Farm Girls

Yes, they have a swing set with a slide to play on, and bikes to ride, but what could be more fun than climbing on huge stack of cedar shakes?

Good things are happening!

Here are some blessings that have been showered on me recently:

• my trip to California


• my best friend from highschool, Heather, sent me a care package with some lovely spa treatments inside! What a fun surprise!


• We were able to spend Easter with my sister and her family. It was a wonderful time. Unfortunately I took only 1 not-blurry photo. Fortunately all three generations are represented here:

• My sister made 95% of Easter dinner AND got my girls Easter baskets filled with lots of goodies including jump ropes, gardening gloves and seeds, and bubbles! And she got plastic eggs and filled them with M&Ms for an egg hunt! Valarie rocks!


• I got to have lunch with Val yesterday. She let me choose the restaurant (Japanese) and she even tried sushi (half a bite only but she was pretty brave anyway!).


• My husband has been letting me go to bed whenever I feel like it in the evening. This is anywhere from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. Ahhh...it feels so good to get a lot of sleep.


• The other night, Don set me up in bed with a laptop so I could watch Extreme Home Makeover which he had recorded. Talk about the lap of luxury!


• My man-child, Nathan, moved two more blueberry bushes for me from what used to be our property to what now is our property. It's a hard, long job, as the bushes are mature with lots of big roots, but they are definitely worth keeping because they produce lots of blueberries!

Yes, life is very good for me : )

5 Days in Paradise...

Is how I would describe my trip to California last week! It started on Friday afternoon, when I met my sister, my niece, and my GRAND NIECE (good grief!) for a delicious Mexican lunch before I hopped on the plane heading south. Here is a picture of Madilyn Rae and me at the restaurant:





Yes, she is just adorable, and such a good baby! Lindsay is so very lucky, and Valarie is about as smitten a Grandma as they come!

Two flights and about 4 hours later, I arrived in San Francisco. My very thin mother met me at the security checkpoint (which was very nice of her...I told her just to pick me up at the curb!). We went to Trader Joe's where she let me pick out anything that sounded good! We did indeed get a cartful of food, and then we were off to her lovely little cottage by the sea.

We ate a delicious chicken salad for supper, and then sat and chatted for awhile until Lee got home from Grover Beach, where he was staying with his father. After Lee got home, we chatted until what felt like the wee hours of the morning, but in reality was about 11:00...the latest hour I've seen in a long time!

The next morning we lazed around, showered, drank coffee, and visited until it was time to go get Nathan from the airport. We met him at security as well (this is apparently a tradition of my mother's) and then went to Costco where we got gasoline, something to eat for a very hungry man-child, and some more groceries (do you see a reccuring theme here?). From Costco, we headed south to Hillsdale Mall, where we each bought Paul Potts' CD, and some maternity clothes that we found on sale at Old Navy (thanks, Mom!). After shopping came dinner at Macaroni Grill, and then we headed further south to San Jose, where we got to see Cirque du Soleil, which is every bit as wonderful as you may have heard. It was another late evening, but worth the loss of sleep!

Sunday we had another quiet, uneventful morning. We had a late lunch/early supper of barbequed marinated mahi mahi steaks (out of this world!), salad, artichokes, and artichoke raviolis. After that feast, Lee, Nathan, and I headed to San Jose to my first-ever live Sharks game. It was a good game, and a lot of fun, but they did lose in overtime to end an 11-game winning streak. Nathan was mildly disappointed until we headed out back behind the Shark Tank and waited (for an hour) for the players to come out. That was the highlight of Nathan's entire day, or maybe week, or even life! He got autographs and pictures with some of his favorite players. Here are a couple:

Nathan with Joe Thorton

Nathan with Brian Campbell, who apparently isn't a natural smiler

After we immortalized Nathan with the likes of Joe Thorton and Brian Campbell, we took him to my dad's place in Mountain View, where he spent the night. The next morning at 5:30 he had to be at the Military Entrance Physical Station (or something like that) to do all of his Coast Guard entrance stuff. It turns out that my dad lives minutes away from MEPS, so he graciously offered to have Nathan overnight and deliver him ontime the next morning. (Thanks, Dad!) That allowed Lee and I to travel back to the coast that evening and have a nice relaxing morning on Monday.

I headed back to my dad's place Monday to wait for Nathan's processing to be finished. It took a little longer than we thought it would, but that allowed Dad, Carmen and I to take a nice walk in the beautiful sunshiny weather, and then enjoy some Subway sandwiches for lunch. While Nathan was in processing, he had his physical, took the ASVAB test. He surprised everyone, including himself, by scoring 88/99 on it! That score qualifies him for any job the Coast Guard offers, so the sky is the limit for Nathan's Coast Guard career. He also got sworn in that morning/afternoon.

Nathan and I went straight to the recruiters from there, where we spent some more time talking about Nathan's options and we watched a video about boot camp. The recruiter was having some technical difficulties, so he wasn't able to print out Nathan's contract at that time. Nathan and I then walked three blocks to the Shark Tank, where we looked for a Nabokov t-shirt at the Shark Store. We couldn't find one!

After that we headed to our good friends, the Walshes, where we had a delicious meal and spent many hours visiting and catching up on the past several years. Their girls are beautiful and growing up quickly! We had a wonderful time there. Nathan tried to get everyone rallied to go ice skating, but they had a difficult time finding a rink with public skate on Monday evening.

On Tuesday my Mom took half a day off work and the two of us headed back to Hillsdale Mall where we found some adorable matching outfits for the girls, and then my mom purchased Patience's entire summer wardrobe at Old Navy, and then we discovered some very cool maternity clothes at Motherhood which we also brought home! All in all it was a very productive trip, and we were pretty convinced that Nathan and Lee would have had a horrible time : )

We came home to the smell of dinner cooking! Lee roasted a marinated pork loin roast and made a big salad. We cooked up some pesto tortellini and had the most delicious meal... After dinner my mom introduced me to Dancing with the Stars, and then I headed off to bed because the next day I had to leave : (

On Wednesday I had an uneventful day traveling back to reality. Thankfully Mom had sent a good read with me, so I was occupied almost all the way to Bellingham! I picked up a pizza in Lynden, and headed north-o'-the border to my eagerly awaiting family. We had a lovely reunion, with Jordyn hugging me tight, patting my back, and saying "Mama" over and over.

Nathan, since he is without any responsibilities, got to stay 5 more days! During which, he saw another Sharks game live, and one on t.v. at a local sports bar. Lee took him back to the recruiter's to sign his contract and finish his paperwork, so now he's all ready to leave for bootcamp in the Sept/Oct timeframe. Nathan got to go on bikerides and to get ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery, and basically was spoiled further : )

Thank you, Mom and Lee, for this wonderful break from reality! And thank you for taking care of Nathan and allowing him to get all his loose ends tied up for the Coast Guard. Thank you for the lovely clothes for me and the girlies and the delicious meals. That bit of paradise will cover a multitude of "reality" days. I love you!

Renovation: Phase 1 Done!

Phase 1, to us, means "good enough to live in and now it can wait until we have more time/money/motivation to work on it some more... "

Here is the nearly complete "Boys' Lair." It's a far cry from the dungeon!

They spent every free moment this weekend in here watching hockey, playing video games, playing Foosball, just hanging out...

The wall that I did not photograph is still in need of painting. We're going to try to drum up some time and energy this coming weekend to really finish this room and the hallway. Oh, and there's some trim work left to do in this room, as you can see looking at the sliding glass door.

After that, only the bathroom requires work for this end of the house. Unfortunately, it's not just cosmetic. It looks like we'll need to hire a plumber ($), so that might get postponed for a bit...

Because the boys got all moved into the "East Wing," the girls' space got upgraded, too! They are now downstairs with the "big-to-them" t.v. and now the Sean's-room-turned-Foosball-table-room is their toy room. Yes, it's a tad bit crowded right now. Eventually, the girls will have the bedroom in the basement (currently Nathan's) and at that point, some of this stuff can go in their room.

The only other room that's very different is my living/dining room, which used to house all these blasted toys! It's now plain and bare as can be. Ahhhhh..... At some point we will focus our reno efforts in this room, with new paint and getting the carpets cleaned. Hopefully in the next few months.

Renovation continued...

Here's the t.v. wall with the little cubby that will hold the t.v. and its accoutrements. Don built the cable and a couple of outlets in there so it will (hopefully) look tidy. Two sconces will go in those two circles on either side of the t.v. The hanging lamp will be moved...



Here are the other two walls, just to give you an idea of the color of the room. It's a taupe-y color, definitely with a hint of pink. I think it looks great with the flooring, as well as the kitchen counters.

Don needs to trim the windows and the put the baseboards back in, and the room will at least be usable. There is still painting to do in that room, and then we'll work on furnishing it.

Our other project...

I know this will come as a shock to most people. In fact, no one could have been more shocked than Don or me, or the urologist who just did Don's vasectomy in October!

We knew we were expecting for awhile, but didn't know how far along I was until I had my ultrasound appointment this afternoon. I am around 7 1/2 weeks along, and due around October 11.

Don and I are slowly finding peace with our new reality, and we're firm in our faith that God is in control and knows what He is doing.

Scope Creep

If there's one thing that Don and I are really good at, it's scope creep. As in, you start with a minor, easy, inexpesive, short, simple construction project. Then, you slowly but surely improve your project until it's difficult, expensive, lengthy, and complicated! Oh, and better. Much better.

Now, to be honest, I am the one who is usual guilty of coming up with the brilliant ideas that add to the scope creep. Don, who wants nothing more than to make me happy, and who is capable of just about anything construction-wise, always manages to make my ideas actually happen.

This is our new living area, in the suite that Don and Waneta recently vacated. They had the windows replaced a year ago, but never finished the sheetrock because they didn't want to put up with the construction mess. Who could blame them?

So, Don and I started out with this list of what we had to do to finish this room: tape and mud the sheetrock, sand, prime, paint. Voila!

Until I decided that it would be cool to get a flat-screen tv and hang it on the wall, making this the boys' ultimate hang-out room. I asked Don to remove several windows on one wall and turn that into a real wall. It was Don's idea to build a little nook in the wall for the t.v. and components to sit in, so they wouldn't take up any space in the little room.

We decided to get a small big t.v. to keep the expenses down, etc. We decided 32 inch. The boys are used to a 27 inch t.v., so we figured that was plenty big. But there was scope creep there, too. Yesterday Don went into town around noon. At four, I started getting nervous and suspicious. Sure enough, he came home all sheepish with a 42-inch t.v. from Costco. Apparently a great deal, not that he would tell me the price, but I'm thinking it was considerably more than the 32-inch.

We'll be working on this house forever.

Dinner with Madilyn Rae

Oh yeah, and all of her adoring public!

She was absolutely perfect last night. She slept soundly all through supper. We had to wake her up at the very end so that we could snuggle her up and take these photos. She's very cuddly. And wonderful. Ahhhhh....

Food

In case you didn't know, I'm in the middle of a "Biggest Loser" contest at an internet message board that I post at. Just like the t.v. program, the stakes are high. Everyone chipped in $20 at the beginning, bringing the pot to a whopping $300. Everyone sent in initial weights, and then we weigh in every Monday a.m. The person to lose the biggest percentage of their body weight by the end of the 12th week wins the pot.

I am currently in the lead at the end of the 6th week, but not by a wide margin! I have lost a little over 8.5%, and another woman is right behind me at almost 8%.

My strategy is simple. I eat according to the South Beach diet principles. And I don't cheat. Okay, I cheated one time in the past 6 weeks, so it's not even worth mentioning, right?

Here's what I eat: breakfast is always steel-cut oats cooked in water and skim milk, topped with splend, plus coffee with skim milk; lunch is a sandwich with cheddar cheese, avacado, tomato, lettuce, and peppers on either 1/2 bagel or 2 pieces of whole-grain bread, depending on what's for supper; supper is some sort of yummy protein (tonight is roast in the crock pot), a salad, a veggie, and a grain. I only eat the grain if it is brown rice, or whole-grain pasta. If I'm hungry in the afternoon, I'll eat a piece of whole-grain toast with peanut butter.

So, I'm basically limiting my grains to 2 or 3 servins/day, and avoiding all white flour. No potatoes, no white rice, and no grains alone. The idea behind SBD is that you want to keep your stomach busy digesting as long as possible. Adding a protein, like the peanut butter on the toast, slows down the digestion process considerably.

I'm eating lots of calories, and I'm not hungry. But I am losing weight...I've averaged 2 pounds/week during this contest. And I feel great. Cutting the refined sugars and flours helps you lose weight and feel better.

Wish me luck on the home stretch of my Biggest Loser contest! The money will come in very handy on this weekend.

Valentine's Fun

This morning I took the girls to Storytime at the Library. They heard stories, sang songs, did some crafts (including making these glasses), and then all got stamps on their hands and a goody-bag of candy! If we go again, I think the girls are going to have pretty high expectations from that candy bag. Afterward, we played on the playground for just a few minutes because, even though the sun was out, it was freezing.

Don is out running errands with Jordyn. Dylan and Nathan are getting haircuts after school, and the rest of us are just hanging out here.

Music to a Mom's Ears...

...is wafting upstairs from the wee room that now houses the Foosball table. At the table, Nathan and Dylan are screaming and yelling, but not swearing, through a viscious Foosball battle. It's so nice that they're able to enjoy each other's company like this. We are fortunate.

Our Magnificent Weekend of 2008

Remember our lovely Victoria weekend that we spent with Frank and Heather last year? Remember how it nearly killed our childcare providers? Remember how we (as in the 4 who were in Victoria) had so much fun we decided that we needed to spend another long weekend together in 2008?

Well, guess what Heather and I just did this evening?

Here's a hint:

That's right! We just booked a 3-day Carnival cruise to Mexico in May. Ahhhhh....I'm already starting to relax just knowing that in three short months we'll be living the good life off the shore of Baja California.

We're using airmiles to fly from Seattle to Los Angeles, so it really will be a whirl-wind trip. We leave Friday a.m. and get back Monday night.

More good news on the subject: my incredible, magnificent parents are returning to take care of the girls. Don and I were willing to just leave the girls with the boys, but Mom and Lee didn't feel comfortable with that. Now, I know that if we left the girls with the boys, no one would have a good weekend (except Don and me), and none of the kids would like each other by Monday night, and the house would be a disaster area, but really, I think the girls would be okay. Like, they wouldn't be needing medical attention or anything... But really and truly, everyone will be happier to have Grandma and Grandpa here.

Whole foods at my fingertips...

Now, I know this won't be an interesting entry for many people, so feel free to skip it and go watch Jordyn's montage below : )


I used to store all of these foods in my pantry in Tupperware canisters, but I found it cumbersome to make several trips back and forth from the pantry to the counter. So when I got gift cards to Ikea for Christmas, I started a collection of these glass apothecary canisters and put my most-used ingredients in them. This morning Dylan and I went shopping at Canadian SuperStore and I bought some more for a great price.

With this setup, I can whip up pancakes, waffles, bread dough, and even lots of dinners without stepping away from the counter once. And, because I want my canisters and their beautiful contents to be the focal-point of my kitchen, it motivates me to keep the counters clean.

In addition to this little bit of organization and the grocery shopping, I covered my grey, chauffered Sean from a cadet activity to a birthday party, and dyed Nathan's comforter covers teal to help his room look more like a Shark Tank. And all this while Don puts in his second 10-hour day in a row. Tonight's supper: leftovers.

Have a lovely weekend.

Happy Birthday, Miss Jordyn!

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is Jordyn's first two years in photos.

Enjoy!

Guess who won...

...the Best New Entry award at the cadets semi-annual review last night?




OC Murphy! This award has been given out since 1961 and there are three names on the trophy from cadets who are now commanders in the Canadian Navy. It's very cool that Sean's name will be among them!

BIG HOUSE!

Last week was bittersweet in that Don and Waneta came back to Aldergrove to pack up the last of their stuff. It was sad to see them go and we will miss them very much. Patience went into their empty suite and said, "Where's Grandpa's chair?" There is NO furniture at all anywhere, and she asked about the chair that she sat in with her grandpa. I told her that all of their stuff was now in their big house, and she said, "I don't want them to move to their big house. I want them to stay in their little house down the hall." She always enjoyed visiting Waneta and having "tea," or sitting with Don and watching t.v.

We moved Dylan in during the week last week. He had no school Thursday or Friday due to semester break.

On Saturday, Don and Nathan went to Langley to pick up the double bed that Dorothy gave us for Sean's room. He was gone all day to a cadet self-defense workshop, so he came home to his room all ready to move into.

I did some shopping in Langley on Saturday to buy a birthday gift, and I ended up in Michael's in their art/frame section. They were having a 60% off sale on their large frames so I purchased quite a few. Now all the kids' posters and pictures are in proper frames instead of just being taped to the wall. Looks much better. I framed Dylan's trumpet picture and bought him two other prints and frames. They look fantastic in his moss-colored room. I bought Sean frames for his swimming and basketball frames and purchased him another gorgeous print and frame that match his teal-colored room perfectly. Framed artwork make their rooms look so much more put together.

Yesterday after church we had a "Murphy family work party" and made some changes to the basement that used to house all three boys.

The little room that used to be Sean's was empty. So we moved the Foosball table from the shop, where it had been stored for two years, into that room. And that's all that's in there! How funny going from practically stacking our children to now having a room dedicated to a Foosball table!

The room that Dylan and Nathan used to share is now Nathan's. He has two twin beds and two armoirs, so he has lots of room for his "stuff." We framed and hung his Sharks posters, hung up a coat rack for him, and just generally got him organized. It's a shame he has so little time to enjoy having his own space, but we're encouraging him to make the most of it during his last five months at home.

Renovations continue as quickly as Don can fit in the work, as he's already working full-time at the computer stuff. He's concentrating on finishing the living space of the suite right now. When we had the windows replaced two Christmases ago, the sheetrock never did get mudded and taped. So he'll do that and then we'll paint the rest of the suite and hallway. The bathroom down there (now the boys' bathroom) needs a bit of work. Then we'll move upstairs and do some work up here. More on that later.

Last night when we went to bed, I told Don that it felt so strange to have our family so spread out!

A couple of pictures...

Patience and Nathan play hockey together. Patience got this little hockey stick for Christmas. Jordyn got a Diego one, but she's not as much of a hockey aficionado as Patience is. When Nathan was in California a couple of weeks ago, he found a smiliar stick, but a Shark stick, of course. So he and Patience play in the hallway pretty much on a daily basis. Here she is "in net." Notice how difficult it will be for Nathan to score?

Nathan really really really wants to get Patience into hockey. He says she'll make a great defender based on her ballet class.

Here's Jordyn very focused on feeding Danica's dolly. Danica got this baby doll for her birthday and brought it to our house yesterday. All three girls took turns looking after this very realistic baby (it must weigh at least 5 pounds, and feels pretty real when you're holding it).

It's been very cold here. Like minus 10, or 20 F, however you think of temperature. We woke up this a.m. to about 4 inches of snow, and it was still falling. But because this is a Provincial Exam day, schools were open regardless. Except for the preschool. The girls can't understand why I won't let them play outside... It reminds me of the time when Val and I begged and begged and pleaded to go swimming in my grandparents' outdoor swimming pool...in March or some silly month like that. My mom finally broke down and let us get in while my grandmother ran a hot tub for us. Yep, it wasn't much fun and we decided maybe we didn't want to go swimming anymore after about 60 seconds or so!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

I couldn't think of a catchy title : )

Last night Sean had four friends from school over for a small birthday party. These are the same four who came over last year. They are all a year older, but not any quieter! But at least I am a year smarter and demanded that it would not be a "slumber" party like he had last year. Don drove the guests home at 10:00 although they were all so wired and hyper I'm sure sleep was a loooooong way off. Oh well, at least they were at their own homes : )

You can go back to my January 2007 entries to see this same shot last year.

This morning I took Patience to "ballet school." She did great! As she told her dad when he asked how school was, "It was good! I didn't knock anyone over!"

After ballet we went grocery shopping. Both girls are napping right now, and Patience is going to Danica's 3rd birthday party this afternoon. Let's hope she doesn't knock anyone over there, either. As far as I can remember, this is her first birthday party!

While Patience and I were gone this a.m., Don showed Dylan how to change electrical outlets. We wanted to replace all the outlets in their new rooms from offwhite to white, to match the white trim. Dylan was able to do them all! I told him it was a good skill to have, because someday his wife was going to want to change all their outlets to suit her fancy and he could either do it himself for $20 or he could hire an electrician to do it for around $500. He said that since he would be busy working, he would just teach his wife to do it herself! That's my boy. Chivalry is not dead...

Nathan has three provincial exams this week and Dylan has two. They both have Thursday and Friday off, but Don has work scheduled for both of them, so it'll be a "working holiday." Oh well, they can both use the money so it's nice they have a source for work.

That's all for now!

Cathi

iPod update...

There is only one person on this planet who could have taken that iPod back to Best Buy because it was within the 30-day purchase period: Don.

Technically, it wasn't even in the 30-day period because we purchased it on the 19th, but Don reasoned with the manager that it was a Christmas present so it wasn't opened until the 25th, etc.

I told Dylan he had used up all his good luck and to not even bother playing the lottery any time soon!

iPods no longer work...

...when you put them through the washer and dryer.