Grandpa's Rotten Potatoes

I just had an interesting experience. I was peeling potatoes for supper, when I reached in a grabbed one that was half rotten. Oh the smell. Usually I hate that smell. It's the kind of smell that will make you gag. It's revolting and disgusting. But tonight, as I drew in a deep breath, I savoured that smell for just a moment as I grinned and thought of my Grandpa Paxman. Oh what sweet memories of harvesting potatoes, the potato pit and my Grandpa flooded my mind for that short moment. Then I pulled out another rotten potato and gagged at the smell.

Say No To Chocolate

So I have this baby. And this baby seems to react negatively to me eating chocolate in excess. This lovely, beautiful baby of mine can turn into a cranky unpredictable gas chamber when I consume chocolate in excess of a dozen mini eggs. This baby is forcing me to restrict my chocolate intake(for my sanity and her comfort), and by so doing may be the catalyst to me dropping some unwanted weight (one can only hope that such a thing will happen if being forced to cut back drastically in the chocolate department). That is if I don't substitute one fetish for another...like, say...licorice allsorts!!!

What a lucky girl.

So Kathryn came home from school all excited. Once again this kid has won something, a really cool something. This time she's won a Kobo E-reader. Very cool. I shouldn't say she's lucky. She worked for this. The School attended an Agriculture Safety day and at the end of it they were asked to make a poster depicting an aspect of farm safety and write a short essay explaining it. She did a wonderful job, as always. The past few years she has also won first or second place in the Milk River Watershed poster contest and has received a number of cool prizes and cash to go along with it. She is a very talented kid.

Growing pains

Wow, what a crazy, happy, busy, grumpy, peeing on the floor, sleepless, contentious, loving, cranky, messy, and enjoyable couple of weeks we've had. I swear that everyday since we brought Ella home can be described with each one of those words. The whole family seems to be having a hard time adjusting to our beautiful new addition. Although each and everyone of us absolutely adore her, that alone can be the source of our troubles, especially among the Big, Bigger and Biggest sisters...I constantly here "I want to hold her, you've been holding her more than me!" Oh to be loved so much that everyone fights over you. On top of that my darling boy has decided that maybe that potty is not all that it's been talked up to be. Peeing on the floor, deliberately, is totally the way to go. One day last week he came up stairs and said to me, "Pee potty". I was thrilled because we had already had a few "accidents" that day, so I said "good boy, go pee in the potty" to which he responded "NO, pee floor" as he walked into the bathroom. I called after him and said, "Don't pee on the floor, sit on the potty". Yeah...he just stood in the bathroom with his pants on and everything and peed on the floor, just like he said he was going to do. The next day, he pooped on the floor in the girls bedroom....I just about lost it....correction...I completely lost it. I had anticipated that we would have potty training set backs when Baby was finally born...I just didn't think that these set backs would be worse than when we started the whole potty training business. So I was forced to step back and start from the beginning. I got out the little portable training potty again, and hoped that he would at least be willing to sit on it. I've gone back to the cheering every time he does it on his own. I've stooped to bribing him with chocolate eggs when he refuses to sit on it at all. There is a lot less peeing on the floor, and that is always a good thing.

The girls never gave me so much grief when a new baby joined our family. But this boy of mine, he is really giving me the gears. He hadn't ever reached that Terrible Two stage, even though he is almost three, that is until he wasn't mom's baby anymore and the big sisters all went back to school. For the most part, he is still my lovable boy, but he can have a melt down over the littlest things. And when he has a melt down...Watch out! All Hell breaks loose and the whole house gets turned upside down. Some how he has the power to turn everyone in the house into a miserable monster and everything just goes up in flames.

Bed time is my favorite time of day. Honestly it has always been my favorite time of day, but these days I love it like I have never loved it before. Thankfully my kids have always been great at going to bed. Even the boy in his melt down, once he has been put to bed will stay in his room with the door shut. He may continue the melt down, but at least he does it behind closed doors. I have been trying really hard to continue with our regular bedtime routine, regardless of how he is acting. I want him to know that mommy still has time for him, and that some things will always be the same. But there are nights where nothing will console the monster, and the only thing that can be done is to leave him alone with his blanket and let him cry it out. And then when he has started to calm down, I always try to go in and tuck him in and give him a kiss and let him know I love him.

I have moments where all I can do is cry, but thankfully there are so many other moments that just make me smile or laugh right out loud. Yeah it's hard to be a mom to five kids....what, did I just say FIVE kids? How did that happen? Seriously, am I even old enough to have five...oh,right, yes I am. Not sure how that happened either, didn't I just graduate high school? (almost 20 years ago Mandy).....
Right, so it is hard and complicated and challenging to be a mom of five, but it's all good. We'll get this figured out before it's over....or at least working functionally well, in a way that we can all survive with smiles on our faces...That is the plan.

We did it again.

I seem to be in the habit of creating fairly large babies. For this reason in addition to my high blood pressure during this pregnancy, my doctor took pity on me and sent me to be induced on the same day as our due date. On the afternoon of Friday, Feb 15, we dropped this kids off at my parents house and we headed to the hospital to get the show on the road. We were blessed to have the best nurses ever. We had Jenn, the nurse in charge; Rebecca, a nurse in training; and Brittany, second year nursing student. These ladies were fabulous. We bonded over my belly. At times I'd have three sets of hands on my belly feeling the contractions.We joked and laughed non stop. It was a real party...but nobody brought in a veggie tray. Time seemed to fly by, but yet at the same time it seemed to stand still. This time around Doc decided to go with the oxytocin drip for induction rather than the gel stuff that was used for both James and Kymberly. As a result it seemed to me that we were going to be there all night, I just wasn't feeling the same intensity that had come with my last two. The nurses would ask how I would rate my pain and I never did get past a 5 or 6 out of ten, because I was waiting for the intensity that I knew was to come. It never did come. Five hours and seventeen minutes after starting the induction, at precisely 7:32pm(or 19:32 {note that the numbers add to 15}), we welcomed our 9lb 6oz (also adding to 15) baby girl into this world. She came a little bit slower requiring just a little bit more pushing than her older brother and sister, and as a result she came into this world with out the bruising, her normal sized head may also have had something to do with that.

Meet our beautiful  Ella Reese

Daddy thinks she's pretty great, even if she is a girl. You see, 15 is daddy's number, and that number just kept creeping in. Maybe it's a sign...she might just have daddy wrapped around her pinky for the rest of his life.

Our little peanut

Cozy in her pea pod, AKA: her peanut shell

The Big Sisters and Brother

Daddy and his crew

The Biggest Sister, simply over the moon.

The Bigger Sister, giddy as can be.

The Big Sister, pleased as punch.

The Big Brother, simply in love with Baby Sister.

Little randoms about me

OK, so this was a little facebook dealy thing that you were to "like" your friends post and then they would give you an age to start with. It looked like a fun idea, so I liked a post and I got the age 24. I wanted to have it recorded here for me to look back on. If anyone else wants to play along on their blog, just leave me a comment saying so and I'll give you an age.


The year was 2000

I was: 24
I lived in: at my parents house in Lethbridge, AB
I was: Studying biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek along with anything else that related to it at the University of Lethbridge. Dating and soon to be engaged to a great guy.
I drove: a little green geo metro named Lanny
I feared: the idea of not being able to finish my degree because the right class wasn't being offered the next semester.
I worked: 3 part time jobs at Bentley Leathers, Fanny's Fabrics, and marking beginner computer science papers.

Now
I am: 36
I live in: A house, we own, in Milk River, AB
I am married to: My best friend, and the man I have loved for longer than I'm willing to admit.
I drive: A dodge grand caravan
I fear: That I wont be able to teach my kids everything they need to know to make it in this world. Also that my doc wont see things as I do, and I'll have to be pregnant longer than just until this Friday, thus resulting in the delivery of another 10lb 13oz baby.(been there, done that, don't need to do it again).
I work: to keep a balance between being a somewhat efficient stay at home mom, having fun with my kids and finding time to be the woman I want to be.
I want to be: the coolest house in town. A home where others want to be, where my kids and their friends want to hang out at, and a safe place for anybody who needs a listening ear.

Meet Frank the Frog

Frank some how managed to sneek a ride home with my hubby. He's a clever frog. He also brought with him a 1kg bag of eggies.

For those of you keeping track at home, that's 2 bags and it's only Feb 4th.