I blinked. And my baby turned two.

It was at about this time two years ago that I was in a hospital BEGGING for drugs as I was in intense labour with Renee. I always thought that by the time kiddo number three came along that the whole delivery and birthing thing would be a breeze. How wrong I was. She was by far the hardest and most painful to deliver - but oh so worth it.

As I was leaving the hospital, the midwife mentioned that if she hadn't seen me actually give birth to Renee she'd swear I was leaving the hospital with the wrong baby. Those asian genes sure give the pool a good shake up.





The midwife came by the house a few days later to check up on us. If I had known how awesome having a midwife was, I would have done it with all three kids. The care was out of this world. Nick wanted to be weighed next - he thought that weighing Renee "old school" was about the coolest thing ever.



Of course, grandpa had other ways of measuring Renee - unconventional for sure, but effective.

With two big brothers, it sometimes was pretty tough work being the baby (and only girl).

And that hair! It was wild when it was dry, curly when wet, and RED.

Right from day one she has tried to keep up with her brothers

Even when it comes to eating, she will not be outdone. EVER. She is her mother's daughter.

I am slowly learning how to do her hair - when she lets me....

Often though, she'll just do her own thing.

Happy birthday sweet girl!!!

It's been a rough couple of weeks

I've been a bit light on the posting, partly because I am up to my eyeballs in marking, and partly because I have got at least one of my kids glued to some part of me for most of the day.

The roughest part of the last couple of weeks though is that a good friend of mine lost her husband - he was only 39. She has two young kids and is still trying to comprehend how she is going to go on without him. They were an amazing couple - always together. He worked mostly at night, so during the day he was with the family. In fact on the day he had his stroke she told me that they had such nice day together and I think she is really happy to hold onto that special memory.

Today was his funeral. It was hard. So so hard. He was so young - he has two small kids. We are all still trying to comprehend why.

I knew it was too good to be true.

As I was coming home from picking Nick up from preschool yesterday I was thinking how nice it was that the last patch of snow in our front yard (you know, the snow from the snowstorms from LAST YEAR) just melted. We just had a few really nice sunny (but chilly) days, and I thought that we had all the white crap behind us.

Well mother nature had other ideas. Big fat huge fluffy flakes fell yesterday afternoon, well into the night. My poor poor flowers. What makes this even harder is that we are supposed to be in New Zealand right now, sunning our butts on a beach, and attending the wedding of a very close family friend. Not too sure how Renee would have made out on a 15 hour flight though!

A little snippit from each of them.

Ethan walks in the door from school and the smell of home baking just about knocks him over. He runs into the kitchen, and asked what I had baked.

"Banana bread" I told him.

Ethan: "Is it the healthy stuff?"

Me: "Yes"

Ethan: "It smells awesome, but if it is healthy, I don't want any."

(he did finish all his broccoli at dinner though)

__________________________________________________________

I was picking Nicholas up at preschool the other day and he saw a sign with a tow truck towing a car on it.

Nick: "Mom, what does that sign mean?"

Me: "If someone parks there for more than 10 minutes, the tow truck will come and tow them away."

Nick: "Do they tow you away to a better parking spot?"

Me: "No, they tow you to a special parking lot far away and then you give them money to get your car back."

Nick: "I want to be a tow truck driver when I am a big boy!"

___________________________________________________________________

Renee was chomping on a piece of celery when she bit her tongue. She screamed, but was upset at the fact that her mouth was still full pulverized celery. So I put my hand under her mouth and told her to "spit it out". And she did. All over my face, all over my shirt, and all over my pants. I wonder where she learned that from.

My Flowers

Not your typical shot, but here is are a couple of the flowers from the bunch I got from Ken recently. The one below reminds me of a sea anemone. I almost expect Nemo to be coming out at any minute...

My present to myself

necklace, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

A few months ago while cruising through my friend Erin's blog, I came across a post she did about a woman on ETSY that makes personalized necklaces. Even though I am not much of a jewelery person, I fell in love with the idea of this and went ahead and had one made for myself. I got it a few months ago, but in my usual lazy posting style, just haven't mentioned it yet.

The ETSY site (birthdesigns) is closed for awhile - she is busy having baby number four and I guess the necklace making has been put to the back burner for a bit. If you want to have a look at her other stuff though, she does have a webpage here. This particular necklace is the mother's circle, front toggle version. My photo doesn't do it much justice.

Super(toilet)Bowl Weekend

I was in the other room when I heard a mad dash, a skidding stop, and a sound of a tidal wave hitting the lino in the kitchen. I ran across the house to find Nicholas dazed and a bit confused, and most of the kitchen covered in vomit. The first thing out of his mouth was:

"mommy, aren't you so proud of me for throwing up in the kitchen and not on the carpet?". Indeed I am.

We had a discussion a few months ago about good places to throw up, and not so good places. Toilet bowl? Best place. Kitchen floor? Next best place. Carpet? Terrible place. So my sweet wee middle child, while snuggled deep in the couch under a few blankets had the wherewithal to dash about 20 feet to spray my kitchen with vomit. He hit almost every surface (I am sure that had something to do with something I should be remembering from Physics 12), but at least they were non-porous, non-carpeted surfaces.

I didn't get off scott free though. About 15 minutes later I started. Thankfully I made it to the bathroom. That night was hell (compounded by the fact Ken was out with a few friends and had no idea of the mayhem he was missing out on at home).

The next day Ken spent the day looking after a sick wife and a sick kid. The two non-sick kids thought they had hit the jackpot because the tv was on ALL DAY. On Treehouse. Ken also found the time to install a brand new toilet in our bathroom. And that night, he spend the better part of the evening christening it. With puke.

So, what were you doing on January 20th?

When my kids are older, and they ask me what I was doing on Obama's inaguaration day, I can tell them that I had a pretty amazing day. Highlights:

Went to the Canada passport office to get passports for the youngest two. Fully prepared to be there all morning waiting to get them processed. I was in and out of there in half an hour. Sweet.

Spent the next couple of hours in a coffee shop reading a book. Drinking far too much coffee. No kids. Heaven.

Since I was in downtown Vancouver (and it was a beautiful day) I decided to go to the only store that sells shoes big enough to fit me. I found a pair. ON SALE.

Met Ken for lunch. We had sushi. It was awesome.

Drove home - not alot of traffic.

Booked our trip that we are going on with the kids in April. Got a great deal through a great agent who gave us a few extra perks. The kids will love it - they don't know about it yet.

So that was the goings on on the big day in these parts. I would have LOVED to be a part of the crowd in DC, but through an online friend who told me about this link (thanks Jeannie!) I could have a look at what I was missing out on. It is amazing, and a bit scary all at the same time. Just imagine being about a mile back from the action and still being able to see someone up close and clearly online. The guy who captured the shot did it as follows (this is copied from his web page):

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.


So here is the web page where you can find this amazing photo - enjoy!

If you have some time to spare

Carrot Time
Originally uploaded by Back in the Pack

Check out this flickr site, especially her videos. I came across these as I was reading one of my favourite bloggers, Dooce.

The kids have been entertained, and now the "when are we going to get a dog" whining has started. I am so tempted to go to Youtube and download video of someone picking up dog crap (I am sure it won't be too hard to find). Maybe I should forward said dog crap video to my neigbour, who still doesn't get it.

Chocolate and sushi - what a combo.

So the amazing Mel has done it again - here is the birthday cake she did for me this year. All edible and all delicious. I just might have to eat a piece of sushi with my coffee in the morning.

So if the car makers can get it, why not the porn stars?

At first I thought this was a joke - but apparently not. As Nicholas would say "You have GOT to be kidding me".

All that white crap has to go somewhere.

So now we wait for the big melt.

We had snow, then ice, then the ice melted with that wee bit of sun we got a few days ago. Then more snow. Now rain.

So all the snow on the roof is slowly starting to slide off (this chunk hasn't fallen yet)

Last night with a big BANG a huge chunk came off the roof and it broke our outdoor metal table. I didn't like the table much, but I sure am glad that there was no-one standng near it when it happened.

The REAL cost of a Wii.

So Ken and I were chatting about getting a Wii (it sure would have come in handy while I was housebound and snowed in during 10 days over school holidays!). I am hesitant because I don't want to be playing video games all day. I am not too worried about the kids - as long as they get to play a bit every day they will be happy. Ken tells me that Wii fit will help me get into shape, and there is stuff on there that we both could do to improve our health...

As we were discussing the pros and cons (Ken is very pro, I am not quite there yet), Ken innocently says to me

"Anna, because the TV is so old, we'll need to get a new one so the Wii will work".

Hmm...anything for a new huge flat screen that we don't need (at least until the current old box craps out). And then he says

"If we spend all that money on a new TV, we'll have to get a stereo system as well".

Uh huh.

"And if we have HDTV, then we really should subscribe to HDTV through the cable company so we get full value".

"Oh, and what do you think about Blu Ray"?

So this new Wii, along with a Wii fit is really going to cost us almost $2000. Don't think we'll be getting a new Wii anytime soon.

PhotoFunia Fun

Thanks to the wonderful Erin for the link to this site!

One day I will stop blogging about all the snow...

Li in the backyard
Originally uploaded by sassyanna

Here is a video of my brother's dog who was hanging with us for a couple of days. Lionel just LOVES snowballs, but hasn't quite figured out how to retrieve them in one piece.

Oh, and pardon Ken's ass at the end - he wasn't too impressed either, and will be more unimpressed that this video is online.

On a side note - I am trying to get a nice picture of our Christmas tree and would really like to have the kids in their pj's in the photo as well. Ethan refuses because he doesn't want the world to see him in his jammies. Oh it is not like the 70's when all our pj's pics were just put in an album!

December 24th is not Christmas Eve in our house...

It is my mom's birthday. And this year, the amazing cake lady "M" did a take on my mom's New Zealand heritage with a bit of a Canadian twist. I have talked about her previous creations here.

This little kiwi bird is all decked out in Canada gear, and knitting up a storm. Oh, and the cake tasted fantastic too.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

Ah...lots of the white stuff. The stuff that makes it impossible to get up to our house without four-wheel-drive. The stuff that keeps you housebound for a bit. I don't think I have got out of my pj's for a couple of days now. If I don't have to go anywhere I love the stuff!

Nicholas-ism (Part two).

Tonight I was sitting on the couch with Renee just having a cuddle. Our coffee table is the same height as the couch, and just far enough away that if I am sitting with my legs straight out my feet rest at the edge of the table. The kids of course think this is an open invitation to stand on my legs, (much like a gymnastics beam), swing over them, crawl under them, you get the idea.

So along comes Nick, and he proceeds to lie on top of my legs, and wrap his arms around my thighs, his legs around my calves, and then hangs himself upside down.

"Mom, I am going to just hang here like a sloth"

About five minutes later he tells me:

"Mom, it is such hard work being a sloth, isn't it?"

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have to do that kind of hard work for about half an hour....

Nicholas "ism"

"Mommy, I want to go and play in the snow!"

"Ok honey, make sure that you get all your gear and I'll help you put it on"

(a few minutes later....)

"Mom, I can't find my fuvaglova"

"Your what???"

"My fuv-a-glova" (he actually said it to me as though I was deaf and didn't speak english).

"Nicholas, I have no idea what you are talking about".

"MY FUV-A-GLOV-A" (this is a four year old's way of explaining what he is talking about - just say it louder).

"Tell me what a fuvaglova is Nick".

"The thing that I put on my head and over my ears that keeps me toasty warm"

"OH....your Balaclava..."

A reminder to those in power in the Canadian Government...

Play nice in the sandbox.

AND Re-read this below, by Robert Fulghum.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Soy beans and Ice cream....that's why I didn't blog.

So the whole idea of the month of November in blog land is to post every day. And I did. Until the 24th. I was quite proud of myself, and I really wanted to keep going and not miss any days, but alas, the internets are not as accessible in Vegas as the slot machines (unless you are willing to pay $1.00 per minute - and now that I think about that, it is a relative bargain compared to the slots).

Ken and I had a little get away. No kids. No cold. And now, no money. But it was worth it (well, most of it - if you are in Vegas and are remotely inclined to see Criss Angel's "Believe" - run, don't walk away. Worst show EVER. Hell, you could even see people disappearing through the trap doors in the stage. Two hours of my life I will never get back).

We had cheap flights there and back. We stayed in a really nice hotel at a really cheap rate. It was heaven to nap in the afternoon. Our kids didn't miss us in the least (the grandparents were spoiling them rotten while we were away). It was nice to sit in a restaurant and not have to cut up someone else's food or tell the younger two to stop fighting. I did miss them, but it was a nice break.

We had a really nice dinner one night at a sushi place. Now we are totally spoiled here in Vancouver - cheap sushi and great prices. When we go out for sushi here I love just gorging myself on the good stuff. So for that reason, I had never tried edamame.



Why munch on soybeans when you can eat raw fish??? At this restaruant we went for the set menu and the edamame was one of the starters. OMG it was so good. I can't believe I have been passing it up all these years.

When we had worked ourselves through the other courses, we got to dessert. They brought out these small, colourful disks (I called them coloured hockey pucks eh).



They are called Mochi, and they were fantastic. I think we can get them up here at our local asian grocery store, however after my shopping experience in Vegas (I swear they have changed all the sizes of pants down there because my usual size doesn't fit) I should really stay away from the stuff!

Oh the minds of six year olds...

Tonight Ethan was asking me about one of his friends at school. His friend has dark skin, and her mom is very fair. It is obvious that she is adopted, and tonight Ethan asked me why his friend's skin colour was so different from her mom's. It totally caught me off guard - and I really stumbled to explain the whole concept of adoption (it doesn't help that I have no idea about the situation behind their adoption). How do you explain to a six year old that a mom couldn't care for her baby, whatever the reason may be, and therefore gave it up? Now that I am a mom I can appreciate what a selfless act it is, and can't imagine ever having to make that decision.

To be perfectly honest, the sex talk was MUCH easier. I think Ethan really had trouble wrapping his head around the concept of someone giving away their baby. He even referred to the birth mother as the "real mom". I think I might just have to have a talk with the girl's mom about this whole situation - maybe she could give me some good ideas.

Not my smartest moment.

I really should have known better. When I wrote this post awhile ago I should have figured that my e-mail would be innudated with spam. And it has been. ARGH. I am such a dumbass.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

Ok, so I didn't do this posting stuff every day, but I have a great excuse....

vancouver, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

And you'll hear it soon. It involves a plane, slots, warm weather and NO KIDS. Oh, and this is Vancouver....isn't she purdy?

Party at my house. Meet me in the play kitchen!

One of my goals this year was to get most of my Christmas shopping done before December. I have done pretty well, but I know that by the time December hits, there will still be much more to do. But at least I got somewhat of a head start.



Renee's gift was easy. I wanted to get her a play kitchen. So I had a look online to get an idea of cost, and OMG they are much more expensive than I thought they were. Being kiddo number three doesn't have it's benefits when it comes to getting stuff (although she is doing much better than if she had been a boy!). When Ethan was a baby, I pretty much bought most of the stuff for him brand new. When Nick came along, he got hand me downs, and I got a bit more comfortable buying second hand. Now with Renee I am downright savvy. Craigslist is my friend.



The whole concept reminds me of buying books when I was at university. My first year I bought all the textbooks required by the professors for their courses. I got them all new, and spent a small fortune. My second year I got a bit smarter, waited until the second week of classes to buy books because as I found out in my first year, the profs might say you need a text for a class, but then they never use it. I still bought most of them new, but I did find a few second hand. By my third year I got my priorities straight. My hard earned cash was NOT going to all go to text books. So I scoured ads selling used texts, and for some classes I didn't bother with the texts at all - I'd go to the reserve reading room and sign them out for a couple of hours at a time when I needed them. Worked fine for me. And guess what? My grades were awesome in my last couple of years. And I had more money to spend on fun stuff and the "university experience" which I will not go into detail on here (sorry mom).

So began my hunt for a play kitchen for Renee. After looking at the prices, I decided there was no way that I was buying one new. So I started looking on Craigslist daily. Then one Saturday night I saw it. An ad for a play kitchen that would do her nicely

The guy writing the ad said don't e-mail but to call him. So I did. Right away. He told me that he was busy and to call back the next day. OMG. I thought for sure that it was going to be gone. So I called and talked to him and spilled my guts. And it worked. So two days later, I drove to his place, picked it up (along with this stuff)

And this stuff:

All for $50. All in almost new condition. Great deal. Then when I got home, I looked online to see how much all of this would go for. And I was floored. On Amazon (the US version, not the Canadian one, because the Canadian one just sucks) All three items together retail for about $300. The plastic food alone is $99 - for plastic food!!!

So, December 26th Renee will be hosting her first soiree at our place. And since her "new" kitchen is much nicer than mine, we'll all hang out there. And eat plastic pizza.

can't think of a good title for this one.

I was out shopping for a gift for a six year old girl in Ethan's class yesterday. Her mom tells me she likes Barbie, so I went to go and have a look for one of those (skipped the Bratz isle completely OMG). As I was browsing, I got to chatting with another mom who had a girl with her who was about five years old. They too were shopping for Barbies. We got to talking, and she asked me if I noticed a difference between today's barbies and the ones we used to play with. Since I haven't seen one up close and personal in a few years, I said I had no idea.

Then she tells me it is all in the boobs and the waist. Apparently the barbies nowadays don't have the boobs that the barbies of old had. She went on to tell me that all her old Barbie clothes she saved for her daughter's dolls don't fit the doll because there are huge gaping spaces where the boobs should be filling out the tops. I had a look and sure enough, she's right. Then she tells me that she is thankful that her daughter won't have a distorted image of herself because Barbie is now closer to average. And sure enough, chatter about this very thing is all over the internet (google is my friend - although with the amount of times I have said "boob" in this post I am bound to get much more traffic than normal.).

I played with Barbie when I was a girl, but most of the time she was hanging out with GI Joe and his buddies in their army vehicles (I had brothers). I didn't really take notice of the boobs at all. I don't even know if I have all my old Barbies still - I guess a hunt around at my parent's place is in order....

Random picture blog

boys, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

It is late and I haven't blogged today - If I didn't know any better I'd swear it was a full moon. The kids have been off the rails all day long.

So I went to my flickr, randomly picked a page and whammo - came up with this shot....oh so cute. I so need an infusion of cute right now.

My new best friend. Time out.

Today while I was getting lunch ready for Nick and Renee I reached into our stupid fridge (yes, I said stupid - we bought it when we moved into this house, it is not a top of the line fridge, and certainly not designed for anyone over 5'5" tall....and I am much taller than that. ) and as I was standing up again smashed the top of my head into the freezer handle.

I am ashamed to admit that the streak of words that came out of my mouth after that mishap were strong enough to make Nicholas SILENT. Amazing how they really stand up and take notice right at the time that it would be so much better if they weren't. So Nicholas informs me that I said "a whole bunch of naughty words mommy". So we decided that I should sit in the corner for a time out. "Oh and don't worry mommy, I won't talk to you at all". So I figured that since the boys each have time out for a minute for each year of their age, I should be in time out for a whole bunch of minutes....more than half an hour.

So I marched myself over to time out, and sat for about 10 minutes all by myself, and the kids totally ignored me. Sheer bliss. Maybe I should just keep up the curse words.

Adventures on a "day off"...

So today was my day off. A day off in these parts consists of my mom coming over to watch my two youngest rugrats (you know, the ones in the lovely post below...the ones who never fight? Yeah, well I got an earful from mom when I got home from my "day off" telling me that they fought like cats and dogs, and at one point Nicholas yelled at Renee to "get out of my sight"! Hmmm.... wonder where he heard that one before).

Once I got Ethan off to school it was off to the dentist for me. For over two hours I was jabbed, poked, prodded, had my mouth stretched, my jaw pried open, and that is only the beginning (yeah, like I am so going back for more of that torture). The dentist is very good, and I am really only feeling the awful pain now that the numbing has worn off. Good thing she is in the next town over....she mentioned it would "hurt a bit", but hell this is awful.

I squeaked out of there quick enough to pick Ethan up from school at lunch time. He had a doctor's appointment in the early afternoon, so I told him that we could have lunch together ("wow mom, just the two of us? No Nick? No Renee? woo hoo!!"). I let him choose any place he wanted...I was sure he was going to pick McD's, but no...he surprised me with this:

What's for dinner?, originally uploaded by hermanau.

mmmm.....sushi! And believe it or not, he used the chopsticks and all. His favourite is the salmon rolls (those little guys right in the middle of the pic). He eats all the cooked stuff too, but really enjoys the raw fish as well. That's my boy! We had a great lunch, even if I couldn't chew most of it (thank goodness he didn't go for steak!).

You'd never guess these two are like oil and water

I took this pic the other day while Nick, Renee and I were out and about. They were rested, fed, the sun was shining and they were in fantastic spirits all round. Thankfully I had my camera to catch this moment - because with these two they are very few and far between.

I'm RICH RICH RICH!

Wow, don't know what I am going to do with all this cash...any ideas? Do people actually still fall for this shit? And check out the ending - all I need to give him is all my personal info....yeah riiiiiight.....

BARRISTER ROBERT LIZAR (SOLICITOR & ADVOCATE)
OFFICE: # 159 PRINCESS ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONDON, ENGLAND M21 8HA
ID #: 53298


Attention my good friend,

I am Robert Lizar, solicitor at law. I am the personal attorney to Mr. Michael Brooks, a national of your country who used to work with Macon Associates Company here in England. On the 2nd of August 2006, my client, his wife and their three children were involved in a car accident along Manchester Express Road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my client's extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the internet, to locate any member of his family but of no avail. I have contacted you to assist me in repatriating the money left behind by my client before they got confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Finance institution where this huge money were lodged.

Particularly, the bank where the deceased had an account valued at about US$20M has issued me a notice to provide the next-of-kin or have the account confiscated within the next ten official working days. That is why I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at US$20M can be paid to you and then you and I can share the money; 50% to me and 50% to you. All I need is your honest co-operation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.

I am waiting for your reply soonest WITH your full name, address and direct telephone number for faster and oral discussion if you are interested.

Sincerely,
Robert Lizar(Solicitor At Law)

Ahhh...fall.

In this post I put up an old picture of my kids playing in the leaves. That was three years ago. This is what our backyard looked like today (minus the kids - they took a break and decided to excavate my garden about 10 feet away).






The toys are the same, the leaves are different (and much much more abundant!), and the kids still love it. I think it'll do for now, until the snow comes....

On the topic of hair...

Little miss hair, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

My girlfriend was commenting today on how much hair Renee used to have when she was a baby. I had so totally forgot until I came across this shot quite by accident. And look at those rolls too. Almost makes me want another (but not quite!).

Survey finds that 20% would fish cellphone out of the toilet...

A recent study has shown that one in five people would pluck their cell phone out of the toilet if it fell in. So what would the other 80% do? It isn't like you could flush the thing down...is it?

After all, what other emergency kit contains the serious stuff and chocolate too?

For those of you who know me you know that I am a serious safety geek. I am not so over the top that my kids are covered in bubble wrap 24/7 (hey, a good knock to the head once in awhile isn't all bad...), but I am a prepared safety girl. My kids have caught on too - on more than one occasion Nicholas has yelled at someone talking on their cell while driving "Hey - that's a SAFETY VIOLATION!".

So the other day I went out with a girlfriend without the kids. She also has three kids (all boys) about the same age as my brood. Both of us were a bit giddy that we didn't have to pack and bring all the shit that you need to remember when you have toddlers (blanket, water, food, toys, diapers, wipes,....you get the idea). All I had was my cell phone and wallet. That is IT. No purse. And she was the same. I should also mention that I was driving Ken's car - which has no extra gear in it whatsoever. My minivan? Has EVERYTHING. Extra food, extra water, extra diapers, wipes, clothes, coats, boots and pretty much anything we would need if we were stranded anywhere for any length of time.

Off we go - and about 10 minutes into the trip, M says "oh shit". Turns out she forgot some very necessary feminine supplies. Now normally I have extra of that stuff too, but being without kids, without a purse and driving my hubby's car - I didn't have anything. Had we been in the minivan we would have been covered, because I have the Safety Girl roadside emergency kit.



It was designed by a woman years ago here in Vancouver (since bought out by an American company). It has everything a stranded woman would need:



Once we got home, I pulled out my kit just to see what was still in it. Not surprisingly, the chocolate was long gone. The deodorant expired in 2005 (although in an "emergency" I am sure it would be just fine). There are even directions on how to change a tire, and an emergency contact list where you can write down the numbers of the local fire and police department, as well as the spa, pizza joint and someone who thinks I am brilliant (that space is still blank...)

Lest we forget...

I came across this poem awhile ago written by David Roberts in 2005. Today seems the perfect day to post it. Not only do we remember those who have died in war, today we will also be thinking of those who have been injured and still struggle when they have come home.

There will be peace:

when attitudes change;
when self-interest is seen as part of common interest;
when old wrongs, old scores, old mistakes
are deleted from the account;
when the aim becomes co-operation and mutual benefit
rather than revenge or seizing maximum personal or group gain;
when justice and equality before the law
become the basis of government;
when basic freedoms exist;
when leaders - political, religious, educational - and the police and media
wholeheartedly embrace the concepts of justice, equality, freedom, tolerance, and reconciliation as a basis for renewal;
when parents teach their children new ways to think about people.

There will be peace:
when enemies become fellow human beings.

David Roberts

The photo is three years old but....

on the ground, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

They still love to play with their trucks in the leaves. And now at our new house we can pile the leaves up so high that the piles are taller than the boys. Now if it just didn't rain so much in these parts we'd be set!

Ken and Anna plus three....

In the past few months, I have been shocked at the number of times someone has asked me "do you watch Jon and Kate plus 8?". At first, I had no idea what they were talking about as we were still living in the dark ages and used bunny ears to watch TV. Now that we have succumbed and got cable, I was able to tune into the reality show that basically tells the story of the lives of this family that have eight children (twins and sextuplets). I couldn't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to raise eight kids, six of whom are Nicholas' age (OMG six little Nicholases? ACK!!). I have a hard enough time some days with my three.

I have been told that my kids look like theirs (Jon the father is half Korean). People ask me the question when the kids are acting up (so do my three look like they could be as loud, noisy and crazy as eight?). I can be pretty anal about some things, so maybe it is because I am a bit like Kate (although I look nothing like her). Ken laughed the first time I told him about Jon and Kate and people asking me if we watched the show, but he was caught in it as well a couple of weeks ago when we all went out for dinner. The server, a young girl in her 20's squealed "Oh, do you know Jon and Kate from that show?" when she was seating us. My guess is that it is the Caucasian/Asian mix of our family, but who knows.

The name says it all.

Every year in Vancouver we always go to the annual fair - the PNE. And this year it was WET. We usually prefer to go on a day that isn't too sunny and isn't on a weekend as I am not a big fan of crowds. Well this past year we didn't have to worry about that at all. It poured rain the whole day and we were soaked by the end of it. But the kids didn't mind one bit - no line ups for rides, and more importantly no line ups for food.

The PNE is in August - so why am I blogging about it now you ask? Because I have got the biggest craving for these:

Yes, you read it right. For $5, you could get four oreo cookies, dipped in artery clogging batter, and deep fried.

And OMG they were so good. I want some so bad right now I can almost taste it. But I'll have to wait until next year and savor the memories of how good they tasted.

That's IT!

With three kids in the house, there are fights. Mostly between the boys, but sometimes Renee is stuck in the middle of things too. Earlier today the boys were fighting over lego.

Ethan - "Give it back!"

Nicholas - "No, I had it first!"

Ethan - "But it's MINE!"

Nicholas - "No it's NOT!"

Ethan - "Yeah...well I'm going to flush it down the toilet in the poo water!"

In these situations, I usually do one of two things, depending on the severity of the headache they have given me. I'll either send them to their rooms or just take all the lego and put it in a time out (since the lego was ALL OVER the living room floor, the room option looked to be the most viable one). Just as I was about to tell them to take a hike upstairs, Renee wanders into the playroom, grabs the lego piece they are fighting over and tells them to "stop it". My own little personal enforcer. I love it!

Where did he learn THAT?

Last night I gave Nick a book to read, and as he was going through the pages, he stopped, looked at me and said:

"Mom, I need some ambiance to read properly. Can you turn on the ambiance for me please?"

Huh? What four year old asks that?

Later that night the boys were watching the movie Madagascar. And then I heard it. The animals were trying to sleep and one of them yelled "someone forgot to turn off the ambiance again" (of course meaning the jungle noises that they piped into the NY City Zoo). So Nicholas thought that "ambiance" was a fancy word for light. Too cute.

Blue blue blue - yes we can.

I have never watched so much CNN in my whole life as I did last night. And what a night it was. It was fascinating to watch a country elect a leader, and do it so passionately. I haven't found out what voter turnout was like, but my guess is that it was really high. Oh how I wish that we could get that excited up here about someone to lead our country.

A few months ago I did a bit of reading about McCain. I watched a couple of documentaries about his life. And I have nothing but a great respect for the man. What he has done for his country is nothing short of amazing. I would never vote for him, but he has my respect. And his conciliatory speech last night was awesome.

As for Obama - I have read his books and I too have great admiration for him. He is right when he says that the hard work hasn't even begun yet, and he will have a big big job on his hands. His speech last night was also amazing, but quite honestly, I can't wait to hear the one that he will give at his inauguration.

Not quite what I had in mind.

One promise I made to myself when I had kids was that I was going to be involved as much as possible with their schooling. It started with Ethan in preschool - because he was a shy boy I put him in a parent participation school so that I could be there once in awhile to help out and see how he was doing. Well, much to my surprise he waved to me on the first day as I was leaving - no meltdown, no freak out, no nothing. The teacher's idea of "helping" in the classroom was having parents clean toilets and wash tables, and not so much be involved with the kids. Thankfully Ethan had fun, or I would have looked elsewhere. I mean really, why the hell do I want to scrub someone else's toilet when I should be cleaning my own house?

I still like to help once in awhile in Ethan's class though - about an hour or two a week. It gives me a bit of insight as to what is going on, and I have found that learning the lingo helps me get info out of Ethan that I otherwise wouldn't have. Instead of asking "how was your day honey" and getting "fine" or "I didn't do anything", I can ask him "what did you do at centers today" and I get quite a different response. It is great.

So this morning his teacher knew I was coming in to help. The first thing she told me was that we were going to watch a video. She powered up the computer and smart board (OMG what an amazing thing to have in a classroom) and had it all ready for the kids. And what kind of video was it? It was an online clip on how to make origami cranes. So my job this morning was to help 22 children, (16 of whom are BOYS and have a hard time sitting still for any length of time) make paper cranes. It was quite the challenge, but for the most part, the kids got it and the cranes looked pretty good (some would have had a hard time getting off the ground though!). If you have a few minutes on your hands you can try it too - and then try to imagine 22 hands waving in the air for help every single step of the way....


How To Fold An Origami Paper Crane (Orizuru) - Watch more amazing videos here

I wanna be a rockstar.

Nick singing rockstar by nickelback
Originally uploaded by sassyanna

Nicholas is not typically a shy boy, but he does clam up when singing and he knows someone is watching. I have no idea why he let me video this, but he did....

Before you watch Nick, here is the original version, sung by Nickelback.



If Nicholas ever gets to be a rockstar, he'll save costs - he won't need any roadies to put together his equipment for him. As you can see, he does that all by himself!

Elections, elections, elections.

I have a number of American friends, and pretty much all of them are SICK AND TIRED of all the election stuff, and just want it to be over already. I must admit, two years of campaigning must be a pain in the ass and I can see how you can get fed up with it.

Up here in the great white north the Prime Minister can call an election whenever he darn well feels like it - and the race from start to end is measured in weeks, not years. But compared to the US, this last campaign was as dull as hell. I must admit that I did watch our leaders debate - for about 10 minutes. Sarah and Joe got much more of my attention that night (I did watch the highlights of the Canadian one later though and still managed to fall asleep).

So Tuesday is the big day for my friends. All the polls say that Obama will win - but polls only count on election day. If McCain wins you democrats do have a choice. You can come on up here.

Ok Marie - this one is for you....

So November is NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. And the whole intent is to post daily for a month. That should be a challenge since it has been a bit more than two months since my last post. I KNOW that I'll get lazy for some and just throw up a photo or two - but a post is a post is a post. And probably better than looking at Jeffy Jesus for the last two months.

Jeffy Jesus

The other day the second born asks me about "Jeffy Jesus".

I was quite puzzled as to what he was asking about - Ken asked me if Jesus has a younger brother that we don't know about, and I told him I was pretty sure that Jesus was an only child.

This went on for a couple of days, Nick kept pestering us to go and see Jeffy. He then told us that Jeffy Jesus wears a suit with a big "C" on the front. Ken figured it must stand for "Christ".

I think I have mentioned in the past that up until a year ago we didn't have cable. It made monitoring TV in the house easy, the kids just watched DVDs, and didn't really see many commercials. Now that we have cable, the kids have been watching some tv shows that have commercials. Nicholas went crazy a few mornings ago, screaming at me to come and look at the TV because Jeffy Jesus was on. Next thing I see is Chuck-E-Cheese on the TV, and Nicholas was screaming "Mom, it's Jeffy Jesus!".