Rockin' with God and Snow White
Last night I had the pleasure of watching my dh's long time friend play bass with our worship team. He was having a fine time and for some reason last night the band was in a groovin' mode and they were just jammin' all over the place. I can't even describe what they did but when the did some stuff with All Honour, the hairs on my arm stood on end. Seriously. That good. Then, cause I was there and watching after the other singers had gone, I got to go up with Al (our tenor) and we sang The River. It was so cool. Al started doing this thing he does, which is powerful and rather distracting at the same time, but I just closed my eyes and did my thing... which, admittedly, is not so powerful. Then the Worship leader came in with these harmonies and it was just, well, fun. So fun. After we were finished our keyboard player was a bit awed himself and he said "hey, I thought we weren't supposed to have fun here." I went home a happy girl. Even though my ear drums are still filled with fluid it was all good there last night. We were rockin' with God and lovin' it.
I think the antibiotics are finally kicking in, with the help of the decongestants the doctor finally told me to take. The baby was taken off the antibiotics since they were making him sick and both he and #2 child are on a nebulizer at the clinic every day. Yeah us! I'm on an allnighter with Burnett tonight, I shouldn't be going because my immune system might not do well but I'm the only female chaperone as far as I know and there are a lot of teenage girls there so... that's the way it is.
Now...rockin' with snow white and some other princesses too:
This is #2 child getting ready for preschool dress up day. The last photo was a playdate with Cinderella and Ariel. Ariel belongs to 3 kids lots of fun.
Matching antibiotics, at least we're in season
Yes, #3 child and I have matching antibiotics. Mine are for a double ear infection and his are for a chest infection. We're feeling nasty folks. To top it off the antibiotics are doing a number on our stomachs and I won't regale you with any more of that but you obviously know where I'm going with it.
I think it got so bad for me because I've been ignoring the headache/dizziness for a couple of weeks and just kept pushing through. I thought it was any number of things but I did not think of an ear infection as I've never had one before. It wasn't until I was looking at a friend on Saturday and realized that everything she said was coming through a fog, and that flames felt like they were dancing up my neck, that I decided perhaps it was time to see a doctor.
I probably still wouldn't have gone (I have a lot to do and no time to sit in a clinic, what can I say I'm not a big fan of doctors, I saw enough when I was pg) except for #3 was making horrible wheezing noises that were freaking me out so off the two of us went. Well you know that someone was looking out for us because there was not one other person in that clinic waiting room. I actually thought they were closed but nope just not busy for the first time in, well, they've never not been busy when I've been there. We were whisked right into a room the doctor listened to the baby and gave me a prescription, looked in my ears and gaving me the matching adult one. We were in and out in 15 minutes, maybe less.
It actually took longer to get the prescription filled that to see the doctor. By the time I finally got it I thought #3 and I were going to fall asleep on the shopping cart.
Anyway, here we are still not feeling great. We pushed through some had to do things on the weekend, ie #1 child's baptism (photos below courtesty of 3 kids lots of fun) but now we are calling everything else off. #3 has a very husky baby voice, which is rather strange, and my ears feel like they are going to explode with any noise. Living in a house with three children is not exactly quiet.
I am going to try and do nothing for the next couple of days as I head into a weekend where I have a large number of commitments, not the least of which is chaperoning a bunch of teens on a Church all-nighter. There needs to be a female chaperone, you understand.
Anyway, on a postitive note here are pics of my #1 child being baptised. Again, photo credits to 3 kids lots of fun:
Running on empty
So much to do so little time. Where does the time go? We have obviously overbooked ourselves and find, between the five of us, we have something to do every day. This is in addition to work and school and normal life. These are extra things. Oh you say, well you shouldn't sign your kids up to so much stuff. No, it's not just our kids it's us. Dh and I each work with a different age group of youths. Him on Thursdays with grades 5-7 and me on Fridays with grades 8-12. This is in addition ot other ministry we are both involved in and classes we are taking and classes the kids are taking. It is very rewarding but we realize we are starting to not find any time for ourselves. Ha - no wonder our house is never totally clean. I do start it but it seems by the time I've done one area and move on the first area needs help again.
We still have boxes we need to unpack which makes me think we honestly don't need that stuff. Unfortunately, some of it is books and we don't have a bookshelf because our last place had built-in's so now we need bookshelves. ANother large box is all loose photos that need to be sorted and taken care of properly. Who has time for that?
I spend a lot of time in the car driving around (not as much as another mother of 3 I know but I actually live in town!).
Are all the things we are doing worth all of this? Well, actually, yes. Giving back to our Church is important to Steve and I, the kids are doing things they love and, well, their schools just happen to be on opposite ends of town, so what can you do? Suck it up and deal I guess. I will admit I was happy when dh was home early enough yesterday to pick up #1 child and friend from choir, drop the other child off and then we decided to skip swimming as both of our older children are fighting yet another cold.
We had 3 hours of us all home at the same time and it was great, until we realized that all of us were home at the same time! Nah, just kidding.
This is dedicated to the one I love
I really love them all but in particular it was #3 child who was dedicated yesterday. It was very lovely and almost my whole family showed up. My brother ended up stuck in Pender Harbour as the weather was too bad for them to get home or something. He is only home for a short time from Iraq where he is deployed with the US Special Services. I am proud of him but scared all the time as well, and I know that when he is here I only get to see him for about 1/2 hour so I was sad that he couldn't make it. Anyway, a lot of others did make it...my Mom and step-father, my step-sister and her fiance, my best friend and her fiance, and a few other really good friends, including the singer extraordinaire whom I adore and haven't seen for a month or so. There were others too who go to our church but usually different services. I felt bad because I just didn't get a chance to talk to everyone but it was nice to see them all. I know for some it was a long trek out for a 5 minute piece of the overall service but dh and I appreciated it so much.
#3 child was so cute and very happy. He had no problems with Pastor D holding him and in fact, was playing with his chin during the prayer. Unfortunately, my friend with my camera didn't feel it was appropriate to take photos during this time so we have none of this. We do have one of dh, me and #3 but it is not good so there. Sara informs me that there was someone running around the back of the church taking photos so hopefully they will come forward and share as we'd really like one of Pastor D and #3. Therefore I will just show some photos I took of #3 in the last day or two before his dedication:
The dedication was beautiful and I didn't even cry. I didn't have to speak so that's probably why I was able to keep it together. That and the fact that the lights were blinding me and I was trying to keep the baby from pulling my top down in front of the whole congregation. Pastor S was laughing silently at that.
All in all it was a very good day. Next Sunday #1 child has chosen to be baptised...his idea, his thing. I am so blessed.
Alive with Coffee
I saw this on a writer friend's
blog and loved it.
Latte anyone?
EDITED TO NOTE: Apparently after this video runs it comes up with three more videos and some are of questionable content. I was not aware of that until yesterday...I have posted this here because it is a very enjoyable little video about dancing coffee, nothing more. If you choose to click on any links once it ends that is up to you but I have not chosen any of those, I believe they are different each time. I am ONLY interested in this one, the coffee video.
Latte Art - video powered by Metacafe
Ahh, the giving of Thanks
Having just finished my leftover turkey lunch I thought it was appropritate to write about our Thanksgiving. It was fun and yummy and a good time was had by all. It was a quiet year this year and it was only us and Nic and Harald but that was really nice for a change. I started doing Thanksgiving dinners in my early 20's for all my friends without homes or family's close by and it just grew as people got married, hooked up or basically just brought more people! LOL. The biggest I did was 18 people and that was too much. By the time I got done heating everything up the first thing was starting to get cold again and, at the time, I had an eensy weensy kitchen that was just not made for that amount of work.
I like cooking Thanksgiving dinner (well, except for when I'm pregnant because stuffing the raw turkey is just too much for me) and find it very relaxing to cook. I used to make a big deal about it and start cooking the day before (usually because I used to make two or three different kinds of pies) but now I have it down and just putter away on that day. I try to change it up a bit every year but we always have my Wild Drunken Yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey of course (I use the Look bags and they are excellent), carrots (this year I made my Nana's sukotash), brussel sprouts (we actually like them) and some miscellaneous other items. This year I cheated on the pies and had Nic bring them. And she cheated and bought them BUT I made whipped cream for them. I also made my own homemade cranberry sauce (for the turkey not the pie! LOL) which is so easy peasy and tastes way better.
I am thankful for a lot this year...my wonderful husband who is my best friend, my beautiful (inside and out) children including my sweetie #3 who was still floating inside me this time last year, my family and friends. I give thanks and all the credit to the Lord who helps me every day to see what He has given me.
If it walks like an angel and talks like angel then....
Yeah, okay, I know he can't walk or talk yet (although he does say bababahda yayaya very well) but he is an angel to me.
How famous am I?
Jenna posted this on her blog and I thought it was fun so I tried it. I forgot to put my picture in there where that shaded person is but apparently I look a little like these lovely celebrities! :-) LOL
You load your photo up in to their site and they use this face recognition software to generate this information. Pretty cool, I'd say. Now if only I could have any of these ladies' money or bodies I'd be good to go. Ah well, I'm sure I'm way happier and more content in my life anyway.
Sweet, sweet things
Inspired by my friend Becky (see her blog link to the right), I set about making some English Muffins. I love english muffins and what could be better than homemade, right? The recipe looked easy enough so with #1's help we started making them. THe process was quite simple and I have to admit I cheated and used my KitchenAid instead of doing it by hand the way Becky's recipe suggests but it seems to have worked just fine.
Here's a photo of them right after we cut them out (they aren't perfectly round as my helper was having trouble getting them from where we cut them out to the cookie sheet but they are still a thing of beauty to me!):
The only trouble I had was when I let them sit to rise I didn't realize that my kitchen wasn't very warm so they really weren't rising that well. So, I turned the oven on to the lowest setting, turned off and then put them in there and that was much better.
Also, I don't have a griddle just an electric fry pan so I used that. It worked pretty well I just had to watch for hot spots and move the english muffins around but they still turned out great (in my opinion).
We had one untoasted just because it was still warm and the kids were so excited.
Toasted they were unbelievable. We went all the way and had breakfast for dinner last night just so we could eat these right away. Sweet, sweet goodness they were I tell you.
We had a lovely smoked turkey and cheese omelette (well more like a scramble because apparently someone used a metal utensil in my non-stick pan and it is no longer non-stick), hot chocolate and these english muffins. Not exactly a balanced meal (I couldn't decide what vegetable I should serve and I decided the onions in the omelette would have to do because it was getting way too late) but it was oh, so good. The kids didn't even notice the onions in the omelette.
