The Loveseat...

Way back when I was just a student, I found a deal on a love seat in the 'scratch and dent' section of a large furniture store. I was going to be moving to Kingston soon, and the price on the sofa was only $125. I needed furniture, as it was going to be the first time I had lived away from home, so I convinced my parents to drive this love seat all the way from Windsor to Kingston in the back of their mini van (650 km)! They were good enough to do it, and probably spent more in gas then the silly love seat was worth. But, it made me happy.

Well, that love seat lasted us a good long while! It got us through school, and the first five years of marriage after that! Once we upgraded to 'real' furniture, my sister Heather was moving out on her own, and the love seat was passed on to her for her first apartment. She had it for a couple of years, and eventually her dog probably wrecked it. It wasn't great to look at, but it was neutral in colour and it served us well! And all for only $125!

So, the love seat is now gone....probably sitting in a landfill somewhere in Ontario.

Fast forward about three more years, to someplace south of Boston, MA. The other day I was out with the kids on our way home from a music class and on the side of the road someone had put in their trash a love seat IDENTICAL to the one that we had so many years ago!

Our love seat was purchased in Canada...10 years ago.....at a furniture chain that doesn't exist in the US. This love seat was sitting on the roadside in rural Massachusetts....!!

Besides being a very strange coincidence, seeing it took me on a trip down memory lane. Way back to when we were first starting out....and we had no idea all of the exciting things that our futures held together.

Now we are quickly approaching our 10th wedding anniversary (August 9th!), and as the days tick by I find myself reflecting more on the 10 years passed and hoping that the next 10 years will be half as fulfilling as they have been.

Playmates

This is Noah and Rebekah playing 'sleepover' in the family room with the sofa cushions.

Noah is singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to Rebekah.

Rebekah laughing at something ridiculous that Noah did. She thinks he is hilarious....

So, this week in our house has been really weird....but in a good way. The kids have been playing really well together all week. I mean no whining, no fighting, no screaming (other than in the 'having fun' sense). I keep waiting for disaster to strike, for the shoe to drop, for my real kids to be beamed back into my house! I don't know what to make of it. I just know, it ain't normal!

Here are some pics that I took while they were playing together today......

Noah giving Rebekah a ride on a blanket.

Heheheh....this is fun....

Despite the fact that my kids have LOTS of toys, you may notice in these photos, that besides playing with each other, the only other things they are playing with are a blanket and sofa cushions. What's up with that?!

Day of Fun

Here is Grandpa Tom enjoying the fruits of his labour last night at dusk. The swing set is finally finished! It was finished last night right at bedtime...so the inaugural play session didn't take place until this morning.

This afternoon we had a nice trip to the beach. There is a great lake beach right here in our town. It is clean and sandy and it is manned by lifeguards. The best part is that it is only 5 minutes drive from our house. What more could you ask for?!

And here is Rebekah walking on the sand while trying not to let it actually touch her feet. :)





This is Rebekah trying to remove the aforementioned sand from her toes once she realized that her attempts to not touch it were unsuccessful.





Kevin and Grandpa Tom trying to warm up at the end of the afternoon.

Sometimes Different Can Be Good

Today Rebekah and I went to church. I believe I blogged that Noah and I went last week....for now we have decided to take the 'divide and conquer' approach where church is concerned. I actually told Kevin that I was going to start taking Noah to church since we have a Lutheran church down the street. I want him to get comfortable enough that he will actually go (and stay) at Sunday school. Noah decided to protest about going today. I think he was worried that he might miss something since Grandpa Tom is here. So, I told him I would take Bekah instead.

This Lutheran church is a different synod (branch) of Lutheran than what we are accustomed to. I was raised in an LCC (Lutheran Church Canada) church. We have never lived anywhere that has a church that is part of this same synod. (The American equivalent to LCC would be Missouri Synod.) Anywhere we have ever lived has either not had a Lutheran church at all, or they have had one that is of a different synod.

Once again, this church is different than what we are used to...but you have to work with what you have, right?!

There was one difference that I really liked. As part of the service this morning there was a baptism that took place. In the church where I grew up, you could never actually see what was going on up at the front...there were too many tall people in the way. The pastor at church this morning invited all of the children to come right up to the front and circle around him as he baptised the baby. Afterwards, he held the baby down low and walked with him in front of all of the children so that they could see him. It almost seemed like a little welcome for the baby from the other children. I thought it was a wonderful way to involve the littlest worshipers.

So, even though church shopping has proved disappointing with previous moves, I have decided to keep an open mind and heart this time around. I am happy to say, that so far, I have not been disappointed.

Two Days Later....

Still working......

Enjoying the Small Things.....

Last weekend Kevin and I went out and sat on the deck one evening once we had gotten the kids to bed. It was the first time that we got to use the deck since Kevin had spent two days sanding and refinishing it. We sat out there and had a bottle of Magners cider together. It felt surprisingly sane, and grown up, and peaceful.

One of the things that was so neat for us was that we saw our very first fireflies! Yes, we grew up as city kids! It seems that there is a very dense population of fireflies in our area, and specifically on our property. We had our very own light show! It found it fascinating to watch. I was excited every time I noticed another light coming from the forest.

We also seem to have a few bats too. Normally this would really creep me out...but considering that bats eat mosquitos, I am thinking of setting up a welcoming committee for them. We seem to have an abundance of mosquitos too. I guess that is the trade off for the beauty of a wooded lot. The bats were also quite cool to watch as the dusk settled. They move really quickly. It took Kevin quite a while to catch them in his line of sight once I pointed them out to him. I guess that was the result of his stellar night vision (yeah....right)! :)

In other miscellaneous info....Noah and I attended a new church last Sunday. We happen to have a Lutheran church just down the road. From what I hear, we should consider ourselves lucky because apparently there aren't many of them in New England. The service was enjoyable but not typical, as is often the case during the summer months. In place of a sermon, there were a group of students and their parents who spoke about a trip that they took to one of the hurricane ravaged areas that Katrina hit. They traveled there in order to donate their time to assist in the rebuilding efforts. It was very moving to hear, and I am glad that we were there to hear about their experiences. I look forward to going back to the church again, and hope that it offers us what we are looking for.

Help Has Arrived!

Even though I am feeling fairly settled here in our new house, there is still a long list of things that need to get done with relation to our move.

Noah still doesn't have curtain rods in his bedroom...they have been sitting on the floor in a corner since we moved in a month ago.

Bekah has an odd coloured stripe all the way around her room where the two colours of paint don't meet because we have wood trim that needs to be put up there.

One of the toilets doesn't flush properly...we think it needs a new fill valve. We did actually buy one, but it has been moved from room to room (still in the box) for about 3 weeks now.

We have two new timers to be installed for the outdoor lights at the front and back of the house. We moved in and couldn't turn out the outdoor lights because we had to find the manuals for the timers and figure out how to re-program them. These timers are installed right into the light switch panels...there is no longer a switch there. The lights were on for days. Kevin finally decided to just replace them.

We bought the kids a monster swing set jungle gym thing. They say "build and play in the same day" but that is a lot of bunk. We have been told by several people that it takes two people two days to put one of these bad boys together.

Our living room furniture needs to be cleaned desperately, due to the fact that I couldn't find anyone in the whole country of Switzerland who steam cleans furniture during the two years that I was there.

We have a composter that needs to be assembled. I have always been aware of the environment, but since watching An Inconvenient Truth, I have a whole new commitment to the cause. I am anxious to increase my contribution to saving the planet by beginning to compost.

One of the bathtubs needs to be resealed along the edge where the tub meets the tile floor. If this isn't done soon, I am convinced that a day will come when the wood beneath the bathtub becomes so rotted from the kids splashing that they are going to fall through to the main floor below.

And, lastly, at least on the immediate list of things to do, is to put the Dora wallpaper decals up on Bekah's bedroom walls. Right now they are held there with Scotch tape.

So, with all of these things to do, and not enough hours in the day, it was time to call in reinforcements. Kevin doesn't get home until between seven and seven thirty most nights, so doing these things isn't really an option during the week. By the time he eats dinner, spends time with the kids and helps with their bedtime routine, it is time for us to go to bed too. Weekends only have so many hours in them, and before we know it they are over! Kevin spends his time on the weekends doing many other things that we have already checked off the "honey do" list.

So, Kevin's dad arrived the other day to help out. It is his first chance to see the new house, and he came mainly to help with the swing set/jungle gym, as it appears it is a two person job to assemble it. While Kevin was at work yesterday he also managed to check a couple of other tasks off of the "to do" list by assembling the composter and installing the new timers.

With any luck, by the time he leaves on Tuesday we will be well on our way to a beginning a brand new "honey do" list!

Not in the Mood....

I have not been in the mood to blog much lately, as I am sure some of you have noticed! I think that is due in large part to the brutal week I had last week.

Among other things that were going on (namely issues with medical insurance, but we will save that for another post) Noah had his first week of summer camp last week. The first three days were great, the fourth and fifth days he cried that he didn't want to go. There was very obviously something about camp that he wasn't enjoying. Aside from that, his behaviour at home was atrocious! He seemed to be very over tired....perhaps due to camp?? I think he was also feeling a lot of anxiety around the whole camp experience in general. This did not make for good behaviour at home. Top that off with the fact that Kevin had a very heavy week at work, meaning that he saw the kids even less than usual (which isn't a lot during the week usually), and we had a recipe for disaster.

Saturday was a complete write off in terms of enjoyable time with Noah too. Kevin commented that it was the worst day he had had with Noah in a long time. Not good.

That is why it was that much more meaningful to catch these pics of the kiddies playing with the hose at the end of a very long day!

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but isn't it ironic that when looking at these pictures you really have no idea about how rough things have been in our house lately?

Growing Pains

So, today was Noah's very first day of summer camp....actually, summer programming would be a more appropriate term. We have enrolled him in 4 weeks of various half day programs. This week is "Jumpstart Kindergarden". Let's just say, I had some reservations.

Those of you who know Noah well, know that he is kind of attached to me. When he started at the "Jardin d'Enfants" in Geneva, I had to stay in the classroom with him for an entire week. I sat in the corner and nursed Rebekah (who was about 6 months at the time) on the classroom floor.

So, imagine my surprise, when this morning, Noah headed right into the classroom with the other kids! He was hesitant, that I could tell, but the point is, he went!!

Noah has also started to ask to play outside by himself. There is a little girl who lives across the street who is the same age, and she is often out in front of her house playing. The street is very quiet as it is a cul-de-sac with only eight houses on it. There are a lot of kids around, riding bikes and playing on most days. Noah would still much rather I go out with him, but he is quickly realizing that I can't just drop everything and go out with him whenever he wants me to.

I am still totally paranoid about him going anywhere out of my sight. I don't want him to play outside alone, even if I can see him from the window. I have to admit that today I spent about a 1/2 hour neurotically rushing from window to window trying not to let Noah out of my sight as he played outside.....just in our yard. And that is while the landscapers were here working in the yard too!

I don't REALLY want Noah to go to summer camp, because it terrifies me to leave him in the care of people whom I don't even know. As much as I need a break from him some days, I watched the clock anxiously this morning, eager to pick him up from his first day at camp.

As much as I don't want some of these things to happen, Kevin is encouraging them. I think it stems from the fact that in his fatherly wisdom he realizes that up to this point Noah has had a bit of an unnatural attachment to us...particularly me. Up until recently, he still wanted me to do everything for him....right down to dressing him. When other kids his age were fighting to do things themselves, we were fighting with Noah to get him to do things FOR himself. Now Noah is expressing a tiny interest in some independence, and Kevin seems to realize that this is the critical time when we can squash it, or cultivate it.

Having said all of that, I realize that this is important for Noah, but that doesn't make it any easier for me! There is a quote that comes to mind right now....''Having a baby is like taking your own heart, giving it arms and legs and letting it go".

Man, was I feeling that today!

My Ideal Day

For the scrapbooking contest that I previously blogged about, there was a scrapbooking component to the entry, as well as an essay component.

The topic was "My Ideal Day" and it could be past, present or future and real or fictional. This is what I came up with:

My Ideal Day

When I began to think about my ideal day, I realized that it really wouldn’t be that different than my real life. Of course, there are some things I would like to “tweak” a bit, but overall the things that are the most important to me are the things that I surround myself with every day.

I would love to start my day by waking up early, but well rested. I enjoy getting an early start to the day, feeling like it is stretching out before me…full of endless possibilities. My two children would sleep in that extra twenty minutes, allowing me time for a nice, hot shower before they wake up. They would patiently wait for breakfast, and maybe even allow me to make myself a cup of coffee first!

My husband would be home on this day. Giving me the luxury of a second pair of adult hands at the ready. We would spend the morning outdoors in sunny, spring like, and bug free weather. Our morning would be an adventure…perhaps a hike in an exotic locale. I would love to see the pyramids of Egypt, or the Great Wall of China. The Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia holds an allure, as does St Petersburg, Russia. I love to travel, and the more I see the more I realize how much the world has to offer…how much there still is to learn.

Lunch would be some of my favorite cuisine…perhaps Greek, perhaps Chinese, or maybe some sushi. On this special day, my children would eat the same food as their father and I! They would sit quietly at the table and eat a good meal without fighting with one another or making a mess.

The afternoon would be spent peacefully reading or scrapbooking. I would spend some time on the computer updating my blog and reading the blogs of friends who are now spread far and wide. The children would nap or have quiet playtime in their rooms.

Dinner would be a special event. Our guests would be friends and loved ones who have passed on before us, but who for this special day are able to come back for a visit. We would spend our time catching up and reminiscing. We would spend our time “connecting” with one another. We would just enjoy each others presence.

My evening would be spent with my close girlfriends…those friends whom I have had to leave behind through our moves. They are the friends who now live all over the world. They live in Geneva, Calgary, Toronto, Cincinnati, Rochester and California. We would all meet up together and spend the evening chatting and giggling and having fun. We would do what we so often as mothers don’t get to spend time doing anymore….just being frivolous.

Upon returning home, I would spend time talking, uninterrupted, with my husband, Kevin. We would chat about the day…discuss current events and the children…just take a few quiet moments to regroup and put closure to our day.

Throughout this day, I would feel a sense of peace and contentment. I would never be rushed or stressed. I would be completely happy to be living my life at any given moment. I would enjoy every second that I spent with my children…enjoying them with the intense fondness that sometimes skirts around the periphery of a regular day. I would savor the moments, realizing in my conscious mind that all too soon they will be gone…just things of the past.

Strawberry Picking

We had some very good friends from Geneva visit the Boston area recently. I mentioned them in a previous post, Andrew and Marian. We originally met in Geneva, but we have all since relocated to the United States. They were in the Boston area visiting family, and it allowed us to all get together a couple of times during the week.

Let me set this up for you....Andrew and Marian have three children four years and under. Combine that with our two "five and unders", and you have potential for chaos!! Despite the numbers, we decided to take all of the kiddies strawberry picking. Now, we did have four adults, since both entire families went on the outing....I think that was the only way we would have had the courage to do it!

I would say that all in all, it was a success. There weren't any temper tantrums or meltdowns. Nobody got hurt or lost. There were more than a few delays getting going, but like I said, it was a success.

I wanted to share some pics from the day. Rebekah ate more than her weight in strawberries, I am certain of it. She just sat in the field and ate and ate and ate. She was stained red from head to toe!

When we got home I used Oxyclean on her clothes (shhhhh....it isn't a P&G product!) and it took out not only the strawberry stains, but the colour too!

Oh, well, I guess she has a new play shirt!

Just Call Me SuperMum

So, since this move, Kevin has been working some long hours. To hear him tell it, it isn't so bad, I have a bit of a different perspective, however.

On a really good day, Kevin will be home at 6:30 pm. Most days it is closer to 7 or 7:30 pm. The kids go to bed between 7 and 7:30 pm.....enough said. There have even been a couple of 9 and 9:30 pm nights, and that doesn't include the travel days. Oh, and by the way, he is usually gone before the kids are up in the morning.

In Kevin's defense, he is learning a new business and managing 3 or 4 people (I've lost track). It takes a lot of time to "get up to speed" in a new job, especially when learning a new category too. I can appreciate all of this.

However, it still leaves me at home, by myself, where I don't know anyone, for some very long days, with two small children, in a new house, where there is a ton of work to be done. Enough said!

So, after getting tired of waiting for Kevin to do things around a house where he never is, I took matters into my own hands. And I must say, I have done a darn good job too!

Between the cooking, cleaning, laundry, meal prep and supervision of previously mentioned small children, I have gotten very good with a drill.

I have learned to use drywall plugs and drill bits. I have hung toilet paper roll holders, bathroom mirrors, dining room mirrors, wall lamps, children's bedroom accessories, our cookoo clock, and numerous pictures.

You know, it may be Kevin's job that is paying for this house at the moment, but I have realized that it is me who makes this house a home.

You can just call me "SuperMum"! :)

The Things We Didn't Miss

The two years that we lived in Switzerland afforded us a very different lifestyle than what we have here in North America. One of the biggest benefits as I see it, was the ability to travel all over Western Europe and beyond.

Well, we are beginning to be reminded of the other smaller benefits too. This realization comes as things crop up around the house, as things always do!

This house was empty for about six months before we moved into it. The real estate market in this area had undergone a big correction, and it was great for us coming in as buyers. One of the side affects of the vacancy seems to be an unusually large bee population. (See my previous post about my Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day). Well, it turns out that we didn't just have random bees on our property...they had set up house in the absence of human inhabitants.

Not long after my Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, I discovered an entire nest of bees living underground in my flower bed. That led to further discoveries. It turned out that we had three bees' hives on our deck too. Kevin managed to get rid of them. It was a combination of a whole lot of bug spray and a whole lot of persistence. One of the hives was actually inside of one of the posts of the deck. We kept hearing buzzing from inside the post, then Kevin discovered a hole where the bees had managed to get inside. He had to spray the bug spray through a straw in order to direct it into the hole in the post. Not a pleasant experience!

As of now, it appears that the bees are no longer. That led to the refinishing of the deck. This is another thing we didn't have to think about in Switzerland.

Once the bees were evicted, Kevin had to sand, clean and refinish the deck. We inherited a spacious deck...about 12 x 15 feet. The wood was in terrible condition though. It looked like it hadn't been stained or protected since it was built with the house three years ago. It was in desperate need of attention. This led to two days of sanding, spraying, staining.....backbreaking work in the stinky heat. It is now complete, and it looks awesome. We look forward to getting the patio furniture set up and the grill cleaned and fired up. I miss the BBQ and can't wait to use it again!

Next on the agenda of dealings was the lawn. We have a very large lawn at our new house....about 3/4 of an acre....some of it is wooded, but it is still pretty big.

When we took possession of the house, the lawn was already really long. So, it was of the utmost importance to get it cut, on this street of immaculately kept, professionally landscaped and "sprinkler system-ed" lawns. We hadn't received our shipment of items that had been in storage, and of course, not having needed it in Geneva (another one of those little perks) that shipment included our lawn mower....our non-self-propelled lawnmower, that is.

So, off Kevin went to talk to one of the neighbours to see if he could borrow a lawnmower. He found a neighbour who was graciously willing to loan his self-propelled lawnmower and it was still a two hour job. That didn't include any trimming of the edges, and honestly, it wasn't even a very good cutting job....it was a "get it done" cutting job. If the truth be told, there were a few stray patches missed that never even saw the lawn mower.

Next, I went to Home Depot to price ride-on lawn mowers. Well, the base models are still a thousand dollars! There ended that discussion.

We talked to a couple of neighbours and quickly became convinced that a lawn service should at least be investigated. After a lot of calling around, getting quotes, and discussions, we decided to get a bi-weekly lawn service. Kevin did it begrudgingly, but I reasoned it out this way: right now the kids really want time with him (and they don't get it during the week). I would rather pay someone to cut the lawn now when they are little, and save Kevin the half day every weekend. When they are fourteen and seventeen and don't want anything to do with us, then Kevin can cut his own lawn....or better yet, make them do it!!

Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year

So, I know I have been missing in action for a while. It is weird....we have been surprisingly busy considering we don't know anyone here!

Of course, getting the house in order is still ongoing. I have a feeling it will be a work in progress for a very long time. :(

Then, the visiting began! Kevin's friend Justin and his wife, Louisa, were passing through New England and we got to visit with them this past weekend. We did some sight seeing in Boston together, and I got to feel like I was "in the know" as we gave them a mini tour of Boston. The kids and I spent our fair share of time exploring while we lived in our temporary apartment downtown while waiting for our belongings to arrive by sea. Seven weeks of walking around a city, and you get to know it pretty well!

This week, we visited with our friends Marian and Andrew. Marian was my very first friend when we moved to Geneva. She and her family relocated to the USA only nine months after we arrived in Geneva. I hadn't seen her since. They were visiting with family in the Boston area and we were lucky enough to see them twice during the week. It was a lot of fun to visit with her and her family again.

In between the visitors, I decided to enter the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year Contest. I only found out about the contest when we were in our temporary apartment in downtown Boston. Of course, I didn't have any of my supplies with me then, so I had to wait to work on my entry. I made a mental note of the closing date for the contest and got busy with the move.

Once we moved into our house, there was a ton of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, hanging, etc. to do. Once again, scrapbooking took a back burner.

With about three days left until the closing date of the contest, I decided that I wanted to make an honest attempt at pulling together an entry. Kevin was off work on Monday and Tuesday so that he could string those days together with the July 4th holiday on Wednesday. This actually worked out really well for me. Kevin spent two whole days outside working on refinishing the deck, so this meant that Noah was outside with him. When Rebekah napped, I got a lot of work done!

For the contest, I needed to have twenty layouts and an essay. The twenty layouts had to be accompanied by an itemized list of supplies used. When I say itemized list, I am not kidding you! You have to list who manufactured the paper and what brand adhesives you used! Yikes!

When it came down to it, I only had seven existing layouts that I could use. They were the only ones for which I could figure out what products I had used! That meant that I had to produce thirteen layouts and an essay in a matter of days.

Did I succeed? You bet!

I am happy to say that on Thursday morning I sent off my submission by overnight mail to meet the contest deadline of today. I don't expect to win....the circulation of the magazine is half a million! I have no idea how many entries they will get for a contest like this. I made it a personal goal for myself to enter, and I achieved that goal. In the process, I got a lot of great layouts completed and I am very happy with the work that I submitted.

Who knows what can happen when you put yourself out there? After all, if I didn't enter, then I definately couldn't win!