No way!!!

It can't possibly be a month since I have posted! We have been busy!!!

So it's been since Halloween...

Gord is doing well. His foot continues on the long mend, but other than feeling pretty achey at the end of the day, it is feeling okay.

I am doing well. Counting down the days that I have left at work. It's almost surreal that I only have six more working days there. Very strange. I have been getting calls about jobs, and overall I'm not really worried, so all's okay on that end! Dee and I have been doing a lot of shows selling our fused glass jewelry and are doing really well! It's fun but can be pretty exhausting! Our website should be launching soon and once the holidays are behind us, we'll have some time to focus our energy on that part of the biz!

Erin is her usual busy self! She continues to adore school and loves Sparks. With me busy on the weekends, she has had loads of fun with Gord and visiting with Emma and Erika, and being babysat by Emily! In fact, a couple of weeks ago, we had Erika over for a sleepover and the next night she headed over to their place for a sleepover too!

We had a wonderful dinner last weekend with Ray and Elaine! It was great to visit with them and to hear their news that they will be grandparents next March! How exciting!!

Last weekend Erin was very lucky to be invited over to her friend Kacey's house to work on a scrapbook from their gymnastics days this past spring. What fun! Her scrapbook is just fabulous and she and Kacey had a great day! After being at Kacey's we all packed up and headed into Ottawa for a visit with Jo, Chris, and the boys. We had a wonderful visit and Erin received some very nice presents!

So Dee and I are on the trail again this weekend and next. Erin has a Christmas party next weekend and have some fun Christmas Sparks activities coming up too!! Of course the biggest event coming our way is when we hit the road on December 9th for Florida! Yeah!! We will be visiting with Grampa and have planned to spend a few days at Disney World! How much fun will Disney be at Christmas!!!

Well, I got one post in for November!!!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

This has been a pretty hectic week for our household. Here's the recap:

Monday was Sparks day and the girls were invited over to one of their Spark friends' house for a Halloween Party! These folks had some amazing decorations all over their yard! I thought Gord and I used to do a lot for Halloween, but we couldn't hold a candle to this house! The kids thought it was great and seemed to really enjoy themselves! A good night for all!

Wednesday marked the first day I was off for the balance of the week. There was a services outage where I work, meaning no heat and no water. I know, I live in the country but deep down I am a city girl and like my running water! Wednesday was also the day I discovered that Erin's fish Splashy died. We gave Erin Splashy for her Kindergarten graduation. I'm actually pretty surprised the fish made it this long. Needless to say, Erin was very upset and asked if we could replace Splashy. We did just that Friday after school, and we now have Splashy 2. It's reminscent of the series of Snowballs, from the Simpson's!

Thursday was pumpkin carving day at school. Erin has essentially been bouncing (literally) off the wall since the first of what will be 3 Halloween parties this week. I can't even imagine what she will be like at Christmas this year, especially while we are at Disney World. I'm quite certain one of us will lose their minds, and I'm just not sure which way it will go. I guess it depends on who loses theirs first, right?

Friday was Halloween party #2 for the week, which was at school. I guess the kids had a ball and judging by all the special treats that came home with Erin, I'm venturing to guess so did their teacher! She made it loads of fun for the kids, for sure!!!

So here we are on Saturday, Halloween day. We are expecting Grampa to arrive anytime. He will spend the day with us, come to party #3 at the community centre, come trick or treating, and then I will take him to the airport bright and early (read 4:30am bright and early!) for his flight down to Florida. I am so jealous..... We'll be there soon though!! We do get a bit of a break in that tonight we turn the clocks back, so it will feel like 5:30am, even if the clock reads differently! I'll get back from Ottawa, then rest up a bit before picking up Emily to babysit for the day. Dee and I have a show in Perth on Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed we do well!!

Next week will will continue our hopes to avoiding the H1N1 flu. Everyone around us seems to be sick and Erin is fighting something. I'm wondering if pure adrenalin and pure sugar are warding it off for her. It's amazing what you can will yourself into if you want something badly enough, and the girl wants to trick or treat really badly!!! Friday I am going to spend some time with my friend Patti, then get ready for the show Dee and I have in North Gower on Saturday. Gord will be off most of the week with deer hunting, which also means Uncle Douglas will be down. He arrives today, and I'm sure is looking forward to the week as well.

Enjoy the pics! I'll try to post more from party #3 and trick or treating soon!

Quickly approaching Halloween!

Has it really been 2 weeks since Thanksgiving weekend? Yikes!

So life has just been chugging along as usual. Erin was actually under the weather the day after Thanksgiving and so I stayed home with her. She really wasn't too bad, just vomiting for the early morning, then whatever was affecting her seemed to go away quickly and she became her wild self again! Last weekend was relatively quiet. A bunch of things I had originally planned fell through, so Erin and spent the morning helping Aunt Dee with her garage sale, and we made enough money to buy lunch and meet up with Gord who was putter away at the skeet shooting club. I even decided it was time I tried skeet shooting, and was actually thrilled that I broke a clay bird! I even broke 6 in a row! I don't think I'm ready to quit my day job though!

Monday rolled around and Erin was so happy Sparks was back up and running after a hiatus from cookie selling and Thanksgiving. It was enrollment night - the night the girls 'officially' become Sparks! They had fun and Gord and I and several parents decided to stick around and joined in with the girls as they played games. I think it's a general rule that I should change when I come home from work, and normally I do. However, for some reason I didn't, so I found myself playing games in heels! The kids all had fun though, and that was the best part. Actually, I guess the best part was the cake. Yes, definitely the cake!! At least no one had their cameras out snapping pictures of us adults hopping around with clothespins between our knees, or with vasoline on our noses, picking up cotton balls! Yes, you heard me......

I had an interview for a job on Monday morning. It went well, but I didn't end up getting the job. No biggie. It would have been a stretch for me and I am confident something else that's right for me will come along when the time is right.

The rest of the week was pretty much business as usual. Yesterday, Richinda, Dee, and I hosted a Christmas open house sale here at our place. We had some friends set up tables and we invited everyone we knew to come out. It was a fundraiser for the Merrickville Mosaic Group - some of the local guides and pathfinders are raising money to attend the Guiding Mosaic in Guelph next year to celebrate 100 years of Guiding in Canada. Richinda's gal Emma, and our neighbour Amy are both part of the group, so it was a no-brainer when it came to saying yes to doing a fundraiser. We had quite a lot of people come out, and everyone did well. Dee and I did amazing and I think we are both in shock to see how well our fused glass jewelry and gifts were received! Thanks to everyone who came out! We - by the way, did I mention our little home grown business name is 'The Glass Girls'? - will next be in Perth, at the fairgrounds on Sunday November 1st!

This week features lots of fun things: Monday is picture day and Sparks, I get to work from home Wednesday and Thursday because we will have no heat or water at work (hey, it's fun for me, okay?!!), Grampa will be coming down later this week to spend Halloween with us, then will head to Florida bright and early Sunday November 1st, and of course, the big event itself - Halloween!!! Erin is going to be -you guessed it - Hannah Montana!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Can it really be headed toward the middle of October? I really feel like I blink anymore and 'poof' another month has passed by!

So to catch up with everyone, all is fine. Gord has been super-busy with the skeet shooting club, but does enjoy it! I have been really busy getting fused glass stuff ready for upcoming Christmas shows and admittedly, work is getting in the way! Hahahahaha! Honestly, I do love my job, but I will admit motivation is less than high now that I have been given my layoff notice. This is the first time I have ever received one. It's a crappy experience I don't wish on anyone, but I know I will be fine and now that the day is behind me, I have happily moved on from the anger of everything people have had to deal with for the past several months. In my opinion, little has been handled well, but at the risk of sounding disgruntled, I will stop, because I'm not, only disappointed along with many others.

Miss Erin is wonderful Miss Erin! She continues to love school and taking the bus everyday to get there! The school hosted an open house bbq which was lots of fun and we got a big tour of the Grade 1 classroom! Erin loves her teacher and comes home with wonderful stories of new learnings and funny events that she has experienced each day. I know I have said it many times before, but I truly love Erin at this phase of her life. Not to minimize any other moment, because I have cherished them all (well, maybe not all of the diaper changes and night wakings!), but she is really special to me right now. She is really turning into a wonderful little person who shares and savours life, with a little bit of sassiness to keep Gord and I on our toes mixed in!

Erin is happy to back at Sparks and is actually disappointed we are not going to a meeting tonight. I told her that her Spark leaders need to enjoy Thanksgiving too. Apparently that's not good enough! Needless to say, she'll be looking forward to next Monday!

Erin and I brought PILES and PILES of her gently used clothes to the area mom-to-mom sale. Erin sold some of her old shoes and boots and made $12.50! We sold quite a lot of stuff - made $180!!! - and came home with much less than what we went with! We will save some for the next sale, and will sort through more and head to Goodwill and the Salvation Army with the rest.

I guess our most exciting event this past week was Erin deciding it was time to get her ears pierced. She was absolutely amazing! She listened to the woman who did it really well (she was awesome too, which helped!) and sat perfectly still when the piercings were each done. She didn't flinch, yell, cry, wimper, or anything! When both were done, she toured the store checking them out in every mirror! Too funny! She told me they did hurt a little bit, but it didn't take long for them to feel better. She has been beaming about them all week!

This past Saturday Gord and company hosted the boy scouts at the skeet shooting club and so Erin and I decided to take a trip to Upper Canada Village for the day. It was the last weekend before they move into the Christmas season in late November. We had a great time! I really love Upper Canada Village. It is just such a nice family experience. It's not commercialized, it just is what it is, and is educational, and of course filled with horses, so it must be good!!! That same evening, we had Aunt Allison and Aunt Elaine over for dinner. Good food and conversation was had by all, and not long after they left, Gord, Erin and I crashed!! We were all up early the next morning to get at this and that. Gord off to the shooting club, and Erin and I made sweet potatoes and salad to take to Aunt Patricia's for dinner that evening. We then gathered up our stuff, picked up Emily and headed to our last day at the Kemptville market. We are going to miss it! I thought it was going to be a slow day, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be our best ever! Emily has been coming with us for the past couple of weeks and I think she enjoys herself nearly as much as we do! She keeps Erin entertained, and in my books, that helps immensely! We packed up at 4:00pm, stopped for coffee and hot chocolate (it was chilly yesterday!!!) to warm up, dropped off our stuff, then headed to Aunt Patricia's for Thanksgiving dinner. Patricia did up a wonderful meal! We helped tidy up, had some laughs and coffee, then headed home for the night. We all crashed pretty early again, and slept in this morning.

Today we woke up to a frost! The temperatures dropped to below zero overnight - brrrrrrrr - and so today has been spent inside, making cookies while Gord closes the pool (boo hoo.....). And so, all will be back to normal tomorrow.

So what's coming up for us? Loads of stuff of course! I am getting things in order for an upcoming Christmas open house on October 24th. Richinda and I, along with Dee have been organizing a fundraising event for the Merrickville Mosaic group - raising money to attend the Guiding Mosaic, celebrating 100 years of Guiding in Canada next year. Richinda has taken care of a bunch of advertising and the bunch of us will start sending out flyers and emails inviting everyone we know to come out and do some early Christmas shopping! Yes, I will email you soon!!!! Next weekend looks pretty quiet so far, but I'm sure it will fill in soon! Erin and I have a trip planned to Saunder's Farm with Jo and the boys on the 25th, and Grampa will be down at the end of month for Halloween weekend! Grampa will be heading to warmer places on November 1st (read: I am jealous), and this time he got a great flight deal out of Ottawa. I will drive him up early that morning, but not before he has a chance to enjoy Halloween night with us!

I'll be back soon!

Catching up

So we all survived the big girl's birthday party that was held on September 12th. There were 9 girls who came to the party and 8 of them slept over! The girls swam, swam, and swam - the day was amazing and thank goodness for that pool!!!! We then made tie-dye t-shirts, decorated loot bags, made a glass tile pendant, had pogos and hot dogs for dinner, had cake, opened presents, busted open the Hannah Montana pineata, (BIG BREATH!), then had a bonfire. Emily was great and had the girls run around in a scavenger hunt in an effort to tire them out. That didn't work out so well as the last of the girls crashed at about midnight! I was beyond tired! The girls going on and on until midnight didn't help!!!! But, like I said, everyone had fun and no one lost an eye, so life is good! Erin is already planning next year - I will need to read this to remind me that I doubt I want to be this brave again!!!!! I'm sure I'll change my mind when it rolls around, but right now doing something a little tamer sounds better!!!

School has been going wonderfully for Miss Erin. She loves it!!! And the bus too! Although, I think it's a toss up as to who loves the bus more - Erin or ME!!!!

Gord went up north last Thursday to Douglas' fishing camp and is actually on his way back home. The moose lost (boohoo!). Erin is happy he's coming back though! She really misses him, and so do I of course!

This past weekend was originally going to be pretty busy, but previously scheduled things got cancelled and you know, it was just perfect! I think both Erin and I needed a 'down' weekend. Erin and I went out for breakfast - a late breakfast! - on Saturday morning, then just puttered around outside for a bit then relaxed and watched movies for the rest of the day. I will admit though, that I am getting a little tired of Hannah Montana The Movie. Erin is not. We watched it ALOT this past weekend! Sunday we slept in again, did a bit of tidying up, then headed to the market. We had a great day at the market and Aunt Rita and Emily came along to visit and pick out some jewelry from our table! We came home and had dinner then went to bed early. Monday was back to school for Erin and I was scheduled to be in arbitration for the day.

We also were fortunate to get a call from Sparky telling us that Sparks was starting up this week and in fact moved nights and location. So Monday after school we had a quick visit with Richinda and the girls, then headed off to the first Sparks evening of the year! Erin was really excited to see the girls she knew from last year and was excited to see some new friends join! I went for a walk to Main Street with Kacey and Michelle's respective moms for a coffee and a good chat. It was a nice evening, so the walk felt great!

So here we are on Tuesday. We had a pretty quiet evening. Some dinner and yet another showing of Hannah Montana. Sigh......

Erin is now crashed on the couch and I'm sure she'll be a bear in the morning. I let her stay up too late to finish watching the movie. I guess I win the bad mum award tonight!

Enjoy the pics!