Archive | July 2010

Saturday in the Sun

A sunny and less bug filled day has been a welcome change for our family! I still need to get to a pharmacy and get a Benedryl pen for Trinity and Emanuel’s bug bites but we managed to go out and about a bit today without coming home dotted in bug bites!

We started our morning with a trip to Michaels for the free family activity. We got there a little after 10 but the facilitator was not yet ready. So a bit of browsing and corralling squiggly kids later and we were ready to create. This session – making books using cardstock and  coloured paper and yarn. All 4 kids made their own book though Trinity had her daddy do most of the work. Emanuel is determined to give HIS to Grandma tomorrow when she comes to pick him up for an extended one on one visit! Talk about an excited little boy, and I have not even told him that she plans on heading further out to my brother’s so they can visit with my sister-in-law Holly and nephew Jimmie!

Finished books

Even with the session taking longer than we expected I was determined to get us all out to the conservatory one last time before the baby comes. With us not knowing when Emanuel will be back (before or after baby) it was our best chance. They had a new feature pyramid and the kids got in another session of drawing time.

Emanuel and his art

There were lovely statues all over the place in the pyramids.

One of the statues

The feature pyramid was the Octopus Garden. Less flowers than the previous but the kids thought it AMAZING. Fish, a treasure chest, a sleeping mermaid… so much to see.

Mermaid

As a treat for the adults more than anything, my youngest cousin Veronika (mom’s side) and her fiancée Adam came by for a late afternoon visit. She is 12 years younger than me so it is really wonderful that we are of an age to connect and really get to know each other. When we move next spring the hope is that being closer to them will allow us for more visiting time.

After our guests left the kids showed interest in doing some school stuff so I got out a preK- K workbook I had around for Emanuel who took to it right away!

Emanuel and his workbook

Zander and Gavin have shown interest in addition so we are working on some worksheets off a website I hunted down called The Math Lesson. Nothing fancy just super simple adding but it is going well! I figure if they show interest it is easy enough to print something off and let them go at it!

Hard at work (Zander red)

Trinity made the final move to her own room tonight. She was rather excited up until Ken put her IN the crib in the new room. Then not so much. Our room feels HUGE now and needs some rearranging tomorrow before we set up our nursery corner. Makes it all the more real when we do all of this. Real and imminent. My grandma (dad’s side) gave us a call tonight which was nice… we hadn’t talked in a while and got a chance to catch up. Now I just need to get together all the baby stuff and get sorted out… and maybe get in a decent night’s sleep?

Emanuel, Gavin and Zander

Trinity and Mommy

Our whole family (Gavin blue)

Mosquitoes and Heat

Mosquitoes mosquitoes mosquitoes… those horrible little bugs are EVERYWHERE… you step out the door and are basically eaten alive right now. So it has been an exercise in patience with the kids indoors… Trinity and Emanuel end up with swelling where they get bites so it is just not worth sending them out to come back in looking like accident victims.

Colouring (Gavin)

Dressing Dolly (Zander)

Add to that my memory card for my camera loosing its silly little plastic lock tab thus LOCKING the thing permanently… well Ken was able to find a way online to make it work – using tape! But I am NOT trusting tape to ensure I can take pictures of the baby when it gets here. So Ken had to run out later today to get a new one… we checked for sales and a new 8GB is not bad, but still…

Our utility came at a REASONABLE time! 2 in the afternoon no less! My faith is restored in kind work men, this older gentleman was from Poland no less! Apparently he has a granddaughter around the same age as our Trinity who woke up from her nap in time to watch him work.

I could certainly do with a little less heat and some sort of spray or something that WORKS on the mosquitoes. A little more sewing, some scrapbooking (still mocking up for Emanuel), a bit more tidying and a lot more melting in the heat. What a day! Lucky Ken got to go off to Bioware and play a new game… wander an electronic store to get a new memory card for the camera AND hang out with Ted… bah!

Chris and Chris stopped by so I did get a run out to Michaels where – of course – they were out of my adhesive refills, so I had to settle for glue dots (grrr). So at least I can get the rest of the pages done for Emanuel that I have listed… well for his ages 3-4… which leaves me going through my notes for 2-3… but it feels good to know that I may just have TWO of the kids up to date!

Now if only the mosquitoes would take a hike!

Little Lady!

36+ Weeks and No Baby Yet

Doctor’s appointment accomplished and to day – no baby… which is good, mom is not off work until tonight and the weekend is open for us to enjoy… BUT next week – we check the situation once again. On another positive note – up to 128.6 lbs (whew), bloodpressure fine, measuring ok, baby heartrate at 136. Time is ticking down!Oh and strep came back NEGATIVE so no IV – yay!

After all the rain we have had lately the mosquitoes are out full force, in fact all 4 kids have bites! When we went the splash park we couldn’t get the bug spray on them fast enough and today they are out even WORSE! So I spent my early afternoon convincing the twins on the merits of playing the nice and cool basement. Even running out to pick the raspberries I had to throw on some bug spray and rush through it. Applesauce will have to wait until later as I am not going to brave those bugs again today!

Red block castle (Gavin)

Tomorrow looks like another inside day. We have to stick around the house for an appointment with a utility (gotta love those LONG spanning – we will be by, be home sort of things), but Ken has a play test with Bioware in the late afternoon the lucky man. So I am still trying to sneak in another trip to the local conservatory before Thursday –  to take pictures and smell the flowers of course.

I just can’t get over the heat – +30 cel today, the fans are really NOT working and the kids still have energy to spare! We did finally get rain in the evening but still a whole day of heat… bleck.

We made a run to The Mall… final baby shopping. It is a tradition for this family that each of our babies is born owning their very own build a bear. And since the twins’ birth they have been made by the next oldest child… the twins made Emanuel’s, Emanuel Trinity’s and now Trinity Baby #5’s. The teddy of choice – a puppy!

"washing" the puppy!

That leaves the soother holder and the baby book. I feel positively READY! Well, except for the fact our room is not sorted for baby… so close though!!!

Reading up on the alphabet