Gratitude Friday - Energized!

I am thankful for an energy day today.

It has been a rough week in that department and last night when I went to bed I wasn't sure if I could face an entire day alone with Sierra while feeling like death warmed over. I slept terribly and Sierra decided to wake up and holler for me on her earlier side of wake up times.
Despite all that we have had a great day. I organized our closet, even Trevor's shelves of "folded" clothes because it was driving me crazy and if I left it up to him...well let's not go there. I also unpacked my maternity clothes and made room for them. Gulp! There's definitely a belly appearing but so far my clothes are still squeeze-in-able without being in any discomfort.
Then Sierra and I baked chocolate zucchini muffins. She got batter everywhere. I cleaned up and she helped - getting dishwater everywhere.
Sierra went down for her nap and I had a blissful one hour rest, ran on my treadmill and am now blogging. This evening holds plans of vacuuming and cleaning my floors and if I'm still going than the bathrooms!

Gratitude Sunday

I can't seem to get my stuff together on Fridays..so Sunday it is again!
It literally peed rain all week and was cold and unpleasant. I turned the furnace on and baked bread and muffins and cooked warm comfort meals. Not that those things are bad in themselves except....

IT"S AUGUST PEOPLE!!!!

August is supposed to be hot and we had plans to work on getting a deck railing built and the sprinkler lines in our dirt so that we can get grass and have a yard for Sierra to play in.

Nope.
Yesterday we had brunch with my family, I had a long nap, Trevor played with his new surround sound system, (the previous one crapped out and wasn't fixable but still under warranty so he got his money back and bought a different one elsewhere) we lazed on the couch and read books. We went out to friends Friday night, last night and will again tonight.

All great things I admit....for October/November!

I cannot believe our weather. Our dirt was literally a complete lake by the end of Saturday it rained so hard - and we have great drainage!

Oh well, a nice relaxing time I suppose. I enjoyed it all so other than the weather what's to complain about?
Here's to finding blessings in bad weather!

* We are supposed to get hot sunny temperatures again starting tomorrow.

Gratitude Sunday

These past two weekends have been spent camping with my extended family and Fridays have consisted of madly trying to pack everything so I've been a bit lacking in the Gratitude Friday area.
They were two wonderful weekends of enjoying nature, being away from life, and appreciating one another. We expressed several times to each other how special it is that we have are close enough as an extended family to be able to do things like that together without tearing each others hair out or rewriting our wills at the end.
The first weekend was a long one here in Canada so we drove for four hours to a place called Wasa Lake. It was so hot that we were either melting in the shade while Sierra napped or in the lake trying to keep our blood from boiling. (Okay it was only like 35 C which is around 95 F and I know it gets much hotter for some of you but those temperatures are less common around here so we're not used to them) Sierra had the most fun of all, you would think that the beach was Disneyland!

She had sand in ever possible crack and once she realized that the water wasn't so scary had a whale of time in her little 'boat.'

On the Saturday evening we were hit with a wicked thunderstorm, the rain was so loud that Trevor and I had to yell at each other in our tent in order to be heard. My dad tried explaining to a scared Sierra that the thunder was the clouds laughing - they were gaffawing so hard the ground shook! We unfortunately discovered that our tent does not appreciate torrential down pours and subsequently gave up on repelling the water in certain places. We didn't get wet or anything thankfully and the next day returned to sunny, hot, bliss.
We returned home on Monday to a night of thunderstorms. Most people didn't sleep between 2 and 3 am and we had an awesome amount of rain. Than it rained off and on for most of the week plunging the temperature down to the point where I turned on our furnace and baked bread one day! I nearly cursed.
This past weekend we only drove an hour and a half to a mountain lake where we enjoyed much milder temperatures than the pervious weekend but a vast improvement from the week. At night I wore sweats, socks, a long sleeved shirt, and a hoodie in my sleeping bag with another blanket on top. It dropped down to 5 C at night. I'm pretty sure my nose froze. The day time was nice and sunny and warm whith some circling and roaming thunderclouds Saturday afternoon but all they did was make noise, no rain. Of course this time we had covered our tent with a tarp! Sierra's highlight here was the park. Kid's are so easy to please!
We arrived home early this afternoon and celebrated my mom's birthday this eveninga nd now back to work and reality tomorrow. Thus ends what we get this year for summer vacation. It wasn't long but it was great!

Gratitude Friday - Excitement Over Certain Bodily Functions

If you would have talked to me three years ago the words "poop" and "pee" would rarely enter the conversation. Little did I know that just under a year later those same words would come up with frightening regularity as we entered into the realm of parenthood. Oh, the encounters with those two functions.....
I'll spare you the details but any squeemishness that I may have had over those two excretions magically vanished within hours of giving birth. The enormity of being responsible for this tiny thing overwhelmed me and poop just became one faction of the whole experience. If that was all I'd had to deal with I likely would've developed post-pregnancy morning sickness and there would've been violent rock-paper-scissor wars between Trevor and I over diaper changes. It feels wierd saying this but it's a good thing there are a multitude of other mind-overloading adjustments with a newborn because the poop...
Anyway, the reason for this discussion is that after "playing" on the potty for months Sierra has finally, deliberately, and knowingly used her little potty for its intended purpose. For the last couple of weeks when she would ask to sit on her potty we would comply. There was leg swinging, getting off, back on, taking the seat off - everyting except going potty.
We could sometimes tell when she had to poop and would take her to the potty but she couldn't quite figure out how to get out at the appropriate time. Often, and quite soon after several ten minute potty sessions, she would go in her diaper.
Today during supper I heard her pass gas and asked her if she had to go potty.
"Uh huh," she said.
So off we trucked to the bathroom. I stripped her and she sat down on her potty and asked for a book which we read repeatedly. She appeared to be straining many a times but I was convinced it was all an act. Then she started wiping her bum every 3.4 seconds because she'd seen me do that (not wipe every 3.4 seconds, just wipe in general) and figured that's what's done when on the potty. I would periodically ask her if she was ready for her diaper back on and she kept saying
"More potty."
Finally, after what felt like eons I hollared at Trevor that it was his turn. Not five minutes after he took over there was victory. Sierra pooped in her potty and was quite marvelled by it. Than later, before Trevor changed her for bed he put her on again and she peed! Twice in one day she produced in the appropriate place! Let the bells ring out! Now I'm not naive to think she's trained just like that and am off to buy underwear first thing tomorrow or anything. But this is a very exciting start to an end!

I'm also grateful for my mother-in-law who's visiting for entertaining Sierra this morning so I could sleep in. What a luxury!
Happy weekend all!

Summer Random's

I feel so out of the blogging routine that I don't even know what to post about anymore! I'm in the mood to type so I'll simply subject you to whatever comes out of my snot-filled, groggy head. Yes I have a lovely summer cold, thanks to Sierra. We're both busy going through a box of tissue per hour and making attractive sniff sounds in between nose blows. Well in Sierra's case the snot just runs down and into her mouth and then she smears it all over her cheek with her hand when she scratches her itchy nose. I love it.
Trevor came home with a laptap for me this week! I've been wanting one for a long time because Sierra gets positively irate if we try and sit at our computer while she's awake (all but maybe two hours a day). With the long daylight hours she's been going to bed later and by that time I'm often too tired to stare at a computer screen for too long. Now she is sitting, eating an apple, and watching T.V. beside me while I type! I'm in heaven.
We just had the pleasure of a visit from some friends who moved away on us a year ago. We were reminded why we like them so much and why it sucks that they now life so far away. At least with friends like them we'll be sure to keep in touch and make deliberate effort to see each other.
We finally have our heat wave around here. It's sunny and 30 degrees and our a/c needs to run and I love it! Earlier this week it poured for two days and turned our yard into a mud bog and we were all bemoaning the fact that summer hadn't really arrived yet. Here it is!

As for it being Gratitude Friday - I am happy for all the friends I've been fortunate to make so far in my life. They all enrich my life.

Gratitude Friday - Part 3 and On Time!

My parents have been gone for two weeks on vacation and Sierra has missed them like crazy. Every day she asks, "papa ganny?"
Every day I have to answer, "No, they are still gone"
To which Sierra replies, "In aiwpwane...high,high, (points up)...wi da sun."
"Yes."
It is so neat that we can live near my parents and that Sierra has such a close and special relationship with them.


In other news...remember how I said I spent nearly all of our grocery budget at the beginning of June? I did really well at buying the bare minimum until the last week and then I failed and gave in, so I ended up $100 over. Sigh. I'm not doing to great so far this month either. Then again I just bought a lot of meat which is a major expense so we should be ok for July aside from fresh fruit, veggies and milk. I'm pretty sure I can stay within budget this month.

Gratitude Friday - Two Days Late

Friday was chaos beyond all chaos so I officially missed Gratitude Friday. I haven't had a moment alone with my computer for a long time so my blogging in general has been somewhat lagging. Things are just overall...crazy. I hope to fill you in and be back to my old self soon.
We spent some very much needed R and R as a family this weekend enjoying each other and the beauty of God's creation. We are incredibly fortunate to live only an hour and half drive from the Rocky Mountains to where we retreated for a brief reprieve from the insanity we call every day life. Even though our escape was short I am incredibly grateful for it and feel a little more capable of facing another week.

Gratitude Friday - Part 1

I still have 11 minutes of Friday left so even thought most of you will read this Saturday or later I did actually make it! My blog friend Kashoan has inspired me to participate in Gratitude Fridays so here I go:

I am so thankful for an energetic little girl that I get to enjoy running around with at the playground.
I am super stoked that it turns out our house/property taxes were automatically being withdrawn along with our mortgage payment so we have some unexpected money!
We spent a fun evening with friends.
The upcoming two months keep having more and more exciting things added to them so what was once looking like a dull summer will be a shiny, happy summer!

Happy weekend all!