so yeah

two months have gone by, with no blog posts by me. What can I say, this year has been kinda crappy for me. In almost every way possible.
I have slowly adjusted to the fact that my grandparents time here with us is numbered. I visited my grandfather in the care home in July ... that was so hard. He is just a shell of who he used to be. I will always remember our special afternoon treats at Wendy's or A&W, playing a game of pool with him, snuggling while watching TV together, afternoons spent splashing around in their swimming pool ... it was very hard to see him as he is now. He has lost a lot of weight, and Alzheimer's is kicking his butt, and quickly. And my poor grandmother, she has been in the hospital, since March of this year. She has maybe been home 5 days total since then. She hasn't seen my grandfather in a few months now, and I know that it is killing her even more than her being in the hospital. And it is so hard being so far away from them! I am 10 hours away, my brother is 7. Thankfully, our mom is right there, but there isn't that much she can do at this point. She has been visiting grandma daily, but can only get out to see grandpa once a month (he is 2 hours from her).
It has also been very hard to not see my first born child in almost a year now. I haven't been able to hug him since he went back to his dad's place at the end of Christmas holidays. And it won't be until December18th until I get to hold him again. It has been very hard for me & his siblings. Thankfully, we talk on the phone every Sunday night, and we FB and text each other all the time. But I still miss him so very much.
We have been toying around with the idea of moving again ... I know, it seems that is all we ever do! But this time, it might be a bit of a move, compared to normal. Des may be given the opportunity to help set up a new tire repair shop, maybe in Newfoundland, or maybe Saskatchewan. Wherever they use large mining trucks, they need large tires repaired. It's still just at the possible stage, but it could be an exciting adventure for us.
I think the only positive adjustment I have made this year is that all my babies are finally all in school now! Quinten started kindergarten this year, and oh my, does he ever love it! His teacher is so amazing, I ♥ her dearly! He has his best friend in the whole wide world in his class, which makes every day a playdate for the two of them. hehehee Xander has moved on to grade 3, and has a few of his good friends in his class (his poor teacher). And Jenna, she is in her final year in Elementary school this year. And she is trying to make the most out of it, by doing everything she can. lol She is in choir, she has done soccer already, & volleyball starts today. She is also doing her babysitting certification right now, which means in just a few short weeks, she will be able to babysit properly! Yay!! Cody also started a milestone this year, he is in grade 10, his first year at a Senior High school. In no time at all, I will have a high school graduate on my hands! Eeek!
I would love to say that I have used this time away from my "life" to scrapbook, but I haven't really been feeling the motivation and the mojo has escaped. I've done a few pages, but mostly just for CT stuff. As it is, I am not on as many CTs (due to lack of completing tasks on my end, I've been a major slacker) anymore. Just Kristin, Julie, Eva & Christy. That's it. Although I do have a guest spot starting in just a few short days! Whoo hooo!
Well, time to head home after a slow morning at work, get to take Quin to the bus when I get home, and then enjoy my 2.5 hours of kid-free time! Finally, after 15 years of being a parent, I get a bit of a break where I am not at work! Yay me!

Scrapzilla Attack!!!

Are you a Scrapzilla? Are you ravenous for new challenges? Would you like to devour a huge prize package? Sink your teeth into the Polka Dot Plum Scrapzillas Contest!!

Get full details in the Polka Dot Plum forum: http://www.polkadotplum.com/forum/sh...8092#post38092

Yeah, I suck at posting

life gets in the way and the blog gets forgotten about. what can I say? I need a reminder that this thing needs attention. lol

School is almost done for the year here. My kiddos get their report cards on Tuesday. If all goes well, I will have a 10th grader, a 6th grader, a 3rd grader and a kindergartner come September!! Yup, all four beasties will be in school! Too bad we don't get full-day K here next year, Quin is so ready for full days! He had his orientation last month, and he wanted to go back to school "the next day, and the day after, and forever." He is sooo cute!

We've been busy the past two months with soccer - in the snow and in the rain. Quinten is U6 this year, Xander is U8, and Jenna is U12. We are winding up with that this week - Jenna has her wind-up BBQ tonight, and then a game in Elkford (maybe Kristin CB will come meet up with us?!?). The boys have their wind-up BBQ tomorrow night. And Saturday, all three have their tournament games, thankfully all here, no out of town travel!

And to make this all even better - July 1st our summer holidays start!!! We leave here early that morning to head for "home". If we make it there early enough, the Princess and I will go out for a date that night (to see Eclipse!!!). Friday we head up to Sun Peaks Resort for my SIL's wedding!! So excited!! I will be helping out, taking some photos for the family, since my SIL only has the photographer for the ceremony & posed photos afterwards - no photos of them getting ready, and none for the reception. So I will try my best to capture those once in a lifetime moments for them. Des has been spoiling me with stuff for my camera, preparing for our holidays - a Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 lens, a power zoom flash, a tripod, a battery grip, some extra batteries, a wide angle lens adapter and I managed to snag a wireless remote for my camera through Amazon, using my SwagBucks!!

After the wedding, we head back down the hill, and drop the three kids off at my Mom's - where they will stay for two weeks - and then they head to my ILs for another two weeks! Yes, Des and I get FOUR whole weeks with no children!!! We will be coming back home for the first week, and then we head out for our two week holiday to Manitoba!! Due to some insane weather that hit Southern Alberta this past month, the main highway that we normally travel on has been wiped out, so we have to take a bit of a detour. We will go visit family & friends, and go to another wedding in Manitoba two weeks after Des' sister's wedding - the little girl that used to babysit for us when we lived in Saskatchewan is getting married!!!  Not too sure what we will do along the way, maybe stop in Moose Jaw and do the Underground Tunnels (since we did one of the two tours last time we went through Moose Jaw two years ago, I want to do the other one now. lol). We will be camping along the way, in Des' parents truck & camper (I so don't do tents anymore!).

I've been doing some scrapbooking - not as much as I would like, but I've been so busy chasing children around. Check out my galleries to see what I've done.
Speaking of scrapping ....

lots of changes

but I guess that's bound to happen when you never post to your own blog. lmao

So, let's see (very long post, so not normal for me, sorry in advance) ...

January started out good, just chilling with the family. First week in, Jenna tripped over her friend's Krazy Karpet and landed on her wrist, prompting another trip to the ER for her wrist (she was there January last year for the same wrist, same thing, falling and landing on it). Had a couple X-Rays done, then into a cast she went - the first person in our immediate family to ever have a cast on (I have broken my toe, but they don't cast for that). That stayed on for one week, while we waited to have another X-Ray done. The couldn't see anything, but where she was in pain, they said that type of break doesn't always show on X-Rays - great! (not!!) So the day after her 11th birthday, we went in to have the cast removed, and another set of X-Rays ... and a splint this time, while we await the X-Ray results. One more week goes by, and I took Jenna in the morning of the 27th to have her splint removed and to see what the next step would be. Whew, she is pain free and can move her wrist again! No clue what she did, they think she actually bruised the bone and all the muscles in the area, so the cast & splint helped ease some of the pain of movement while her body healed. So yay, she is all better!

Well, the night Jenna's splint was removed, while Des was at work, he ended up hurting himself pretty badly. He ended up in the ER himself, to have his finger stitched back together. He was buffing the inside of a tire (remember, he works on those HUGE haul truck tires for the mines), the grinder must have hit one of the steel cords inside and kicked back and sliced him open. He drove himself over to the hospital after he managed to stop most of the bleeding, they cleaned him up and stitched him closed, with instructions that he would have to get to Lethbridge for surgery to re-attach the tendon that he severed. He scared me when he came home early from work, because I had no idea he had hurt himself. He didn't want me to panic and not be able to do anything because I was stuck at home with no vehicle, and all the kids. The next day we phoned the plastic surgeon in Lethbridge we were recommended to call, and we were told Des' surgery would not be until February 3rd. We were not expecting him to have to wait a full week after his injury to have surgery. Poor guy, he normally tolerates pain well, doesn't like taking Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, etc ... he was taking T3s that weekend, and they were barely doing the trick. So February 3rd rolls around, we arranged for the kids to go to my friend Shanna's house for two days, since we had no idea how long his surgery was going to be, or what kind of shape he would be in after. We planned to spend the night, because I hate driving at night through the mountains. Can I just say, the Lethbridge hospital is actually very nice! I am used to small, run down hospitals that I see throughout our province, have never experienced an Alberta hospital before ... it was so clean and modern looking. Anyways ... we got to the hospital, got Des all checked in, filled out all the necessary paperwork (since it was a Workers Comp injury, we were supposed to do things through them, but the hospital bills through our provincial medical, who then have to go through WCB), and then headed for the day surgery ward. I wasn't sure if I should stick around, leave, wander the gift shop or what, so thankfully I had brought Jenna's DS with me, and I plunked my butt down to wait while Des was in surgery. Good thing I didn't take off ... he was out within 30 minutes or so. Feeling groggy and in not too much pain, but he was walking on his own two feet. So we decided to get our grocery shopping for the week done, and head home early ... which wasn't too early by the time we actually got home (I drove in the dark, blech), but we left the kids with Shanna anyways. The next week was rough on Des, he was in even more pain that before, so the T3s got replaced with Percocet. He had the dressing changed every 3-4 days, and the stitches out 10 days after the surgery. It's been healing well from what we can see, we don't go back until March 2nd for a follow up. All in all, Des only missed 10 days of work, he has been back since the Monday following his surgery, doing light-duty (answering the phones, making sure they guys are actually working ... watching TV, playing games on the computer ... whatever).

And to top off both these injuries, we have had at least one child sick with something since the day Jenna hurt herself. The flu, a cold, strep throat ... all three have been hit once or twice in the past month and a bit. I just want it all to stop!!

So we have also had two family birthdays (ok, more than that, but not my direct family, as in I didn't give birth to the rest. lol). Jenna is now 11, and Cody is now 15. Yes, I have a Tween and FIFTEEN year old!! I feel old!! Up next in birthday rotation ... Quinten will be FIVE at the end of March. Speaking of Quin ... he is now officially registered for Kindergarten in the Fall!! Sad, but at the same time, so excited! Bummed that it will still only be half-day kindy, next year it bumps to full-day. Oh well, we'll take what we can get. If we lived in Fernie or Elkford, he would be in full-day in September, Sparwood gets it the following year.

Oh, and what else ... Des found me a new vehicle, a 2005 Pontiac Montana. Just waiting for delivery now, all the paperwork has been completed. I am kinda excited!! He wanted another truck, but he knew we couldn't afford that right now. And we were starting to get squishy in the car, with all three kids in the backseat. So my new minivan will be a welcome relief for road trips, shopping trips, going to visit friends ... much easier to separate the children. lol

And scrapping news ... with all that has been happening the past few months, I have cut down on the creative teams I am on (as well as gaining one I have been trying out for since I started digi-scrapping!!).
Now I CT for Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Christy Lyle, Julie Billingsley, Eva Kipler, and Traci Reed (whoo hooo, she finally picked me!!) - all at Sweet Shoppe Designs, for Nikki Epperson at Polka Dot Plum and The Digi Chick, and also site CT for Polka Dot Plum (I am a Sugar Plum!).

I suck

yup, it's true. I haven't been a good blogger lately, but I am hoping to change all that this year!
I will post more when I get home from work!