Fall time holiday

((Full disclosure - I came on to blog today, October 14 and found this post pretty much finished but never published - sorry about that!))


I really am still alive!

Tired.

But alive.

This baby of mine just doesn't sleep.

She likes to sleep for a forty-five minutes to 2 hours at a time at night , and not at all during the day.  If she has a 15 minute nap during the day it is amazing.  She is still so happy, the happiest baby ever, really, just always awake, which makes it tough to get stuff done.

I do know however that it truly won't be like this forever.  I not only have a 9 month old, I also have a 17 year old!!!  Believe me, it seems like yesterday that she didn't sleep!   I will get through this non-sleeping baby time too!  It has motivated me to get rid of lots of clothes though, because the laundry is out of control, and I guess I figure that if there is less clothes around then I can't let it get crazy.  Also, I am trying to get a good system going again for housework.  I haven't really gotten a good plan since we moved into this new house, I need a plan and I need to write it down.

Because I have a 17 year old who worked all summer, we didn't have a summer holiday.  I didn't want to go without her and we know that we had a conference coming up in Winnipeg in the early fall, so we waited for her and all went together.

We are here now, in Winnipeg I mean, but we are coming home tomorrow.  I wish I had known how much stuff there is to do in Winnipeg!  We are certainly going to have to come back.

We had a nice drive, and then for the time we were at the conference the middle girls hung out in the hotel and watched movies.   In the mornings, our oldest would skip the plenary sessions and take everyone swimming and then in the afternoon my hubby or I would go up and spend some time and then for the late afternoon they would watch movies on Netflix, or with the discs we brought.  We also brought games and colouring books and stuff.  My kids love being in the hotel!  They just think watching TV in the bedroom is so much fun!

 The conference was great, it was so encouraging and a little overwhelming.  I found myself feeling so priveleged to be there in that room with those people!

On Sunday we went to church with my husbands family and it was a great service.  I really loved the worship and the message was great.  Then his awesome aunt made us a delicious turkey lunch, and we had a great visit.

Then on the way to the hotel, the baby and little Monkey fell asleep.  But it was only a 10 minute drive and I did not want to wake them or sit in the hotel room with them while they slept and everyone else swam in the pool.  So I took them for  drive around Winnipeg while hubby took the older girls swimming.  We went to Tim Hortons grabbed a coffee and then drove around until I felt like I better get gas.  By the time I had filled up and paid, the girls were awake, so we found a playground and played for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel.  I knew that by the time I got back there the family would not still be in the pool so I was hoping that the little diversion to the playground would make them happy.  It seemed to work okay!

Then today we went to the zoo.

Most of my kids have never been to a traditional zoo, and other than the Ballerina no one can remember it!
We saw a lot of animals!  I think everyone really loved the polar bears though.  The zoo just finished a major renovation and expansion to make the whole Journey to Churchill area as far as I could tell, which included the polar bears.  It was really cool, we probably hung out watching them for almost an hour!