So it has been a busy two days, enough so that blogging has been at the bottom of my list! I know, astounding! Anyway, Wednesday was a big day in the grand plan off Chris and Chris’ wedding. THE DRESS FITTING! I can show a couple pictures here as (he)Chris is aware of some (not all) of the details of the dress. This seamstress is amazing, willing to do TONS of hand stitching and tailoring to suit (she)Chris’ tastes and body shape.

The train

In order to not have you have to come over and over she creates a body form using a t-shirt and duct tape. This way she is able to create a true to the individual shape that she then stuffs and mounts to put the dress on! AND it is entertainment for those not being fitted for the dress honestly!

Creating the body form

The other bridesmaid Mae was there with us, and Echo. Mae is ALSO getting her dress done by the same woman, it will have some of the same fabric I have in my dress. After the seamstress (which was a bit time consuming), we headed to The Mall for a leisurely lunch and then shopping for make-up for the bride. We settled on the Body Shop (a favourite of mine), to get her started on a few key items. With all the sales and such going on she also treated Mae and myself to a body butter! So sweet!!!

Smells so nummy

Best seat for shopping

By the time we got back to the house it was right around supper time. Mom and Uncle Wayne were there for a visit. Well, Mom to drop off Uncle Wayne after cataract surgery and then head home. He stayed the night here so that he could go to his eye appointment afterwards to clear himself for driving home. The kids were in HEAVEN. They love their Great Uncle dearly and having him overnight was a huge treat.

With the Great Uncle

One of the incentives to moving to where we are planning to IS the closer proximity to my uncle. Add to that cousins, my brother and some dear friends and it is just a great place for us to be… if we can FIND a RENTAL. I am trying my best starting today especially to be patient… we are in a rather special situation here. The owners are not back until July 1st, but we want to be out June 1st. Worst worst worst case scenario we stay here longer, Ken is rather sure this won’t happen but it is disheartening how many SCAM ads are out there for rentals. People who are attempting to steal money from people with false promises.

We had something rather special come in the mail yesterday as well – I had gone onto eBay a while ago and ordered a little Hello Kitty necklace for Trinity so that she could start wearing some real jewellery, It was under 2.00 and is absolutely adorable. I figure it is a cheap enough chain that if she got caught somewhere it would snap easily as well. I am tempted to get one of my own it is so cute!

So pretty

Wearing her newest pretty

So with Uncle Wayne here past lunch and the kids in TERRIBLE moods we skipped the school stuff and instead spent quality uncle time and then – NAP TIME! For the first time in forever all 5 kids were sleeping at the same time. Attitudes were MUCH improved when they woke up. Just in time for the boys to move more stuff to the trailer. This weekend we have to bring up desks, etc. from the basement and put them in there too… regardless of the rental situation we have to keep progressing with the cleaning.

Bed head

The weather has been lovely but the mosquitoes have been horrible. Both Trinity and Emanuel have a bad reaction to them with the bites swelling up and itching horribly. Already Trinity has TWO on on arm. They look horrible and take up so much space. I am doing my best to keep her from scratching.

Tomorrow the plan is to head to Echo’s appointment, and then back home for Echo, Chris (she) and I to head down to the venue and measure the area. We need to figure out how many bunches of balloons we are going to need and measure the tables. I figure we will stop in and see mom at work AND stop by the baby store. It will be nice to have another girly day. Today she had her trial hair styling but didn’t take any pictures to ensure it will be a surprise. Time is passing so quickly we are in the thick of it now.

Fat Sheep has been busy as well. You can check our her new photos right here.

I got some more sewing in. All of the cross stitching is done, now I just need to backstitch (I am planning on doing it all in black for simplicity). And then… well that stocking IS calling to me!

All but the backstitching

This upcoming weekend is a long one… the plan is to keep us all VERY busy. The boys want a chance to try mowing and there are desks to move out. And I need to work on my patience… wish me luck.

HUGE smiles

Last night Ken and I took some special alone together time and watched a download of Going Postal. It was on tv in the UK in March and was based on the book by the same name by Terry Pratchett. I LOVE the Discworld series and these made for tv movies are AMAZING. I totally recommend Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. Sometimes it is worth being tired to just have that time together.

The weekend has given way and ended on all positive notes. I am so happy to have spent it with friends. The kids were overjoyed to not only have some little friends to play with but the attention of multiple adults. I got out with friends and had a LEISURELY lunch even with Echo in tow! With the trailer in the back we are almost ready to start emptying out the house a little which will make it WAY easier to finish packing what is left.

We spent our morning playing with the games that have yet to be packed. Trinity is sure that EVERYONE wins all the time… but she gets to decide who does each turn.

Playing the gobble game

The boys spent some time with their craft bucket. No one was really focused today, the wind has finally died down somewhat and the sun is shining so sitting down and doing work work was not a huge priority. Of course crafts are very important too!!! This also gave me the opportunity to have them go through the bucket and weed out the mess and garbage.

Completed crafts

Echo has been hard at work perfecting her sitting technique. She has become VERY interested in toys and such… of course always wanting the ones her brother’s have and she shouldn’t. Now if I could just get her to crawl forwards, so far she only goes backwards when she is VERY angry.

Playing on her blanket

We are all feeling the frustration of living with boxes and mess… I am hoping taking some time to move stuff out of here will make a difference. We have a whole list of baking to do tonight, a friend of Karyn’s has some items they no longer want and are willing to do an exchange – we come and get them and bring cookies. Definitely a done deal! So tonight it is chocolate, banana and applesauce cookies and making our sugar cookie dough. I think we are also going to send a loaf of banana bread and of course some butter icing for them to use when they eat the sugar cookies. Everything can be frozen so they don’t have to eat them all at once!

I did get in some more sewing (after all I WAS watching tv last night which I cannot do without something ELSE also occupying my time). I am rather sure at this point you can at least guess what the animal is!

Soooo cute

There is something to look forward to this week as well – on Wednesday I get to go with Chris (she) and Mae (the bridesmaid) and see the first dress fitting! I am so excited… Echo is going to come with as well. Then on Friday it is looking like our trip to visit the venue again is on. Echo in tow. It will be nice to not only get out of the house and away from the boxes but to focus on such an exciting and happy event. End of August!

Now to get to work with that baking!

One more, I could not resist

I have to admit Ken’s predisposition to having the most unusual things go awry does add to the excitement in our lives. This time a relatively minor issue, the cell phone. We have, since we got our new phone and number, gotten a number of calls from what seems to be an east Indian individual. Add to that unusual texts in regards to taxis and taxi driver’s union. Bizarre but easily explained by inferring that the previous owner of our number was a taxi driving (in union) immigrant from an east Indian country. The calls have been annoying as we don’t understand them or they us, but this week the frustration level increased. Our phone stopped accepting and sending phone calls early this past week but continued texting. By the end of the week texting stopped also! Ken got a hold of Koodo to try and correct the issue and it turns out the previous owner of the number has tried to reactivate it on their new phone with a different provider! Of course this is all figured out by SATURDAY when the individuals who CAN fix the issue are not in their offices. Leave it to Ken to get a number someone else tried to get back! So here’s hoping Monday we get our phone back in working order. There were VERY apologetic.

Not having a working cell phone did complicate things a little bit last night. Well, most of the day. First off Karyn had to call our house phone to catch us before we headed out on all the errands we had had to postpone over the week to let us know she would not be making it to help babysit. The weather down where she was was at white out levels on a lot of the roads.

We did make it out as a family to get some of our errands done – stopping at the bank (20 min in line! UGH), getting a bought credit card to pay a bill, and the Reuse Centre. FINALLY! I love this place, you can get all sorts of craft supplies and other bits and pieces (this time a couple books came home too!) all for 5.00.

Our Reuse haul

The boys were told to go in with crafts in mind, Gavin did the most extensive thinking out of his project – he wants to make a penguin (we even found a book that included a portion about penguins there). That gave them something constructive to do today. Though only Gavin actually was able to get right to work on his project. Zander wants to make a teddy bear which means I have to find a template online and Emanuel wants something to do with Handy Manny (I have not figured out how we are going to accomplish that).

The head on the penguin

Zander did make an ice cream cone out of foam pieces that was quite cute!

Zander's ice cream cone

We got the family home and unpacked in time to make up hamburger pie for their (and Sean’s) dinner, change the baby, feed her and get the three of us packed back up. We stopped in at Toys’R’Us for the birthday boy’s (he Chris) gift – a Nerf sword (it went over VERY well of course) and then to Montanas for dinner. He Chris was determined we eat our fill and then some!!! Apparently we amazed the kitchen as well… we started with pretzel appetizers that were sooo yummy, and then a small Caesar salad (each for both) and then some sort of spicy appetizer I tried but was unable to eat much of. The main course was RIBS! I had beef ones with coleslaw and rice… (picture yesterday)

Pretzels

We were there for a nice relaxing meal and Echo even allowed herself to be passed around and cuddled. Of course she got compliments from all sorts of people.

Out for dinner

After dinner Chris, Chris and Mae stopped by to pick up some things they had left and had sent to our house before heading home. It was a wonderful evening…

Today we meant to head to the library but woke up to a snowfall and wind, so that has been postponed.

MORE snow

Luckily I have more than enough books for us to get started on tomorrow’s Reading Week. I did, however, get two new bows done for Trinity’s hair. They are called stacked bows and you can find instructions here. I have started to make some tiny bows for Echo as well, though I am still without the needed Velcro.

Trinity likes the pink one best

So not the most exciting Sunday but we had some crafty moments and tomorrow I am about ready to start our story time. Just have to print out the sheet my sister in law sent me and pick out which 3 books to start with!! Oh and get back to sorting through everything in the house. Not so much fun, but has to be done!

Teapot fascination