Happy Birthday You Old Fart!

Can I be talking about my husband? Well, he isn't that old - 35 isn't old is it? That's what I turn in a few months, too! Power tools, video games, clothes and gift cards, what more can a guy want? Okay, sex too, but we won't go there! For Jay's birthday we didn't do much, but his brother, Greg did make it over to enjoy some Mario Karting on the Wii and the kids did make him a special Spiderweb cake (that's what they called it - they are so easy to please).

Everything Good about my husband:

His absolute best quality is that he is an amazing dad! Sorry to all you other guys out there, but he is the best! He loves to play: play video games, computer games, board games, do puzzles, play at the park, run around, be a tickle monster... plus he does everything else too, like bath the kids, read them stories in the coolest of voices, watch movies with them, get up with them in the middle of the night, wipe their bums (almost done with this one), cleans up the puke, rubs their growing pains... he does it all and he does it without a second thought! He is a natural and I L-O-V-E him for it! Plus he gets up with them on Saturday morning to watch cartoons and I get to sleep it, you can't beat that!

Next, he is undoubtebly honest! He can not tell a lie and it is an amazing feeling to have this level of trust in someone. He would not, could not hurt a fly (okay that is not true because he has had to kill the mice in our attic when the trap caugh them only by the leg, but lets just say he did it for me!)

He is extremely smart and it makes teaching math that much easier, any problem I have trouble with he can help me solve it! Any money issues, he can figure it out. Any statistics need rolling up on dice and analyzed to the 100th degree, he is all over it! He is extremely dedicated to his work and integrity of his product is highly important. He doesn't like to disappoint anyone!

He is in good shape, not like he has a 6 pack or anything, but he can run 10 km without even training for it - sick! He can do 50 "real" push ups (he says 40, but I know if he had to he could do 50), oh and did I mention... he has his second degree black belt in karate, yeah!

He loves me! He loves me! He loves me!

Okay, so now for the bad things: I could go on to say nothing, but then I would be lying, sorry Jay!

Jay is not a putterer, he works so hard at work and spend so much time with the kids, then I get the rest of his time... so the house is often falling apart! We anxiously wait for our dads to come and help fix the place back up. (My dad is coming in 2 weeks, yahoo! Maybe the hole in my basement roof will get fixed?) Cars only get cleaned or maintained when relatives come to visit or they need a drive clean test (which is overdue). AND I mow the lawn!

What else? Hmmm... I can't think of anything, can you?

So, I will stop there and wish my other half a belated birthday! I know it wasn't too exciting and we owe you a night of Pizza Hut, but hopefully you know how much we love you! Happy Birthday, Jay!

Scrapbooking, finally!

I'm not the best at taking pictures of my layouts, but to help you figure it out, I show you the two 12 x 12 layouts first and then try to take a picture of the two of them side by side.

Whenever I do find time to get to the basement to scrapbook, I usually spend my time tidying up the junk I have thrown on top of my table or I mount stamps. The only time I manage to get any real scrapbooking done is when I go away to do it. Last weekend I went to a Breast Cancer Crop (Saving Second Base is what they called it, such a cute name) from 9-5 and completed the above layouts. I took the coordinators advice and did some of my journalling and prep work at home and not only did it make for faster scrapbooking, but the journalling is also much better - it tells more of a story and is not rushed - I like it! I think I am going to do that all the time! I started the "Winter" layout and have the title ready for the other half, which is the opposite "Summer", but I haven't completed it yet.

The below layout was done today at my Scrapbook Club with my dear friend Linda! Love the layout Linda - to see her sample, which was geared for a road trip - look here! All this scrapbooking is helping me to get caught up on Devin's 1st year album. Once that is done I can catch up on my Christmas Album, Halloween Album, Travel Album and then why not, even my regular everyday album. Oh, boy, lots left to do, but if feels good to start getting some of it tackled!

Schools out for summer... oops wrong song!

Devin started school this year - wow! Cliche, but he's my baby and he's all growed up! It's crazy! I still think of him as 3, even though he will be 4 in December! He likes his teacher though and mentions lots of kids from his class. Tonight I drew "railroad tracks" for his name and he traced over all of them without a fight and held his pencil properly- alleluia!

Back to work for mom as well. I'm always excited to go back to school, but I miss the freedom and easy going schedule of summer. Routine is great, but it does make me more tired being this busy. I have a good group of kids this year - lots of fun and nice! Can't beat it!

Jasmine started full days this year! Grade 1 baby! She is one tired duck let me tell you! Last night I think she cried for about an hour all told - everything upsets her or is not good enough. Once she gets used to the long day and no nap, she will be great! We knew this day would come, but that doesn't necessarily make it fun adjusting! She loves school and her writing is taking off, so cool to see! She loves her teacher, too, so all is good!

Poor daddy, he doesn't get to go to school :(

Salad of the Week

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

This was inspired by the pizza we had last week and my friend Heather, who I created the pizza for. I added the leftover pesto (Bombay style), sundried tomatoes (in oil), black olives, toasted pine nuts and light feta cheese. I would have added the artichoke hearts from the pizza as well, but they were all used. The pizza used the exact same ingredients and used the pesto as the sauce. Both the salad and pizza were super tasty! Highly recommended, not sure how much had to do with the type of pesto, as I have never used pesto before and I think this one had some nice spice to it!

Soccer season!

This year we registered Devin in U4 (under 4) soccer and Jasmine in U6. Jay acted as the convenor of U4 for all of Kanata and had to find and organize coaches for 8 teams, with over 200 kids in total. For all his hard work, they gave him the white polo he is wearing below. He didn't mind this job, except that Kanata soccer is extremely unorganized and relies heavily on email chains. By the time it actually filtered down to the parents, often the information was too late. We did find this terribly frustrating, but overall it was a good experience and chances are he will do it again next year for the U5's.

I was one of the coaches for Jasmine's U6 team. In the end there were 5 of us running the team of 30 kids, but 3 of us that had the main responsibilies. I was in charge of the snack roster, giving out team photos and am still handing out the medals to those who couldn't make it to the last day. We were given a curriculum and each week I had a station to run. 3 groups of kids would take turns at my station over the course of 30 minutes, then we would end with a scrimmage and snack.

U4 is played with a grown up on the field with you all the time. There is a hired coach at this level and they run the little & big person through a series of drills and games. Devin wasn't much for some of the basic drills, like toe taps and "boring" things, but he did have his favorite games. One of which was constructors and destroyers, destroyers knocked pylons down while the constructors had to run around and pick them back up. Devin's practice overlapped with Jasmine's, so honestly I only ever saw about 10 minutes of it and then Jasmine and I were off to her field which was just across from Devin's. Below you will see Devin doing some of the drills with his "big person", daddy. In one he is trying to grab the ball out of daddy's hands from above and then playing tug-o-war with the ball.

Jasmine was #16, her favorite number is 6 right now so she really wanted a 6 in her number. Below you can see her in action during the last day scrimmage. This was a fun day, so parents and siblings are on the field, too! I didn't get any pictures of the water guns or water balloons, as I was pretty much under attack the whole time, but it was a fun last day!

Above Jasmine received her medal from Coach Paul and I happily took pictures. Below you will see a swarm for the final snack which were Tim-bits from our sponsor. The last 2 photos are the kids holding up their medals. Both very excited to have one and happy to have soccer season done - they were both ready for a break!

Beating the heat - day 2!

Well, technically it is more like day 5 of intense heat, but we spent the first 3 days primarily hiding out in the air conditioning, not too exciting! Today we made our first visit to Constance Bay Beach, about a half hour drive out of town. We met up with some old friends; I first met Lianne (who actually spells her name just like my mom - wow!) and her two daughters: Lauren and Leah, when Jasmine was just a baby. We met at the Abbeyhill weigh in clinic. A number of mommies formed a "mommy group" and we met once a week with our babies to chat all things baby. Lianne was our role model as she was the only one who had already had a child, the rest of the group were all first timers. Lauren and Leah attend the same school as us and Leah and Jasmine are in the same grade, even though they have never been in the same class.

I know my kids love the beach from past years, but what I wasn't sure is how wet they would get. Jasmine has been a little fish at the pool, but I wasn't sure she would like having her face in the water at the beach - it didn't seem to be a problem. She borrowed some of her friend's goggles and went to town. I did not expect Devin to really get more than his feet wet, maybe his bum if he sat in the water, but you can see in the photos that he went out quite far and with hardly any encouragement - I was impressed! By the end he was in the shallow end floating around on his tummy. He loved digging large rocks out of the water and throwing them, while Jasmine made a collection of mussel shells.

As for the beach itself, it was nice shallow water which I loved - they could go out far and you didn't have to be too worried. The water was also warm, which made it nice to swim in for quite a length of time, it was however quite rocky. The sand on the beach was so hot, like burn your feet off HOT and it too was not very soft. The view would be really beautiful, except today it was a little too smoggy to see the hills and trees on the other side. The port-a-potties were nasty, definately needed emptying! Jasmine refused to go in there and of course Devin had to go poo and there was no toilet paper (I got desperate and used a receipt from the car, but he doesn't know that). All that said, we had a really nice picnic lunch with friends and the kids want to go back to the beach when daddy doesn't have to work.