Thank you for not smoking Grandpa.

The other night Ken came home from his Poker night smelling of cigar smoke.  While snuggling with Paige she made mention of his smell.  Upon hearing his explanation of the origin of the smell she commented, "Poppa Smokes (my father in law does) and my Granpa Al smokes weeds."

Ken and I burst out laughing, and I asked her what she meant.

"Granpa Al smokes weeds in his back yard.", she said.

I knodded my head and told her she was right, you see my dad has a nasty habit of trying to burn grass clippings and other green yard refuse in the backyard firepit.  This creates the most thick, acrid smoke, that I’m sure the neighbors love him for.
So Grandpa Al, please stop smoking weeds LOL!

We love ya anyway, Hope the knee is treating you well!

~jen

I’m a proud Mama today.

Today Paige passed the second level of her preschool swimming lessons! She’s now officially a ‘Floating Frog". I watched the class today (normally I’m distracted dealing with Nolan) and watched her dive off the edge of the pool and swim back all by herself. I can’t believe it, I was afraid of water until I taught myself how to swim at the age of 9. I think it’s so great that she loves the water, and I’m a tad jealous of her fearless-ness. I’m looking forward to the next level… Ocean Otters!!

As for Nolan, he also made me proud this morning.  After swimming lessons, Paige was eating a muffin.  Nolan was making gestures that he wanted a bite so Paige tore off a chunk and passed it over.  I told Nolan to say Thank you to his sister.  He said "You.".  So I repeated, "Nolan say Thank you.".  He then replied "Tink you."  He was rewarded with cheers from Paige and myself.  He’s learning words at a fast pace right now and he keeps catching me off guard with new words.  I’m going to work up a list of words for the baby book that I’ve been neglecting (bad mom!). 

Anyway- I’ve got two kids that may need a bit of a nap and I have laundry coming out of the ying yangs.  So I better get to it..

Have a great day,

~jen

Yoga in my life

While my sister was here she was turning me (and all my neighbors) on to Yoga.  One day she did a yoga lesson with Paige and Paige, though distracted, seemed to enjoy it.   Yesterday I watched as Paige carefully laid a blanket out on the living room floor and proceeded to perform her own version of the yoga moves.  I was impressed because she was even concentrating on doing the moves slow and controlled.  So far, Paige’s yoga initiative has greatly outshone my own.  Jessica, you did good!  As soon as I find a yoga class for kids, I’m going to enroll her.

Life is sweet.

Hope everyone is having a great day today- where ever you are and whatever you are doing.  I’m going to try to get my face into the expression my daughter has in the photo above at least once today- an expression of pure, unadulterated joy.

I may have to use a couple beers to do it, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

~jen

Holy Hiatus Batman!

my sister’s visit has been keeping me on my toes, with no real time to sit down and write a proper blog.  Today I find myself with a few extra minutes so blogging it is!

We’ve been busy going to see the sites, taking Paige to her swimming lessons everymorning and hitting the gym several times- not to mention Shopping!  The kids are a serious style cramper so I don’t know if Jess got to do everything she wanted but I hope it was a nice relaxing time for her anyway.  This morning she woke up with a severe stomach bug and has been throwing up all morning.  Not good on the day she’s supposed to fly home.  Poor girl!

I’ve added scads of photos to flickr, This is Jessica’s visit, and this is our camping trip.  I haven’t added all the photos to ‘jessica’s visit’ album yet but hopefully I’ll get that done tonight.

Anyway, i should run- someone want’s a ‘bubba’.

Take care,

~jen

Teepee Park, here we come!

Just to let you guys know that the family is heading out for a 2 day camping trip.  I won’t be blogging while I’m gone but BY golly when I get back- I’ll have a lot to say, I’m sure of it.

Also, We’ll be picking my sister up at the Comox airport on our way home- We can’t wait to see her! We are going to had a wonderful aroma of camping on us when we get her but I don’t think she’ll mind.

Anyway, See you all in a couple days!  Wish me luck, camping with a one year old is not my idea of a good time…

~jen

On Vox: Digi-scrappin’ once again…

I’ve been trying to get back on the digital scrapbooking train lately.  Since I’ve bought several scrapbooks that need to be filled and I have a hard drive full of photos that need to be scrapped, I have no excuses.  The other night I had chosesn some of my recent favorite photos and worked on a layout to near completion when I stopped to put the kids to bed.  When I came back to the computer Ken told me it was frozen and he had to reboot, without saving my layout.  poo.  Not to worry, I quickly worked up another one that I like even more than the original.  Take a look- see…

» Read more on Vox

Words of Wisdom from the King

I’ve been trying all day to post this to my blog but Typepad has been ‘utta utta’ (out of order).

I was invited (okay, I asked to be invited- Thanks Dee!) to try out a new blog service called- VOX (like I need another one).  Mainly- it looked cool, it was free, produced by sixapart (same company as Typepad) and it was free.  Free stuff is cool.  Vox has a feature where I can cross post blogs from there to here which is pretty cool and I may try that out for awhile.  Don’t worry, I’m not moving permanently, Don’t bother bookmarking the other blog- this is just a fun little experiment and a way to lock-in my blog name should I ever see a need to move in the future.  There is also a great community over there which would be nice to take advantage of.

Anyway- I’m glad I finally was able to blog today, better late than never! 

I’ll be posting more later if Typepad cooperates.

Hugs and blogs a plenty,

~jen

Cranky ankle

I went in today for my wonky ankle.  Actually i woke up this morning thinking "Wow, it feels pretty good, it must be getting better."

Of course I’ve said this to myself every morning for the last two weeks. Then I try and walk normally down the stairs… And I nearly collapse when I apply my full body weight on my left foot.  It feels as though my leg bone is trying to poke through the bottom of my foot.  Later on in the morning Paige stepped on the back of my flip flop which made my foot twist funny and the pain was back to square one again.  So off to the doc I went. 

He told me that my ankle was indeed sprained, it rated a 2 on a scale from 1 to 3.  He also told me there was nothing I could do to make it feel better except take it easy on it.  I left with a referral for some physio therapy and my ever present painful limp.  When I got home I looked up my injury a little further (thanks to google) and said that my ankle should be stabilized for a couple weeks to let the injured tendons heal.  Repeated injury of the tendons could lead to a chronic condition. 

Why didn’t the doctor mention this???  I have re-rolled the ankle several times since the original injury which only makes sense because now the ankle has been weakened and it can’t hold itself in position like it could before.  Doctors really tick me off sometimes. Even Suzanne told me to wrap it right away, ya i know, i didn’t.  I think I’ll stick with Suz for my medical care from now on.

So tomorrow, I’m going to buy a neoprene ankle brace (thanks for the tip Jes!) a large bottle of ibuprofen.  Also, the doctor recommended I start aerobics to strengthen my ankles which ain’t going to happen.  I flippin’ hate aerobics.  But I’ll find some other techniques, thanks anyway. If all goes well my ankle should be nearly up to original strength in ohhh, about 6 months.

Fun times.

Anyway, that’s the cranky ankle update… I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it as time rolls on.

~jen

Around here…

I haven’t had a lot to blog about in particular but I feel like writing so here’ goes.  Ken is on a few days off so he’s planned to complete several household duties that need to be done.  A busy Ken is a happy Ken, so he says.  That’s all right with me. 

Nolan has been really clingy lately- not sure what’s going on with him but I’m going completely mental!  I do remember this from when Paige was this age so I find solace in knowing that this is just a stage.