Help from an almost 3yr old

So I finally get the energy to go out and shovel the heavy wet drifted snow off of my driveways (yes 2 of them) and the sidewalk and because it wasn't too cold out side, I invited Tansley to come outside and play in the snow while I shoveled. Tansley says that she wants to help. We happen to have two shovels, so Tansley picks up the smaller one to help. At first she is doing an OK job pushing the snow off the patio onto the grass. But then we move to the driveway. I've started to clear the snow off, and Tansley comes behind me with her shovel full of snow from off of the grass and dumps it onto the area I just shoveled off and says "there you go mom". Thanks! This continues all the way down the driveway and onto the sidewalk despite my best efforts to explain to her that I want the snow on the grass not on the sidewalk. Once we get around to the front of the house to the front driveway, which is sloped, she proceeds to crawl up the driveway "Look mom I'm climbing a mountain" and once at the top she lays on her side and rolls all the way to the bottom. Slowly I shovel the snow away when I'm done she says "now I can't slide anymore" and sits and pouts on the driveway only to be quickly distracted by me shoveling more snow off of the back patio, to which she helps by crawling around on her hands and knees pushing the snow that I haven't yet shoveled all over the area I just finished shoveling. Oh the fun. I wanted to take pictures, but I had left the camera in the van that Daniel had taken to Lethbridge.

Sweet Success!

I said No Thanks!

No thanks mom

I have been trying for a month or so to get little miss Kymberly to eat baby cereal, drink formula and eat baby food, without any success. She is willing to drink from a bottle, but has never continued to eat once she has realized that it is not what she wants. Every time I have tried to feed her baby cereal she accepts the first bite, but then quickly purses her lips together and wont let the spoon in. If I do manage to get a bite in when she's not expecting it, she spits it all over me. We had quite the adventure yesterday with sweet potatoes...it was everywhere!

Mom, you are not listening.

NNNOOOOO!!!!!!

Well this afternoon when she woke up from her nap, I decided to try the bottle again. I made 2 oz of formula, sat in the rocking chair and first offered her the bottle, she wouldn't open up. So then I nursed her on one side, when she was done I gave her the bottle...and she drank it, almost all of it...with out any complaints!!!! I would have done the happy dance but I was to stunned to do anything but smile a big dumb grin! I may have actually one the bottle battle. Now on to the food battle.

Do I have to do the dishes?

The one downside to our new house is the lack of a dishwasher. Nearly everyday since we have moved here Kathryn and Tansley eagerly help me do the dishes right after supper. On Sunday right after supper he headed to the church for a fireside and we didn't do the dishes. I ended up doing them by myself Monday morning. On Monday we went to Writing On Stone for a picnic and then came home and had FHE, later that night Daniel and I made pizza. Dishes did not get done. Tuesday morning, I did not do Monday's dishes. It is now 7:32 and the dishes are not done, Kathryn is not feeling well, so I don't have my helper. I don't want to do dishes! But if I don't do them then I'll have two days worth of dishes to do in the morning and then have to do Wednesdays dishes that night. I WANT MY DISHWASHER!!! (that's me throwing a tantrum).

To my surprise, Tansley just now came and said, "I want to wash dishes right now!!". Now when Tansley says something in that demanding, angry voice, It is a good idea to do something about it, especially when it is something like this, so I'll stop my complaining and go do the dishes with my girls since they have come upstairs to help me...demanding that we do them. What good kids I've got.

Snow, snow and still more snow

I woke up this morning to yet another blizzard and wouldn't you know it our massively long driveway was drifted in again along with our front driveway(to the unused garage) and the sidewalks. We live on a corner lot which seems to be ideal for blowing snow to collect in nearly every place, making some very decent sized drifts. At 11am the wind had let up and the snow had slowed and the temperature boasted a whopping -6, so I decided to venture out side to do the shoveling. Kathryn and Tansley opted to come along to "help". Honestly, it was fabulous weather to be out playing in the snow, and that made shoveling not such a horrific task....except for the fact that the drifts were in some places up to my knees. Daniel had left for work at 8am, you couldn't even tell that there had been a van in our driveway by the time I got to shoveling. The snow had drifted to nearly a foot in front of our screen door, so I really had to push just to get out side and then I couldn't find our shovel, it had fallen over and was completely covered with snow. In some places the drifts were as deep as the snow that had previously been piled at the side of the driveway. In the front the snow on the driveway was as deep all the way across as the snow piles on either side, in fact one would have said "snow piles, what snow piles?". The same was true of the front walkway to the front door. The sidewalk was close to a foot deep as well. I'm just glad I'm not the guy across the street. My job was bad, but his was unreal! If anyone needs a snow blower, it's that guy. So I started with the back driveway and porch, heaving very heavy snow onto already large piles. By the time I was about a third done, the girls had decided that they were done and went inside. I worked my way through the sidewalk, still heaving and pushing. Lucky for me there is not a sidewalk in the front, not so lucky for anyone trying to get to my front door. Although I shovel our front walk and steps, getting to it is quite the feat, especially because we live on the same street as the Hospital so they plow that road, well plowing is a generous word for what they do, really they push some of the snow to the middle of the street,and some of the snow is pushed to the side (in front of my house). I then shoveled off the front driveway, although then wondered what the point was, my husband doesn't park in the garage, and even if he wanted to he'd probably get stuck because of the some what large pile that has been pushed to the side of the road by the so called snow plow. I tell myself that the reason I'm doing it is to get some exercise, and this makes me feel better. I finish in front and walk around to the back, only to realize that the driveway needs shoveled again. Too bad, I'm done! I have not seen this much snow or this many blizzards for a very very long time(Edmonton and Saskatoon not included). Is it just that I live in Milk River now and the great Chinook is not so powerful here? One day when driving to Coutts for church, I thought to myself, "there really isn't that much snow on the prairies, why is there so much snow in Milk River?". This thought was quickly followed by "because Milk River is the only thing for miles around to stop the blowing snow, and it just keeps collecting". You can check out more of our snow pictures in my album.

Our house in the snow

Kathryn on our snowed in driveway

Kathryn on our front walk

the massively long driveway

This is how deep the snow drift was.

Kathryn beside the Large snow pile

The serious blog

Here I am in my new fabulous house. We've been living here for just over a month and it feels like we've always lived here, except for the fact that I still have no pictures or really any variety of decoration stuff in any of my rooms, except the baby's room, it looks cute. That will come, I've been busy with a lot of sewing projects for other people that haven't been any fun, but they have made me some money. Now that I am nearly caught up on that( and would be farther along if I were doing that instead of blogging), I'm looking forward to doing some of the funstuff to get my house looking settled. We have finished painting the living room, well almost I've discovered that in the sunlight the navy blue wall needs another coat of paint, but after the sun goes down it looks fabulous. Once I get that finished, then I'll hang the pictures and such, but still it will be a furnitureless room, except the piano, book shelf, TV, and computer desk, ok so really it is simply lacking things to sit on. Next I want to paint in the girls room. I'm going to do an oversized flower garden on one wall with giant butterflies and bees and stuff. It's so cute in my head, I hope that I can make it look as cute as it is in my mind. after that I suppose I should figure out what to add to my room and of course the garage still needs to be worked on. I thought I had that tackled. I got everything out of the way and organized on shelves and such, and everything set to the sides in a nice organized manner so that we could park the van in the garage instead of just on the driveway, I was so proud of myself, really felt like I had accomplished something. Daniel comes home, and parks in the garage (because I told him too) and he thinks its to tight of fit, so he continues to park on the driveway instead of making use of the space that I slaved over for a whole day. Oh well, what can be done? I suppose I could just store all the stuff that keeps getting put in the living room because we have no idea where else to put it, in the garage. At least then I wont have to look at it.
In spite of everything, I love this house, I love our new ward, I love Milk River! I made some fabulous discoveries last Tuesday. I walked to the grocery store with the kids because it was 10% Tuesday, and there were some things that I wanted to buy. Discovery #1: The Riverside market has fabulous prices on 10% Tuesday. With this discovery I ended up with quite a few more groceries than I had expected. I came prepared, or at least I thought I had, I had brought a back pack to carry the groceries home in, but by the time we got to the check out, I was wondering how I was going to get it all home in the stroller and the backpack. I said so to Kathryn. The Check out lady over heard me and revealed the second discovery to me. "We deliver at no extra charge, would you like us to deliver your groceries to your house? It will probably take 45 minutes.". To this I responded "You deliver?! I Love Milk River!!". Sometimes it really pays to live in a small town. So now I know I can walk down to the grocery store any day any time and by whatever I want, and then It will be delivered to my door. So fabulous.
Back to what I was talking about, I love everything about living here. It feels so right. The girls love it and have really taken to everyone at church. Kathryn gave her first talk in Primary on Sunday, and she did fabulous, I was very proud of her. She even decided that she wanted her talk to be about Lehi and to use some cut outs from the Friend. Oh yes back to loving this place. It feels like home, and we are all so glad to be here. I go to bed every night thinking "I love this house.". And soon Daniel will be done Basketball and he will be home to enjoy the house as much and as often as I do. Yeah to the end of Basketball!!!!!!!!

Back on line and in touch

I was going to do some serious blogging just now, but my husband has just begged me to come sit with him and just watch some adult TV (not adult as in XXX, just not kids stuff) for a little while, and I can not turn him down, we don't get to sit and watch TV together very often...and he's making popcorn too! Blogging will have to wait for now. I'll even have pictures of our house and what we have done with it thus far.

it's good to be back!

Farewell for now

Well folks this is a temporary farewell until we get all moved, organized, setup and hooked up. We are right in the middle of this moving thing. Saturday is our big move day and will likely continue on into Monday when we hope to be done moving and just then need to worry about the cleanup of our old place. Wish us luck! We are all very excited about this craziness!!