We had a good Mother's Day

I think I must have the best blog friends ever.

A few of you have been emailing privately, messaging on Facebook, and commenting on my blog, letting me know you're thinking of me. I truly appreciate your kindness!

My son and I in fact did have a lovely day, all things considering.

First, I slept in. After all that moving yesterday, the extra rest was totally needed. Upon waking, my son dashed to his room where he had hidden my present. He revealed a sweet little button bracelet he made in school! And I haven't taken it off since. :)

Once up and around, we head out for the vanilla coffee/slushie thing. And head down this trail to...

... my favorite little hideaway beside the river. It was sooo pretty! The sun was shining, the coffee hot, and my son and I laughed at the dog while she did her usual dog things. It felt good to laugh. And my son's giggle... it's infectious and makes you giggle as well even if you don't think something is funny. :)

Once getting home, I sauntered into the bedroom and flopped down yet again. But only for a moment. My mind was racing on all the things I'd rather be doing than nurse a tired body. So, I went for my paintbrush and started painting. :) (project to come on Funky Junk)

My son whipped us up some spaghetti while I continued my painting. Such a treat to have him helping in the kitchen! We took our dinner outside to enjoy the beautiful mountain view behind the house.

And then went for a swim.

Kidding! This pic was taken last summer but it shows the view. The good 'ol smurf pool will be put up again all in due time.

Aside from a few I-miss-her moments, it was evident that we were being thought of in more ways than one. Neighbors stopped by to say hello, one giving me some sweet flower plants and another a card and chocolates. And then there's always the good natured razzing I throw back at my fun neighbour across the road. He teases me about my free junk invaluable finds and I tease him about being jealous. :) I guess I should have mentioned, my apparatus I was painting on nearly took the entire width of my driveway...

We don't need alot of rah rah to make our days a success. The company of my son, lifting up a paintbrush, and simple things like coffee and river views are quite enough to fill my soul with all the right stuff.

Thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers. I know they helped to make our day a pretty good one. :)

How we spent our Christmas

We had a fabulous snowstorm over the Christmas holidays this year. Although it was abit sad to choose to play it safe and stay home rather than visit with family, we postponed our family visits and flipped our Christmas alone to plenty of board games, pj's all day, neighbour visits and snow fun!

This is Cody's idea. Originating from Zach next door, Cody informed me he now knew I was santa and he wanted to catch me in the act by camping out under the tree. Well, he didn't catch me at all. I waited till he was sound asleep and silently placed the gifts under the tree, snickering the whole time.

Why look. 'Santa' left footprints even! (baking soda sprinkled around my boots, but shhhh...)

Cody's first gift bought with his own money. I love this brush set! And each morning he is checking to see if I'm putting it to good use.

And we sure enjoyed being snowed in our beautiful home this year. Check out the home reno blog for pics of my new island top. It is to die for.

Here's hoping your Christmas and holiday season also has special memories attached!

Cody's BIG morning plans

Cody had been getting up abit too late for school mornings lately. You can tell when the kidlets are due for another break soon when that stuff starts to transpire nearly daily. But since we still have to ride out a couple more weeks before Christmas break, we had to come up with a plan.

I asked Cody what he thought was a good idea on how to stay on track. We came to the conclusion that writing a 'to do list' for school mornings on his dry erase board in his room was the ticket. So I requested he go ahead and write a morning list up so he'd know what he had to do the next AM.

Morning lists aren't new to us. They've worked well in the past, but are forgotten when they are originally formatted on his dry erase board, then eventually disappear because his new volcano picture required more room you know...

So here's what Cody came up with...


I gasped when I noted starting time. 4 AM?!? Get dressed at 5? TV at 6?!? I don't think so! Oh, then he's going to wake me up and expect breakfast 10 min later. Now THAT was funny.

Before turning in for the night, I checked his alarm clock. Yep, set for 4. Youch, I just got an earful checking his clock, nevermind changing it! I'll change it after he's asleep. So I laid down with him for 'just a moment.' Then I fell asleep. I woke up later only to make my way to my own bed to crash.

Well guess what. I woke up at 4 to the sound of his alarm. Bah! And before you knew it, the tv was on. No way... I stumble towards the racket and find Cody fully dressed watching cartoons. At 4 AM.

That didn't fly one bit. I commended him on his promptness, but told him it was just too early and come back to bed. TV and lights were shut down and all was dark and quiet again until normal wakeup time.

Cody certainly has ideas of his own. This next one is also humorous. You know that channel on TV where the entire screen captures a crackling fireplace? THAT is what Cody wanted to watch while eating breakfast.


Oh.. and the action scene of course.. "Mom, someone's moving the logs! LOOK!"


Ah.. gotta love my boy.. May your mornings start a tad less exciting than ours do.

A day to remember.. to be quiet!

Today was our official Remembrance Day in Canada.

Cody and I had discussed the minute of silence on Nov 11, at 11 AM previously. But as the day dashed by, we simply forgot. I sadly remembered at about noon.

So later today, we were driving home around dinnertime, and Cody says, "Mom, we weren't quiet for that minute. Was that suppose to be today?"

Gulp... "Yeah it was Code."

"Can we do it now?"

While still driving, I answer, "Sure! Good idea!"

It's quiet. I look at the clock to figure out a minute...

"Now mom?"

"Ok."

I start timing...

.
.
.
.

"Ok, starting... NOW mom. DON'T say anything!"

(I'm not going to say even an ok as it officially started this time I think...)

.
.
.
.

"Just tell me when it's a minute, ok?"

(to myself, OK!!!!!)

So in my mind, I'm thinking of what it must have been like to get a dreaded call home that your loved one wasn't returning. On what it was like to fight while missing your family you loved so. And what it must have felt like to bury a dear family member. I didn't live in a time of all this happening, but I have heard some stories from my parents and grandmother about the past. I just took the time to put myself in their place for just a moment.

We rounded the corner and thumped into the driveway.

"Minute's up. So, what did you think about?"

I turned behind me to see Cody had his head bowed and hands folded together on his lap... I was touched.

"I wasn't thinking of anything mom. I'm just tired."

Bah....

http://justanotherwonderfulday.blogspot.com/2008/11/pittance-of-time.html

A pittance of time

I just came home from Cody's Remembrance Day assembly at his school.

Each year I go to this assembly. It truely moves me to watch a schoolful of children show respect for those that helped give us the kind of life we have today.

In tribute to the fallen soldiers and others affected by the war, I thank you. Please honor those fallen a pittance of your time and watch a short video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlrrAWCTRg

http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/chief_land_staff/remembrance/English/video.asp

Being ultra selective on Halloween

The night before Halloween, we carved up the pumpkins. The entire house is being renovated with only a couple rooms that allowed some elbow room for carving, so into my office we went. Perfect! Never before have we carved on nice clean tables.

And Cody surpassed what I expected with the carving. I was whipping out freehand goofy simplistic faces but he wanted to do a pattern. Good for him! And he did a fabulous job of a skull with flames coming out of the head.

Cody wanted to be an army guy this year again. So he piled on every camouflage item of clothing he could muster up from his closet, complete with a matching backpack I just found at the thrift!

To my surprise, Cody wasn't in a huge rush to get out there. He wanted to stay home for abit to give out some candy. So that we did. We decorated up our front entrance enough to invite kids to come on over so we waited. And waited. And waited. A sprinkling arrived and the costumes were exquisite! I really liked these two ghosts that had sheets covering over the tops of their heads but wore glow sticks around their necks underneath the sheets. It was an eerie new technology kinda cool. Gotta appreciate that kind of uniqueness.

Then we put up our sign (a skeleton instructing kids to Please Take Two!) , a cooler full of candy at the front door and off we went.

We had just begun when our friends 4 yr old Phoebe and her mom Bec drove down our road. I invited them to join us so off we 4 went. Phoebe was an adorable little dragon that took great delight in growling at folks after receiving her candy. Priceless...

The weather held up perfectly! The roadways were wet but no rain fell. It was actually a beautiful night. And we hit a road that didn't have half the lights turned out.

As the night grew on, Cody was getting tired and decided only the houses that were decorated up were worthy of his presence. So here we were 1/2 hour away from our house and he was only wanting to go to half the houses?!? Common sense mom didn't see sense in that so I encouraged him to go for it. So what if they didn't have a welcoming pumpkin grinning back a him? They still had candy! No go. Oh well. Common sense mom speculated we only had to walk 1/2 as far as we did if we hit every house. Ah well. Even though I was exhausted from renos that day, I pushed my sorry body along, silently grunting with every step. This was Cody's night.

Little did I know, the boy was so respectful and visual. He pointed out to me that this house or that house probably didn't want to give out candy because if they didn't decorate, they didn't really like Halloween. So I respected his decision and marvelled how smart this kid is becoming right before my very eyes. So heads up people, if you want things to shut down early in regards to trick or treating, don't carve that goofy grinning pumpkin and those just like Cody will not be by. LOL

Traditionally we head over to the local yokel haunted house after trick or treating. But this year, Cody just wanted to stay home. Fine with me! I had been working on the house all day with hands over my head working on the ceiling and I was beyond just T I R E D. So we dumped his haul and munched away before bedtime.

Ohhhhh my bed sure felt great that night! But the entire event and preparation involved is so worth it and appreciated by Cody. That in itself makes it worthwhile for me.