Yeah!! I Passed!!!!

For those of you keeping track of my progress toward my CHRP designation - I passed the first hurdle!! I have the first of 2 national exams under my belt. I will write the second one this fall! It was a great feeling to open that envelope this morning to see that I passed!!

So another weekend has come and gone. It was a nice quiet weekend for us. Erin helped Daddy at the gun club for most of Saturday, so I had some time to myself. I sat outside, dozed, read... it was all quite wonderful!! Sunday we invited Uncle Andrew and Aunt Rita, Emily and William out for dinner. Erin is really quite wild when company is here.

I want to bottle her energy......

I love having Fridays off!!!!

So it's not a great weather day today - begger's can't be choosers can they?!!

Erin and I were off today and Erin took full advantage of sleeping in this morning. She woke up for a couple of minutes around 7:00 this morning to have a pee, then went back to bed. She finally decided to wake up at 9:40 - yes, you read that right - 9:40.... just in time to get dressed and head to the library for story time. Story time was about airplanes today, and we have a bunch of new books signed out for the week. Next was a very badly needed haircut, and this was the first time Erin went up and sat on the booster seat (she usually sat on me during the haircut). Groceries, lunch, some housecleaning and a brief swim in the pool topped off the day. Of course it's only 4:15pm right now, so the day is hardly over! It has been threatening rain all day though, so Erin is just playing in the kitchen now because she got a little cool after her swim.

The week has been fairly uneventful. I was in Toronto for the first couple of days of the week for meetings and a conference. When you miss a couple of days of work, you are bound to get behind, and that is exactly where I found myself Wednesday and Thursday. I'll do a bit of catching up this weekend, but I should have a bit of time to get caught up by the end of next week!

This weekend is looking pretty quiet for us. Gord is going to be doing some work at the gun club tomorrow morning, so it'll be the girls for a few hours on our own. I kind of like having nothing on this weekend, because the past few and the next few have and will be busy!!

Well, I better go and see what Erin is up to. It's just getting a bit too quiet in her room. The last time she was this quiet, she was cutting her own hair......

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all of the great dads out there I know, including Gord, Lloyd, and my dad! Happy 1st father's day to Ashley - enjoy!

Here is Erin and Daddy putting up the pool for the summer - next summer, the inground goes in!!!!

I'm exhausted....

Erin the human bowling ball!!!!

The weather held out for us!! The 2007 company picnic is officially in the books. I am now ready to keel over and sleep for many, many hours!! Erin is in the tub getting layers of dirt and sugar washed off! I think the day consisted of 2 cotton candy sticks, a candy apple, popcorn, a hot dog, and a bit of juice and water!! The day was actually very fun and the turn out was better than I expected. The most important thing was that the kids had fun. I think Erin was happy to have her buddy Erika there. The two of them had a ball - you should have seen them join forces with the girls and beat the boys at tug-o-war!! Anyway, enjoy the pics!

Two days in a row!! Yeah!!!

I think I have found the trick to being more disciplined in adding to the blog - use Erin's private bath periods!

Well today was our second Friday off together and it was another great one! I had to call in for a conference call this morning, but it was just a listen in call, so while I was listening, I managed to get Erin dressed, put a load of laundry on, load the dishwasher, and load the car for our day! We went to story time at the library again, and listened to some great stories about Dad - the theme was of course, Father's Day! There were some great songs, and Erin made a beautiful craft for Daddy, a #1 ribbon!! We next walked over to the chip wagon right next to the library and had our first fries of the summer - yummy!! The first chip stand fries of the year are always the best! Erin then was my big helper at work for about an hour. My heavens people made quite a fuss over her! Of course I got the usual 'gee Kim, you are recruiting them young now aren't you?' Ha ha.... Everything looks to be in great shape heading into tomorrow's big event. I just have my fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate. This is the first day in a while I am hoping the weather gurus are actually accurate! We then ran some errands at the mall in Brockville for a few minutes, and topped it all off with ice cream from Laura Secord!

Gord is out mowing the lawn because of course, there will not be much time to do it with yet another busy weekend ahead of us. Well, I best get my little pruney girl dried off and into pj's. A good night's sleep will help her enjoy tomorrow a bit more. I will have the camera tomorrow and try to get some good pics of Erin and Erika at the picnic. Enjoy the pic of my cutie in her pretty pink polka dot dress today - no wonder there was a big fuss made over her!!!!

Wow! Another Post!!

It's Thursday evening, after yet another beautiful day! Erin is singing away in the bathtub right now, having her coveted 'privacy' in the bathroom!!! She spends her private time singing away and reliving her day from daycare. It's really quite sweet. Isn't childhood just amazing?!! Right now she is belting out the alphabet song! Erin got a report card from her daycare kindergarten teacher. The report card was glowing and wonderful - aren't I just the gloating mum?!!!! I'm just happy she's a happy kid!

Well my week has come to an end. Erin and I have a full day planned for our Mummy-Erin Friday together. Unfortunately I have a conference call to sit in on - very limited participation required from me - so Erin has promised me that she will colour and play with her barbies while I listen in on the call. After the call, we are off to story time at the library. The theme is Father's Day, with a special Father's Day craft! That should be fun. Next we are walking over to the chip stand for a treat of fries, then are going to have a scoop of ice cream at the ice cream shop! Saturday is the big carnival for the employees' and their kids at my work. I have had the honour to lead our HR & finance team in hosting the event, and hence I have a bunch of people doing stuff for me Friday. I feel a pang of guilt (although my boss thinks I should let it go!!), so Erin and I are going to drop by work for a bit just to make sure to say thank you to everyone working hard to make it a great day. Gord is going to be taking Erin and Erika, so I imagine they will have a good time. There is going to be a bunch of bouncers, carnival games, sports games, princesses, clowns, face painting, balloon animals, music, and of course carnival food!!! Erin can't wait to wad more cotton candy into her!!

Well, I think I'll head back to get Erin into pj's for the night. I thought everyone would enjoy the pictures of Erin riding Patricia's horse Addy tonight! She is already hitting her father up for 'a nice little pony that I can ride all by myself!!!' Sigh.... we are in trouble!!!!

Bath Time!!!

You have to love bath time! Doesn't she look like the cutest little 'bug' ever?!!!!

A few folks were asking for an update on Minnie. Gord summed her up quite nicely. You know how you always see the devil with the legs of a goat? Yeah, that's Minnie!!!

I love insomnia....

It's pushing 11:00pm and I am wide awake. Actually I am exhausted after a very busy weekend, but it's one of those nights I can't seem to settle in to sleep. So here I am, figuring I should do something constructive with my inability to sleep, and post to the blog!!

This was a beautiful weekend! It's about time we had an entire weekend of warmth and sun! It was a weekend filled with lots of Mummy and Erin adventures, while Dad got to do a bunch of yardwork! Erin and I started Saturday with breakfast and a couple of episodes of Dora the Explorer. Erin is not much for TV, but she will stop everything to watch Dora!! She and then whisked ourselves off to Smiths Falls for some errands (and more importantly, a coffee for me from Tim's!!) That afternoon we headed into Athens for Dee's parent's anniversary party. We had a great time!! I am now a complete fan of 'Newfie horseshoes', after making the semi-finals with Dee's brother. Of course we choked in the end, but what a hoot! I think Dee's mum and dad (Sharon and Doug) had a good time. This was a celebration of their 40th anniversary - quite a feat! We had a great visit with Liz and Mooner, both of whom we haven't seen for a dog's age!

1967

Happy Anniversary Doug & Sharon!!

We actually got home later than we expected to, but Erin was having so much fun with one of the little girls there, that it was hard to tear her away! She has also fallen in love with trampolines, and has been hounding me to get one for the past 24 hours straight!!!! Sigh..... Of course I forgot my camera, so I don't have pics, but you can imagine the pure elation on the face of an almost 4-year old discovering the weightlessness of the trampoline adventure!!

All of that air on Saturday brought a very sound sleep for one tired little girl (and her folks!). Sunday came with another breakfast over Dora, followed by the ritual of Sunday groceries. In the afternoon we went to Kemptville to meet up with our neighbour Richinda and her two girls Emma and Erika for a couple of hours at the little midway that was set up. Erin had fun after some coaxing - she seems to do better at stuff when it starts in the morning. She was just dozing off when we arrived, so was not to keen on chatting it up with the carnies!! She got into the swing of it when I promised to get her some cotton candy. Man that stuff is sweeter than I remember!! She crashed early again tonight, and is looking forward to seeing her friends at daycare tomorrow. I think she needs to go back to daycare as much as I need to go back to work to get a break!!! Ha Ha!!

Anyway, enjoy the pics of my big helper! She had the task of cutting up fruit and veggies today for dinner / dessert (just the soft stuff that she could cut with her plastic cutlery!!) God willing she will have better luck using knives than I have had!!! (Yup, lots of stiches and scars on my hands)



I better try to get to sleep. Until next time.....

It's June already....

So two more weeks have flown by and here we are well into June. Here's a recap of the past couple of weeks:

Saturday May 26th - we spent a fantastic day at the Village Social at Merrickville Public School. I took Erin and our neighbour's little gal Erika to the big shin-dig. The Village Social is a fundraising event for the school, and it was our first. Erin is going there in the fall, so I thought I would get right into the swing of the event to see what I will be volunteering for next year!! Erin, Erika and I all went to have a snack at the coffee house in Merrickville before walking over to the school. The two of them had a blast! There were games and events for the kids to enjoy, not to mention sno-cones and cotton candy! Both Erika and Erin had a sno-cone, two - yes two - gigantic sticks of cotton candy, and hot dogs. I can't believe that I was happy Erin ate a hot dog - at least she got 'some' form of protein!!! I was actually quite surprised that Erin did not absolutely drop from exhaustion after spending almost five hours running around on a sugar high! She pushed it to about 9:00pm before falling asleep. I was begging her to go to bed because I was exhausted trying to keep up with them!!!!

The next day was quite a bit tamer, with us just having a quiet day at home. It was actually quite a nice day for the Village Social, but Sunday was cool and rainy. The week was a regular week for all of us, with the exception of myself spending the first day of June at an Unfair labour practice mediation hearing. I continue to have great opportunities to advance learning more new skills and gaining experiences in my new job - although, I guess it's not new anymore as I head toward my 1st anniversary with the company!

Gord and I spent June 2nd at an anniversary party for my boss. He and his wife were celebrating 25 years together. It was a nice evening and it looked like they had a great time. We had Emily come out to babysit Erin, but she had one of the easiest evenings yet, as Erin was sleeping at 6:30pm!!

June 3rd sent Gord and his brother Andrew for a skeet shoot competition in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Erin and I were invited to Aunt Eleanor's birthday party that same afternoon, and that evening was another early one for Erin falling asleep - me too!!!

This past week marked my first week working four days. Today is of course my first Friday off and it was simply wonderful! Erin and I slept in to 6:30am (hey, I'm usually at work by that time, so I'm not complaining!!) We had a nice breakfast together then went into town for storytime at the library, which was excellent! I can't wait to go back again next Friday! Erin and decided to next go and have some ice cream, so we were off to Dairy Queen for small sundaes! We ran into Aunt Eleanor there, which was also very exciting for Erin - she is quite a little social butterfly, isn't she?!!!! We then went to spend the afternoon with Erika and her mum Richinda. All in all a terrific day. Erin is sleeping already (check out the pic taken just moments ago!!!). A very early night generally means a great day for Miss Erin!

I'm not sure why we do it to ourselves, but weekends in summer just seem to be full all of the time. This weekend is no exception. Tomorrow we are off to Aunt Dee's parent's 40th wedding anniversary, and Sunday we are planning on going to a fair in Kemptville with Erika, her sister Emma, and mum Richinda.

Those who know me, know I wouldn't have the busy times any other way!!!!

By the way, I thought I would mention that Jean (Gord's mother) is not doing very well. The cancer has been aggressively spreading. Cancer is really a cruel joke on humanity, isn't it....