31

I now have The Cranberries "21" song stuck in my head, ...except for the stark fact I am ten years off.  Does it matter that I still FEEL 21 sometimes?  Actually, thinking back ten years ago I think I'd rather be here, at 31.  My life back then was so unsure.  Who do I marry?  What am I doing with my career?  Mission?  Should I be going back to school?  SO unsure.  And now?  My life is just about as anti-climactic as you can get.  The only thing that shocks me these days is finding poop in the tub.  Wait.  No.  Even that doesn't shock me any more.

Today I turned 31.  For some reason, this birthday was much harder than last year when I graduated from my 20s and became a 30 year old.  Mature.  Confident.  30.  Now I am 31.  I am officially IN my thirties and for some reason that just makes a huge difference.  I cried last night.  Partially out of lack of sleep.  And perhaps I can blame a portion of it on my pregnancy.  But I'm pretty sure my birthday had something to do with it as well.  It could also have been that my friends surprised me that night with a birthday cake and made me feel special when I just wasn't feeling particularly special (Thanks Sarah, Barb, Cassie, Andy, and Kelli!).  Either way, it felt good to let it out.  Until I woke up the next morning to my puffy-eyed face.  And then I felt crappy.  But happy again because Joe promised me an afternoon free of kids, which I think is what every 30-something year old with children wants for her birthday!  That and clean bathrooms (you can't have everything though).

Joe took me and the kids out to Red's for lunch, and this is what I ordered.  The best part is that I was able to eat almost ALL of it!  Being pregnant, that's hard to do in one sitting sometimes, so quite frankly, I was pleased with myself.

The kids each made me a card (I think Jackson's picture of me must have been  what I looked like after eating my heavy meal.  Haha!)  and Joe wrote me the cutest love note. He said since he didn't ever get the chance to write me notes during our school-years, he would write some for me now. So, lucky me, I got to have an elementary school note, a Junior High note, and what he'd write me if we were in Highschool together. It was very sweet. And then he wrote me one for our current status. Married life! I loved it.  Do you remember all the different ways you could fold a note so it was this tiny square at the end?  Joe and I had a race to see who could remember how to do it first, and after a few minutes and finally joining forces because neither of us were managing that well on our own, we figured it out!  Haha.  It was fun.

Here's a pic with me and my very distracted kidlets.

And of course a pic of my sweetheart. I told him we would take one together, but then we totally spaced it. Woops. So, he gets his own beautiful spotlight in my entry.  Ladies and gentlemen, the man I married.

So after our lovely family lunch, I got to drop them off and do something for me.  Joe asked me what I planned to do with my afternoon and I probably should have just slept.  But like a 21 year old, I went to the Mall (well, after responsibly renewing my license like a 31 year old.  "You need a NEW picture!  Yes, to erase your 21 year old picture!  We shall make you suffer as we take picture after picture of your flawed, tired, wrinkled 31 year old face that will never look cute because you're not allowed to SMILE!".  Okay.  I think I'm done that rant.  Let's return, shall we?).  That's right.  The MALL!  I even bought something.  Not for my kids. I didn't even look for my kids (okay, well I did a little).  I bought something for ME!  And I love it.  It felt good to treat myself.

Thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to receive phone calls and cards and facebook messages of people who remembered me on my day.  And thanks to it being Birthday WEEK, I get to look forward to a hot date with just Joe and I over the weekend.  It will be nice to get out just the two of us to celebrate (or just to get out).  Here's to catching up with my husband and being 31 together!

Cheers!

Spring! Spring! Spring!

So all of us here in Edmonton thought that perhaps we might get away with the mildest Winter of 'em all... except for ME!  I KNEW this was coming.  And ya know why?  Because it always snows the most when you want it so desperately to be Spring.  Have we been spoiled this year by the Winter weather?  Most certainly.  Have I only scraped the snow off my car three times this Winter?  Yes.  Has my car slid around on icy roads this year giving me heart-attack after heart-attack?  No.  So, I knew deep down it was too good to be true.  Winter had not ended.  Winter was playing a cruel joke on us and decided to come all over again.  Properly.  Like it always does.  Again and again.

And again.

As soon as you get the slightest taste of above zero temperatures and clear, dry, heavenly roads, THAT is when you need to check your head and remember, it's still February.  The END of February, yes, but alas, still February.  So much time for so many more of these snowy days.

Dear Grass,

I look forward to seeing you in May.

Kindest regards,

Maren

I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home!

I fall more and more in love with my husband every day, especially in these moments.

Sweet but Creepy

So Jax, like the thoughtful big brother he is, was "helping" me clean up the other day and organized a bunch of Ellie's toys at the end of her bed so they could watch her sleep.  Haha!  He was so excited to show her his surprise as though he had done her a big favour.

I personally think it's kinda mean.

New Obsessions

Jax is officially into Harry Potter (or "Harry Pottern" as he calls it).  It started with his Lego XBOX game that Santa got him for Christmas and grew from there.  We've gradually watched HP 1, 2 and 3... with some editing (although each time Jackson claims that he is brave enough to watch them and they aren't that scary).  One day a couple weeks ago, he asked for a Harry Pottern cape, so after looking online and seeing how expensive they can get, I made one out of an old costume from Value Village that Jenny bought for "Bellatrix" and so conveniently left at my house.  Thanks for the donation Jenny!  He loves it and wears it every day.  I am now also finding ties all over the house because of course, Harry Pottern wears a tie!  So the boys are always clipping different ones to their shirts and running around like HP and Ron Weasley, casting spells.  At first, Jax would just say, "Explientea!" which is not a "real" spell.  So, when Sarah came over to babysit last week, she taught the boys all sorts of "real" HP spells and now they know everything.  Even last night at the dinner table, Ellie was catching on and casting spells "Stupify!" and "Abracadabra!" in her little Ellie voice, pointing her hand at the boys and making them "disappear" under the table.  It was cute for all of 30 seconds until their dinner started getting cold.  Eat your food!  We even made some wands out of chop-sticks and coloured them brown.  Now all we are missing are his famous glasses, which Jackson reminds me of every day!

They are also into Pirates because of the Playhouse Disney show "Jake and the Neverland Pirates."  So while I was at the dollar store looking for HP glasses (with no success), we found these fun costumes (which are already broken/destroyed of course).  They even drew a map and tried to cut it up so it looked ratty.  We also made a pirate ship out of a large card board box.  These kids sure have an imagination.  Thank goodness, because when they asked to make a pirate ship, I wasn't sure how I was going to pull that one off.  We just drew a big steering wheel on it and some skulls, and voila;  A pirate ship!

What new obsession will take form next?

It Moves!

So today I felt baby move for the first time, 14.5 weeks, which is the earliest I've felt one.  Usually it's around 16 weeks, but when it moved this morning and there was no gas to follow, I knew it was the baby!  It was such a refreshing feeling.  A good reminder that there IS, indeed, a living thing inside me.  And then I went and dry-heaved in the toilet.  Isn't pregnancy a beautiful thing?

Valentines Day

I told myself that no matter what, I would NOT let morning-sickness get in the way of enjoying Valentines Day! I would do exactly what I had planned to do that day! So, ...I waited until after the "morning" (tee hee), and made the kids some heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.
Ellie especially loved hers. What a goof.
Once Ellie went down for her afternoon nap, the boys helped me decorate some sugar cookies for Daddy and their Valentines (which were Taylor and Hannah of course, our neighbour Georgia, and their girlfriends, Mya and Addison Barnes). They spent so much time making sure every detail was in place. I had finished decorating the rest of the batch by the time they finished three cookies each. It was so cute to watch them put so much love and effort into their work.  The cutest part was when we dropped off the cookies at Mya and Addison's house, the boys each said, "I love you!"  (Okay, so I urged them to say it, but they said it and it was adorable).

Have fun eating that one Dad!  ...and he did.  I made him take a bite right in front of Jackson so he could watch him "enjoy" it.  Hahaha!  
And of course we each enjoyed one of our own!
Here's the final product of our gift to Joe.  Ellie scribbled on the red heart, the boys made him cookies, and I made him a "Jar of Hearts" (reasons why I love him and am grateful for him) AND he's never had a professional massage before!  Never!  I know.  I was shocked too.  So, I am sending him to a REAL massage therapist so he can experience that for the first time.
And like a girl, I thought he got me nothing.  We celebrated our V-day over the weekend because I had play-practice on Tuesday night.  We went to the Cactus Club for dinner (turning into our favourite "fancy"restaurant) and since it was MY turn to plan Valentines Day this year, we did something I thought he would like: mini-golfing; and something I would like: we went to see The Vow.  A super chick flick, but Joe mildly enjoyed it, so I didn't feel too bad about it since we NEVER see chick flicks in the theatre together otherwise.  That really should cover him right?  Well my pregnancy hormones thought otherwise because it was my turn this year to plan the date so in my books he officially did nothing (except pay for everything.  Tee hee).  It wasn't until I got home from my play practice that I find my first clue to an elaborate  treasure hunt that Joe had put together while I was out of the house and kids were in bed.  It included roses and chocolate among other things.  Very sweet!  I was giggling like a little school girl the whole journey.  Haha!  Definitely redeemed himself.  After eight years of being together, I should know by now how good he is at pulling out the romance when he wants to.  I wish Valentines day were everyday.  Treasure hunts are kind of fun.

Happy Valentines Day!

Kid #4 Update

I managed to do an update of all of my kids in my last entry, ...but missed ONE very important little bean.

I am officially 13-ish weeks along.  I had my first prenatal appointment last week!  Doctor Wong kept telling me that it may be too early to get a heartbeat but my obgyn, Dr Ron Brown, has always found a heartbeat right away, so I was hopeful.  And thankfully, he found one.  ONE.  Joe keeps bugging me that I am going to be having twins because Dr Wong made a comment early on about how sometimes when you get sick earlier than usual in your pregnancy (which I did) that that could be a sign of twins.  Dr Wong has also been wrong before, but I have been sweating up until this moment.  And then two  of my dearest friends who have twins burst my bubble and told me that they only heard ONE heart beat at  their 12 week appointment too and didn't know there were two in the womb until their 20-week ultra sound.  Yikes.  Thanks guys.  Now I get to be worried all over again.  I am also popping way faster, but I am going to blame that on this being my fourth pregnancy.  I was afraid what the scale was going to tell me, but thus far I have only gained 5 pounds, ...probably thanks to throwing up.  This pregnancy has been so inconsistent for that.  I had my last pregnancy barf-schedule down to a T!  Barf first thing in the morning, ...and then again at 10:30am, ...and then MAYBE at night, like if I didn't go to bed before 10:30pm.  But with this one, I can stay up late (as long as I eat), I can brush my teeth first thing and even sometimes feed my kids before I sit down to eat breakfast (sometimes I don't make it).  I have even had a whole week of almost nausea-free and barf-free functionality (again, only as long as I ate every two hours)!  But the last couple of weeks I have been throwing up almost every day, if not dry heaving (which I think is worse in my opinion), and I seem to need to eat more frequently to keep the nausea at bay.  That one week of joy gave me total hope that maybe I would finally be one of those girls who stops feeling sick after their first trimester.  I was so wrong.  Thankfully I have moments where I can function and get things done and be a semi-good Mom, ...but a lot of the time I am pretty useless!  I have to remind myself though that I have had worse pregnancies, so I'll take it.

Anywho, back to the prenatal: the baby's heartbeat was at 165bmp, which also gives me hope for a girl.  I know it is not totally accurate, but both of my boys were much lower than that (in the 150's), and Ellie's was around 165, ...so I'm going to let myself hope a little.  I would love to have a boy for the sake of my life being a little easier because I think boys are easier to raise than girls (my opinion!), but for Ellie's sake, I would love to give her a sister close in age.  I loved having Sarah as a roommate growing up and only two years apart, so I guess it would be nice for Ellie to have the same thing.  Either that, or she can be surrounded by a house full of boys to either rough her up and make a tom-boy out of her, or protect her at school (which she may not need if she's enough of a tom-boy).  I wish I could say that we will be finding out the gender at our ultrasound in March to end the misery of the guessing-game, but I DID tell Joe once-upon-a-time that once we have one of each gender I would like to try the whole surprise-at-birth thing. And he's holding me to it.  I'm not sure what I am getting myself into though.  We DO have everything for both genders, so I should be prepared enough, and I even managed to make Joe swear to me that HE would be the one to organize all the clothes, etc, after baby comes.  We'll see if he holds true to that statement.  So, ....I feel set.  Enough.

Now we just have to nail down our names.....  I DO have my favourites, but I also keep changing my mind!  Oh and I guess I should probably include Joe in this part too.  The joys....

Kid History

Although I love the "Kid History" videos, ...I am actually just wanting to do an update on my kids since we are WELL into the new year.  I took some pics of the kids a couple months ago and have been waiting to get my photoshop fixed before I posted them.  Then I forgot about them.  And I forgot about fixing my photoshop.  So, ...I decided to just post them as-is.  (So, ...please overlook Ellie's bruise).

ELEANOR

Ellie, you are officially 2 making you officially terrible. Just kidding. Kind of.  Although you have your sweet moments you sure can PMS faster than... well, ME.  But you are not constantly a "terrible-two-toddler," thank goodness!  Your sweetest moments are when you are playing on your own and singing whatever you feel like.  It is so cute!  You also mimmic the boys every once in a while and say phrases like, "Aaaaaaah!  I fall down!" or "Bad guys!" while playing with their action figures behind their backs.  You know most of your shapes (the obvious ones anyway), most of your colours and most letters.  You can officially recognize your numbers 1-10, thanks to our handy-dandy iphone and are starting to expand your repitiore of songs that you can sing by recently adding "Happy Birthday" to your list.  You still will not perform when asked, so I literally have to sneak up on you to listen to you sing, or pretend I'm not listening at all.  There is no end to your love for books.  Whenever people come over, be it my visiting teachers, a babysitter, Granny, ANYONE, you will grab a book, shove it in their hands and sit on their lap.  And people will read to you because you are adorable and they cannot say no.  I say no sometimes.  But that's why you go to them.  Tee hee.  But for the record, I DO read to you.  Just not every waking minute as I am sure you would love.  You are getting really good at recognizing most objects in your books now.  And if you don't know the names of the items or characters, you'll make it up.  "A-baga-bo."  You are also finally quiet during prayers and can repeat after Mommy or Daddy when saying your "own" prayers.  It is so cute to watch you kneel down and hear you speak so well and in sentences!  Crazy.  As my darling baby, you are sure growing up way too fast!


NOAH

Noah, you are 3.5 now and have grown so much since the Summer.  Physically and in many other areas.  You are now wearing all size 4 clothes and have been for several months now.  It's like you woke up one day and decided to grow half a foot out of the blue while I wasn't looking.  Another big-boy achievement is you no longer suck your thumb!  As soon as you'd see your blankie, your thumb would shoot right into your mouth, but a few weeks ago it got misplaced and you went to bed without it.  I noticed you didn't suck your thumb when your blanket wasn't around but after a few days Jackson found it for you and your thumb went right back into your mouth! ...So I made sure it got "misplaced" again.  (It may be mean, but hey!  It's working!).  You also used to be pretty quiet and keep to yourself while playing, but you are starting to realize you have an opinion and things to say and people to play with.  The other day, we took you kids to McDonalds and there was a little girl who kept waving at you.  I think the old Noah would have looked away and grumbled out of annoyance that she was paying attention to you, but instead you beamed and waved right back.  She asked you what you were eating and you held up your hamburger and told her, "CHICKEN NUGGETS!"  Haha!  Already tongue-tied around girls, are we?  Well, at least you tried.  The little girl thought you were making a joke anyway and laughed, so it worked!  I am happy to see you become more social as you get older.  Jackson has gotten you into playing LEGO video games (the non-social side to you), so you are just as in love with all the different characters (like indiana Jones and Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean) as Jackson is.  You boys could play video games together all day if I let you.  So when I kick you boys off of the XBOX, you love to dress up with Jackson, be it Indiana Jones and Short Round, or Harry Potter and Ron Weasley or whomever.  It is so fun to hear you boys make up stories about what you are going to act out next.  You also love playing with real-LEGO's.  You're not entirely into "building" as much as you are just putting together different guys and carrying them around ALL the time.  They don't have to have heads.  They don't have to match.  They could be missing an arm.  You don't care.  As long as you can take them everywhere you go.  I sometimes bribe you to sit still in primary by letting you take them in your pocket.  Which, by the way, you are officially a SUNBEAM!!  You hated the first week, but at the end of church when I picked you up from Donna Evans and Kerry Guadette's class (they are your amazing teachers!), you were playing with play-dough and making a craft, so I knew you ended up enjoying it eventually.  Thankfully, you did not make a fuss the following week.  Well, I had to have a little refresher-talk with you to remind you how much fun you had last week and you told me you would be brave and be happy and sit in your own seat.  And you did!  I seriously am gushing with pride over you Noah.  You are such a good and tender boy.  Thank goodness you still cuddle me and love me and shower me with your sweetness.

JACKSON

Jax, you are offically 5, making me feel officially old.  Didn't I just have you?  Aren't you still my baby?  I think it will really sink in when you go to Kindergarten, but lets not think about that just yet.  You are totally my bud.  My favourite thing that you do these days is bug Dad about being on my "team."  You even persuaded Noah to join you (...although Noah is pretty wishy-washy so I'm not sure if we can count on his loyalty).  When Dad's not in the room, you'll say things like, "Hey Mom!  Watch this!" and then twirl a Kleenex box and catch it, then say, "I bet Dad can't do it that fast."  Or you'll climb around the couch and say, "I bet Dad couldn't even do that!"  Haha!  Let the competition begin!  Dad has been trying to get you to warm up to him over the last couple weeks, so one day he was sharing his orange with you in the kitchen and you were having a tender moment with him when he said, "See Jax.  We're buds, aren't we?" to which you looked up at him and replied with no hesitation (nor sugar-coating), "Dad, ...I'm still on Mom's team."  Haha!  I have also taught you how much Dad hates getting wet-willies, so you are constantly trying to sneak up on him and stealthily (but not-so-stealthily at all) put your wet finger in his ear.  We have not succeeded yet, but I know with our team-work, we'll get there one day.  We went on a family-Costco trip the other day and every two seconds you would whisper in my ear some sort of strategy of how we could attack Dad.  It was hilarious.  We still failed because Dad is kind of a ninja, but we kept him on his toes!  And like I said, we'll get there!  Jax, you are also my tender-heart.  You seriously want to be so good and do the right thing.  You are so young and already I can tell how much it means to you to choose the right and make us proud.  As the oldest child, you have definitely set the tone in our house.  Thank you for being such a good listener and for always trying to serve and do the right thing.

V-day Ideas?

Guys.  Every year, Joe and I swap who is in charge of Valentines Day and our Anniversary.  This year, V-day is MY duty.  Pressure is ON!  The hard thing is, Joe tells me every year not to spend money, but then on the years that HE is in charge, he spends as much money as he wants.  No fair.  I am not complaining (well, I WAS I guess) because I love being spoiled, (who doesn't really?) ...but I would also like to spoil my man.  I want to hear some clever ideas from all of my lady-friends out there!  What are some fun things you have done in the past, or what are some things you would LIKE to do for your man on Valentines day?    

Galaxy Land!

Best investment ever!  For Christmas we got our family a 3-month-multi-play-pass at WEM.  That gets you into Galaxy Land, bowling, golfing, Waterpark, Sea lion show, skating, etc.  We've had it for a month now and have definitely gotten our money's worth... and we haven't even done everything on the list!

Ellie's fav is the Merry-Go-Round, or "horsies!" as she calls it.

The boys love the Dragon Wagon, (despite the face that Jackson is making), but they are both at a tricky age. There are few rides they can go on together because Jax is tall enough to ride some of the bigger rides with Joe and is getting less interested in the kiddie-rides.  Noah is not quite tall enough so some of the time he is with Ellie and I on the kiddie-rides, ...but thankfully he is still young enough to not care that he can't go on the same rides as Jax!  It only gets tricky when I take the boys all by myself, (which I occasionally do during Ellie-nap time, but we usually get by with playing in the slides/balls area).

Noah baffles me sometimes. He has this dangerous side to him that sometimes freaks me out and I wonder how he is going to survive this life, but then sometimes he can really be a wuss. For example, Jax and Ellie went on the Balloon ride with me. It is boring and there is nothing to it. Noah was freaking out because he did NOT want to go on this ride, HOWEVER....

...He went on this crazy dropping-ride that gives you super butterflies in your tummy instead.  It goes just as high as the balloon ride.  Riddle me that.  I don't get this kid.

And we cannot forget the train! Ellie loves this thing. Somehow there is always a long line up, yet it's the most boring ride in all of Galaxyland (Fine.  It's tied with the Balloon ride). Kids love it. I don't know why, but they do!

I'd say, Noah's fav is the airplane ride because it makes him feel like Indiana Jones and Jackson loves the side-to-side boat ride and the mini-rollercoaster. Kind of shocking since Jax is such a tender-heart. What surprised me the most today was that he went on this spinny rollercoaster thing and did not cry. Joe even said it was pretty scary but Jax was brave and wanted to do it again! Who is this kid? Have Noah and Jax swapped bodies?

Other than dry-heaving in the Galaxyland toilet today (which was not the funnest highlight), I'd say all-in-all it was a fun family day!  I just wish I could go on the rides.  Last week when we went together as a family, Joe went on the Mindbender roller coaster by himself and I was so jealous.  No fair.  It's like the time when Joe and I went to Six Flags in California when I was pregnant with Jax and I stood in line with him for every ride and was blessed to watch him go on everything by himself.  Sad.  Next time we get this pass, I will NOT be pregnant.  A Mommy's gotta have fun too!  Anywho, even though I don't get to enjoy everything, it's definitely worth it to get a pass during the long winter months!  The kids are in heaven, and that's really what matters.

It's Official

12 weeks today.

Baby number 4.