Life
Hannah and her Shoes
Reading

And it went on just about like that. But unfortunatly I've been feeling a little swamped the past several months. David has started preschool, which is huge! It's only 2 days a week, but it litterally takes ALL day. We have to get up, scramble around all morning making lunch finding "school shoes" making sure his rain pants are not muddy. Then I have to wrestle him to the floor as I brush his teeth, like every other day I might add, not once but twice. Yes twice. I realise this is rediculous, but I feel that if I were going to school, I would want to have nice fresh minty breath. So it's twice. Then we have a fight about what he's going to wear. Yes, David actually cares! Really this revolves around him insisting on only wearing shirts with animals, dogs, or robots, but still, he cares. And then, I have to get Hannah ready. And that, although far more simple that with David, is still a challange. Rising up to her consistantly growing princess needs is becoming more and more, well honestly, fun. I can't help it, she's completely and totally my dolly. She also has a love for shoes. Shoe happend to be her first word, and now, she picks her own. I've got her down to 4 pairs of shoes, rain boots which are pink and purple with butterflys, church shoes, running shoes, and everything else shoes. I personally am a huge fan of Pediped, just to throw that out there. Both my kids wear Pediped, accept for the rain boots. Those we bought from Scallywags on 60% off, woot go me!

Also! I am doing Nano Wrimo, National Novel Writting Month. You can check them out and nanowrimo.org. It is 50 000 words written in 30 days. I am doing well so far, but it's an every day experiance at the moment. And as you can see, I am blogging instead of activly writting. I get an A+ in procrastination.

So those are the 2 BIG things on my list. Written out they feel small, but really they're huge. Writting upwards of 1600 words/day plus preschool, and park dates, and trying to diet and lose weight and be active (which is going well btw but slow *groan*), and try to fit in time to watch Grays Anatomy and make Hannahs bows, and pretend I know what I'm doing with photoshop is kinda alot. I keep thinking I should take up baking, but then I think, mmm I'll just drive to Demitasse :)

Posting a link to the most recent facebook photos, take a look. PS I love comments!!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=555722&id=772160580&l=0a608c8975