Sara is Smiling

Surpriiiise!

I'd never thrown or even been to a surprise party before, but I decided that's what I wanted to do for my mother's 65th birthday. But it couldn't just be a regular birthday party. If this was going to be truly special, all 7 kids and their families had to be there--including the out of towners. By some stroke of magic, everyone was able to adjust their schedules to make it.

Don't try to count the kids..there are 20.....and counting (no pressure, Em :)

The original 9:
1986

Jenn, Mary, Mike, Emily, Me, Rob, Amy 

1991

Amy, Mike, Emily, Rob, Me, Mary, Jenn

2013

Back- Me, Amy, Mary, Mike       Front- Rob, Emily, Jenn

I was sure that someone was going to slip and give it away. The biggest concern being my Dad. He's kind of ditzy sometimes.
He had one job..get her here. He did, but they were late. Talking to Mum later, she told me that he was sleepy and wanted to close his eyes for a minute. He gave her specific instructions NOT to let him sleep past a certain time, but Mum - thinking they had no real plans - decided to let him sleep as long as he needed to! Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep 20 kids out of the yard, out of the front window, and ready to surprise Grammie. Not an easy task. Thanks, Dad!!

But it all worked out, and it was so worth it :)
She comes in..sees the group crammed into the living room..takes a second to process..


..the lightbulb goes on, and she realizes what's going on..


..then the waterworks!


Success!

After that I could stop stressing, and the rest of the evening was lovely...much like the MacKenzie girls :)


Oh..and one more thing. Emily got a bloody lip.


It may or may not have been from a taekwondo demonstration gone wrong.

Em: Attack me
Me: Ok!
My foot was not actually supposed to come in contact with her face. Eek. I felt so bad :(

Being A Grown Up

You know how I know I'm an adult? Perhaps you can relate to this -- when I was young, if I was sad I listened to sad music and wallowed in it. Repeatedly.
Yes YES, Sinead, nothing CAN stop these tears from falling!
As an adult, when I'm sad I listen to HAPPY music. I become desperate to snap myself out of it by any means necessary.
This is my current crank-it-up anthem. Little Quinny and I can't NOT dance to it :)


People count on me now. Kids, employees, clients..  I can't lay in bed and mercilessly burden my diary with page after page of meaningless drivel. I have old diaries from my teens with wavy pages that were once wet with tears. LITERALLY tears dripping off my chin onto the pages as I wrote.
No, I didn't have a tragic childhood.
I'm just OH. SO. DRAMATIC. I'm still dramatic..imagine it fuelled by teenage hormones. I'll have to be quarantined when I'm menopausal. Muzzled so I don't say nasty things to people I love. Or bite them.
Oops..there I go being all dramatic again. 

But drama makes for good stories, and good stories make for good blog entries :)
So what's this week's drama?
I had belt testing last week! I've been really nervous about this one because it's the first time I've had to break using a 360 kick. I've struggled and struggled with this one. I wanted to get it perfect. I didn't just want to be able to do it, I wanted to do it well. This resulted in OVERTHINKING of monumental proportions..a recurring problem in all aspects, I'm realizing.
I picked up extra classes, practiced at home in front of my mirror, but even right up til the moment my name was called felt completely ill equipped to pass this testing.
I took my stance. Stared at the board as my instructor braced himself. Bounced. Bounced. Bounced again. Fooocuuuused. Took a deep breath, aaaaaaand.......SPIIIIN!
Then I hear that KEEERRRAAACK!!! that feels like christmas morning!
WTF?? I broke it???
I didn't see the board right away, but I saw my instructor's face and he was grinning. I think he was as surprised as I was that I had done it first try :) 
Then I felt the pain, and I couldn't hide it from my expression. During my spin/jump I leaned back just a little too far and instead of using the top of my foot to break it I had used the top of my toes.
Owwwy!!


I limped back to my spot and my fellow students all raised their hands to high five me as I walked past. I LOVE our school! I was so scared to put myself out there and take this goal on by joining the school, but it has been and continues to be one of the greatest self improvement things I've ever done, and I am bound and determined to continue on to my black belt! Now I'm one step closer :)

That could've been your skull.

Bring it on, Red Belt! I'm comin for you!

Good Traveller, Bad Traveller

Elly used to be a nightmare on the plane.
We started our regular trips to Phoenix when she was 2 months old. I walked off the plane after every flight sweaty, dishevelled, angry and wound waaay too tight. Keeping three small children happy and content while flying was challenging, and just as I was feeling like Elly was reaching an age where I could engage her in activities to keep her occupied instead of just baby wrestling the whole way, along came Quinn and knocked me back to the start.
Keeping FOUR little kids happy and content while flying wasn't just a liiiittle harder, it was exponentially more challenging and I would be lying if I said that I did not - on more than one occasion - end up crying softly in the tiny bathroom.
Between the four of them, we have puked, peed, spilled, thrown tantrums, thrown toys, sang loudly, laughed louder, screamed bloody murder, hit, kicked, clawed, snuggled, slept, terrorized and charmed flight attendants and passengers. We have single handedly delayed entire flights. We have had really wonderful AMAZING flight attendants, and we've had some who were pretty obvious in their disdane. I've learned to bite my tongue. In the air, the customer is not always right. And going through security, even when you're right you're wrong...but don't get me started on that.

This past trip I finally finally felt like I'm crossing that hump again. The one I started to cross a couple of years ago with Elly before Huricane Quinn hit. Quinn is old enough to have her own seat, to engage with games or satellite TV, to bribe, to threaten, to drug (to what?? who said that?..)


Elly - and all of them - are now seasoned travellers.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was RELAXED on this latest trip, but I would say that we're definitely on an upswing! But with that said, may I present to you:
Good traveller/Bad traveller

Good traveller:


Bad traveller:


Good traveller:


Bad traveller:


Good traveller:


Bad traveller:


But honestly, they really are getting so much easier to manage, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Stress free travelling...is it possible?? Dare to dream, Sara!

Two Years with Wacho!

Rachael - or "Wacho" as the little ones call her - has been with us for 2 years already! And in that time we've hardly been apart. Our trip to Phoenix last week was a little sad without her while she was honeymooning.
Yup, little Rachael got married last weekend! Ca-raaazy!


Charlie was so excited to be a bridesmaid!


But before she was Spencer's bride, we used to joke that she was my wife :)


I'm not sure why Andrew was snapping during this, but before we took the anniversary picture I was giving Charlie "instructions" on not making "stupid-face" for it:

Sadly, I have to do this before every picture with Charlie...
and it doesn't always work:


The cake says, "I luv u sooooooooooo much", and there's a good reason for that. A few days earlier was her stagette. Her sister got a package at a night club, but Rachael and her friends are Mormon. We got there and about a million shots were put on our table. There were only 4 of us who drink.....you do the math.
But that wasn't reeeeally the problem. Later on I guess I made some comment about the drinks being watered down so Rachael's sister Ashley started ordering my drinks as DOUBLES. (You're dead to me, Ashley)
That. Was. It. I was your classic "I love you, man!" drunk.
I remember hugging her. A lot. The next day she texted me:

Oooohh dear..I'm too old for these shenanigans.

Congrats, Rachy! We missed you..mwah!!

Insta-fan

Hello, Instagram, where have you been all my life?
So I know I'm probably the last person in the free world to jump on the Instagram bandwagon, but I was meeting with a client recently who is doing a promotion with Instagram and I figured I should know what I'm talking about. I downloaded it and started playing around, and holy crap, people, I was almost instantly addicted. It makes my crappy cell phone pics look so much more interesting..
Even the dead thing Mickey dropped on my doorstep looks good, amiright??

I never did figure out what animal or part of an animal it was. Regardless, it's gone and was replaced by a decapitated mouse. So watch your step when you come to my place. She drops them right in front of the door, and if you're not careful you will feel an unfamiliar squiiiiish! under foot, and when you lift your shoe to check you'll see the stuff of nightmares.
But this is why we love her.

Other silliness in our house this week:
I get home from work at 5 and start cleaning and making dinner. I hate cleaning and making dinner. I always turn up some tunes which usually ends up with dancing. One such evening I was dancing with Quinn and Elly. The music was really loud and the dancing really baaad. My little girlies were mimicing every super awesome move I made. I had just gotten home from work so I was still in a dress and pantyhose. At one point I put my hands up my dress and slid my hose off. The girls were quick to follow, and without taking their eyes off me pulled their pants down. I finished my dance with a couple of bare bummies :)

Babysitting Auntie Sara-style
Sunday evening I was to take some clients who were in town out to dinner. My sister asked me to watch her kids that afternoon which I figured wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure why I figured that..between us we have eight kids: 2 two year olds, 2 five year olds, a seven year old, an eight year old, a nine year old and a 10 year old. 
As usual, the moment the kids arrived they all paired up and scattered in different directions. I tried to get some work done, but got nervous that I hadn't seen either 2 year olds OR either 5 year old in a little while. I went in search and came across a locked bathroom door. Bad. Sign.
I persuaded them to open. The 5 year olds were making a potion. I'm kind of a cool mom, you see, and I don't mind potion making. I wanted to know what was in it, though. I grilled them on this for a few moments then began to hear shuffling in the cabinets. I opened the doors and voila! The 2 year olds:

No harm done, everyone is fine and the house is still standing. 
I leave them to play, and go into my room to shower. Realizing I have no towels, I go downstairs to the laundry room. When I come back, the bad babies and naked and showering!

Also this week:
Quinn did a little re-decorating


And I went on a date with Elly :)

Yes, that is a cheeseburger in my hair.

Next week --- PHOENIX!! 

"I a Sheep"

The face of Easter morning.

The easter bunny came, and once again she brought waaay too much chocolate. She tends to do that, then she regrets it and sneaks around the next day gathering it up and hiding it in the back of the pantry.

A few days before, I was growing weary of Elly and Quinn's constant bickering so revamped the good ol' Santa threat and warned them, "The easter bunny doesn't come to bad little girls."
Elly stops in her tracks, stares at me with eyes wide as saucers, and says almost in a whisper, "I did not know that."

After tearing the house apart in search of sugar, sugar and more SUGAR, I decided they needed to do something to burn it off....something that didn't involve further destruction to my house.
A couple of years ago our bunny went to live on a farm.
No, really. I actually sent it to a farm. That's not just something I told them to cover up a death.
When our bunny before that one died there was this big traumatic incident where we came downstairs in the morning for breakfast, and I noticed right away that our bunny had transcended this mortal existence. I acted like nothing was wrong, and quietly asked Q to discretely dispose of it. So, I'm tending to the kids at the table when Q walks right past the big window we're sitting in front of holding a shovel out in front of him carrying the beloved dead bunny.
The kids gasp and start to cry, and I frantically bang on the window motioning for him to GOOO! What is discreet about parading the children's dead pet on a shovel in front of the breakfast table??!?
I can laugh about it now! And someday they will too.....probably in counseling.

But I'm completely off track..this story is about our more recent bunny who is still alive and well living with a wife and many many children on my friend's farm.

What better easter activity than visiting a shed full of fluffy white bunnies??? Umm...fluffy white feral bunnies, it turns out.
Quinny pointing at the biggest, scariest, bunny of the lot: Get me da bunny. Get me da bunny. Dat bunny. Get me da bunny. Peeees
I hold her back while Dave tries to wrangle the bunny. I beg him to stop as he's clearly losing this battle, and I can see the terror creeping up on Elly's face.
The bunny visit was quick.
But Dave has sheep. Lots and lots of sheep.
He herded the flock from the far pasture towards the house so we could see them. Quinn sees this huge stampede of mangy sheep running towards us, looks at me and says very seriously, "I a sheep", then hops off after them braying all the way.


She was accepted into the fold as one of their own.


Charlie was feeling anxious about the whole situation and decided Quinn should join us safely on the outskirts of the action.

I often have to remind Charlie that I am the mother, not her.

Elly plays in a puddle while maintaining a safe perimeter. If you recall from past posts about the petting zoo, Elly prefers to observe behind the safety of a fence or mommy's legs.


Max and Charlie did what Max and Charlie do best...

Fun fact: Max and Charlie are not allowed to be paired against each other in sparring matches. However, it quite amuses the instructors to pair my little sister Emily and I against each other in sparring. Things that make you go hmmmm......

Worst Surprise EVER

Once upon a time I was a moody 17 year old girl who thought life had dealt me a raw deal. In my great teenaged wisdom I decided to bid my family farewell as they moved across the mountains to Edmonton.
My dental health was the least of my concern.
My last appointment was while I was still under my mother's care. Once in my early twenties having borne the pain of my wisdom teeth for a solid year, I finally made an appointment (at my mother's proding) to have them checked out.
"Yup. They need to come out. $500 a tooth, make an appointment on your way out."
I never went back, but not because of fear. Coming up with two thousand dollars to 22 year old me seemed as impossible as if he had asked for two million.
Eventually the teeth came in without issue. They just lined right up with the rest of my molars. I have A LOT of teeth.

Fear of the potential damage I've done in the last almost twenty years of professional neglect, I finally went in for a checkup. Not too bad! Just a few surface cavities. Phew!
I went in yesterday to have them filled.
"Hmm..I can't get to this one on your wisdom tooth unless I drill through your face. I'm going to have to extract it."
I couldn't speak because my mouth was full of hands and metal, but in my mind I was having a full blown panic attack. In fact, thinking back I do believe I squeaked.
"I know you're not mentally prepared," he said "so I'll give you a few minutes....But it needs to come out."

He leaves the room and his assistant calmly explains the procedure. I'm wringing my hands and turning red, and I'm not really listening because in my head I'm fighting off tears and trying to convince myself "You can do this! You're strong! You've given birth 4 times!"
The assistant presumably can see my internal struggle, and her detailed explanations of procedure change to echo what I'm saying in my head, "You can do this, sweetheart!" she touches my shoulder and leans over the chair so we're face to face. Suddenly I feel like a big baby.
"Ok, I'm ready." 

Guys..look at this monster. This came out of my little ol' mouth! And there are still a bunch more in there just like it!


I went back to work even though they told me to go home to bed. I toughed it out for awhile, but ultimately decided that trying to change bloody gauze packed into my frozen face at my desk and drooling blood was bad for morale so I went home. But I did go to my taekwondo class that night :) What?! I have testing at the end of the month!!

My Week According to my Cell Phone Pictures

This week in ongoing home renos...
Trim and baseboards: This is why you took math, people. It is necessary for life after all. Funny, though, for all the math problems about fruit I never encountered one about using your mitre saw.
Also, setting it up on the kitchen table may not have been the best idea. See all the sawdust?? That took daaaayz to clean up!



Well, that's one way to find a stud...

...but my pantry shelves are sturdy as hell.

This week in little boy's hockey...
The season comes to an end with a tournament to determine division champs..Max is in net while I cheer him on trying to hide my anxiety! His sisters - who are usually crabby to have been dragged there - even got into the game and sang cheers at him.
The Penguins brought home the gold and the title of division champs :)

Max is at the center of this celebration hug.


Getting his medal.

These weren't from this game, but I haven't shared them yet.





This last one is my favourite :)

What a great experience this season has been for him. For me, not so much! But that's the sacrifice we make, right?
Which brings me to...

This week in random comments made to me...

This has been said to me twice this week by two completly unrelated people. Comparing their bad days to "Sara days".

1. My sister was telling me how she had to do all her running around with all of her kids in tow because her husband was out of town. She said, "I'm having a Sara day." I wasn't quite sure how to take that. I decided to be flattered, though I can't come up with a convincing reason why.

2. At hockey practice another mom was telling me how she was struggling that day because she had to manage her kids and all the gear herself. This woman, who rarely speaks to me, said, "I kept thinking, now I know how Sara feels!"

It's not always ideal dragging the whole troupe around. We refer to it as moving as a pack. Sometimes they're a pack of hungry wolves, and sometimes...well, they're usually a pack of hungry wolves who am I kidding.

While regaling people with horror stories of errand running with 4 little kids, I've often been asked, "Why do you take them?" This always catches me off guard....There's another option?? I thought it was illegal to lock them in cages while I go out on my own?

With that said, I did get out for a bit and Charlie sent me some texts...

This week in texts from a nine year old...




This week in meaningless holidays...

St. Patrick's Day I traditionally make a green meal for this kids. This year was green shamrock shaped pancakes, green apple slices, green grapes and green punch.


Oh, and green cake!

Sillies.

This week in sleepy babies... 
Elly, as we know, can and will sleep anywhere:


Quinn, on the other hand, likes to cuddle up with a warm body:


On this day I was supposed to be cleaning, but chilling on the couch with sweetness breathing softly in your lap is much more enjoyable :)


This week in TRAGEDY! 

Minnie my sweet little baby kitty has gone missing :(
SOO SAD!!
She was the perfect kitty for us since we had her from birth and she was very well aclimated to life with abusive toddlers. We'll never be able to replace her unless we have another litter..which we won't. Our other cat is fixed.
This is the last picture we have of her.

and on a side note, the new sink is oodles of fun :) 

Who wants to date my nephew?

My nephew - let's call hiiimm......Flandrew - needs a girlfriend. Could you be that lucky lady??

After his last relationship - an intense 1 month stint with what turned out to be the president of the Crazy Chick Club for the Mentally Deranged: Edmonton Chapter - I decided to take the reigns as he was clearly unqualified to manage such a task.

I signed him up for some dating sites and carefully populated his profile with pictures of him being active, reading to kids, and a healthy mix of natural smiles and smoldering stares. You know, so she would picture him showing her a good time, sweeping her off her feet, and then popping out babies and living a fun healthy lifestyle. Then I got to work hitting on chicks with the confidence one can only find when safely hidden behind a computer screen.
Oh, I was charming. I had no problem chatting phone numbers out of these gals. Troubles began when he had to start talking to the ladies himself. WHAT?? You lost another one??

So one night he was visiting and we had downed a bottle of wine. I pulled out the laptop and signed into his account. A new "match" had sent him some questions. He was to answer and send questions back.
Gah, this unimaginative chick had chosen the same lame questions everyone else does.
I decided to take a different approach..screw it, let's have fun with this. If she thinks it's funny she's a keeper! 

Questions she asked followed by my (er..his) responses:

1. Fun facts about you.
-William Shatner is my bio Dad. My mom bought his sperm back after his run on Star Trek and before his recent comeback when he was doing "odd jobs" for extra $$
- I cofounded a company that is now worth a billion dollars, but I sold out in the early days for a piece of pie and a pocket full of quarters and lint because of a falling out I had with my partner. (He chewed REALLY loudly..need I say more. Also, I reeeeally like pie.) No regrets.
- I've visited every country in the world. Not in my physical body, mind you, but I regularly Astral Travel. It's more economical and I'm on a budget.
- I'm a child prodigy and was writing symphonies by the time I was six. But that takes a toll on a child, and after suffering a nervous breakdown and being institutionalized I swore off the piano forever..so don't ask me to play for you. You'll just have to take my word for it.

2. Describe an interest you have that you would truly hope your partner could share with you. 
- Belly dancing. My smooth rythym is simply exquisite, and I think you'd find the way my chest hair gently peaks out from behind my colourful scarves very sexy.

3. They say life is about simple pleasures, what is your simplest pleasure, and how does it make you feel? 
- Peeing. You know that feeling of utter RELIEF after you've been holding it for awhile. Unbeatable.

And here are the questions I (HE) sent back to her.
1.  What is the square root of 284

2.  If the main theme of Macbeth is ambition, whose ambition is the driving force of the play—Macbeth’s, Lady Macbeth’s, or both?

3. Who's hotter - Justin Timberlake or Justin Bieber?? Lol, I can't decide! JT is SOOO funny, but JB's hair is to DIE for!

I eagerly logged in the next day hoping to find a note from my his dreamgirl gushing about how much we'd made her lol. 
That note didn't arrive. Instead, SHE BLOCKED US! The nerve!
Oh well, I consoled my heartbroken nephew with promises that she obviously wasn't the one for him, and that she was out there...somewhere...and we would find her!
ARE YOU HER??? DO YOU KNOW WHO SHE MIGHT BE?? 

Send me a note!

With a little help from my friend..

One Friday afternoon I decided that this was the day my ugly main floor bathroom (or what I now lovingly refer to as the powder room) would finally be made over. By Sunday my masterpiece was complete!
That's how I roll. I get a bee in my bonnet about something, and I work day and night until I'm satisfied..or bored.
The powder room was one of the last rooms that was as yet untouched by the creative genius that is Sara ;)
Here it is with it's aztec wallpaper border and matching tile, decades old sink and vanity, and dingy white paint. And oh yeah..a hole in the wall.




Yanked it all out. Every bit of it. Tiled the entire back wall with limestone. Painted. Installed new sink, faucets, vanity and backsplash. New door, towel and toilet paper holders, and new fancy artwork! It's the kids hands cut out on scrapbook paper and framed.






It just wouldn't be a Sara is Smiling story without something going terribly wrong. So here's the rest of the story...
I ended up spending all night after completing the bathroom catching up on work that needed to be ready for a meeting the next morning.
After pulling my all nighter, I got the kids up and off to school. I'd usually head to work at this point leaving Quinn with the sitter, but I was planning on trying to grab a quick hour or two of sleep before going in.
Quinn and I returned from the school drop off, I turned on Toopy and Binoo for her and sat in the living room barely conscious for the 10-15 minutes it would take before Rachael the sitter arrived.
Before too long I heard a giggle behind me. I turned around and saw this:

I was confused for a few seconds..is it diaper cream? lotion? Then the smell hit me. It's paint.
I'd definitely put the lid back on, but obviously not tight enough. I went to survey the damage. It was worse than I had imagined.

I was paralyzed. I actually had no reaction. I stared at it. I couldn't even fathom where I'd start. How I'd get it all out of the cracks between the slats of hardwood. I'd have to sand and repaint my walls. I had no words.

My enthusiasm for renovating the bathroom that weekend spilled over into my mudroom, and it also got a quick makeover. For that reason, all the shoes and boots were pulled out of it and laying in a pile in the main room. Seven pairs including Charlie's Uggs and my favourite black boots were ruined.

The new rug - ruined.


Even the cat couldn't escape.


Well, there clearly wasn't going to be any sleeping going on. I got to work cleaning up the house while Rachael got busy cleaning up Quinn. An hour in the shower until the water ran cold and she still looked like this:


A couple of weeks later and she still has paint in her hair and eyebrows.
To date, her best work yet.

To avoid awkward stares and people slowly pulling their children away from the freakish molting disease child, I've turned to hats. Some are better than others, but they're all better than nothing!
My favourite is the kitty tuque

Her favourite, unfortunately, is the yellow pimp hat. I was super proud and not at all embarrassed when she chose this one to parade in front of all the other moms at Elly's kindergarten drop off.

Oh, and if you're interested here's my mudroom. It was originally a pantry when I moved in. I turned it into a mudroom about a year ago, but it wasn't set up well and was usually just a massive pile of shoes, boots, coats, skates and sparring gear. You couldn't even walk into it. I forgot to take a picture, but I'm sure you can imagine it.
Here's the after:
I laid a new floor, painted, put up hooks, a mirror, a shelf, a bench, and baskets. Each kid gets their own set of hooks and their own shoe basket.




Above each of their hooks is a picture and their name. There's a little place that I write notes to them after I drop them off at school. I'm not home when they get home from school and they look forward to reading their new note. I've missed a day or two and they really give me the gears when there's no new note :)