Wow. It's been a long time since I posted anything

Probably because nothing new or noteworthy ever happens in my world.

Here are a few shots from our Spring 2009/ and the Summer that wasn't 2009.

Just making sure everyone sees this.

It's official. Suz is my weirdest friend.

Here's a copy and paste of an IM that we had today.



Maureen says:
i think aggressive agressive is healthier than passive aggressive

Maureen says:
at least i won't take anyone by surprise when i snap

Maureen says:
my neighbours won't be on citypulse 24 saying "she was the nicest person....i can't believe this happened"

Suzie says:
once when Assnugget was really mad...Muffet was all yellie and bugging him and he kept walking toward him....I told him if he took one more step forward I'd bite his balls off with my teeth right through his pants. He stopped

Suzie says:
..that's what they always say

Suzie says:
she kept to herself mostly

Maureen says:
i know that's what they always say. and it's bullshit

Suzie says:
seemed like such a nice lady

Suzie says:
never heard a peep out of her

Suzie says:
well...except she used to throw snow balls at us sometimes

Maureen says:
bullshit. they heard the goats bleating for their lives as she sacrificed them in her living room, and just turned up the TV to drown out the sound

Suzie says:
and once she scared my little boy and he came home crying...

Suzie says:
oh and there was the time I saw her yelling blood murder at her husband

Suzie says:
LMAO @ goats bleating

Suzie says:
there's something seriously wrong with you...I think I could help you. I'm reasonable and sane

Blue eyed, blue haired baby

Carys has been sick on and off since Boxing Day. We took her to emergency last weekend when her fever was up to 103.6 during the day.
They diagnosed an ear infection, got her fever down, prescribed some antibiotics and told me to follow up with her family doctor in 10 days.
Earlier this week, she was so weak she couldn't sit up on the toilet and fell off. When I helped her back up and held her upright, she was crying "mommy, i'm so dizzy, i'm so tired". So I took her into her family doctor. He sent her in for chest xrays, and the results are in. She has pneumonia. Now she's on an inhaler, more antibiotics and a cough syrup to control asthma (although she doesn't have asthma, it's just to open her airways up).

She's been feeling so crappy that I bought her some little girl hair dye. I put blue streaks in her hair yesterday, and it perked her up. There's nothing like feeling pampered and pretty to lift your spirits.

Here are the pictures of her with blue hair.

Christmas 2008

Here's Carys sleeping on Christmas Eve. It was almost 1 am before she went to bed. She was convinced that if she stayed up late enough, she'd see Santa. I had to wake her up at 8 am on Christmas Day so she could open her presents and be ready to go when Gram and Gramps got here. They had to pick up Valerie by 11, so it was cutting it close. Staying up so late on Christmas Eve almost made her a little beast by dinner time on Christmas Day. She is adorable when she's asleep though.


Carys and Randy decorating our Christmas tree. She hijacked Randy's job of putting the angel on top of the tree, and then she promptly replaced his angel with a star. She's the boss of us. :$






Here's my Mom and me. I can hardly wait to shake the pneumonia and get back to the gym. If I had known I was going to look so blobby in all the pictures I would have wore a burkka.














Carys loves Aunt Laura's idea of just handing the whipped cream over when no more is needed for the recipe. Three cheers for Aunt Laura. Hip hip hooray. Hip hip hooray. Hip hip.....you get the picture.




















This is my sister in law Laura. She hosted Christmas again this year, and I don't blame her for wanting to take a mini vacation for next Christmas. I don't have the nerve to attempt to host Christmas yet. She's opening a spa gift certificate, and from the look on her face when she opened it, it was pretty much exactly what she wanted. Thanks for hosting us all, Laura. You're the best and everything was beautiful.

























I think this is a picture that should be saved for special occasions. Like Val's prom........wedding day, that kinda thing. Laura made the whipped cream for the trifle, and just put the bowl in front of Valerie and Carys and said "here ya go". Gotta love Laura. I wish she had been my Aunt. I must admit, it's not a bad picture of Randy either. Maybe I'll get it framed.
















Here's my niece Valerie wearing the funky hat Bill & Laura got for her in Quebec. I think that's a wad of gum in her cheek. I love the hat though, and Val is such a ham when it comes to the camera.

Carys didn't ask for the camera, although it's rapidly becoming her favourite Christmas present. I have the preschool paparazzi following me everywhere I go now. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the bathroom and had to say "Get that camera outta here". She loves it, and now Jenny-Meg (Carys' cat) is getting all the pictures taken of her that she feels she so richly deserves (being the only well behaved cat in the house and all).

This is my brother Bill, opening the classic movie Slap Shot. Gotta love the Hansen Brothers. I think they even made an appearance in the Slap Shot 3 movie. I don't have too many pics of Bill without his beard. I need to get my camera out more.

This is my Dad. It's nice to have him around more, but it's a pity that his sobriety came 30 years too late to do me any good. Oh well, better late than never.

Our family on Christmas Day at Bill & Laura's.

Carys and Valerie at Bill and Laura's in the middle of gift opening. Carys, as usual has her face stuffed with goodies. Shout outs to Aunt Laura and Uncle Bill for not forgetting the shrimp and battered mushrooms.

This arcade claw game was a real hit. Valerie and Carys played with it for hours. Love Valerie's hat, and Carys' hair is in its usual mess. You'd never know that before bed Christmas Eve, she and I spent an hour curling and brushing and spraying it to perfection.

This is Bill & Laura's downstairs Christmas tree, with all the presents under it on Christmas Day. Beautiful. Next year, I would really like to have a real tree.

I always like it when a Christmas tree looks like a solar flare. The coloured lights were Carys' idea. I had always just had clear lights on it before. I like the combination. This was after Santa came, but before Carys woke up, and before the cats realized they had high octane catnip toys in their stockings. Notice the angel in the upper part of the tree. It always has perched atop our tree, but this year, Carys had it in her head that stars should top the tree. Randy wasn't going to completely give up his angel, so we compromised.

Our first attempt at a gingerbread house went surprisingly well. She decorated, as you can tell, and we had a slight problem with the trees in front of the house staying upright, but other than that, all went well.



Loki likes whipped cream. It's even worth a beating (no pun intended) to steal some.

In the beginning

Well, taking the cue from my sister-in-law, Laura, I have decided to write a blog on here to keep everyone updated on the comings and goings of our family.

Here it is, November 9, 2008, and I have officially finished my Christmas shopping for Carys. I just have to let my Dad know that she wants a dollhouse and makes sure she gets that, and she's all set. Of course, with Christmas pending, we have had to purge the house of some of her toys. Some of them she parted with easily, chiming in that they were "baby toys" but with others it required a little more finesse. Let's just say that I'm going to have to sneak in like a thief in the night to get her to part with some of the stuff she has hidden away in her room. If anyone wants garbage bags full of McDonald's happy meal toys, let me know. She only seems like she has a zillion of them......not that I don't cook or anything. LOL.

She's a very funny little kid. My friend Cindy and I were out with Carys on the Thursday before Halloween, and as we drove by Canadian Tire, she said "Mommy, do you remember when I was born in the lighting aisle at Canadian Tire"? I burst out laughing. I love that kid, but I think my off centre approach to parenting is really warping her.

On Halloween night, she saw a dog dressed up like an angel, complete with a halo and wings. When she came running back down to the sidewalk, she said to me breathlessly, "Did you see that dog? He had wings. I think he's God". My girlfriends were oohing and awwing about how cute it was. She does say some truly adorable things.

Tonight I was on the phone with my Mom. Carys picked up the extension phone in the bedroom and realized I was talking to her Gram. She told Mom that Randy was at a hockey game, and that "he crawled into the TV to get there". I don't know about her sometimes. I had tears rolling down my face from laughing.

I'm nearing 120 workouts at the gym for this calendar year, and haven't been fatter since 2002. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm thinking that I may need to book some sessions with a personal trainer to get back on track for weight loss. People tell me I don't look bigger to them, but I know BS when I hear it.

Randy balked on the dog he had agreed to get. Qu'elle surprise! It wasn't the fact that he balked that bothered me, it was the cowardly, last minute way he balked. He called me from work, around the time we were supposed to go look at the dog and said he changed his mind. He knows that Buddy is not well, and that Carys will be without any dog at all soon, and yet he drags his feet on getting another one. The one we were going to look at a couple of weekends ago was a 9 month old Shih-Tzu. Thankfully I hadn't mentioned it to Carys or we really would have felt bad. I guess when Randy's ready for a dog is when we'll get a dog. He's really not a dog person though, and Mom has told us that when Buddy goes, she's not getting another dog. Buddy's a humungous pain in the butt.