I love fall!

My favourite season ever is fall. It's finally just starting to feel like fall here in southern Canada. It's stayed relatively warm until a few weeks ago.

Fall brings sweaters, chili, snuggles and beautiful colours in nature.

Last night pumpkins were carved. My husband seems to take great pride in this.  We were challenged this year to carve our business logo and it have to say it turned out wonderfully!

I'd love to hear about your favourite season.

Planning to Plan and Easter Weekend

The plan for tonight is to finish off this glutenous weekend by going to sleep and starting over tomorrow. Tomorrow I will wake up, do things right and hit the gym. Then I'll come home and plan. Plan a grocery list and meal plan for the week. Stress seems to be the factor that throws me completely off track. We live a very busy life during the week, so planning helps so much.

Today a friend and I connected a newer level (Hi Rachel!). We're both struggling in the same areas of our lives, weight loss and work at home goals. We've committed to each other to check in with each other daily. The thing I find about being a yoyo dieter is, I know there's 1000000's of others going through the exact same things as me, yet we're all very reluctant to verbalize it. Maybe this could be our new edge to success. Also, I still need to search deeply to find an answer as to why I continually sabotage all of my hard efforts.

This weekend was amazing. It was a great wind down weekend and we have amazing weather. We got to spend lots of time as a family which is rare so I truly cherish it. Took the kids to the park, snuggles and of course the Easter bunny left eggs all over our house.

"Strive to live each day to its fullest, squeezing all the joy you can out of each moment. Instead of measuring your life's value by your progress toward a single goal, remember that the direction you're headed in is more important than temporary results." - Tony Robbins

I hope that everyone else had an amazing weekend! 

Sacrifices

As a mother is there a limit? I bet for some there is. Is there a wrong answer to how many limits? I don't think so.

We live in a vast world that allows us to parent in many ways. You may parent the way you were brought up. Either by habit, love for the way you were parented or maybe you're doing the complete opposite of what your parents did with you.

As long as your children are first safe and second happy, I think you're doing the right thing!

Our family (my husband, our children and I) live a very old school lifestyle. We've adopted the "stereotypical" rolls of dad goes off to work and mom stays home with the children. Some days are tough, but it works for us. We don't judge other families that require both parents to work and we hope that we're not judge either. You have to do what makes your heart happy while at the same time making sure everyone is taken care of. Life (financially) could be easier with us both working but we'd rather struggle a bit to always have someone home with the kids. That's one of our sacrifices.

This past weekend  we traveled to a neighboring city about 100km away to attend a karate seminar. My husband and my daughter were both taking this seminar. Emmett was going to stay with my mom for the night as it takes a bit of the stress off of us to travel tantrum free. But, when Emmett woke up on Friday he was unable to keep anything down. Not even water. I'm calling it the "mystery illness" as he had zero symptoms of anything. Between the vomiting he was in high spirits and bouncing off of the walls. We made the decision to bring him with us, in case he continued to be sick into the night. Added stress on us is better than him being stressed and sick with us away. But of course, he was perfectly fine once we go there.

It is very rare that we leave our children with anyone, and really it's only my parents. We don't go out much without them. We have many good reasons for this. We're older and our social life now revolves around our children. I'd rather spend time with them making sure they are happy and mostly safe. I hate that we now have access to read all about teenagers drinking and partying status' that they post onto Facebook. This shows me that there's really no one good enough in my books to watch my children. I do hope that one day I can find that responsible youth. I have my eyes on a few, but time will tell and we're certainly not hurting by staying in. Another sacrifice?

After writing this, now maybe they aren't really sacrifices and just duties of being a parent. What have you sacrificed? Does sanity count?

A lazy weekend gives time to reflect

I really enjoy having them as they are usually few and far between. We've almost always got something on the go.

Winter adds to the chaos. Getting the kids bundled up only to be uncomfortable in their winter gear. A hat is not on properly. Someone lost a mitt. Someone kicked off a boot and now their foot is cold. I'm sure as you're reading this, you're chuckling because you go through the exact same thing. My husband often asks how I don't totally lose it. I wonder the same thing sometimes, lol.

That's a picture of our son Emmett. He's 2.5. Can you guess what we're going through right now? Terrible two's! I wasn't expecting it. My daughter didn't really go through it. Maybe some issues at age 3, but nothing like Mr. ICANUSETHATSHARPKNIFEMYSELF.

His need for independence is rather quite annoying. It borders on major safety issues with a hand and a watchful eye always on him. He is insistent on making his own toast. From taking it out of the package, to putting it in the toaster and pushing it down, then to buttering/peanut buttering and even cutting it himself. The part that I think annoys me the most though, is the time it takes him. For some reason I'm always on fast forward and just want to get simple tasks done in the shortest period of time ever. I know, I know, that's my issue that I need to deal with. Really I should be embracing his independence right? I'm sure there's going to be a time in the next 7-9 years that I'm going to be summoned to bring the hungry beast his dinner at his command.

I'm done with the terrible two's though.

He goes to pre-school 3 times a week and absolutely loves it. He's got a couple of friends that he talks about a lot. Mostly an adorable little girl named Ava. I love to see the interaction that they have when I sneak in to pick him up a bit early.

This is my baby girl Kaylee. She's 7 and sassy to no end.

She's an angry and demanding little girl. Why's she so angry? She's got a pretty amazing life. She's fed, clothed, loved and has most things she's asked for. I would suspect her anger probably comes from her father and I no longer being together. I know she loves us both very much and somewhere in her head would love us to be together.

Her father and I together just didn't make sense, but I can say that we are very very good friends and don't have the usual drama that comes with co-parenting. We were good friends when we were together, but I don't think any real love was there beyond the love you have for a friend. I think that's ok. We've grown up over the years. Kaylee was 2.5 when we split up and I'm sure she doesn't remember much, but I'm sure there's still some impact.

Kaylee is in grade 2 right now and has a few struggles. I'm assuming its her very late birthday. Her birthday is right before Christmas so any child that was born in January almost is an entire year older than her. Her stubbornness doesn't help much either.  I can't for the life of me figure out where she gets that from (/sarcasm).

This weekend is her weekend at her dads, so I just spent my weekend with Emmett mostly as my husband was off for some karate seminars. I miss weekends with just Kaylee and I. I think a girls day/night out is in order. The few that we've managed to squeeze in were always fun and I could tell she was really appreciative of time with just me. Something she very much deserves and me too. She's not going to be little much longer.

Kaylee will be getting home from her fathers very shortly and then begins the fights over who hit who, who gets to watch what on the TV, etc.

I wouldn't trade my chaotic life for anything. I complain yes, but my family, they keep me alive, and well, even if they drive me nuts.

I resolve

So it's New Years eve. Have you made your usual resolutions? Is it to be 30lbs lighter in 6 months? Stop eating chocolate? Exercise more? Do you find yourself making the same resolutions year after year? I do. I think it's human nature. A new year gives us hope of new changes (when we really have the ability to change when ever we want to), a fresh start.

For 2013 I want to do it differently to ensure my success. Total transformation. If I can't succeed at transforming my mind, how on earth am I going to success on transforming my body. I believe all changes must come from the inside out.

I resolve to be a better person.

Are you really prepared to succeed in 2013? Accountability is what's going to help me succeed! I control my destiny!

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Today we had the pleasure of celebrating my mother's 59th birthday.

The day started off like any other Sunday. A nice relaxing morning with coffee and breakfast. It will probably be our last Sunday breakfast prepared by Tim Horton's, only because we're going to kick this New Year off on the right foot.

My husband Rob and our son went out and get a few groceries while I did some tidying around the house. Once he was home I got a roast I the slow cooker and the kids and I make a birthday cake for Grammy. It was quick and fun ending with the kids getting to lick the mixer.

Dinner was great as well as the cake, but we definitely pushed maximum capacity on the belt loops. I'm still stuffed!

My parents left after our tradition of watching AFV and we got our PJ's on and lounged.

Kids are now in bed and I'm heading that way soon myself.