Blah Sick Again

 

We have had a sick little woman at our place. Not much gets done when this chick is sick, she is a fan of laying beside me and mumbling requests.  No one likes being sick so between Graham and I we do what we can to  help her get through.  Everything else gets put on hold because she (along with big sis) are the most important!!!!!!!  She is luckily on the mend.

 

~ Momma P



valentine love

there...

For Valentine's Day I was actually away at a scrap booking retreat so Mr. P and I had a early date night.  Then out there it was fun to add some festiveness to our room in honour of 'Love Day'.  The retreat was held at a hunting lodge so this guy was actually in our room and watched over us as we slept...creepy!

here...

After arriving home from Florida Mr.P and I took a few minutes and wrote out love notes for our girlies.  Each morning they would find a new heart in their mailbox from each of us, then I taped them to their doors.  Valentine's Day there was a book each girl and sweet nighties with the sisters from FROZEN on them so it was a big hit.  Nothing big but a big hit apparently - I was away at the retreat.

 

This was a gift from a friend for hosting a craft night and I LOVE IT!  I see using this in various ways over the years.  Maybe just between Mr. P and I one year or perhaps we pass it around from person to person putting in on pillows. Anyway I LOVE IT and like thinking about those dear to me.

 

 

Now Valentine's Day gets a little flack, but I think any day where we are encouraged to express love is a good day!!!!

 

 

~ Mrs. P

Saving Her Pennies for Disney

I have good friends who are great parents and am continually inspired by their fabulous ideas. One such idea was helping Amelia save and contribute to our families upcoming Disneyworld trip. She was able to do this by helping recycle bottles and then getting to keep the money.  For about 6 months whenever our recycling was full I would call Amelia to help. When we were going to make a trip to the bottle depot I would get her to grab a corner of the garbage bag and help load them into the vehicle. When it was warm she even helped me bring them to the window and dump them.  It has been a fun experience, well as fun as the smelly bottle depot can be. We had previously been donating them but when my friend shared this idea we jumped right in.  Perhaps one of the coolest parts to this 'saving your pennies' exercise was that the piggybank she put her bottle money in was just a super cheap tin from Dollerama and to open it we had to use the can opener, so we honestly didn't keep track and were surprised when we opened it.  She had a little over $140 dollars :) wowzers - yeah Amelia!!!!! She was also able to pay tithing for the first time, so that was neat for her to start that step of giving.  We took Saturday to roll Mr.P's change and count Amelia's money then the two of them went to the bank and exchanged it for US$.  I have to say I am pretty proud of her, it is exciting to start the learning process with such fundamental things like money.

 

 

~ Mrs. P



You Light My Fire

As I think about Mr. P it is pretty cliché but the dude lights my fire!  AND not just in the romantical way, he really stretches my thinking, grounds my emotionalness and gets me smiling like no one else.

Certainly there are times when I am frustrated with him and think 'dude ugh...' but that is normal real life, I am sure he does the same with me sometimes. We always work and figure it out.  Lately around here we have had a few weeks with back to back date nights, it has been awesome.  He has been away lots for work too so I relish my time with him. The guy is such a hard worker, he is a doer and I admire those qualities, all that he does for our family. I also appreciate that he is the kind of husband who washes the floors after bedtime (because I like waking to a clean house).  He knows my love language for sure!! I have written this before but watching him with our girls has made my love grow.  Watching him play gorilla daddy or be a horse or get this - sew pretend dresses for Amelia, he has captured more of my heart.  So a bit of an ode to him. When I met him at 19 I didn't even realize how lucky I had it!

 

he lights my fire

 



 

proudly ~  Mrs. P

Night Out with JT



We Dig Justin Timberlake 

 

A girls night out happened last week and I just wanted to take a moment to memorialize it.  So Justin, well he is the total package, a well rounded guy; sings, dances and easy on the eyes.  It was planned to be a Hinko sisters night out with Jenny, Alyson and Leslie but poor Alyson was fighting some bad bronchitis. Thankfully Leslie's SIL Jesse stepped in to join us, although it was JT who wouldn't want to go.  Our seats were way up in the boonies but for the price we decided they were still really good.  We pretty much danced the entire night!!!  He has so many classic songs that you know every word and must sing along.  I started the evening early with plans to hit up Target - my favourite store.  We all met up, grabbed some dinner and then arrived just in time.  It was such a fun night!  Girls nights need to happen more, they are always a blast.

 

 

~ Mrs. P

an out pouring of LOVE

 

They call it the 'terrible twos' for a reason, there are moments that are frankly just terrible.  My little lady and I had a particularly challenging week. There were a few days that frustration on both of our parts was the dominant emotion.  Naps are a thing of the past and I have been trying to do a quiet time where each lady gets to pick a bin (I made up 5 bins with special, fun only used during quiet time items).  The idea is that they pick a bin and then hang quietly listening to music, playing with the toys from the bin, reading their library books and perhaps even sleeping on their beds ha! Sleep happened only once this week for Miss Stella. It is like my girls don't like sleep. Quiet Time has about a 20-30 min run, but it has kept me sane this week. I feel kind of bad writing that, but this momma needed quiet time herself.

 

One afternoon was particularly hard, Stella was spazzing in her room and I was on my verge. A friend popped into my mind so I called her.  I was certainly prompted to do so because her words have been echoing in my ear - show an outpouring of LOVE!!!!!  Not that you let behaviors go or stop teaching but give lots of love and attention.  I know that this little chick needs my touch and time, pretty sure those are her love languages.  This was a good reminder for me.  So during JoySchool it was just Stella and I so we made running a few errands special.  It was such fun, she was such a little goofball. It was seriously SO FUN!  Such good advice to remember, especially when things are challenging 'show and outpouring of LOVE'.

 

~ Momma P



BULLSEYE in the house

 

 

Over Christmas our girls watched Toy Story 3 and re-watched and re-watched and since then our Stella has become a huge fan of Bullseye.  Except here is the thing, she calls herself 'Bullseye', dresses in a 'Woody' costume but thinks she is 'Jesse'. If you ask her what colour her hair is she'll say red, she also requests that Mr. P and I be her horses and take her for rides. Yeah a bit of confusion but so adorable!  She will also tell us that, "there is a snake in my boot" or that "it is garbage time" (not sure where that fits into the movie but pretty sure they are Woody lines).  The girls also request that we act like Buzz when he gets switched to Spanish.... I just call them Sinorita's a lot and talk with a bad accent. It has been the cutest thing watching Stella get into the character - whoever it actually is HAHAHA.  Also to be noted about the costume, it was a super cheap pick up a few years ago post Halloween and it a size 4 so I am constantly rolling the sleeves up and to stop the bottoms from dragging and tripping her we tuck them into her socks.   I have washed it 3 times this week!!!!

 

This chick is seriously funny. These pictures were from two different days; same costume, same headband but different hairstyle, different shoes. Oh my what a girl.  We are taking the girls to Disneyworld shortly and I am so pumped to take this little woman to see the characters, it is going to blow her mind!!!

 

Tonight we had pizza for dinner and in my planning for Disneyworld I discovered one of the restaurants in the park is called Pizza Planet and the girls started getting excited asking about the aliens from the movie.  Then Stella was like "pizza for dinner, where are the aliens?" oh man not here now but at the restaurant when we go on vacation.  I forget sometimes that littles have a hard time processing such things.

 

 

~ Mrs. P