Thankful

I was going to do a post on all the things that I am thankful for....and then this whole day was just amazing!

On Monday I was thinking about my job situation - or lack thereof. I'm trying to just be patient, apply for the opportunities I find and trust that God already has something picked out for me and that sooner or later I'll find it. It's hard not to stress about it though, especially after that nice letter from EI saying that my payments are no officially not coming in anymore. I had applied at Mayfair, which is sort of like a placement agency. They can find you temporary, part time or full time office work and after my interview with them I think we were both feeling very positive about it. So on Monday I had been thinking about all the job possibilities I had applied for and not heard back from and I prayed about it and then Tuesday morning at 8:30am the phone woke us up. It was Mayfair calling about a job they had for me and asking whether I would be available. It's not anything permanent, but it's 4 days of work I wouldn't have had otherwise and it was really cool to get an immediate positive answer like that!

The only downside was that now I had to get off my butt and look for some childcare!! This seemed even more daunting, because now I had to go interview strangers to look after my precious difficult children!! Today I had 2 interviews and the last one was really great. She has a 8 1/2 month old boy, lives in a mobile home not too far from us (closer would be nice, but you can't have everything!!) and her rates seem to be reasonable. She was also super friendly and seemed like a happy person. I'm so relieved to have found someone so quickly and these 4 days of work will be a perfect trial period for both of us to make sure that it works!

The other major thing was that today I had someone come to look at one of our rooms that we rent out. We had one of our renters move out at the end of June and the other one left at the beginning of July and although it was nice to have the whole house to ourselves, it really helps to have that extra financial contribution from those renters! This was a guy and his girlfriend and they wanted to live in the bigger of the 2 rooms with their 2 small cats. I wasn't sure they would all fit with their stuff, but they seemed excited about it and right now they're out getting the damage deposit!! It's really hard not to stress about stuff, especially when it has to do with money and bills and payments but it's also amazing how God can work things out. We have a couple people interested in the other room too so it's just possible we'll have both rooms filled for August which would be really great!!

On our way home from our 2 interviews with the dayhomes we stopped at Mac's for a slushie (partly because I wanted one and partly because I forgot Keira's soother and she was letting me know) and they had the Crystal Light one there!! I love slushies but hate all that sugar and empty calories. A couple years ago 7-11 had the Crystal Light slushies, but they didn't keep them because there wasn't enough demand so I'm happy to see that Mac's now has them!

I'll post more pictures soon, maybe in the next week. I have 2 hours of training for those 4 days of work and Keira's got an appointment to get her picture taken at Walmart tomorrow and then Saturday is her party! So I'm off right now to get some dinner and make some cupcakes!!

Trying Again

Wow! I tried like 3 times to upload this video and it just wasn't working, but this time it worked and in half the time.

I am trying not to neglect my blog, so I thought I would come do another post instead of watching yet another show. It's so easy to just sit and watch tv alllllll day and then be grumpy if you have to get up and make a meal or something :) I've actually been spoiled these last few days. Michael's parents are visiting and every morning I get up and the kitchen and all the dishes are sparkling clean - it's so great. But they're leaving today so it's back to real life.

Today I have a speech assessment appointment for Aidan. He can usually make himself understood, but he does have some problems with certain letters or letter combinations and since he's starting Kindergarten in the fall I thought it would be good to go and see if he needs any help. It's very possible that he'll just take a bit longer to sort everything out and be just fine in the end, but just in case it's something more - and I also want his teacher and friends to be able to understand him a little better than they might be able to now.

And I am also on the hunt for the perfect part time job which will co-ordinate perfectly with Aidan's morning Kindergarten hours and Keira's childcare (which I suppose I should also start hunting for) hours - I know it's out there!! I just have to find it...

Keira has taken her first couple steps all by herself. She is so strong and has great balance on those little toes, she probably could have been walking a long time ago but she just doesn't have the confidence to step out. Hopefully soon though!

...And I'm Back!!

It has been forever since I've posted and I thought it was finally time to blog again. For now, here's a couple videos I took of Keira tonight. She's turning 1 year old on the 25th of this month and she still isn't walking! Sometimes I'm happy about that, but most of the time I wish she would start, especially since Aidan started at 10 months. Lately though, she's been standing up by herself and once up, she can balance for awhile. She's also gotten better at sitting herself down when she's done standing and she can even do some squats which I think is very impressive! She's also started pushing her highchair or the office chair or anything that moves really, and staggering around after it. She does have 2 walkers, but they're so light that when she leans on them they tip over. So I got a weight from the garage and put it in the walker and voila! She was so impressed and proud of herself - check it out!

In this one I had her all lined up at the end of the hall but she steered into the closet and couldn't get herself straightened out again

Keira Crawling

Roaring Babies

Keira decided she was going to get up at 7 this morning so I got her a bottle and hoped she would just fall back asleep. When that didn't happen I brought her back to bed thinking maybe she would cuddle for a little bit and I could get 20 more minutes of pretending I was asleep. She was definitely not happy with this and after wiggling and squirming and making little noises she then started roaring. After a couple minutes of growly roars we got up and she was quite happy. Hopefully she doesn't remember this and think that roaring at me will get her whatever she wants!

What A Day!

So many funny things happened today!

Aidan got a Spiderman Operation game for his birthday and lately has enjoyed playing it. He has to do it in his room because he's so loud and if I'm watching tv, I can't hear my show. He was playing it at the table the other day and this is what it sounded like 'Bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzz Mommy! I'm winning! Bzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzz' Clearly his definition of winning is different than the goal of the game. Every time I hear him playing it I say to Michael 'I'm winning!' and we both crack up.

Keira learned to clap today. Maybe she sees it on tv and started practicing, I'm not sure but it was just so cute.

Of course after she started we all tried to get her to do it again and again. She would stand on my lap hopping up and down and clapping with a huge grin on her face. Then if she stopped we would clap and say 'Yayyy!' and she would start again.

The other thing she's started doing is roaring, it's too funny. She would make this little growl in
her throat and then if you respond with a similar noise she'll do it back and giggle at you. Aidan thought this was pretty cool so they sat on the couch roaring and growling and giggling at each other.

This is not really funny, but it did happen today - Keira threw up 3 times tonight. It seems like if she's going to throw up, she's going to do it multiple times. The last time she threw up, a week or so ago, she did it 4 or 5 times. And not right in a row. She waits until she's been changed and in a new outfit, or like last time, after she's out of the bath. Then she'll do it again. And again. So kind of her. Thankfully we have a sanitary cycle on the washing machine which I'll have to use tomorrow to wash all the outfits (hers and ours) that got yakked on. She's got good timing too. Last time it was right around the time Aidan was going to bed which is normally a busy time, and today she was just finishing up as we had someone coming to look at one of our rental rooms downstairs. This is the 3rd month in a row we are trying to rent a room (each time we filled it and then received notice that it would be vacant) and I am so tired of it! I just want them filled and then not have to worry about it! Hopefully we can find someone soon and then it will all be taken care of.

I Wanna Be A Rockstar!

Michael traded in a few games and came home with the latest greatest thing: Rockband. It was funny because I was just reading about Rockband on Teresa's blog and then Michael came home with it the next day. Aidan was over the moon about it and immediately grabbed the guitar to practice. Michael and I had some fun posing him for some pictures. Then he grabbed his shades and hat so that he would look more like a rockstar, or wok-tawh as he says. For the next couple days everything was rockstar. He had to wear a certain pair of socks because they were rockstar socks. He wouldn't wear a shirt because that's what rockstars do. (How does he know that, anyways?) He would dance to music like a rockstar. It was pretty funny. He's not actually connected to anything in these pictures, just trying it out. I connected the drums and put it on practice mode for him, but it wasn't very fun for him and that was kind of the end of that.

Note the rockstar sunglasses and rockstar transformers hat. His latest favourite hat.





Keira likes to grab and hit anything, so the drums weren't really a stretch for her.

The guitar on the other hand, she had no idea what to do with and was kind of annoyed it was just sitting there on her lap.