Alphabet Burp

"Um, probably not all in one... but yeah I think I can still burp the alphabet."

We both laugh at fond memories of old.

Raven's sister Iodi (we'll call her that since it is a nickname of hers) was in from Saskatchewan last night and came swimming with us. She brought her son L and I had taken Eyes with me. She is also six and half months pregnant and as usual I put my foot in my mouth saying she looked like she was around eight months. Of course she's skinny and it looks like a snake swallowing a bowling ball so I hope she'll forgive me. Still it was loads of fun playing with her and her son at the pool. I would have liked to have gone out afterwards with them and Star but Eyes was sucking madly at Raven's arm so I decided it would be prudent to feed her and take her home. This way I could have an attempt at getting to bed before 1am. Which I did 12:30am was my actual bedtime.

Oh and the burping the alphabet came from the kids asking if it was possible to burp the alphabet. So of course I had to say yes and they asked who it was so I told them about Iodi. She is another one who does SCA and goes to Quad War and I believe that is where she learned how to burp very unladylike many many years ago. Luckily my kids do not seem to be willing to try to copy this behavior... yet. Oh and on Friday Bear will be going swimming with K and hopefully will get his hair dyed green then. Heehee.

As for the experiment of him walking home from school we are going to try and do that next Monday. I want to make sure the cut on his forehead is healed before we attempt it again. Tonight we get to take the plastic bandage off. I have a feeling there will be crying involved. At least we don't have to worry about school tomorrow. I just have to worry about blood on the pillowcase.

Garage Sale Dreams

Bear is fine and thank you everyone for your well wishes. Also I think he is slowly coming around to getting his hair dyed green or blue by his mother and her best friend. On Friday we went over to Raven's house for her youngest son's birthday party. Blue Bunny was very cute and liked the attention. I will admit it was fun trying to find a recycled gift that was age appropriate for him. We did manage to find some toys (one I am sure came from Raven's house originally) and they seemed to be winners. Especially Scoop and Roley from Bob the Builder.

The one thing it told me though was that I definitely have to go through the 7-8 tubs of toys in the garage. Come spring I need to hold a Garage Sale. We have tons of books and toys and cloth(yes lots of cloth that I really have no need for and cannot convert into cloaks). So I am hoping come May I can open my garage door and let people take most of it away. I might even see if my neighbors have things they need to get rid of.

Today Bear was playing Heavy Gear with Daddy while I held a Tea Party for Smiles and her friend H. Now they are playing in Smiles' room. I am thinking I want another nap soon but probably won't get one. I guess I should go clean up the Tea things. Instead I will probably play on the computer more.

Head Trauma Poster Boy

Bear has been asking if he could walk home alone from school for awhile now. Today was going to be the experiment day to see if he could get home by himself. Instead a phone call from the school informs me that he slipped and hit his head on a desk. I rush down to the school and find him in the nurse's office sitting with an ice pack on his right temple. They had taped it up but I ended up taking him to a medicentre just to be sure he didn't need stitches.

I was right he just got taped up with the liquid glue but.... the doctor asked if he fidgeted at night and if he was likely to pick off the bandage. I did not think he would but the doctor decided to wrap his head with a gauze so the bandage wouldn't rub off. So my son looks like he has had major head trauma but in reality is fine. Of course I still have to check on him throughout the night tonight. Oh joy! Lucky me! Oh and I have to make sure the bandage doesn't get wet for seven days. Yup that's right SEVEN days! Bath time is going to be so much fun. Oh and I think that means Raven you will not be able to dye his hair green after all.

No Tiger Today

"So did you have fun today?" I ask innocently.

"Yes Mom. But no Tiger today. Maybe later!" says Smiles.

"No Tiger?" I ask curious.

"Yeah I was in the pink group and we saw guinea pigs, something that curled up into a ball and a bird!" she enthuses excitedly.

"Um really?"

"Yeah and the ball thing peed on the rug and we couldn't say 'Ew' we had to say 'That's interesting!"

"That's interesting!?" I can't help but say in response.

"Yeah and I was a Spider Monkey. Tomorrow I will be a snake!" I smile and nod at Smiles statement.

"So you had fun today at the Zoo then?" I ask.

"Oh yes Mommy and I ate all my lunch. Can you make the cheese sandwich again tomorrow. I really liked it!" She looks up at me with big blue eyes.

"Alright Sweetie I can do that!" I smile back.

For the next two days she will be back at the zoo learning about different animals. Oh and the reason why they could not say 'Ew' was because they were right next to the elephant enclosure which can be quite smelly and the guide has apparently gotten tired of hearing 'Ew' all the time! At least they stepped around the pile that landed in the middle of the sidewalk.

Soother Baby

So I have had a good Family day with the children and Hubby. With the nice weather right now we had puddles for Smiles to jump in on our walk. She was soaked by the time we got home. Her friend H from across the back alley came along as well. Her dad was going to take her skating but when she saw Smiles she wanted to come with us. Bear got a haircut. I apparently cut it too short - buzz cut. Ooops. I got carried away with the hair shears that Hubby got for Christmas. Bear doesn't like it though. Oh well it is hair - it will grow back.

On the front concerning Eyes she is my only baby that takes a soother. I did not have that with either Bear or Smiles. Bear sucked his fingers and Smiles just never took either. So this whole soother thing is a blessing for me because this way I do not have to keep feeding her when she's teething. I guess I am just startled by it that's all.

On another note I keep giving away my salsa. I am starting to realize that I like the salsa so much that I want other people to try it. That or I just want the excuse of making another batch. I am in the zone of wanting to cut things up especially food. Okay only food. I am finding something therapeutic about chopping up vegetables. I guess it must the sense of completion when dinner gets ready. That and the comfort of well 'Comfort' food. It's winter I guess I am craving the extra layer of fat to insulate myself. Raven I will definitely need to keep going to the swimming pool. LOL

Pirate Socks

So on Tuesday I went swimming with Raven and came home to a starving baby. Hubby was at the point where he was about to pull out his hair. She would not take the bottle as she previously has. So he was very happy to see me and so was she. Haha. Anyways the swimming was great and catching up with Raven from her Australian adventures was good as well. She also passed on a gift from DD. DD had apparently sent Raven some pirate socks and one set was for me. So now I am the proud owner of red stripey pirate socks thanks to two wonderful friends. I plan on wearing them tomorrow night if I can make it out.

Raven was also a sweetheart and fulfilled a long dream of mine. When she was leaving she called me to say good-bye and silly me I made a request that she bring me back an instrument from Australia. I specified wooden and flute-like if possible since I did not think she could fit a Didgerido in her suitcase. Plus they are expensive and unique. So guess what she brought me. A Didgerido! A small one about 3-4 feet long which the kids have had fun trying to play. I laughed when Hubby did 'Smoke on the Water' with it. So now I want to see if I can hang it up on my wall somehow.

Oh and Happy Valentine's Day. The kids had fun today but Hubby and I are just not going to bother this year. Smiles was especially pleased with making Jello at school for a snack. Both kids gave out cards to everyone in their classes. Now they are just watching TV and waiting for supper. Night everyone.

Soup

I had a craving last week for a potato and leek soup. So when I was grocery shopping one day I picked up ingredients I thought would go good with it. As I look back on it I think I was also craving the cutting up and hacking things up part too :)

Anyways what I used was

1 head of cabbage (actually I only used half)
2 leeks
3 green onions
4 medium potatoes
500ml cream
1 regular onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 cloves of garlic chopped coarsely
a handful of baby carrots
one package of bacon (I used buffalo because I could not find any turkey at the store)
one package of stew meat (once again buffalo for me)
3 cubes of beef stock
tarragon
basil
salt and pepper to taste

I cut up the onion and garlic and sauted them. Hubby later said I should have fried up the bacon at the same time but meh whatever. I then cut up the rest of the vegetables fairly fine and started the stock part of the soup. I then added half of the minced up bacon (the other half I saved).

After flavoring it we had it for supper that night. The next day I pureed it and added the cream. Then I added the stew meat and the rest of the bacon. And a little more water but not much. I thought it was very tasty as did Smiles. Hubby did not like the Tarragon saying it made a soapy taste for him. I did not find that at all. Oh well I like it and may make it again sometime. The other half of the cabbage I have been meaning to make into a coleslaw. LOL

What's that noise?

"Pppprrrrtttt!"

"Okay who farted?"

Giggles come from the two laughing children behind me. "Eyes did it!" They giggle some more.

I look at them suspiciously. "What do you have behind your back Smiles?"

"Nothing!" as she giggles again. Then with a flourish brandishes the object of horror. "I put it under Eyes and her eyes went wide when she heard it! Hahahaha!"

"Well please don't. You do not need to be traumatizing your sister this early in life." I reflect back to last night's birthday supper for Bear and grimace once again at Auntie Ski for giving this thing as a present. Sigh. What's done is done and just hopefully I can hide it from them long enough that they'll forget about it. Yes, she gave my son a Whoopie Cushion.

All in all it was a good day yesterday and despite the Whoopie Cushion as a present everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Nana was sick and couldn't make it but at least Granddad made it. Along with Auntie Ski and her boyfriend/Common-in-Law Partner and my parents. The other gift surprise I had was the t-shirts that both my Mother and Auntie Ski gave to Bear. I had been hoping to be spared the rebel, gang style wear until his teens but apparently he's getting them early. At least they mostly have dragons on them. Don't get me wrong I like the shirts I just was not expecting my Ultra-Conservative Mother to buy my son something that was fantastical and sub-culture. Of course those designs probably are not sub-culture any more. Not with people trying out trends that shock as many people as possible these days. And Bear loves them. He also loves the K'nex and Lego he received too. He built a Ferris Wheel out of his K'nex this morning.

Other than that Eyes' first trip to the pool today went well. She seemed to enjoy it mostly and with Daddy and I handing her back and forth it meant we were all able to do things like Hot Tub or Diving. I like Diving. I just haven't done it in a long time so my technique's off. Oh well with Bear now Eight we have a little more freedom of movement at the pool but he stayed close to Daddy mostly just so he could play with him.

Well Smiles has a pile of books that I am supposed to read to her so I guess I better get going! LOL. Oh and thank you Star for staying with me for the kids party earlier yesterday. I had fun talking to you:)

Stupid Passwords

I can never remember my passwords anymore and even though I think "Oh I'll remember that no problem" I still end up having to use the 'Forgot Password' help thing all the time. Man my brain is like a sieve lately. So much so that I have tons of ideas of what I want to write about that I forget almost all of them by the time I get a chance to sit at the computer. Of course it doesn't help that I only like using the main computer for my blogging due to the fact that the other computer's keyboard functions are screwed up. It does that funky accent over an E every time I try to use an '. So I usually just end up trying to use spellchecker on everything and even then some things don't come out right.

Bear's birthday is coming up on Saturday and we are holding it at the same place that Raven's girl K had hers at. He is very excited about it and I would have loved to have invited more kids but we only have so much money that six was the maximum number for us. Smiles is disappointed because she wanted to go to and I told her she's only allowed to come if one of the other kids can not make it. There will be three boys as knights and three girls who may or may not be knights. Laughs! I am sure it will be fun either way.

In other news Eyes is doing really well and getting more and more active every day. Soon she'll be crawling and terrorizing the world with her smiling face. Hahahaa. Okay I'm biased but we all knew that!

Critter!!!

"Mom!!! Guess what!? We have a Critter at school?!"

"Oh? What type of Critter?"

"A mouse! It was nibbling the candy bags! So we have to trap it! Thankfully it did not get into the jelly beans. They're in a jar!"

"Yes it would be hard for a mouse to get into a jar - unless someone left the lid open."

"Well we won't do that. Those jelly beans are for the kids! Not mice!"

Smiles is so cute somedays.