Week Five in Pictures (Jane)

At Abbie's urging we made Valentine cupcakes today.

Grace practicing her oral for Jody.... Jody teaching Grace how to pat her head while rubbing her stomach.

Grace working hard on Valentines for the whole family.

Emma choosing her colour scheme for the room redo. She's trying to find the perfect paint colour.

Abbie writing her "to do" list.

Emma and I tore the ceiling out of her room - she even got a blister on her thumb from pulling out all of the staples. There is a lot of work to do....

Isaac clearing a path - we haven't had much snow this year, so it's still kind of a novelty.

Some noteworthy things from this week that I wish I had a picture of:

• Helen McRae pulling us behind her horse on a giant homemade crazy carpet
• Fireworks, bonfire and snowball fights with all of the McRae's
• Carolyn set apart as a missionary!
• Isaac scoring a goal and getting two assists on Saturday
• The girls dancing at Robbie Burns night in the Sault (last weekend)

A Week in Pictures (Week 5)

Monday was filled with delights. This blow-out poop was one of them. Notice the smear down the leg.

                           Watching the city workers install the new stop sign.

               A pile of raisins. Carefully picked from the cereal by one of my children.

                                                   The morning iglow.

Homemade play dough. The boys made this recipe more or less by themselves. Ezra added it to his recipe book.

 Children are always hungry. Something I learned from music camp- make the next snack while doing food prep at breakfast or lunch. For example I cut up vegetables and cheese while cleaning up breakfast. I put this tasty selection in a fruit tray container I saved. I snap the lid on and stick it in the fridge for the inevitable 10:30 whine for a snack. Helps with sanity- some days I feel like I am in the kitchen all day.

 Homemade marble runs. This was really fun. We used cereal boxes and the like.

 My favourite part of the week was a long, family walk we took on Saturday. Amazing that we can do this in February!    

The Life and Times of The Landlords

We knew the day was coming.  We knew our perfect tenant, who paid her rent early, didn't mind hauling her laundry to a laundromat and left nearly every weekend to visit family (allowing us time release dance moves and stifled jumping), we knew this working professional who never had a complaint, would some day move up and out. 
Out of our one bedroom, renovated, $675- all inclusive basement apartment and into a new place.

Well the day came and went.

One month went by and still I didn't repost the ad to find a new tenant.  I didn't feel like answering the phone anytime someone wanted information about the apartment.   I just wasn't up to using my super sense to weed out the unsuitable candidates over the phone, I didn't feel like setting up appointments for apartment viewings in order to have fifty percent not even show up. 

As the financial crunch started I realized I needed to do my job, so I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom and then started the long process of finding someone who would want what we had to offer.  Someone I believed could pay their rent every month, who would contentedly tolerate a family of six living above them, someone who could come and go on our property without giving me the creeps.

After about fifty email enquiries I responded to, and a few no shows, we showed the apartment three times. 
One showing was on a warm, snow melty kind of day, I opened the door to the tiled entryway and looked down the stairs to see a decent puddle at the bottom, I was perplexed at first and then realized the outside wall had leaked into the entryway of the apartment.  He didn't rent it.  And we have a large job before us, starting today.

Finally, after three months of vacancy, a jovial man paid us first and last, says he will be with us for a year, and now calls our apartment home.

Three's a Crowd

Every morning the three littlest kidlets eventually end up crawling into bed with me. Our morning cuddle sessions usually start out with us groggily talking about our plans for the day or what dreams we had and generally end in rambuncious tickle wars. It all sounds like an ideal start to the day.

The Problem:

Each of them wants to be right beside me. I only have two sides. This inevitably leads to one person feeling left out and "less loved". Sometimes they rotate, sometimes I stack Abbie on top of me so the other two each get a side, but usually something goes wrong and one child ends up in a fit of despair.

This morning was no exception.

Grace was the first little interloper of the morning but after a few minutes needed to go to the bathroom. As she slipped out from the covers she requested that I save "her spot". Within a nanosecond, I heard other little footsteps heading my way and a little wave of dread flitted through me - our morning routine had begun. Somehow we managed to get all settled and games of "give me 5, on the side, cut the pickle..." spontaneously errupted. With the PD day stretching out before us we were in no hurry to abandon the cozy nest we had settled into. However, Isaac made one fatal error. He reached over the side of the bed and toppled out onto his head. Grace seized the opportunity to slip quickly into the coveted spot left behind. Although Isaac tried to force her out, he had no luck removing her without resorting to violence. As his frustration and feelings of rejection spilled out, he stormed away stamping, yelling and crying that I love everyone more than him. Gah!

I need to figure out a new morning routine...

We've had breakfast, the morning jobs are mostly complete and now the kids are working away on various things (some are writing their orals, one is throwing in firewood, another is playing the piano). Calm is restored once more. However, I am enough of a seasoned professional in this particular job to know that the calm probably won't last as long as it will take me to finish typing this sentence. Here's to another day....

Telephone Conversation

I called my sister Megan tonight.

Katie: I went to bed at 9:00 last night. Crazy, eh?
Megan: No. I fell asleep at 8:30

later....

Megan: I was thinking about you today. I've lost some weight, do you want me to send you some of my old clothes?
Katie: ....Your fat clothes?
Megan: Yeah
Katie: Uh,  okay. You know what? Yeah, I think that would be great.