This was a busy summer

We had such a busy summer.  Summer is birthday season in our family.  In our nuclear family and in my extended family.  Between mid June and Labour Day we have 12 birthdays.  It is literally cake once a week.  It is a crazy time, but it is fun, there are lots of reasons to get together and lots of company.  We have a pretty big house now and so we had the pleasure of hosting our own birthday gatherings, as well as some of the others! We didn't get to celebrate 2 of those birthdays, but they are a part of it nonetheless.  And actually, I am (with pregnant brain) trying to remember without consulting my calendar, so I may even be missing someone!
Here are some of the cakes I got to make!

 These were Dash's cupcakes.

 And her cake - which I admit, I didn't make.  We had just got home from holidays, you know the awful vacation I blogged about.  Um, ya, so I bought a cake - whatever - as my mom would say, "Of course I made it, I made it all the way to Sobey's to pick it up!"



Then my dad turned 59 this year!!

I made him an apple pie, because he doesn't actually eat cake - but kids like cake, so I made these chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for the kids - they actually have a ball of cookie dough inside, got the idea from pinterest - totally delicious!

 The Toddler turned 3 this year and I saw a monster cake that I loved on the web, but then when she was looking over my shoulder, she freaked out about this Cookie Monster cake, so I tried it instead.  It was HUGE.  I borrowed a friend's wedding cake pan set and made this out of 3 layers, each was the equivalent of a 9x13 cake - it was massive!

Next was one for my sister!

 My sister turned 30 this year - and she is a nut about zebra print, so we made her a cake with zebra sugar sheets, which I had never made before...I had never made a tiered cake like that before either.

 OH, and, I made zebra cupcakes to go with it.  The cake was layered zebra-like in the papers and then I used a technique I saw on the web for rainbow frosting with just black and white frosting to make zebra frosting.  It was cool!

Then we missed my other sister's birthday because we were camping - but I still plan on surprising her with a cake some day out of the blue - because she totally waited for me!
Then we had Ballerina's birthday and she turned 16!  The big Sweet Sixteen!

That is not the greatest picture - but it was a pretty cool cake, and I cannot for the life of me find any pictures from her birthday on my own camera.  It was a 3 tiered cake (I even used dowels to hold it together after consulting the internet) and then it had ombre rosettes up the sides, starting with a light pink, graduating to a dark in 3 different shades.  I used the last of the zebra sugar sheet on the top tier and covered that top tier with fondant that my friend Laura showed me how to make.  I had made it originally for my sister's cake, but then changed my mind on the design so didn't use it - so I used a bit of it on my girl's cake.  It was actually pretty yummy.  And I think she was happy with the cake itself so that is all good!

And this was my husband's request.  He turned 40 this year and so he wanted a cake made out of a 4 and a 0 out of homemade ice cream cake.  It wasn't the most stellar ice cream cake I have ever made, but it was fine and it did look pretty cool!

I stopped at DQ to pick up a log cake for my third sister on her birthday and made my first ever from scratch Angelfood cake for my Mom on Labour Day and that completes birthday season for another year!
I have no more cakes on the agenda now until November - unless you count chocolate zucchini cakes that will be made to use up all this zucchini!

Back to school

 So I really want to get a good head start on the year.  I know that once November rolls around and there is a new tiny person here that I will have to be a bit more occupied than I am now - and then when my awesome husband takes parental leave around the end of November and starts ripping out a wall and possibly some floor to give me a larger and more functional laundry room we will also likely be a bit crazier. Because of this I have a goal of establishing good routines right now so that the girls can carry on with their schedules as much as possible when everything goes a little crazy around here!

 

Ballerina is in Grade 11 this year.  Grade 11!!!  Can you believe that?  I can't.  I mean I really cannot imagine that I am old enough or mature enough or smart enough to impart the wisdom that a good mom will impart on someone.  And I only have 2 years left!!!  Aaaaahhhhh!  Okay, so truthfully, I know that it is not all up to me and that I can only do the best that I can, and that my influence doesn't end when she finishes grade 12, but my academic role will be over.  I do sometimes get a little overwhelmed, wanting to be sure she has all she needs to succeed academically when we are done homeschooling.  If only she had a bit more of an idea what she might want to do!  LOL! 

Tapper is in Grade 7 this year.  I mean is it just me, but doesn't Grade 7 sound super, extra old?  Grade 7, hmmm, time really does fly.  Remind me of this often, okay?  Because in the moments that I am stressed, tired or overwhelmed it seems like time doesn't move at all!  She has had a good first couple of days and so far, her favorite part has been Science.    

The Princess is in Grade 3, and that sounds a little more normal.  Grade 3 doesn't sound nearly so old, or scary, or unbelievable!  She is so smart and funny and responsible, that actually, I am often surprised that she is only in Grade 3.  Although she is almost 9 years old.  She has a January birthday so she is an old Grade 3.  She has had a great year so far and she says so far she likes all of her subjects.  (Politician answer if I ever heard one)

Dash is in Grade 1, and she is glad, but not nearly as glad and excited that she is about being in Grade 1 at Sunday School!  LOL!  She cracks me up!  She is doing well. We have a lot of work for her to do, and it is a bit of a stretch, but she is adjusting well and that smile doesn't often leave her face!  Her favorite part of school so far is Science.  She and the princess are studying Astronomy together and so far it has been fun.  She is also super excited about her first real bible.  We make it a bit of a tradition that when our kids are going into Grade 1, the year you traditionally learn to read that we give them a real translation of the Bible.  Not a bible story book, but an actual kids' Bible.  Hers is great and she loves to look at all the pictures inside!

The Toddler is just kind of hanging out.  She is lonely without my nephew to hang out with, but she colours with the girls with her own notebook when it is that time and then plays for a bit with some of the toys we try to keep put away except at school time.

 One of the best things about the first weeks of school is all the new books and supplies like I mentioned.  This year, I ordered from a Canadian company because when you factored in shipping and exchange it was actually cheaper.  But we did have to wait a little longer.  Our books did arrive by 10:00 on the first day, right after we had finished sorting out the school supplies and filling the new pencil cases!

We started Tuesday, and almost got done what I scheduled.  Wednesday we did it all and caught up from Tuesday, Thursday we had a day where life took precedence, but most of the school work still got done and now we are here at Friday.  So far, so good.

I have been so tired (Or maybe I am just a bigger complainer)

Way more tired than I have been with other pregnancies - as far as I can remember.  Too tired to think of anything witty, too tired to go to the gym, and way too tired to get out of bed early when I have the option of sleeping in!
Unfortunately for me, today is our first day of school, so awake I am.  I was so excited to take pictures of our organized books and school supplies to show you.  I was completely pumped about all my shipments arriving!
But um, ya, they haven't all arrived!
So we will start with what we have and deal with the rest as it comes! Hopefully today, I am keeping the faith!
So as I was cleaning off my desk in anticipation of the new school year, I came across the disc from where I had my ultrasound, and decided I would share a picture of our baby with you instead.  I get to go for another one next week - I can hardly wait!

So there you go!
Hopefully I will be able to update you on our packages and our first day of school later!
C-ya!

Vacation

We just got home from a vacation.  I was so looking forward to this.  My husband has been working like a mad man, all sorts of overtime lately and my oldest daughter is leaving for a big missions trip to a whole other country in just a few days.  So we planned our holidays so that we could all go together before she leaves.  Besides the big mission trip, she is working at teaching 5-day clubs all summer again as well as a summer missionary with Child Evangelism Fellowship, so she won't be available to take off with us in the summer.

So we had a plan to just go down to Minot, ND, spend a couple of days shopping and watersliding and consuming cherry Coke...and then travel to Great Falls, MO for a night then up to Calgary to see my awesome cousin and take in the zoo and Heritage Park.

Sounds like a plan, right?

We were planning to leave on Saturday, and the Friday before we had a birthday party to go to.
So we went, had fun, ate supper and the Princess had developed one of her headaches - she gets them often - and then ended up throwing up at her friend's and so we came home - and assumed and hoped that it was the result of the headache.  She seemed totally happy and fine afterwards.

So we embarked on Saturday - drove to Minot, went watersliding, and then had a fun supper with friends of ours that just happened to be there at the same time.  We went to Wal-Mart loaded up with Cherry Coke, all the cool cereal we can't get here - some awesome cake mixes that we can't get here that I remember from my childhood and cinnamon chips - which are like chocolate chips and they are always in recipes that you get online, but we can't get them here in Canada.  We went back to the hotel and all was fine.  

The next morning, we watched our own church via live streaming on our laptop and the Baby seemed a little sick, but she was fine so the others went watersliding and she and I went to the mall to check it out before it opened.  We got halfway down the mall, and the stores were just about to open when guess what??  Yes, she threw up all over the floor.  So I got some napkins from a less than helpful pretzel store manager and waited with a poor child covered in bodily fluid waiting for the mall maintenance to come and mop up the mess so I could take her back to the room.  It was so sad and stressful!  By this time we were wondering if this was really a sickness spreading, or if it was just two coincidental occurences, one from a headache and one from too much fun at the all you can eat Pizza Ranch the night before.  Obviously praying for the the coincidence!!

I left her with her dad in the room and took the rest of the girls shopping for a bit, eventually we made our way to Target and picked up a few more grocery type items before it was time to head out.  We spent that night in Minot and left in the morning,

drove all day to Montana and pulled into our hotel parking lot and planned to go to the Golden Corral in the same parking lot for supper once we had unloaded.  We had this great room, actually more like a mini-suite and my hubby and the two oldest girls went out to get the luggage. 

About 10 minutes later our little Tapper came in crying and bleeding and about an hour and a half later we were leaving the medicenter with two stitches under her lip. 

Needless to say, after all of that the Golden Corral was closed and we picked up Pizza Hut and went back to the hotel. 

About 5:00 in the morning I was ripped from my VERY comfortable sleep by Dash throwing up in her sleep.  I dragged her to the bathroom and gave her a bath while I changed the sheets. The upside to all of this was that as I was setting them up with a movie after this event, I realized that we were in the US, so I logged into Netflix and sure enough, we could we had access to the US Netflix, which my friends, if you haven`t tried it - it is WAY better than the Canadian Netflix.  So I put on a Disney movie for them and rested for a bit until the continental breakfast opened.

So by this time we are 13 hours from home, no matter what we do, so we have no choice but to carry on.  We had only planned one night in Montana, and we got up, went to the store for some bottled water, made sure our puke bucket was handy, and headed off to Calgary. 

 My cousin assured us that she wanted us to stay regardless and so we carried on to her house just in time to see her off to work for the evening and we went to the mall for a bit, but pretty much decided on an early night.  Princess had started getting a headache again, so I braced myself and sure enough the next two days were a flurry of sickness, and rain, and eventually flooding - so even if we had been well enough to take in the attractions we had planned, we wouldn`t have been able to because it didn`t stop raining and rumour has it the animals from the zoo ended up being moved to the jail.

 I have very few pictures of our time in Calgary, because it was a lot of sleeping and Netflix....and one hour at the Science Centre, and my cousin and I taught the older girls how to play Canasta. 

 We almost left 2 days early, but because of the storming, we stayed and left one day early after enjoying a birthday and got home with only one puking incident in the truck.  Ugh!  All of this time I am thinking about how Ballerina has to go to Mexico in just over a week, and how she has to have a strong stomach, not a weak one - and praying hard for her to be protected.

When we got home my hubby and Tapper ended up feeling sick too, and although Tapper never did throw up, she was sick longer than everyone else.  Although she managed, she got her stitches removed and we carried on.  Ballerina and I never did get sick (Praise God!!), but we did apparently leave my cousin feeling sick for two days.  I so love her, she was so gracious to us - she is the best! 

I keep thinking how every family needs a holiday like that to look back on in 20 years and laugh about - so now we have had it and the rest of our holidays can be uneventful! 

Butterfly time again!

We have been homeschooling for 11 years. Ever since our Ballerina was in Kindergarten.  We have tried various methods of schooling, tried various curriculum, tried all sorts of things.  One project that has stood the test of time however, that we have done every year is watch caterpillars turn into butterflies.

When she was in Kindergarten and Grade 1, and maybe even Grade 2, I just ordered a set of 5 caterpillars from a mom who was ordering for a group.  But then either in Grade 2 or 3, by the time I contacted her it was too late and she had closed her order.  She gave me the name of then science supply company and told me to go ahead and order more if I wanted to.  So I contacted the moms in my school board to see if anyone was interested in ordering with us.  I had MORE than enough moms, and so began our adventure of ordering caterpillars every year.

The caterpillars come in sets of 30, and need to be separated into individual cups where they grow until they form a chrysalis.  I am not much of a bug person, and I remember that first year, sitting at my table with these cups of caterpillars thinking that I must really be a homeschool mom, because why on earth would I be doing this? LOL!  Once they have formed their chrysalis they have to be transferred to a box where they can emerge and then they can be released outside.  It is totally fun, and still interesting after all these years, so we keep doing it, it has become an annual tradition, signalling that our school year is almost over.  And it really doesn't gross me out too much anymore!

 The only problem we have now is that over the past few years we have had SO MANY extras, I donate some, sell some, give some, beg some people to take some - and still we had over 60 caterpillars to watch ourselves - it was really crazy!  Next year, Lord willing, if we do this again, I will not order as many, but have a longer waiting list, because although it is neat to have so many to release, it is really crazy as well!

 This is one box, we have had to release our guys more than once, as the box quickly gets crowded.

 Apparently we have our own 'butterfly whisperer'. Princess loves butterflies, and was the least squeamish that she has ever been about them.  She managed to hold 4 at once here.

Don't butterflies truly signal the end of winter?