10 Cool places to visit

1) Canadian Rockies!

2) SandBanks Provincial Park and Prince Edward County in Ontario.

3) Prince Edward Island

4) Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, MA

5) Science North in Sudbury, ON.

6) Elliot Lake, ON – Visit at the dump… 

7) The Paramedic headquarters in Ottawa, ON (Open Doors happens in early June).

8) Disney Institute – 1998.   Back then individuals could take fun courses on cooking, videography and much more.   During our honeymoon, we experience the Disney Institute.   Unfortunately, this is not open to individuals anymore… 

9) Northern Ontario – My husband is from New Liskeard (Now Themiskaming Shores).  I always love going up there when his parents still lived there.  Now they are closer to their kids and it has been a long time since we went up there.   We hope to be able to do a fishing trip one of there days.  

10) Colorado Springs, CO.

Oh there’s more I could mentioned like Cuba, Dominican Republic and meeting our sponsored child from Compassion Canada, a few more Provincial Parks we have visited and enjoyed…

Anywhere I can go with my family is a special place.   We make wonderful memories by visiting the area and exploring together.  

William Tell Mom

Have you ever heard of the William Tell Mom song?   Anita Renfroe song everything a mom could tell in a 24 hours time on the William Tell Overture.  It's hilarious!   Check it out! 

If you go on her website you will hear what dad will say to the kids... LOL

More than 10 years of junk...

... sitting (literally) in our basement.   That's what happens when you get married and move two appartments in one house without going through your stuff on both side.   You have good intentions of getting rid of your things after the honeymoon.

Then first thing you know... you move to another house and guess what? You move your junk too! 

Then on your 10th anniversary year - you decide to finish the basement which means you need to remove the stuff from there before...  Do you go through the boxes now?  Noooooo!   You wait until it's time to bring it back downstairs remembering that not everything will go back in the house.    Well my father-in-law and mother-in-law (with the help of an uncle-in-law) did a marvelous job for our basement.   We love it...   Then we needed to go through the STUFF... 

Not very motivating when you see tons of boxes in the garage... Literally it was taking the whole place.  So we started slowly...  The things we knew we will keep went in the basement placed in various wardrobes or corners...   Some boxes still need some cleanup but we know we want what's in them.   After a few weeks - we are almost done...  At some point, I thought we will never be able to go through it.   We threw a lot, shredded lots of paper, gave away things we didn't want to keep at the Salvation Army and discovered some little gems... Things from both our past...   Like hubby's braces (don't know why he kept them).

One of my highlights was the discovery of old money - like 1$ Canadian in paper or special money...  Even old pennies that are larger than the normal ones!   I didn't even knew about pennies this big...  Here's what they look like at their full size.

Now we just have to finish the 10 boxes or so left and organize the garage so that we can park the vehicles... before snow comes!

Not another craft that I like!!!

Yep!   Last night, my friend Dayna invited me to introduce me to beading... I had a blast and loved it...  Mind you I am not sure if I will have time to produce lots but hey it's a start.

I made a necklace...  simple one.   I like symetry but Dayna challenged me to try to do it without symetry...   So I do something different somewhere.  Can you find it?   LOL

Bargain Queen

LOL - that's me...   I go to ToysRUs the other day and found a Lego box regular price 100$ and on sale at 22$.   Amazing!    Isn't it.    So I brought my mother-in-law the same day and she bought two for two of her grandsons...  

I go to Winners and found an ABC toys in French (WoW!) in 15$ - got it for mother-in-law for a christmas gift.   I also found the famous WordLaunch for 25$ - again for a christmas gift from mother-in-law...  

My latest discovery is at the dollar store near my place.   I go in to check for pirate's hats.   Didn't find any but I found workbooks for my kids...  Got most of them in three copies but some I had only 2 copies or just one...   Bummer.  

Then I found a serie of books on countries - got Thailand, Dominican Republic and Bolivia because this is where our sponsored kids with Compassion are.   I get home and show them to hubby and you know what he tells me?  "Why didn't you bought the whole set?"

Right!   I had thought of that at the store but I thought that he would have said something like "Don't you think we have enough books?" so I took only the three that were touching us... 

So I went back before swimming courses...   At 1$ each it's quite a bargain.  Did a search on the net and found out that they were about 25$ or so... 

And Alexandre started to read the one on Dominican Republic.  Cool!

Rediscovering my library

The library were I live was kind of complicated to go with little ones... But soon they will have a brand new door to allow easy access for family with kids.  You see before you would have to go behind the building and take an elevator and walk a long time, go in the library, take another elevator to go int he kids section.   OUF!   Not too bad mind you but with 4 kids I avoided the library.

Well they will start construction next week... for a door that will go directly to the kids sections.   Yippee!

Anyhow, last night after swimming lessons (with only Alexandre - the other three are contagious still) I went to pick up some books that I had asked to put aside.  Then I went downstairs to check out some books about Egypt for our Mystery of History lessons.   Found little treasures...   I'm so excited.  Alexandre took some books too!   I had directed him toward a easy reader section but when I went to see him he told me that he wanted chapter books - I'm so proud of him...  He loves reading which makes ma heart sign...   So we went to the chapter books section and discovered some Magic School Bus chapter books.   He chose three and started one in the car.  LOL   That's my boy!

Speaking of books...  I will have to tell you the great deal I've found at the dollar store close to my home.   Amazingly you can find little treasures for homeschooling there...

There is a Paige in me!

Anyone knows who I am talking about?   You must be watchin Extreme Makeover Home Edition then...

Yesterday I helped my in-laws in putting the floor.   Well we started anyway.   It's not finished and they will continue today with hubby's uncle.    Me - I will take care of the kids... but I loved the experienced of yesterday.   Fun!    Wish I could do more but duty calls...

The floating floor's color is wild cherry.  I love it.   That's the one we drove to Montreal to go get.   a 5 hour drive total because we had to come back obviously (LOL).    So we started with the main area to put the floor in.    I am expecting that the main area will be finished by tonight but who knows...   The last room to be done will be the bedroom.

Nothing much left to do.    Once the floor is done, there will be the baseboards to put in, a few things to do here and there.  Then hubby will be able to bring his office down.   Then we will be able to paint the room where he is right now so I can bring my office upstairs... so that we can paint where I am right now to get a school room.

Speaking of school room - I am struggling right now.   Debating if I should continue or not...   Deep down I know I should but I am messed up emotionally and I don't know anymore.    So I will take one month at a time.   I am looking forward to it just for the history part.    But I don't want to deprive my kids of having friends.   See how the ennemy is messing me up even more.   

Weird feelings...

I'm reflecting to the fact I am leaving Sequoia to plant our own church.   In the same time I have the feeling that I am leaving my homeschooling family as well...   You see there is about 10 families at Sequoia who are homeschooling.   Mind you, we don't get together often or I don't get invited much probably because my kids are much younger than the rest... but still they encouraged me and they willingly answered my numerous questions when I was in the considering mode. 

Still I have one or two I can asked questions when I need...   Believe me it's a weird feeling - being sad to not see them anymore even though we didn't spoke that much except for Sundays.   It's so bizarre...  I guess deep down I wish we could be closer.

On another note, I am having problems with the type of discussions I hear when I go to Gymnastics.   Why in the world christians homeschooling people have to talk about others who are not in their presence - it's beyond my understanding...  I call it boderline gossip.  The other week, I was listening them complaining about the fact their husbands were not doing everything they do when they are away.   I think we should be fortunate that our kids are in good hands... Who cares if the dishes are still on the counter?   Really this is a minor issue.   My husband is not perfect but I know he is taking care of my kids... Besides the bible is very clear about uplifting your husband not putting him down.    So this week, I decided to bring my own homeschool work (LOL  I've found this French book that is stretching my vocabulary and my grammatical reasoning... very challenging!) and did that after I fed Jasmine.   I didn't feel like being part of the discussion...   I did heard bits and pieces but I kind of let it go.   I didn't want to be frustrated again this week.   I think it was wise from my part.

Where is Jérémy??? again....

Lately, I don't know what is going on in the little head of my thrid son but when I find him too quiet I know something is going on...

At first, it was the yogourt.  He would grab two (not one but two...) and a spoon and go hide behind the island next to the garbage and eat both at the same time!   So we put a plastic lock on the fridge.   Since then....

He passed to bread.   He would grab the bag of bread and go hide at the same place to eat...   We caught him four times so far including this morning after breakfast.   My husband looked at me once and said "At least if he would pick another place..."  but no always the same place.

Today... once again it was too quiet.   I think Dominic came back and said "Jérémy is playing with the formula."  Boy!  did I ever got up fast from my chair where I was sitting explaining something to Alexandre.    And yes!  He was indeed playing with the formula, pouring it on the floor with the scoop.   He got punished and while I asked Alexandre to bring the camera, he went to get a towel to try to clean it up...  LOL   Alexandre then went to get the vacuum and I cleaned it up but he had some on himself as well.  

I wonder what I need to do now for him to stop grabbing stuff from the countertop - NOW the formula is pushed real far from the side as well as the bread...

 

More experiments...

Well...  I've squetched a couple of more pictures... and I decided to try something else this time.  So I took my colored pencil "Prismacolor" and sat down yesterday to start my second drawing - this time tulips...

So I did the flowers yesterday and this morning I did the stems and the leaves while Alexandre was doing some school...   After we did his first part of Je Lis... J'écris book 2 I was able to finish the drawing while he was practicing some writing. 

The result is this....

I like to think that the four tulips represent my own kids...  

To be honest, I'm starting to like this...  

Discovering a new passion?

Last week, a girl in our H.E.A.T. group had some watercolors and was painting.   I thought it was cool and Rob thought I should get myself some paint, brushes and paper to do that as well.   So at a store this week I bought some Crayola paint and paper... already had some brushes for the kids.

Yesterday I did my first drawing...  based on a card.   It's a cardinal - a common bird here in Ontario.  My first impression is that it's not perfect... but hey it is my first painting.  

Rob would like me to take some painting courses.   Me... I'm afraid.  Afraid to discover I really enjoy this and afraid at the cost to get started...   Painting can get really expensive.   So for now, I stick to what I have...  I know the paint I got is not the best... and the brushes I have are not great...   after all what can I expect from brushes bought at a dollar store...  but for now I practice!

I've sketched two other drawings... tulips and a ladybug.   Now I need to paint them.

Did I discover a talent that I didn't know I had?  Maybe...  I need to pursue this to make sure.

Pathetic but true...

For those of you who don't know I have a Master degree in Information Techonology...  Now what is pathetic is that I just figured out how to created my own avatar...  DuH!    I downloaded a little software and it made it by itself...  And I uploaded it on my profile so now when I will post some comments I won't have the generic image.

To be honest, I never investigate much but I would love to have something special for my blog...  But I lack the courage to experiment or to create.   Love to scrapbook but don't have much time... so do you think I will have time to "update" my blog.... NOT!

So for now, it will stays like that...   Maybe I should post some pics of my ladybug collection...   The latest addition is my watch!  Just got it last Friday at Wal-Mart...  So cute with the ladybug ticking for every seconds passing by.   Love it!

The washer is dead...

Once again!   During the summer my father-in-law had repaired it but this time it smell smoke...  So the washer is unplugged and we are seriously debating about buying a new washer or buying a new pair of washer/dryer... Front load or upload?   Mmmmm!   Will we move or not?   That's the question really.  And if we move, when?   In a year, two years or more?

Our dream would be a buy some land and then build by design our own house.    Round around porch with rockers on it...  A dream of mine.   School room with bookcases - lots of them.   4 bedrooms upstairs with 2 bathrooms...   Basement finished with a pool table maybe?   Kitchen a bit bigger than the one we have with an island that has electrical plugs on it...   Lots of cabinets...   Big driveway for the trailer for sure.  And maybe a pool in the backyard?  And the woods for the kids to play in it.   A wood fireplace for sure...  Hardwood floors...

Hey it doesn't cost anything to dream right?    

Discovery at the camping site

While camping this week-end (and waiting for our friends to come over... Thanks goodness for Shannon who pulled on the teeth a couple of times before it was loose enough for me to take it out!  I'm a softy!!!), I discovered a ladybug with the kids.   At first we took pictures with it on our hands but then I thought of my close-up feature on my camera and took a little piece of a tree (already on the ground) and decided to try to be artistic.   I will let you judge my talents...