Busy Week

It is thankfully coming to the end of what has been a very busy week. Everyday except Thursday the boys and I have had a parenting group to go to, Thursday we had Micha come to play while her mommy was having driving lessons (to drive a school bus). Then after parenting group today the boys and I drove to Collingwood to go see my girlfriend Sara, who also happens to be my former employer while I was working at the paint your own ceramics studio in Toronto about 5 years ago.
I painted 3 mugs and put David's foot prints on them, they are going to be Christmas presents for Daddy, Granddad (my father-in-law) and Ukki (my dad). Then while I was painting up the mugs Alun painted himself a mug too. This will be his hot chocolate mug once we get it after it has been glazed and fired. We had fun painting while we were there, just next time we'll have to make sure there isn't a snow squall in place over the area. I got to Sara's house shortly after 1pm and we left around 5pm; in those 4 hours the truck ended up getting covered in close to a foot of snow. The roads were terrible for about 20 km, then when I turned onto the county road towards Hanover about 5 minutes down the road the skies were clear and the roads were almost bare.
I had wanted to go to Owen Sound so that I could pick up the pictures I've been waiting for for quite some time from Sears, but with the weather the way it was, I wasn't about to risk our lives to get there. The snow was heavy enough that in places the visiblity was good if it was a few hundred meters.
Anyway, the boys are in bed after a long day of playing and driving, and I wanted to try and relax in a nice hot bath before the party light candle party tomorrow night. I have a kitchen and dinette to tidy and a guestroom to change the sheets and tidy up the room after Alun has been playing in there for the past month or 2 since I last tidied up.
I'll post pics of the finished glazed and fired cups when I get them, I forgot to bring our camera with us to take pictures during the painting process.

A Snowy day

This is part of the view that I awoke to this morning. This just happens to be the close-up of the lilacs along the driveway. If I would have realized that the snow was going to come the way it did, I would have maybe tidied up the backyard a little better. There are still several bags of leaves that need to be moved, I just hope they aren't frozen to the ground until spring.

Under that blanket of snow there is a truck... honest it was there yesterday.

I may have to find the manual for the snowblower sooner than I think, we have to change the auger before we are able to start using it, the auger is bent all to heck.

Here is a view from the dinette window of Alun's backyard play area complete with chairs for mommy to sit and watch while he plays. I forgot to put those away, I just hope they aren't frozen to the ground there. If they are, I don't think we'll be able to make Alun his ice rink, as it's sitting right in the middle of where it would be.

Well, time to go and tackle the driveway and front sidewalk, the postal worker has already delivered the mail, so I should at least make it look like I tried to move the snow in case it stays for tomorrow.

What a mess

Well, If hubby was trying to find a good excuse to have me clean-up my half of the 'junk' in the basement he has found it. This morning I was feeding David and next thing I know all I hear from the basement was "KATHIE !! GET DOWN HERE NOW!!"
When I am called like that it means 1 of 2 things, we need to get to the hospital STAT (I love using that term.) or it's going to cost us time and/or money.
Well it didn't mean a trip to the hospital, but it did mean that I had to find a spot to put David, clear the way to the main valve for the water to the house and turn off the water to the house. That was at around noon, it is now almost 10pm and the water is still turned off.
Alan had decided he wanted to get rid of some redundant piping, as it was making a mess of the new ducting work we had done for the cold air return last weekend. He cut 1 pipe and got rid of it, great! He did it to another pipe, but the valve was stuck open and with all the calcium and lime in the water over time had 'gummed' it up so it didn't close all the way. He was cutting the pipe and next thing he knows he is getting his second shower for the day.
After 2 trips to the hardware store, turns out we are going to have to try and get the piping so that we can get to some threads (as it's galvanized steel piping) and then add a cap to it. We have all the necessary parts, now we just have to get the joints to decide to loosen for us so we can cap them off.
I think we are going to try and do that tomorrow morning, because we need to have this fixed before Monday, or Alan won't be able to have a shower after work without there being a leak in the basement.
Anyway, with luck we will get it fixed up, and not leaking before the end of the weekend, then I can think about getting other projects done. I'm going to go downstairs for a few minutes to move some boxes so we can work on it tomorrow, then I'm going to bed.
If the snow keeps up Alun will be in heaven tomorrow and I'll have to find some snowpants... supposedly we are going to be making 2 giant snowmen and we'll be needing big carrots for the noses.

Baby show goodies

Wow what a haul from the baby show in Toronto. I went down to visit my mom in Toronto with the boys, the baby show 'just happened to be on' at the same time and we all went to it.

By the time we were done at the baby show we had a stroller full of stuff. We had to take everything out of the stroller and repack it all before we were able to leave the convention centre. We got formula by the case, boxes of baby cereal, samples by the bag full, it was great! I have an inventory of everything I got I plan to go out to the store and find out how much everything is worth and seeing how much I actually got, I'm guessing between $150-$250 in retail value.

Also over the weekend we went to Ikea, I have a few ideas now for what I would like to do for Xmas gifts, now it's just a matter of implementing them, thankfully I already have most of the needed items for the ideas.

The only other thing that happened over the weekend was that we went to Fabricland, I have about 6 or 7 meters of fabric that I plan to make into potholders for the Xmas bazaar coming up at the end of the month. I just have to get the pattern out, replace the needle in my serger and cut my materials. I should be able to get a whole bunch done in little time if I can get myself about an hour of time to myself. Maybe I'll get my things out in a few minutes and get started.

Watch out here comes the 'Baby Mafia' walking group

If you are out and about in the early afternoon in Hanover... watch out, you may be surrounded by 'The Baby Mafia' if you aren't careful. Some of  the moms that attend some of the parenting groups at the Hanover Early Years Center have decided we need to get out and about, and maybe even shed a few pounds that are hanging on from pregnancy.  At least with this mafia you only have to worry about some spit-up, maybe a wet or dirty diaper and the occasional cry and lots of sleeping.

Here is out 'Gang' of little rebels... as you can see they are quite an active bunch.

This is a picture of all the moms and babes taken by my Alun, he quite the photographer for a 3 1/2 year old isn't he? From Left to Right... Ang and Carter, Sara and Connor, Kathie (me) and David, Jess and Kane, Iyanna and Erin.

We had a nice walk and then decided to go to the park and take some pictures... Here are some of the pictures we were able to capture.

I'm not sure how walking with strollers will go for the winter, but we will certainly be trying to get out and about twice a week from now on until conditions don't allow it.

Happy Halloween for all

Wow what a Halloween we had. David had his baby group halloween party on Wednesday, and we had another halloween party on Friday, I'm not sure if Friday was more for the mom's or the kids. I was having so much fun at the Friday party I forgot to take pictures, so I only ended up taking 1 of David at the end for the whole time. (I finally figured out how to add pictures, so this posting might end up with quite a few of them)

Then Friday night we went around the neighborhood and did the trick or treating thing. I bundled up David and put him in the snuggly, he slept most of the night, and Alun and I walked about 7 blocks worth of walking and brought home a large grocery bag full of candy and chips. 

Alun was trying to sneak a chocolate ball during this picture. As soon as I snapped this picture I quickly sorted through his candy and only found 3 candies that the wrapper had torn a little, probably just from being jostled about while in the bag, or during the sorting process. I threw them out anyway, just in case.

Of course, no halloween would be complete without a drive to visit some friends, so we went to Peggy's house and of course we were invited in and next thing I know we ended up visiting for about a hour and a half. It was nice, Alun got to play with Caitlynn and Megan then David and I visited with Peggy and Dennis.

We finally got home just before 10:00 last night, Alun was able to stay up almost 3 hours past his bedtime. Other than a 3am wake-up he slept in until almost 8:30. Quite a feat for this house.

Well off to make some breakfast so then a candy or 2 can be eaten afterwards.