New Blog

Hi Folks,

I am changing over to a new blog site. I have been having endless problems with Blogger and getting photos to upload. So my new blog can be found through Wordpress.com. It's titled "The Life and Times of the SSB".

Hope to see you there!

Living in Mud

For the last hour I have been fighting with my computer. Trying to upload some recent pictures of the kids has been proving difficult. I'm not sure if this is an issue with Blogger itself, my computer or my own tech skills (or lack thereof).

So, for now I will skip the snaps. I'm warning you Blogger, if it is indeed you giving me a hard time, I may have to change over to WordPress. Yikes!

With the sun shining outside, and my sandals calling to me from the front door, I am stuck here waiting for my little prince to wake up from his nap. He has morphed his two daily naps into one big nap. That is great, except that this new nap time falls right over lunch time and well into the afternoon. It means that, for today anyways, that mama is going to have to wait to get outside and soak in some sun. By that time, Daddy will almost be home from work and can perhaps join us at the park. :)

Living in a construction site has been a challenge for us. In the winter, everything was icy and muddy. In the spring, it's REALLY muddy. Now that the weather is nice, there is no grass out back for the kiddos to go play on and the complex playground hasn't been constructed yet. It's DUSTY, which means that I don't have to bother paying for car washes.

Are we happy with our house? Yes. Definitely. Are we happy living in a construction zone? Definitely not. Grayson is loving the daily exposure to trucks of all types. His favourite truck is the street cleaner that comes through every evening to pressure wash the roads. The street cleaner makes no difference in the cleanliness of our neighbourhood, but it does wonders for my little guy's interest in all things on wheels!! His face lights up when he sees it over and over again, as it makes laps through our neighbhourhood. He squeals and shouts at it.

This morning we woke up to an excavator trampling through our backyard. Loud? Yes. Definitely. Did it seem to bother Grayson and Mira? Definitely not. They were enthralled. So I will put up with the bad and try to remember the good while we are stuck in this mud pit.

Ah....spring (?)

It's the end of April and by now, we've had at least a handful of days that allow us the freedom to choose between pants and shorts without fear of looking crazy.

So far, we've had MAYBE one. That MAYBE is that I think we had the freedom of choosing between a heavy sweater or a lightweight sweater. No shorts (except for 2 hours on Thursday night where is suddenly skyrocketed up to 25 degrees to suddenly drop back down to 10 degrees only hours later).

So am I disappointed in spring so far? Yes, but I'm also making most of what sunshine we do get. I get Grayson out in the stroller for a walk to downtown Georgetown, which is only a ten minute walk away. Grayson loves watching the cars go by and squeals with excitement when we go down the hill.

We wander around, taking in the sunshine. I grab a coffee from my favourite little cafe and we enjoy the sights. Am I wearing my sandals and sundresses yet? Definitely not, but it's not stopping me from enjoying what I can.

I spent most of last summer still wearing a lot of my maternity stuff as I regained my figure after Grayson so I am excited to be able to make the most of my favourite tanks, shorts and skirts!! C'mon summer!!!

Snow Day

 Today we had a "snow day". Really it was a "freezing rain day". I woke up this morning to an email from the school board saying that all the buses were cancelled today.

I love having Mira home on these days. I chose not to drive her into school today, anticipating that come time to pick her up in the afternoon (when the freezing rain storm was to be at it's worst), the roads would be very treacherous. Considering she gets bussed to the other end of town for her french immersion, this was not something I wanted to do.

Instead, I kept Mira home from some mother-daughter-son-brother time.

It left me with the question: what to do on a freezing day. Well, we did make the most of it. We walked to the kidsignment store (consignment store of kids stuff) and the kids got to play in the toy section. I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a toy they may fall in love with in there.

 After the consignment store, we went over to the libary. The new Georgetown library is beautiful. It has a huge kids section filled with an area for group story time and computers. They also have a space for younger kids (Grayson's age and up) where they can play with puzzles and other toys. It was perfect.

Mira sat in her bean bag chair and read about a million books. Grayson exhausted himself by crawling all over the library in search of the perfect toy.

Oh I am coming appreciate freezing rain/snow days :)

Two Months to Go

I have about two months before I have to go back to work. I have until June 17th off with my little man and my little girl. It will be tough transitioning back to work after having a year off to be a stay at home mom.

I have mixed emotions about returning to work. I hate leaving my kids at home, in the care of someone else other than me. I will hate not being able to schedule play dates for mid-day, mid-week. The perks are that I will be making money again, which will allow us to do a lot more for and with our kids. We can travel. We can put them in activities (soccer, etc) and it will afford us some luxuries like having new reliable cars. It will allow us the occasional date night or dinner out at a restaurant.

I am lucky that this time around, I will be returning to work in a very "kid friendly" position. I will be home for bed each and every night. I will be home for dinner with the kids each and every night.

I will also have some time to work on some of my goals outside of the home. Work is a great place to be for me. I do enjoy the people I work with and I love my job. I am lucky that I enjoy what I do. It makes it more fulfilling for me and it makes it easier to justify spending some time away from my kids.

I will make the most of the rest of my year off before re-joining the workforce. Back to the reality of the two-income family, which seems to be necessary to live in the GTA.

Chocolate....chocolate and more chocolate.....

Easter is a time of pastel colours, tulips, daffodils, pretty dresses and little handsome dress shirts. It is a time of going to church and spending time with family gorging on turkey and all the fixings. It is ANOTHER time of year when the kids get to stuff their faces full of chocolate and spend the rest of the weekend going berserk as the sugar takes over the mind and body of our little cherubs.

Ah Easter. How I love you as a holiday and how I loathe you.

I loathe the piles of chocolate that tempt me every.single.minute.of.the.day. It's not even the good chocolate. It's the crappy chocolate foiled eggs. It's not good chocolate, but somehow, the pretty little foil wrappers make them DELICIOUS. The giant solid bunnies with the blank look in their candy eyes make it less torturous to break off an ear, leg or tail and chow down. I especially love the chocolate bunnies with nuts or rice crispies in them. Glorious.

I am a sucker for chocolate. I love it. I could eat a ton of it everyday if I had no will power. Any dessert I eat, I much prefer to it to be as stuffed full of chocolate as possible. Brownies. Chocolate mousse. Chocolate fudge smothered in chocolate syrup.

This year, I decided to fight my own desire to buy $80 worth of the brown goodness for my kiddos (one of which can only look at it anyways) and buy more practical, fun toys. Toys that won't cause my daughter to fall into a sugar coma and turn her into a defiant little being (too much sugar and junk causes her to seriously act out).

Oh, but how I will dream about the chocolate that could have been.....

Nine Months

 Our little guy is 9 months old!! Here are some recent pictures of Grayson scooting around the coffee table. The expressions on his face were priceless.

Happy 9 months baby boy!