Cool stuff for kids and kids at heart.

My hubby watched an interview with the inventor of these new ‘coloured bubbles’.  He was discussing the trials and tribulations behind developing a bubble that would be brilliantly coloured throughout, be non toxic and non staining.  I heard some of the story from Ken and we decided to look the product up on the internet… Wow. They are called Zubbles.

I will be the first one in Wal-mart when these come out.  We all LOVE bubbles around here and these look like a blast!  If you’ve got kids (and even if you don’t) these will be a must for a good time.

Just doing my Duty as a parent- sharing the ‘wealth’ with other parents out there…
Don’t say I never gave ya’ nothin’.

~jen

Cool stuff for kids and kids at heart.

My hubby watched an interview with the inventor of these new ‘coloured bubbles’.  He was discussing the trials and tribulations behind developing a bubble that would be brilliantly coloured throughout, be non toxic and non staining.  I heard some of the story from Ken and we decided to look the product up on the internet… Wow. They are called Zubbles.

I will be the first one in Wal-mart when these come out.  We all LOVE bubbles around here and these look like a blast!  If you’ve got kids (and even if you don’t) these will be a must for a good time.

Just doing my Duty as a parent- sharing the ‘wealth’ with other parents out there…
Don’t say I never gave ya’ nothin’.

~jen

Catchin’ up with my kids…

I just realized it’s been awhile since I did a kid update, Today seemed like as good a day as any.

I’ll start with the resident ‘maker of trouble’, Nolan.  He’s now quite efficient on two feet.  Surprisingly, he’s not into much more trouble on two legs than he was on four.  He does make a bee-line for the front door anytime it’s open.  It’s a scramble between Piper and him- Who will be first to weasel between my legs and escape out the front door to freedom. And grass. 
He eats like a horse- the only food aversion we’ve discovered so far is Zoodles.  Go figure, soap is quite to his liking but zoodles? You may as well be serving sh*t on a shingle. 
Thanks to his big sister, he’s gone straight from the bottle to juice boxes.  He LOVES drinking out of juice boxes.  He digs them out of the pantry and leaves them strategically placed around the house so i find them and hopefully ‘open’ it for him. At least that is what I think he’s doing.
We’ve added a few more words to his repertoire of rarely used English words.  He can say "Hat", "Pa poo" or "Papa" for Piper.  We are absolutely sure he says "Sanx" (thanks) when you give him a treat.  Also ‘Gogo’ which is a word he created entirely on his own, is used for anything with wheels.  By golly, if you bring a set of wheels into this house- you better be prepared to give them up because he’s all about the "Gogo" this kid.   He’s also into hitting things.  Hitting things with other things. If there was any doubt, we are now positive he’s 100% BOY.
Also, I’m not sure if it’s a stage (hoping) or genes (more than likely) but he’s started having the most unholy of holy fits lately.  The kind that start and continue for what seems like hours as if he’s in a trance, throwing himself all over the place and screeching at the top of his lungs.  Please, someone tell me this is a stage.  I do not remember Paige doing this…

Speaking of Princess Paige,  She’s sure coming into her own now that she’s four.  I’m kind of referring to the a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e.  Wow, already, Everything I say is completely incorrect.  I wasn’t prepared for this to happen so soon.  Most of the time I don’t argue and let her discover that I am, in fact, always right.  Her father has adjusted to it, and soon she too will do the same.  If that wasn’t enough she’s started to tell me off using really big words, like "realistic", "actually", "definitely", "electricity" and I’m sure there are a few more gems that are escaping me right now. 
The passion for fashion is alive and kicking but it seems like she’s not so picky about her clothes (so, being the key word in that phrase).  Something else I completely don’t understand is how she decided to stop maintaining (or letting me maintain) her very long hair.  She finally asked me one morning if we could go to the salon and have it cut.  We were there with bells on and if it’s possible, she looks even more grown up with the shoulder length hair.  She lets me brush it now.  If I chase her.  Don’t ask…
She is still a picky eater- no meat for her please.  However she loves Zoodles, and wieners- both cold.  Go figure. 

Well I should giddy-up and clean house some more, Nolan has pulled out everything within arms reach, ‘mopped’ and ’swept’ my floor and the dog needs to get put outside.

Catch up with ya’ll later,

~jen

Catchin’ up with my kids…

I just realized it’s been awhile since I did a kid update, Today seemed like as good a day as any.

I’ll start with the resident ‘maker of trouble’, Nolan.  He’s now quite efficient on two feet.  Surprisingly, he’s not into much more trouble on two legs than he was on four.  He does make a bee-line for the front door anytime it’s open.  It’s a scramble between Piper and him- Who will be first to weasel between my legs and escape out the front door to freedom. And grass. 
He eats like a horse- the only food aversion we’ve discovered so far is Zoodles.  Go figure, soap is quite to his liking but zoodles? You may as well be serving sh*t on a shingle. 
Thanks to his big sister, he’s gone straight from the bottle to juice boxes.  He LOVES drinking out of juice boxes.  He digs them out of the pantry and leaves them strategically placed around the house so i find them and hopefully ‘open’ it for him. At least that is what I think he’s doing.
We’ve added a few more words to his repertoire of rarely used English words.  He can say "Hat", "Pa poo" or "Papa" for Piper.  We are absolutely sure he says "Sanx" (thanks) when you give him a treat.  Also ‘Gogo’ which is a word he created entirely on his own, is used for anything with wheels.  By golly, if you bring a set of wheels into this house- you better be prepared to give them up because he’s all about the "Gogo" this kid.   He’s also into hitting things.  Hitting things with other things. If there was any doubt, we are now positive he’s 100% BOY.
Also, I’m not sure if it’s a stage (hoping) or genes (more than likely) but he’s started having the most unholy of holy fits lately.  The kind that start and continue for what seems like hours as if he’s in a trance, throwing himself all over the place and screeching at the top of his lungs.  Please, someone tell me this is a stage.  I do not remember Paige doing this…

Speaking of Princess Paige,  She’s sure coming into her own now that she’s four.  I’m kind of referring to the a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e.  Wow, already, Everything I say is completely incorrect.  I wasn’t prepared for this to happen so soon.  Most of the time I don’t argue and let her discover that I am, in fact, always right.  Her father has adjusted to it, and soon she too will do the same.  If that wasn’t enough she’s started to tell me off using really big words, like "realistic", "actually", "definitely", "electricity" and I’m sure there are a few more gems that are escaping me right now. 
The passion for fashion is alive and kicking but it seems like she’s not so picky about her clothes (so, being the key word in that phrase).  Something else I completely don’t understand is how she decided to stop maintaining (or letting me maintain) her very long hair.  She finally asked me one morning if we could go to the salon and have it cut.  We were there with bells on and if it’s possible, she looks even more grown up with the shoulder length hair.  She lets me brush it now.  If I chase her.  Don’t ask…
She is still a picky eater- no meat for her please.  However she loves Zoodles, and wieners- both cold.  Go figure. 

Well I should giddy-up and clean house some more, Nolan has pulled out everything within arms reach, ‘mopped’ and ’swept’ my floor and the dog needs to get put outside.

Catch up with ya’ll later,

~jen

Week overview

First of all I have to apologize for the lack of blog around here.  These home renovations have absolutely drained me and sucked every last second into that old ‘black hole of time’.  I must say though, that it has been worth every bead of sweat I’ve shed this week.  The Kitchen looks stunning.  I have never imagined I would be the Queen, residing over the castle with a kick ass kitchen like this.

Okay, here’s the scoop.  Ken and I went out and bought paint on Thursday.  We literally went with the first paint colour I pulled out of the wall of paint chips (Behr, Granite Boulder).  Ken had the great idea to pick a darker colour for a couple feature walls (Behr, Squirrel).  After full day of painting and making a GInormous mess- we sat back and enjoyed the new, more natural, paint colours. 

At one point, Ken laughed and said "You know, with this colour on the wall, our counter tops don’t look half bad.", I burst out laughing because I’d been thinking the same thing.  With the old, medicinal, green paint colour on the wall, the counter tops looked like a heinous shade of green, puke green really.  Now they look like some kind of beautiful, natural stone surface.  Also, they don’t look at all out of place with all the other new changes we’ve made.   I decided to call the counter top company and ask if it was still possible to cancel our order for new counter tops.  As it turns out, despite being a custom order, it’s perfectly okay to cancel your order at any time (great business!) so I did.  We saved over 600 dollars of our reno budget but I’m sure we have spent that in some other unexpected area (probably not reno related LOL!).  

Then there are the new taps, not the ones I had wanted originally but the finish matches the brushed pewter knobs and the stainless steel sink.  Oh ya, and it has the spray nozzle I’ve been lusting after ever since we moved from our other house (which had one).  What more can a girl ask for??

My hubby deserves a big Hug (and perhaps more) for all the hard work he’s put in to make the kitchen look so stunning.  Currently he’s putting up moulding around the cupboards (you can see it in the photos above if you enlarge them) we can’t finish the bottom molding until we have tiled the back splash- which is be the next project after all my paint mess is cleaned up.

I do have one thing to say about painting, it always seems like a fun thing to do while your in Home depot looking at paint chips.  But once you get home and you’re ten minutes into this labour intensive process… it just blows.  It blows hard because once you start- you are really locked in for the duration of the project.  Unless you like stepping over drop cloths and all the misplaced furniture etc. for days on end.  It’s just a pain in the ass, really.  This feeling is compounded for me because I can’t seem to paint a straight line- I’ve never had a problem painting trim before but GAWD it looks horrible this time around.  No, i didn’t use tape, I hate tape.  Usually I use a little ‘trim edge painter’ thingy, but couldn’t find it this time around.  I bought a fancy (expensive) brush to do trim and it SUCKED.  I’m blaming my troubles on that thing.  Okay, got that out of my system…

I was hoping to have the kids to bed early tonight so i could turn up the tunes and paint and clean and sort through my pantry… Of course Paige decides to fall asleep and promptly wake up again an hour later.  It’s now 1 in the morn and she’s sitting here with me.  I’m NOT impressed.  You know how it feels when you have your heart soooo set on something that is going to be lovely and it just doesn’t pan out???  Heartbreaking you say??  Yes.

Well I am off to bed and I’m taking my 4 year old hemorrhoid with me.
Hugs and kisses,

~jen

Week overview

First of all I have to apologize for the lack of blog around here.  These home renovations have absolutely drained me and sucked every last second into that old ‘black hole of time’.  I must say though, that it has been worth every bead of sweat I’ve shed this week.  The Kitchen looks stunning.  I have never imagined I would be the Queen, residing over the castle with a kick ass kitchen like this.

Okay, here’s the scoop.  Ken and I went out and bought paint on Thursday.  We literally went with the first paint colour I pulled out of the wall of paint chips (Behr, Granite Boulder).  Ken had the great idea to pick a darker colour for a couple feature walls (Behr, Squirrel).  After full day of painting and making a GInormous mess- we sat back and enjoyed the new, more natural, paint colours. 

At one point, Ken laughed and said "You know, with this colour on the wall, our counter tops don’t look half bad.", I burst out laughing because I’d been thinking the same thing.  With the old, medicinal, green paint colour on the wall, the counter tops looked like a heinous shade of green, puke green really.  Now they look like some kind of beautiful, natural stone surface.  Also, they don’t look at all out of place with all the other new changes we’ve made.   I decided to call the counter top company and ask if it was still possible to cancel our order for new counter tops.  As it turns out, despite being a custom order, it’s perfectly okay to cancel your order at any time (great business!) so I did.  We saved over 600 dollars of our reno budget but I’m sure we have spent that in some other unexpected area (probably not reno related LOL!).  

Then there are the new taps, not the ones I had wanted originally but the finish matches the brushed pewter knobs and the stainless steel sink.  Oh ya, and it has the spray nozzle I’ve been lusting after ever since we moved from our other house (which had one).  What more can a girl ask for??

My hubby deserves a big Hug (and perhaps more) for all the hard work he’s put in to make the kitchen look so stunning.  Currently he’s putting up moulding around the cupboards (you can see it in the photos above if you enlarge them) we can’t finish the bottom molding until we have tiled the back splash- which is be the next project after all my paint mess is cleaned up.

I do have one thing to say about painting, it always seems like a fun thing to do while your in Home depot looking at paint chips.  But once you get home and you’re ten minutes into this labour intensive process… it just blows.  It blows hard because once you start- you are really locked in for the duration of the project.  Unless you like stepping over drop cloths and all the misplaced furniture etc. for days on end.  It’s just a pain in the ass, really.  This feeling is compounded for me because I can’t seem to paint a straight line- I’ve never had a problem painting trim before but GAWD it looks horrible this time around.  No, i didn’t use tape, I hate tape.  Usually I use a little ‘trim edge painter’ thingy, but couldn’t find it this time around.  I bought a fancy (expensive) brush to do trim and it SUCKED.  I’m blaming my troubles on that thing.  Okay, got that out of my system…

I was hoping to have the kids to bed early tonight so i could turn up the tunes and paint and clean and sort through my pantry… Of course Paige decides to fall asleep and promptly wake up again an hour later.  It’s now 1 in the morn and she’s sitting here with me.  I’m NOT impressed.  You know how it feels when you have your heart soooo set on something that is going to be lovely and it just doesn’t pan out???  Heartbreaking you say??  Yes.

Well I am off to bed and I’m taking my 4 year old hemorrhoid with me.
Hugs and kisses,

~jen

Kitchen Renos are in da House!

This is a photo of Our kitchen a couple days ago (minus one of the lower cabinet doors…).  We are in the middle of a kitchen renovation and I’m so excited about it!  So far we have had brand new cupboard doors installed and my amazingly talented (and HOT) hubby is working on installing crown moulding along the tops of the cupboards and a small skirting along the bottoms.  The bottom skirting is going to hide the under cabinet lighting that we (by we, I mean an electrician friend) will be installing at a later date.  Also, we are awaiting our new counter tops that have the look and feel of real slate.  They feature a little bit of a raised ‘rock’ texture that I’m quite excited about.  I was going to go all out on a new sink and taps but the sinks available around here left a lot to be desired.  Instead, I’ve decided to go all out on new taps. 

The second photo is the installation of the new doors.  Please excuse the messy kitchen, I cleaned for his arrival and he pulled stuff out of the cabinets to make room to work.  But really, my standards of tidy are not that high… so what, burn me at the stake.  Anyway, The new doors are what they call ‘thermofoil’.  They manufacture the doors and then vacuum seal some type of laminate product to the outside.  Less expensive than custom crafted doors but compared to what we had before (with the gorgeous green side trim) these are a stunning change.  I picked a Nantucket ‘beadboard’ style.

Dave (seen in the second photo) came in today to install the drawer fronts and the knobs.  As it turns out, he needed to take the drawers to his shop for a ‘fitting’ but the knobs look stunning!  I made a nice choice, even if I do say so myself. Probably next week I’m going to be going over the entire kitchen with a paint brush and a nice new neutral colour.  I’m thinking of a warm grey colour but I haven’t made up my mind yet.  Time for the medicinal pastel green to go BYE-BYE.

After we have all of those things done, we are going to be installing a new tile back splash which my neighbour ‘Naked Dave’ the residential tile specialist- said he could help me out with.  I have something natural like a tumbled style tile… we’ll see what the budget allows for at that point.  This will be topped off with a new sheer blind for the widow.  Can’t you just see it in your mind’s eye???  Aren’t you excited???
Ya I know, it’s going to be stunning.

So that’s what we are busy with around here… tonight Suz and I are going to see the Davinci Code, can’t wait for that either!!
Next blog… my new glasses and hair colour. 

~jen

Kitchen Renos are in da House!

This is a photo of Our kitchen a couple days ago (minus one of the lower cabinet doors…).  We are in the middle of a kitchen renovation and I’m so excited about it!  So far we have had brand new cupboard doors installed and my amazingly talented (and HOT) hubby is working on installing crown moulding along the tops of the cupboards and a small skirting along the bottoms.  The bottom skirting is going to hide the under cabinet lighting that we (by we, I mean an electrician friend) will be installing at a later date.  Also, we are awaiting our new counter tops that have the look and feel of real slate.  They feature a little bit of a raised ‘rock’ texture that I’m quite excited about.  I was going to go all out on a new sink and taps but the sinks available around here left a lot to be desired.  Instead, I’ve decided to go all out on new taps. 

The second photo is the installation of the new doors.  Please excuse the messy kitchen, I cleaned for his arrival and he pulled stuff out of the cabinets to make room to work.  But really, my standards of tidy are not that high… so what, burn me at the stake.  Anyway, The new doors are what they call ‘thermofoil’.  They manufacture the doors and then vacuum seal some type of laminate product to the outside.  Less expensive than custom crafted doors but compared to what we had before (with the gorgeous green side trim) these are a stunning change.  I picked a Nantucket ‘beadboard’ style.

Dave (seen in the second photo) came in today to install the drawer fronts and the knobs.  As it turns out, he needed to take the drawers to his shop for a ‘fitting’ but the knobs look stunning!  I made a nice choice, even if I do say so myself. Probably next week I’m going to be going over the entire kitchen with a paint brush and a nice new neutral colour.  I’m thinking of a warm grey colour but I haven’t made up my mind yet.  Time for the medicinal pastel green to go BYE-BYE.

After we have all of those things done, we are going to be installing a new tile back splash which my neighbour ‘Naked Dave’ the residential tile specialist- said he could help me out with.  I have something natural like a tumbled style tile… we’ll see what the budget allows for at that point.  This will be topped off with a new sheer blind for the widow.  Can’t you just see it in your mind’s eye???  Aren’t you excited???
Ya I know, it’s going to be stunning.

So that’s what we are busy with around here… tonight Suz and I are going to see the Davinci Code, can’t wait for that either!!
Next blog… my new glasses and hair colour. 

~jen

More birthday photos

I took some time last night to upload the majority of the photos from Paige’s princess birthday party.  It was a lot of fun for the girls. Thanks to all my friends for their assistance, I tend to get scatter brained at times like those.

Enjoy the slide show!

Next, I’m going to be blogging about my new glasses, possibly my new cupboards, sink, countertops and shiney taps.  I’m so excited!

I’m off to the home of the depot and other misc. errands…
have a lovely long weekend peeps,

~jen

My Baby girl is 4 today!

My baby girl is 4 years old today.  I can’t believe it.   Where does the time go?  It seems like only yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital.  Now she’s doing things on her own (when she wants) and living the life of a happy, ‘grown up’ four year old. Just the other day, we were colouring together and listening to accuradio when Madonna’s latest came on.  Paige said to me, "Mom, this girl sings very well.  Just about as good as me."  I laughed even though you are completely right.  The sound of your voice in song just melts my heart in a million proud pieces.   Madonna has never and will never do that to me.  So grown up.

Even though the days are still frustrating as we learn to push each others buttons on a daily basis, the fun times are too numerous to count and make it all worthwhile.  Over the last four years I’ve come to appreciate the colour pink, bows, books and the beach. A few of her milestones have been; learning to ride her bike with training wheels as well as her scooter, also, She now draws pictures that are rich in detail and have equally complex story lines to accompany them  (one of these days I will get around to posting some of her artwork).  She is a super-big help with her little brother and she loves him very much and doesn’t mind telling you.  I’m so proud that she has grown into such a loving big sister and a helpful daughter.  Over the last year we have noticed that she has a real passion for fashion (just like her Aunty Jessie) with a particular love for all things footwear.  Her favorite colour is yellow and if the yellow has some sparkles in, on or around it, even better. This year has seen her grow past her love for Dora the Explorer and into a love for the Disney Princesses and Barbies.  Thank goodness her dad has a good job because those Barbies ain’t cheap.  Of course, we spoil her and she has more toys than she probably deserves- most definitely more than any child needs.  I can’t help myself.  I love her so much, her happiness is my happiness even if that means I’m rotting her from the inside out.  There’s probably a lot Dr. Phil would have to say to me about that, but I think we have a happy balance worked out.
There are so many things I wish for her in the following year- but mostly I wish her days filled with family, friends, fun, and many happy memories.  That’s what it’s all about.

I love you Punky,
Mom
(& your dad and brother love you too!!)