Excuses...

How long do you suppose I can use the excuse "I have baby twins"? I use this excuse on a daily basis when talking to myself (did I just write that?) I need a kick in the butt with some motivation, and I'm guessing that one can only use that excuse for so long. Of course when dealing with myself, I'm easily persuaded to use that excuse and let myself off the hook...I still get up with the twins once a night for an early morning bottle (gasp! Yes they still have bottles), I often get up in the night to let the dog out, not to mention I am a light sleeper and spend many hours flipping and flopping in my bed trying to fall asleep...We also stay up way too late...so you see, those reasons are justifiable as to why I have trouble getting up in the morning. I wake up the moment one of my kids wakes up, and not a minute sooner...Some days its 8am some days 9am, but I never on my own accord get up before that...

As much as I like sleeping in, I hate the mood it sets for the rest of the day...I've ruined any chance at a morning shower, exercise or quietly checking my emails while sipping on a nice hot coffee...Sounds so nice and everynight I swear that tomorrow will be the day...I will wake up 1 hour before the kids, work out, shower and enjoy my coffee in peace...But as mentioned above I'm an easy sell to sleep in, and I talk myself out of it every single morning with the excuse I have baby twins, I need the sleep...

Well people, excuse over...I do have baby twins but they go to bed at 8pm..Me? Midnight or later, so really can I use that as an excuse? I think not, perhaps if I went to bed earlier it wouldn't be such a problem. Perhaps if I fit in some morning exercise I'd have more energy through the day to get stuff done...and maybe have a better restful sleep at night.

Now that its almost spring, I need to wake the heck up, or I'll be using this excuse until they move out. I thought writing this here would make me more accountable, not that anyone cares but maybe in the morning I'll remember the promise to myself...

Nothing terribly exciting the past week...Another 21cm dump of snow over the weekend! Thats a lot of freaking snow! Now fingers crossed thats the last of it.

 It thankfully stopped after 24 hours and the sun came out and our yard is almost bare again...Not before we went outside and made a Princess Belle Snowlady and the beast!

  Nothing to say about this one, I just liked it...

 Blake is now walking Full time, I still get surprise when he comes walking around the corner... 

 How cute is his new hat!

Leah is pretty close to walking too, I give her another week...She does have a love of climbing and crawling on anything she can get on...

 This little girl is a full time job on her own right now!! She seeks out all sorts of trouble! 

 Kirks parents have gone back home after 5 months of house sitting...
they will be missed greatly!

My parents are in Phoenix this week and we have 2 extra little critters with us...

 These little guys don't get that much loving these days,
but they will never forget when meal time is...

 Oscar, the forgotten one!

Oh Alyssa, you crack me right up! I can't believe how big and smart you are!

Here is some of her latest art work... 

Her printng is amazing, she made this card for some twin friends Diego and Camilo birthday..

She obviously needs help with the spelling but you'd be surprise how many words she does know!

Leah always stands under the table and watches big sister...She still only has 4 teeth...Blake is at 11

We have a bouncy house in our basement, and these crazy kids love love jumping and rolling around in there..Its so sweet that the 3 of them can actually play together now..LOVE IT!

Ok Spring...anytime now!!!!

Top 10

Thursday Night Top 10

"Things that have made me smile this week"

10. The Sun shining and the snow melting!

9. Making a home cooked meal for my family

8. Getting down to good music,
and watching my kids think I'm crazy

7. A fully stocked Pantry and fridge

6. Starbucks Venti Americano's w/skim milk...Mmm

5. Going out with my friends
(in particular tonight with my SIL Jane)

4. Watching my little man walk around the house

3. Husbands who do things they don't want,
just to make you happy!

2. Watching my kids play with each other

1. Baby kisses

**Ok I am adding one in because the last 2 days all 3 kids have slept in til 9:15!!!
That for sure makes me smile!

Video: Blake Walking

Here is the little man in action...too bad I ruined the video with my sucked too much helium voice!

Fingers Crossed...

...that this last giant dump of snow is the end of winter! Enough is enough already!

I have been seriously grumpy this past week, after our nice time in Disneyland to come home to another house bound week of snow...Hopefully with the sun shining today Spring will be coming soon!

Every winter Kirk and I moan and complain about the sometimes harsh Canadian Winters, and wonder why do we live here?? The answer is simple, we were born here, and our family is here...We dream and wish we could live somewhere else, but would we really like to live somewhere else? We live in a safe city and country. Our economy is stable, and other than this pesky snow we are pretty safe in terms of natural diasters. When I hear of such tragic natural diasters, earth quakes and tsunamis, hurricanes etc, I feel bad complaining that I am stuck inside safely with my children because of snow...By the time March/April hits I can assure you though, I am not alone wishing for it to be spring!!

It was fun to play out in the snow, we all had a great time except for Blake, he didn't seem to like it too much, or maybe it was because he flipped off the sled face first into the snow about a minute into it.

 

Oh one more thing! I wanted to share the great news for Images of Hope. We had set out to raise $80,000 at this years event, and our final calculations show we raised $110,000!!!!
THANK YOU so much for all of you who helped make that happen!!
I am so proud to have been a part of that success!

Its official!

Ok I am officially calling it...Today is the day Blake started to walk...I caught him walking by himself across the living room, I caught him all by himself stand up in the middle of the room not holding onto something. He many times walked to a toy or couch without holding on or crawling...Its not all the time, but he can do it if he wants! Way to go little buddy!!! My little 2.5 pounder is now walking...sniff..sniff!!

Disneyland 2011

Sorry these have taken so long to post! The babies are making up for us being away, I think they are even a little ticked with us...They have been a handful to say the least, and up many times a night...Holiday you ask? What holiday! Seems like we never had one already! Just kidding! I have so many pictures I want to post, so I have made them into a collage by day. You can click on the collage to make it bigger to see the smaller pictures and to zoom in.

We left Thursday at 11am, landed in LA at 1pm. We rented a car, drove to Anaheim and stopped for some groceries and checked into our hotel around 4ish...Alyssa was a very pleased that she got the bunkbeds that we had specially requested. They said they usually reserve those for people with more than one child, while I understand that logic, my 1 kid wanted bunkbeds and I was determined that the Princess have what she wanted...I talked to a few different people who finally put in our request, and to our delight when we arrived there they were...She happily slept in the top bunk all 5 nights.

We ended up going to Disneyland Park for dinner and got in a few rides, took in some of the magic of Disney and had a great spot to see the Fireworks!!



Friday, we had a quick breakfast in our room and headed out our hotel through California Adventure and by the pool and headed over to Disneyland. We walked around for awhile and took Alyssa in the Haunted Mansion, she was pretty scared...maybe wasn't the best first ride to take her on...She enjoyed a humungous Pickle, that cost almost $4.00..haha 

We had reservations for Alyssa at noon at the Bippity Boppity Boutique. It was a Head to Toe Princess Transformation. She got to pick out the Princess dress she wanted, Tiara, shoes, hair do and accessories. She was a little leary of the "Fairy Godmothers" but with a little hand holding she did great! She picked a hair do that I wasn't to crazy about, but they really make sure its the kids making the decisions instead of the "Queen" as they called me! My girl usually has bangs so it was a bit different to see her hair all pulled up. None the less she loved it, she was getting all sorts of comments afterwards from people walking through the park. She said at the end of the day "I really felt like a real big Princess today"...

It made it all worth it (it wasn't cheap!)




































We spent the rest of the day walking around, waited in the hour line to meet some of the Princesses. She was a trooper and went pretty hard all day and crashed quickly at night.

Alyssa was eager to try lots of different rides, even ones I thought she might be scared on. She loved this Jelly fish ride that goes up really high then drops back down. She loved the Monsters Inc. Ride, as did I. Her other favorite was Pirates of the Caribbean, which we ended up going on about 6 times! It was a bit chilly in the evenings, we even had to get her some mittens for the one night it was raining, it was pretty darn chilly!

One Morning we did breakfast with Mickey and Friends. It was great because most of the Characters you wanted to see were there and they come right to your table to see you, sure beats the long waits at the park to meet them all. She had a little book that she had everyone sign and we can put their pictures beside their names. We ended up renting a stroller a few times, she was getting too heavy to carry around...plus she was walking so much even we were tired.

She is such an easy good kid, we were even able to go to some real restaurants for meals...which doesn't happen much with us these days...

The last day there we did a Princess breakfast, same as the Mickey one. They had a few of the Princesses come around to your table while you eat. Alyssa was in love with Belle, her favorite. It was so cute, she was just clinging to her and was literally star struck. On our way out Belle happened to walk by and stopped to see Alyssa again. I seriously thought she was going to start crying. She just held onto her and hugged her, it looked like she wanted to kiss her or something. Belle made some kind of Pinky swear with her and they did a little nose rub...So stinking cute it made me cry!

We had a such a great trip, it was not relaxing by any means but so great to spend so much quality time with Alyssa, who has been so patient and amazing the past 2 years taking a back seat to her baby twin siblings. I can't wait to take them ALL back in a few years so we can all enjoy it together.

Home Sweet Home!

Well we are home after a wonderful trip to Disneyland!! We had an amazing time despite some rain, what an a delightful little girl we have. We spoiled her and loved her and she was an angel the entire trip.

We were super happy to come home to our other 2 little monkies, who did great for Grandma and Grandpa.

  I am not happy about the snow I woke up to this morning...seriously, isn't it spring yet...Yuck!

I have about a million pictures to post, but right now I need to love the other 2 babies who missed me...and clean up the entire bag of fishy crackers Blake just spilled all over the floor :)