As has been the trend I slept in longer than I planned AGAIN today. This weekend marks the last weekend before my “birthday weekend.” Since my birthday is the 24th of June (a weekday) and the following weekend is a wedding – June 26th (Trinity Flowergirl!) I have chosen to plan my birthday celebration to be Father’s Day Weekend. I have great PLANS! After all for my 30th birthday I had to give up basically ALL my plans due to Ken’s medical condition and its impact on our family and finances so I have decided to make the 31st count!

So I had a few qualifications that need to be met – #1 reduce the number of kids (the boys are staying at my mom’s for the weekend), #2 I want to go to the Mongoli Grill (about my favourite restaurant ever that I have not been to in OVER a year), #3 lunch at this little Italian place we drive by on the way to H&W all the time that advertises a soup and sandwich combo at an amazing price, #4 my birthday present ON TIME (Ken is notorious for giving me great gifts but RARELY on time), #5 I want a birthday cake (didn’t get one last year), and #6 I want to spend tons of quality time with my husband who has been working hard on contracts AND on keeping me OFF my feet… I am sure there are a few other qualifications I have not mentioned but that is the gist.

Speaking of taking time for myself, last night I sat down and made sure I had quality ME time… scrapbooking for Trinity’s book! I got THREE pages done! I did cheat a little and do the current ones instead of backtracking to finish off the Minnesota batch but I couldn’t resist. I had bought paper on my last trip to see mom and had to use it up! Tonight I want to make the push and FINISH Minnesota… that leaves Trinity’s 2yr photos from the conservatory and I am DONE… well up to date! Accomplished a pre-baby #5 goal at that point!

Art by Trinity

Pigtails

Pretty baby!

Saturday has been absolutely lovely weather wise. So the plan is to enjoy it to the fullest. Starting with a mid day walk with the whole family.

Ready to go! (Zander left)

Our neighbourhood is so pretty right now with the gardens, some of the seniors who live in our area go all out when it comes to flowers and grass and there is even a house with a selection of lawn gnomes!

The cutest gnome of the garden

One of my fav mini gardens!

It was fun to bring out the jogging stroller my Uncle Wayne found for me at a garage sale last year. THIS year Trinity was not the least bit nervous about how deep she sits in it and just sat back and enjoyed! I love pushing the jogging stroller, the weight is much better balanced and lighter than using our other strollers which helps when I wear out so quickly in the warm weather.

Walking the current baby of the family

So we have narrowed our girl names down to a select few, so now I have to start the much more difficult task of going through the BOY names. The list we had of possibles when Trinity was born, including the name we had set up we don’t like any more!

The crowning event for the kids today was the refilling of the pool! I can still hardly believe that Trinity is able to hold her own with them in such a scenario.

Fun in the shade (Gavin left)

SPLASH

The twins also spent a bit of time in the backyard with their outside craft box. Today it was Gavin who produced a finished product – a picture for Daddy to go “in his work.”

Pure Art

My energy levels today have been all over the map, I felt absolutely great up until we got home from our walk and then it was like a total complete body crash. Summer may be a bit tougher than I thought!

Crossing the street (Zander left)

I apologize for last night’s lack of entry but I was in no emotional space to write anything worth reading.

As of today I am officially past the second big Reinsch-Johnson pregnancy hurdle.

#1 – the early ultra sound and whether or not it was twins

#2 – 30 weeks… the time when our twins were born, while I know each pregnancy  is different can you blame me for a certain level of anxiety at the 29th week when I had unknown bleeding and spent 5 days waiting for answers in the hospital only to have to go through with what was then determined as labour and have our first children 10 weeks early?

So a minor sigh of relief compounded by the fact that it has now been TWO days since my glucose test and no call from the doctor’s office. I still feel absolutely horrid like the glucose has made permanent residence in my stomach and is repelling ANYTHING I eat… but so far so good.

Thursday was a relatively quiet day. We stayed close to home to wait on any phone calls… worked on our schooling and made a family trip out to H&W for produce. Ken picked up my photos at Superstore but I was just not in the state of mind to do any pages so nothing to share on that end. Maybe tonight if I feel up to it.

I do need to share my one decadent treat of the week… a sort of reward for sitting through the hell that was my 2 hour glucose test. CHEESECAKE! Ken bought a box mix (the only somewhat affordable way to purchase one of my favourite treat), I defrosted some strawberries so they would be “squishy” and MMMM. In fact Ken is leaving me the lion’s share of said cake! What a lovely husband.

Nom Nom Nom

For the kids a special treat – slurpee! We decided they had behaved well enough to get one so Ken chose pink bubblegum flavour (ew) and they each got a small cup and straw. It was KEN’S idea this time that Trinity get her own share – NOT mine (I wanted to give her a sugar free juice box but he didn’t want her to feel left out!). Not the best choice as though she loved the drink she woke up a couple of times last night fussy and slept curled up in a ball on her stomach instead of her usual on her back sprawl. She is much more active in bed – rolling around, fussing when she has had white sugar. Thankfully no new rash and her behaviour today was pretty much her usual loving self.

Pink Bubblegum! (Gavin blue)

This morning Emanuel woke up bright and early clamouring to do more dinosaur sheets. In fact, according to Ken (I was sent back to bed), he spent MOST of his morning at the table working on his dinosaur folder. He is making it VERY hard to keep up hunting down worksheets on the internet! But it is a great feeling to have one of the kids so invested in something right now!

Schooling in Pj's!

Speaking of busy kids… today we finally had a break in the weather which sent us scurrying outside to do our tiny vegetable patch. We planted 3 types of seeds – peas, carrots and lettuce. I found the acorn squash seeds from last year that I am planning on planting tomorrow. We decided to keep it small and manageable, as well as each boy’s Mother’s Day craft pot being done up with peas. We are going to keep track of their growth by drawing pictures.

All hands in (Gavin blue)

Supervisor Trinity

Our little garden

This all quickly morphed into a caterpillar hunt for Emanuel (had absolutely NO luck convincing him it was a worm but it was!)…

Bug watching

and a weeding expedition for the other two… they took out a fair amount of the weeds in the front yard before loosing interest. So very productive!

Hard at work (Zander red)

Of course after all this fun I noticed the camera is making an odd sound when it zooms.. BUT it still zooms so here’s hoping it is just some potting soil in the gears that will work its way out. I love my camera too much for it to go kaput! At least it is still working and Ken can get on the internet to research any sort of troubleshooting tonight.

On top of our gardening outside we also worked on our worksheets for the lapbook. The twins were actually VERY willing to work on them with me – mainly the copying of words for items used when gardening but they were more than game. It was a lovely change, and hopefully a trend that continues.

We managed to get in the time Wednesday night to take more maternity photos that I have added to my deviantArt account. (you have to have an account to view them sorry) I am looking forward to doing another set in a week or two. It has certainly increased my love of photography and my confidence in my and Ken’s skills AND my own personal image. There is something rather special being told you are beautiful pregnant woman by perfect strangers. Talk about an ego boost! Now if I could be THAT confident AFTER this pregnancy that will be the REAL trick.

Sewing has not been the most productive but I am making headway on the outlining on the wedding present, have already mocked out a baby sampler and discussed the remaining commission. I have high hopes of maybe even squeaking in some time on some personal projects in the foreseeable future!

Now in order to get myself re-focused on me for the weekend AND my scrapbooking that is yelling at me to  get started I REALLY should make this an early post and get going on my projects!!

Just us girls!

to blog tonight… sorry everyone, but I will give it a go tomorrow…