Just a quick one today

So for Jillian's 2nd birthday I made her a Blue's Clue cake. I just wanted to share it. I have made a few "character" cakes and really enjoy doing it. One of these days I'm hoping my family gets that it is just way better to stay away from Mommy when these cakes are in progress. I must admit I get a bit anal ;-) But what can I say my creative side is a bit of a perfectionist and I am my own worst critic.

Last year I made Jillian a giraffe cake for her 1st b-day and well lets just say it hurt me to cut him. See not only anal but a little neurotic too.

Good Reads and Summer Vacation

These days it seems to find a good book is hard. You sometimes have to do a word of mouth thingy. One of the blogs I stalk ;-) has just finished reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter and is passing the book along to a reader. I love me a good book and while time doesn't always allow me the luxury of reading often when I find a good book I'm all over it. So time will tell if I become a lucky reader winner, if not oh well I shall have to truck down to my local library then.

So there are now 3 more sleeps till summer vacations starst for my girls. See good reading opportunity just awaiting. This summer brings us lots of friends travelling our way to visit. Yay! We have been here in Edmonton 2 years now and well I miss friends we left behind. Then our travels take us back to our hometown Winnipeg for a visit. The girls and I will be heading out at the end of July, Bruce well he is staying behind and working since he has just been at this new company a few months. My Mom is hitching a ride back with us for what has become her annual summer vacation to visit us. She will be here for Morgyn's 13th birthday in August and Morgyn is quite excited about that.

So am I ready for my kids to be home for 2 months straight, time will tell. The older girls will also have a few truck rides with Daddy in between company etc. there might even be a "kid free" truck ride for Mommy to go on when Nanny is here. Woohoo a night or two away is always a good refresher. So that is a bit of our summer plans.

HAPPY SUMMER

Jillian is 2 today! Happy Birthday

It seems like the last 2 years have flown by. It seems like yesterday we were heading off to the hospital to have our 3rd baby. My Dr had me on the induction list for almost 2weeks as he figured she was going to be HUGE! Turns out I just had alot of amniotic fluid. Jillian was only 8lbs 6oz.

After my induction with Kamryn I though ack this will be a piece of cake (yes I know ha ha ha ha). It soon was evident that was not to be the case. After trying my darndest with walking, walking, and more walking I was even mowing the grass when we finally got to the the hospital I was a measly 2cm dialated. So they put in the gel to see if that would help. Nope. Twelve hours after the 1st application I was only 4cm dialated. It wasn't until they decided to break my water at midnight that we actually saw some action. I had never had a labour like this and being our 3rd I had figured it was going to be the easiest! This is when I decided that an epidural was for me! My Dr had me scared to push out my HUGE baby. After 2 babies with nothing drug wise (well that is not entirely true with Morgyn I had 1 shot of demerol early on) I figured now was the time to opt for some help. It was only 3.5 from my water breaking to having Jillian. All in all she was the longest birth, longer than her sisters combined LOL. But after almost and hour of pushing she was here. I had some really impatient people back home waititng for the phone call.

It seems that she also kinda got stuck in there the poor girl and her heart rate decelerated a few times to the point where they were threatening a c-sec, but our super awesome nurse did this leg manouver and it seemed to work as we had progress. But she was so bruised my poor baby. Later that morning the pediatric Dr came and said she needed to go to the NICU because her O-2 levels were a little off. Ask me how scary that was too find her in there, she looked so helpless hooked up to all these wires and such. Although when I looked around she was literally 2x the size of some of the other babies there. It kept us in the hospital a little longer which really played on my emotions. They were off as it was since we had only been for just over a month and that was still raw.

Today she is my monkey, terrible 2's have set in LOL. Which I can honestly say is a 1st for us. But this little girl is full of love. She chatters up a storm but seems to be hung up on NO! NO this NO that NO everything. She loves to torment her sisters. Her new favorite thing is having books read to her she loves Holi (aka Dora) Franklin and Clue!

So Happy 2nd Birthday my girl. You are so loved.
Now I'm off to make a Clue cake, wish me luck.

My Jillian

My Dad

My Dad where do I start? He was a good man, a very kind hearted and sensitive one. It is ironic that it turned out that his kind heart was a broken one. This meaning my Dad was only 37 when he suffered his 1st almost fatal heart attck. It started a 10 long year battle that he finally lost Oct 30/97. He was actually given a new chance when he had his heart transplant in Sept '06 but sadly after a few mistakes at a local hospital his new heart a perfect match, was ruined.

Growing up we did alot of camping as kids, how he and my Mom loaded us 4 girls up in a 2 door car for 2 weeks still amazes me, no min-van's back then. LOL. He and my Mom didn't stay married but in the ends had become friends. My sister's and I use to go on Sundays and he would bar-b-que a great meal and we would play canasta. He loved to cook and loved even more cooking for us. He would be known to share a sip or 2 of wine with Morgyn, one day I think she had too much after we watched her playing in the rain under and eaves trough. He felt so bad. I use to play crib with him alot and a proud to say I was playing with him when he got the elusive "29" hand, man he was excited!!

My Dad's motto kinda became "life is to short to fight" with anyone. He learned this the hard way, but like I said after all the years of fighting with my Mom they were friends when he died.

My youngest sister was and still is alot like my Dad, I find that she has his laugh which is one of those infectious ones where every one would end up laughing to. I am glad she will be here this weekend with us.

I think sometimes it is sad he missed meeting 3 out of his 6 grandkids. I found this very apparent one day when Kamryn and I had this conversation

Kamryn: Mom what did Grandpa look like?
Me: Well you have seen the picture of him in my bedoom.
Kamryn: Well yes but ya know I have NEVER heard his VOICE!

OMG insert mega tears here. I don't know where she came up with that one but well that's my Kamryn. So what mostly the kids will remember about Grandpa is going and visiting him and feeding the ducks! We just know he loves to watch them bound thru the cemetary.

I had an experience that I will never forget on the 1st anniversary of his death. His favorite song was "To Be With you" by Mr. Big. So I was getting into my van to go and pick up my sister to go to his grave, as I got in I flipped on my radio and sure as shit what song was playing! I bawled like a baby and when I got around the corner to pick up my sister well she looked at me and I'm like LOOK what song isplaying on the radio. I now know whenever I hear that song on the radio my Dad is with me.

So that is a bit about my Dad. We will miss him this Sunday and now having moved we don't have the luxury of visiting him, but my sister and I and the kids will surely be thinking of him.

I See A White Wall

And I Want to Paint it BLACK!! Oh ya and a t.v, a t.v. stand, a crib, a dresser and the piece de resistance MYSELF. Jillian was signing this to herself this morning, well that of course was after I had found her covered in black permanent markwe and started humming it myself. So after I cleaned her up I started to discover her other "art treasures". I had thrown out all the permanent black markers but my resourceful little one found another.

Isopropryll Alcohol is me new best friend, well to everything BUT the walls. It didn't come off them.

So after a stint in the "naughty corner" Jillian has been slinking around the house. Seepishly going "hiiiii" Momma's NOT buying it this time.

And yes I know you are all wondering ok where WAS Momma when Jillian was being the artist of the year, well I was doing ya know the laundry, tidying up all that fun stuff. She was with me downstairs and then obviously she headed back upstairs when I was turned around. So yes that is my BAD parenting moment of the day!

I was telling Bruce about when he phoned and he was like I so don't remember Morgyn and Kamryn doing that stuff. Nope me either but we discovered at an early age Jillian was NOT like the other 2.

So I am off for MY turn in the naughty corner for BAD parenting, now I wish I was 2 again since Jillian well her time there is relativley short. 33 mintues will likely be an eternity ;-)

I LOVE This Movie

Kamryn and I just finished watching Charlotte's Web. Way way back when I remember reading this book and loving it. So of course when I had Morgyn it was my excuse to buy the movie. I rented the newer version on the May long weekend when I thought the girls were going to be home and well when they didn't make it back in time I watched it and totally loved it. I think Kamryn liked it, I was sure the tears were going to flow but she fought them back stoically.

A scare is a scare

So my sister had a bit of a scare this past week. She is 16 weeks pregnant or so, and back in January she had the good old faithful PAP test. Well she ended up with abnormal results and they called her and had booked her in to do this wedge biopsy. Well here she is doing reading up and they say it shouldn't really be done when you are pregnant. So she calls the office and speaks to the nurse who says the it is ok Dr will do it anyways since she is a level 4. Which apparently means she had a high number of cancer cells that were visible. So our Mom goes to work (she has worked in a hospital for about 26 years) and starts asking some questions. The answers were NOT what we wanted to hear. So of course we were in a bit of a "mood" shall I say all weekend. My sister goes to the Dr this past Tuesday and is like well I'm pregnant I don't think I want to have this done, the Dr had no clue since her nurse never passed along that little tidbit of info um HELLO??? But in the mean time the Dr does another test and says that it seems as if her levels have dropped, which is good and can apparently can happen when you end up pregnant after the abnormal PAP she had. So as it stands now she needs to go back in October and after the baby is born to see what is up. So far I can only pray she has dodged that "C" bullet, we have had lot in our family.

It Does Happen!

Sharing that is LOL.

Who would have thought that little old Mr Spud Bunny would have cause the "mines" to be dropped and induce fun play?? Needless to say with an almost 2yr old, 6yr old and even the soon to be 13yr old there can be a sharing issue. We here alot of mine, so and so took this or that. It is oh so much fun. But the day Spud Bunny was opened we snapped this picture, a new favorite of mine the girls looked so cute sitting there sharing and having fun.

We had Kamryn's party yesterday and went to see Shrek. It was a hit with the kids, one of her friends ever so nicely said to me "You picked a COOL party!" Kamryn gave me credit for the idea LOL. But all in all with 8 kids in a movie theatre they were aweome, only one bathroom break at the end and I missed the "Not My Gumdrop Button" by Gingy (we are Gingy fans), but oh well what can ya do.

Off to soccer tonight and it is finally decent enough the kids don't need to wear layers under the uniforms, the mosquitos well those buggers are another story this year. But I guess we can't win them all right?