A Little Rice + A Little Water = Hours of quiet time for Mommy!!!!!!!

Clean up was done in seconds too! just wipe up the water... and vacuum the rice!

Oh, it was 1pm.. and yes they are still in their PJ's... finally got them changed at 2pm!

My life, the past 2 weeks ......

Nothing too exciting around here, except that the 2 little ones will now play together for hours on end WITHOUT fighting!!!!!!!!

CELEBRATION TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our other 'big news" is that tonight, Isabelle finished her 2nd round of "George-Be-Gone" medicine!
She had to go back on it as 3 weeks after she finished her first round, I had to rush her by ambulance to the Emerg! She started having severe cramping, and it escalated so fast and furious that she was in intense pain and screaming and I didn't know what to do..
So.. to make a very long story short...after a whack of tests.... she went back on the meds!
Let's hope he is gone forever now!!!

Then Abigail came home with Fifths disease.. great..so she was home for 2 days.....

Then Friday, Frank was in a little fender/bender on his way home from work. (well, it didn't bend his fender.. the person who rear-ended him had some damaged to their Cadillac, but Frank's Plastic Saturn didn't have a mark!) lol

It has been a very full 2 weeks, so I hope this week remains quiet....

Shhhhh... so far so good!!

I think I mentioned this before, but on every Wednesday night, the 2 older girls are now making supper and dessert. They take turns picking which they want to make for the week. The past 2 weeks had Isabelle cooking supper and Abigail on dessert duty!
I have to tell you these girls are putting me to shame!! (and I'm loving it!!)
Boy can they cook!! With or without a recipe, completely on the fly... amazing!

So here is what we've had the last 2 weeks:
Isabelle made a 3 meat tomatoe dish with mashed potatoes. (she made it on the fly..)
It had veal, chicken and beef with spices and onions etc.. Very good!

and Abigail made Individual Baked Alaska.


First she baked brownies, add a scoop of ice cream on each one, then topped each with meringue!

VOLIA!!

This week we had...
Honey Glazed Chicken in a balsamic reduction, and she served it with penne and salad!

and Abigail made Sweet Monkey Bread! (we didn't name it) We saw it on the Food network!!




Mmmmm..... Can't wait till tomorrow.............someone mentioned Chicken pot pie!! YUM!

Bye Bye Sweet Ranger...

Our sweet, terribly timid, cat died on Saturday morning!
On Friday morning, as I was waking the kids up for school, I noticed Ranger sleeping on the heater vent in Abigail's room. I thought nothing of it, as she tends to hide most of the day anyway.... Noon hour ... I put away laundry.. and again noticed her sleeping on the vent.. I thought nothing of it and continued on my way... Fast forward to 8pm, the girls are now home from training and Abigail says to me.. "Gee mom, you should see Ranger, she is sleeping on my vent and is so asleep that she didn't even open her eyes!"
Now, alarm bells would of gone off in a normal person, however, I never claimed to be normal..
I said to her, "That's funny, I saw her there earlier today, she must be cold"!
Now at 10:30pm I head off to bed... first I check in on the little ones, and as I'm walking by Abigail's room, I notice Ranger...still on the vent... in the same position as 7am.....
NOW alarm bells went off... (I know...I know... duh!!)
I pick her gently up, and she barely lets out a "mew" and falls into my arms. I think this was the first time I was ever able to hold her with her trying to jump down! (very skittish little cat), I laid her down on the my bed, in front of the fireplace, and RAN downstairs to Frank!!!
We ran back upstairs and her breathing was only once every 40 seconds or so...
I went and got the 2 older girls (they were up late watching TV) and let them talk to her, say goodbye etc.. and I made a call to a friend, who has had many cats, for some advice..
Anyway..Frank and Ranger made a late night trip to the Emerg $$Vet!! Where he found she was 4 degrees below normal body temp and she was dehydrated and now had a heart murmur! I just had her at the vet in October, and she was fine.
The vet put her in a warming bed, gave her fluids, but by 5am she had passed away.
I am thankful that she never suffered, she just went to sleep. I am also thankful that we were able to bring her to the vet, as it gave the girls time to "process" this. They were crying saying they wanted to stay awake with her until she passed.. unfortunately I was leaving at 7am for a funeral that was out of town, and I couldn't let the kids stay up all night.
So this way they were able to get some sleep and come to terms with loosing their first pet.
The vet called in the morning and told them she died nice and warm, all cozy under her blankets we sent with her.

We had been feeding this little black stray and I told Frank that after we returned from a visit to my parents, if she was still around we would take her in. Well, while we were gone, she gave birth to a litter of kittens under our elderly neighbor's house. A few weeks later, the mother was run over by a car, and all the kittens were left to fend for themselves. I was feeding them, but they were getting very wild!! Our neighbor was now threatening to kill them!! So I "staked out" the kittens, and with a very big net, and a very very big tummy, ( I was 8 months pregnant with Isabelle) and after a few days, I managed to get all the kittens. I found good homes for all of them, but kept one, Ranger!!
That was close to 10 years ago...

We'll miss her!!

My sister and my neighbor call Frank, "Saint Frank" because of his personality, and patience (and willingness to put up with me)!

We took Hanlin out skating over the Christmas break, this was his first time on skates! He just stood there, pouting, not willing to move. Frank kept trying to coax him to move his feet just a little (he was only standing about 10 inches away from him) and Hanlin would shake his head NO vigorously, pout then look at me...
After a few minutes of this, my patience was done... I looked at him, and sternly but also reassuringly said.. "Go see your father!!" He looked over at Frank, wiggled his feet, and moved over to Frank!! As soon as he reached his Dad, he smiled like crazy, he was soo excited and proud! We all jumped around for him, and then he was off on his own from then on..

Lily on the other hand... hopped onto the ice, looked around at everyone skating by and promptly fell to the ice, laid flat on her belly and proceeded to take a hissy fit!! Once I got her back up onto her feet, she explained to me that she "wanted to go as fast as everyone else right NOW"!! and was mad she couldn't!!




On another Saint Frank note...
The 2 older girls and I went to PEI this past weekend. The girls had a gym comp there.
Frank took Friday off work, and after preschool he took both of the little ones downhill skiing!!
***Crazy Fool***
Then on Saturday he walked downtown and took them both skating in the square and to the market.
***Crazy Fool***
Then on Sunday he took them sledding, pulling them both, back up the crazy steep hill after sledding down..
***Crazy Fool***


oh ok, maybe he is Saint Frank..

Lake sledding

This little guy is growing up soo fast! He has grown about 2 inches!
His language is truly amazing!
The one word were having "problems" with is "noodles". For some reason he thinks meat is called a noodle. So he'll ask for more meat.. he say more noodle..
It's quite cute!
He's also a big thumb sucker! (check out his teeth in the bottom picture). But the dentist said as long as he breaks the habit when his permanent teeth come in, he'll be fine. However, his thumb is taking quite a beating.. I've managed to get him to cut back on the 24 hour/7 days a week thumb sucking, and now he knows his thumb is for bedtime, or quiet time or falling asleep riding in the car. I'm guessing its about 50% less than he was, but this cold cold weather, wet thumb, dry skin.. boy, it looks like a dehydrated prune! I've been loading on the moisturizer, but he'll suck his thumb moisturizer and all... lol

Is this an addiction??

Oh, on a completely different topic... I saw on someones blog.. (don't ask, can't remember) that they bought a birthday candle from China off E-Bay. I looked for some while we were there, but had no luck. So my question...
Does any one know where I can buy those really neat birthday candles, that look like a flower and even open up once lit?
I didn't see any on E-Bay.

Love my big girls

I hit the jackpot with these 2 incredible girls!! I can't tell you just how lucky I am and how much I am truly in love with them!
Ok, yes, they are washing my floors in this picture... but I didn't make them!! They volunteered! Can you imagine! Of course, who was I to say no?
Honestly though, they help me out so much! I never have to ask. They are kind, sweet and loving girls!
They help put the little ones to bed, they help with cleaning.. and now once a week, they are making supper and dessert!
This past Wednesday we had spaghetti and meatballs that Abigail made and for dessert we had Rocky road brownies by Isabelle!! (I'll have to copy the recipe out for you, they're incredible!! and soo easy and fast!)

Lily's Green B-tar