Sara is Smiling

Karma's a B!tch

Charlie is beyond upset about Quinn's keyboard renos to her laptop.


She's gone all high pitched and skreechy which isn't completely terrible since it's too high for my human ears to detect. It's her mouth movements and all the cat's trying to escape the house that clues me in there's something terribly wrong in Charlie's life.
Here's where karma comes in...when Charlie was Quinn's age she did the exact same thing to Quincey's laptop. Now that I think about it, he made the same high pitched skreechy noises. Of course, when I recall this story with a smile to my hyperventillating tween, she does not see the same universal justice. I think she was hoping my reaction would be something like this, "Hey Char, that sucks! Let's go buy a BRAND NEW LAPTOP!!"
But nope. Welcome to my world, Eldest Child!

Charlie has recently requested to move out of the girl's room upstairs and into the empty room in the basement. I think the reasons are pretty obvious :-)

More Phone Photos

This is becoming more and more common on my blog..too busy to get out the big camera I guess.

So here's the last month or so according to my phone camera!

It was a guy at work's last day. I told him I was going to make him a cake. He said he doesn't like cake so I declared it "Pie Day" and everyone brought a pie. I made coconut cream. Mr. Guy made this monstrosity...it's apple pie with a bacon lattice crust and smothered in scotch!

I saw this sitting on my sister's desk at work the other day.

It's an orange that has been peeled and then taped back together. My brother in law (who also works in the office) was going to eat it then decided not to so he taped it back together. Waste not, want not, I suppose. :-)

This is shopping with Quinn:

She was playing with the manequins. My efforts to stop her resulted in protest. She's learned early to lay down, stand her ground, and go limp.

I sleep in a king size bed, but routinely sleep balanced on the edge with my leg hanging over to hold myself up because this is all the room I have.

When Q's out of town I often wake up 4 sets of arms and 4 sets of legs (not including mine!) all tangled up in my bed. :/
This day wasn't terribly bad..2 kids and a sleepy cat.

Get outta ma bed!

Enjoying a sunny day by the pool :-)


Tongue out..her signature picture face.

My super wonderful sisters on Easter (minus Mary).

I wish I could print this one, but Quinn got her hands on my camera and changed it to low res without me noticing..grrr..

Elly's first cleaning! She was a champ!

I feel myself getting annoyed just looking at this one!

This is the view 9 times out of 10 when I walk in the kitchen.
Get down, bad baby!!
She pushes chairs around so the world is her playground.


Why, Elly.....WWWWWHHHHHYYYYYY????????

Dumpity Dump Dump

Ok..so suddenly I suck at blogging. So many reasons why my blogging has become sporatic at best, non-existent at worst. I won't bore you with why.
I'm still here, though, and my kids are still being silly and sweet and bad. Here's another slew of recent phone pics and little anecdotes.

We'll start with Max.
Emptying his backpack the other day I found this:

"One of my favourite people in the whole world is my dad, because he never let's me stay sad."
Meaning - When Mom gets mad at me and I run off crying, Dad always comes and makes it all better. Mom=Bad Guy, Dad=Hero.

Then I turned the page and found this:

"I love my Mom because she made me."
Meaning - I love my Mom because I am biologically designed to and culturally expected to. Nice.

One more:

Asked to write several proper sentences, Max finishes with, "I have the best teacher ever." lol
No wonder people like Max!
I was in the convenience store with Charlie after my taekwondo class last night, and there was a woman with a little girl walking in at the same time. The little girl gets all excited and says to her Mom, "gasp! There's Charlie!! That means MAX is here!!!"
I have to say, he is quite likable. I was set up in the tv room ironing all of Quincey's shirts (finally). Charlie comes up to me all surprised, "You iron?? I've never seen you iron...like..NEVER."
But Max comes up and says to me, "Mom, you need a day off. Why don't you take a day off with Dad and get Rachael to watch us." Someday it's going to drive his wife nuts that his crazy momma is so attached to him :-)

Time for another pic from my phone and a solid transition to Eloise:
I found them snuggled up together watching tv. When I see my kids loving on each other it is completely irresistible to me.


Elly's preschool teacher expressed concern recently that Elly and Aidan only play with each other and are always holding hands or hugging. She wondered if we wanted her to keep them more separate in class. Nope! we told her. They're just soul-mate cousins and we're fine with it :-)

At breakfast Elly asked me to get my phone and take a picture of her with her momma bunny and baby bunny. I, of course, obliged.

All the crazy gadgets the kids have, but the good old fashion stuffed animals remain Elly's toy of choice.

This is what a sleepover hangover looks like:

Being eight, Charlie's favourite thing in the world is a sleepover. She's recently discovered the thrill of staying up all night. Not so much fun the next day, though. Especially when Mom's dragging you out for your brother's hockey practice. The rest of this day was better off forgetting altogether :/

Amy and I took Charlie and Kenzie on a girl's day date. We got pedicures then went out for a sit down lunch.


I'm trying to do more of these kinds of things with the kids. I took Max and Charlie skating the weekend before, and this weekend we're going to go bowling.



It helps that I have someone to leave Quinn with. I love doing things with the kids, but it's tough with a toddler spoiling things. I used to think I was a baby person, but I'm certain now that I like kids. I just absolutely love hanging out with my big kids.

Max came home from school recently and told me that Dad got me pregnant by peeing on me! We were concerned that they're getting bizarre information from kids at school so decided to have a chat with them. Quincey asked, "Do you know what sex is?"
They both started to giggle. Charlie says, "Of course! Aaaaaalllllll kids know what sex is!"
Quincey asked, "Do you know what drugs are?"
Charlie answered yes again. Quincey asked, "How do you know about drugs?"
Charlie replies, "BECAUSE, Dad, I watch Dr. Phil!"
The conversation continues on about other dangers and vices. Quincey asks, "What happens when you eat too much?"
Max answers, "You get baaaad gas."

Ok, lastly for today (and only because I'm at work and need to finish a project) a picture of Quinn and Quincey at a 7am hockey practice. It is so much easier to control her when Quincey is around! Hopefully this constant travelling will subside soon!

If only I didn't relate so well...

2011

Used an app to create this from some of my facebook statuses over 2011:

Monkey see, Monkey do.

One evening last week when I had some nieces over for dinner and there was no room for me at the table, I sat on the kitchen steps to eat my food. Quinn - who no longer will sit in a highchair - decided to join me. She brought her bowl (but not her fork) and plunked herself down beside me.

A little busy body for sure.

The other day I heard a crash from the kitchen. I went in and Quinn and the kitten were both sitting in the sink. They stared at me each with their big blue innocent eyes while I tiptoed through the shards of glass from the glass that was broken. Bad news..the both of them!
This was not the day or the sink in question, but climbing into and playing in sinks is when of Quinny's favourite passtimes.


They're quite sweet together, actually. She's madly in love with Jinxy. I'm not sure the feeling is mutual, but Jinx interacts with her a lot more than the other cats who have learned to keep a safe distance. I'm sure Jinx will soon tire of being pushed, poked, grabbed and smothered with love.

(sorry about the quality..they're from my phone)

Our hockey misadventures continue with Quinny upping the ante each time. The last time the rink manager actually came out of his office and asked Quinn (not me) to be quiet. Then he went back in his office and slammed the door. Sorry, but it's not myyyy fault that the vending machine is broken and Quinn can't have her popcorn, and it's not Quinn's fault that she's 18 months and doesn't understand that!
She soon turned her attention to a big mop and bucket that was left out..presumably by Mr. Grumpy-Manager-Face. This is what happened when I wouldn't let her splash her hands in the disgusting water or drag the huge mop around:


She tuckered herself out with all the screaming and the jumping and the rolling around on the floor. Tantrums are good excercise!


She rarely holds still, but I did manage to snap a picture with her. She's driving me to the looney bin, but she's my baby and I love her <3

Another Phone Photos Dump

Max loses a tooth at hockey:

See the one on the other side that's half black? That's tooth is partially false, and the coating is coming off. I HATE it. It's a little wiggly now so I told him to really work at it so it falls out sooner.
He says, "But I don't want that one to fall out! It's my VAMPIRE tooth!"

Quinny and I take Max to his early morning practices while the others sleep. We always get a bag of popcorn from the vending machine.

Last time, though, we were at an arena with a coffee shop in it. I got a latte and a blueberry muffin. We sat down to share the muffin, but she ran over and starting banging on the vending machine.
"No, baby, we got a muffin today!" I hold it out for her.
She runs over to me with a smile, takes the muffin, runs back to the vending machine and shoves it in.
Not how that works, actually.

This was in Vegas. I watched this guy all night because I was so fascinated that he was, apparently, so drunk that he didn't notice the hot little number in the spandex dress that he was making out with on the dance floor was actually like 70, wrinkled, and overall pretty gross. I wanted my picture taken with him which my friend there facilitated. Not sure why in retrospect, but we had a good time. :-)

Wouldn't it be nice...sleep? Don't mind if I do.

This is the cart at the grocery store. They only have one like this. We call it Trucky, and Elly acts like it's a friend of hers. If we're lucky enough to get it, she talks to it like it's a person.
"Bye, Trucky! I'll miss you!"

Drink This.

Drink it, I say!


My sister in law Cindy and her daughter Brooklyn invited Charlie and I to see a production of Annie.

The absolutely loved it. As we were leaving they were asking if there might be a CD with all the songs that they could get.
"I can do you one better," I told them, "there's a movie of it!"
SHRIEK!!
Which reminds me...I need to find that movie for her stocking.

She was like this for two days:

She's crying because I took the Sharpie away. Yes, it's Sharpie. That's why she was like this for two days. I scrubbed and scrubbed but could never get it all off. On the third morning I took her in the shower with me and we sat on the shower floor and played and played and scrubbed and scrubbed until it was finally completely gone.
After the shower I was getting dressed when I noticed this:

I took her down and she immediately ran to the closet to.....

PEE! I like to think she was trying to pee on the toilet :-) She's getting a potty for Christmas now!

Rachael the babysitter at Max's laser tag birthday party.

You can see why I like her. She rules through fear.

Charlie's always getting into my phone. The other day she was texting Quincey and he assumed it was me. She's done that with Rachael too. She texted her (as me) to put the kids to bed at 9 instead of 8. Rachael responds, "OK..you're not coming home??"
I found this self portrait among my phone pictures. I also found an entire conversation of mine and Quincey's video recorded. Eek. Don't do that, kid!


Quinn had her surgery to open her tear ducts a few weeks ago. Mum came along for support which was appreciated by both me and Quinny. :-)


And that's all for now!

Bathroom Mayhem

Just when I'm starting to think how much I looove my toddler Quinny now that she's out of her whiny, nonsleeping baby days I walk in to this:

Ooooh the toddler days! How I have missed thee!
It seems like Elly just grew out of these crazy hijinx. Now I'm there all over again with Quinn.

Quincey got mad at me recently when he got home in the middle of the night from a long flight and found that there was no toilet paper. We had a little midnight spat.
So when I saw this clearly I had to take a photo with my phone and text it to him immediately. It's not me! It's your child!

Don't mess with that girl Quinn..she's got a crazy big brother.

Quinn was pestering Eloise during a playdate today. Elly and her friend started a "game" of sneaking up behind her and pushing her over.
Max was the one who discovered this game and it sent him into a fury of rage.
Enter Mom to sort things out.
Quinn is consoled, Eloise is sent to time out, and Max - still amped up - says: I just love her, Mom!! I would DIE for Quinny!!

Cousins that play together, bathe together..or something like that

About a month ago (still doing some photo downloading catch up :-), Aidan was over to play with Eloise. As has been discussed in great detail before, Aidan and Eloise together are - shall we say...mischievous.
It got quiet and then I heard water running. I know this game.
I go upstairs and as I'm nearing the bathroom I hear this conversation:
Aidan: Hurry up, Peach!
Eloise (whispering): shhhhh! Bowser will hear us, Yoshi!
I walk in and they scream: BOWSER!!!!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Me: Wash the baby while you're at it.