Precious Moments

Not sure when or who took this picture of Daddy and his baby girl, but I love it.

Simply beautiful, beautifully simple.

Confessions of a Doubting Mom

Confession time.  A few months ago Rylee said to me that she was having problems seeing things and her eyes were very blurry.  I completely dismissed it (oops, bad mom) and thought she was only saying it cause one of her best friends wears glasses.

I WAS WRONG!

We took everyone in to get their eyes tested last month and poor Rylee is +6.75 in her right eye - pretty much blind!  They did some extra tests on her eye and it turns out it doesn't even try to focus [that point was made just to make me feel worse I'm sure].  Now we're working on re-training her brain to use the right eye to try and correct things.  Her left eye is only a +2.25.  They gave her a lesser prescription for that right eye in the hopes that the brain recognizes that there is actually an eye there that isn't doing it's job.  Right now it's devoting little attention to it.  OOOOPPPPSSSSS!  Fingers crossed it works.

Anyway, yesterday we picked up her glasses and she is loving them.

Rylee - "the best part is that I can just see things now, like normal people I think"

Moral of the story - get your kids eyes checked (ages 3+)!

May her next 6 years of life be less of a blur :)

Soon, real soon

I know I've been pretty crappy at blogging recently - life has been full of busyness - I will be back, promise.  

For now, enjoy my favourite picture of late!

Gimme Your Thoughts

This last weekend we thought we'd try our hand at putting some final touches to a couple parts of our home.  I thought I had a 'before' picture of my wall of cupboards on file, so I didn't take one - turns out I couldn't find the one I 'in my brain' took, go figure!!!  

This is the best I could find:

Please look beyond the goofy children!

Very bare, very bland.  

This is how we've changed it up.

Does it work?

I think I love it, but I feel like maybe there's something missing.....or is it that I've looked at it too long trying to figure out if there's something missing?  

That was project #1, the second one didn't take much time, more of just putting things in the right place (we didn't do the rock, that's been done awhile).

Before

We still need to change the picture to the left of the fireplace, we have a nice one of the Welsh mountains to frame and hang but until then...

After

I feel like I almost have my upstairs the way I want it.  Just a few more touches to make.  Then, on to the basement!  By then I'll probably be bored with what's done upstairs an feel the need to change again...lol!

Snow Cold Sundaes

We recently joined a fabulous playgroup which my kids & I love.  Today was playgroup day at our house, we had a lot of fun (for real).

We did our own version of Snow Cakes (an idea Heather shared with me a few weeks ago - she found here): http://katherinemariephotography.com/blog/archives/7946

Cakes and trays with 9 kids under 7 seemed pretty crazy, so I tweaked it and it was fabulous!  Literally no mess to clean, it was so fun and they loved it.....all but Brody that is (he was far to mature to play with the snow - the ride on horsey was more up his alley)!  Here's some snaps of our day:

Here's some other things I've learned from my day:

• clean snow tastes better than the dirty stuff-  kidding moms!
• 3 boxes of kraft dinner is too much, 2 is probably more than enough!
• 9 kids can drink 3/4 of a gallon of milk
• boys cry and are every bit as dramatic as girls (news to me)
• snow makes an excellent snack and it's super cheap
• my cat is patient...VERY VERY patient (that one I did know)

I'm already looking forward to next time, what to do next?!?

Three Cheers for 3 Year Olds

Aylish certainly doesn't look her age, never has and I'm not sure if she ever will - - - at least not for awhile.  Born at 10 lbs 3 oz and 24'' long, she had a head start on most. 

 She was so excited to finally be turning 3, an age she usually gets mistaken for.  Now she can finally say yes I'm 3.  

Just one problem.  The other day she told a lady in the store that it was her birthday next week and the lady said "Are you going to be 4?"  She replied very loudly "No, I be Free"!  And it starts again!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet Aylish.  You bring excitement and so much love to our family.  You are a fabulous little & big sister and we all love you to bits!

Her 'tendy' New Barbie Doll House for her Birfday!

Valentine's Fun!

What a GREAT day we had.  I love all holidays, including this one.  It's kinda fun with 5 girls too, cause they are totally into it - one of these years I'm sure we're going to go completely overboard with it all, and honestly, I can't wait!!!

Richard is a true romancer which is fabulous, he always has the best way to make me feel like I'm the most important person in his life, not just on Valentine's day, but everyday.   I love him for that.

Richard was cooking me dinner (we'll get to that later) so I decided to serve my little sweethearts pink heart shaped pancakes for dinner.  They were to say the least EXCITED to see what was on their plates. I got a lot of "you're the best mom in the whole world" so I'm taking that to mean they really liked it.

For Family Home Evening we hit up 4 different homes and gave those inside a heart attack.  Don't worry, we didn't scare them through windows or anything creepy like that - we save that for people we DON'T like!  We knocked on the door, pushed our way in and taped hearts that we had decorated the week before all over the inside of their door (sadly we forgot our camera).  It was so much fun.  

Thanks to Gramma & Grampa Martin, Bob & Helen Gibb, Fred & Freda Lowe and Brenda & Alan Wright for being willing heart attack victims.  

The girls had such a fun time!   The girls chose who they wanted to attack so thanks to all our victims for making our girls feel special!  

They love all of you!

For our romantic part of Valentine's day, my wonderful husband cooked me dinner.  He went to great lengths to find the perfect potato.....

  He braved the winds and fired up the BBQ to cook steak and found a delicious goat cheese potato recipe to serve with the steak.

Yeah, now you're jealous!

Sorry for the blurry picture, Shannon took it from stood up on a chair!  Bless her xx

 It was delicious, that's all I can say.   

The whole day was fabulous.  

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO MY WONDERFUL FAMILY!