Early morning inspiration?

Disclosure: This, in no way, is a criticism of the project itself. Oliver thinks it is fabulous so mission accomplished. My post is intended to make fun of how darn seriously I take it ;)

The project: as a conclusion to an ongoing animal project, bring in a sandwich that represents the student's assigned animal. The students, then, will eat lunch together.

Oliver loved his animal (river otter) and thought that the social event (ie: getting together to eat a sandwich that looks like your animal) would be the BEST THING EVER!!!! To be honest, when Oliver told me about this sandwich assignment, I thought that he had misunderstood something and asked him to clarify with his teacher. Yups... he did get it right... and, apparently, we had gone through this same project when Alexander was in this particular teacher's class. Considering that my memory is beyond sucking (see here), I had/still have absolutely no recollection of ever having made an animal sandwich before... and I am absolutely positive that Andreas didn't take this off my list of things to do 😉

Anyway, after polling some of my friends who have children in the same class as Oliver (thank you, Gabrielle, for humouring me 😉 ), I put a game plan together (ie: shopping list) and, this morning, I got up early to make the River Otter Sandwich. Let me tell you, it was NOT easy. Firstly, Oliver is the world's most picky eater (see here) so that was a challenge. No olives for eyes... bread and butter was OK, cucumbers are OK, salami is OK but only a little bit. Luckily for me, otters like fish so Goldfish crackers were usable. So, yesterday evening, after a busy day at work, after rushing home like a mad person, during a week where Andreas was enjoying beautiful Copenhagen (in case you missed this tidbit, see here), I found myself wandering around the grocery store trying to figure out what best made an otter sandwich. I dared not ask the employees of the store for fear of being locked up 😉 Anyway, I found some supplies... including chocolate... not for the otter but for me (after this, I deserve it, no?) and made my way home to think up strategies with Oliver.

Voila! See the final product below.... Does it look like an otter? To me, it looks more like a mouse or an ear-challenged cat... but, heck, it is as good as it gets 😉... and Oliver likes it, which is- ultimately- all that counts. Hope he has a good lunch!

Happy Friday to you all! xox

Please put on your sweater and jacket!

This morning, I kind of lost my marbles...

Around 5:30 am, I took the dogs out. It was cold... Not a snow/ice/freezing kind of cold but a "you-will-need-a-long-sleeve-shirt-and-jacket" cold. So, when the boys got up, I told them that they will- imagine this- need a long sleeve shirt/sweater and a light jacket AND that they could take the light jacket when it got warmer. Predictably, the boys all thanked me for my concern and put on the requested sweater and light jackets. HAHAHAHAHAHA! WRONG! Not only did I have to repeat myself 9 times (yes, I counted) but I had to deal with 1) blank expressions that signified a clear lack of understanding about sweaters and light jackets and 2) arguments about having to wear BOTH a sweater and a long sleeve jacket.

I am so unreasonable :P We were also late in getting to school because it took us that long for the boys to understand that I was not kidding.. but that is a whole other blog post.

Actually, I am being unfair to Alexander who put on his long sleeve shirt with a hoodie... BUT, in his head, he only put on the long sleeve shirt because he wears his soccer hoodie even in the middle of the summer so it does not count ;) It is now considered to be more of a second skin than an actual item of clothing designed to keep you warm ;)

Oh yeah- did I mention that Andreas is out of town until tomorrow evening? ;) He is in Winnipeg for a conference... where there is snow already... I bet that he was wearing his sweater and jacket ;)

Happy Friday! xox

The jacket belongs on your body and not on the floor!

Missing in action

Sorry for being so neglectful of my blog space ;) It is now the frantic end of the summer period where all the sports have playoffs ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Today was a marathon of soccer and swimming for the 2 bigger boys and I found myself repeatedly whispering thanks for Oliver not being old enough to be involved in the playoff period ;) This coming week, we will be going to pick up Alexander's school schedule and school supplies for Nicklas and Oliver. The following week is... tah!dah!... back to school! :) Yes- I am smiling! Big time! But that will be for another blog post ;)
Here are a few glimpses of the last few days... I even managed to find a few minutes to buy some "end of the summer flowers". Andreas picked up a "tree face"... which he didn't tell me about... and it scared the crap out of me when I finally noticed it on our tree ;)

Tomorrow is more soccer (for the boys, me and Andreas). A late evening glass of wine is also pencilled in... Wish me luck and sanity for the day ;)

xox

Yes- it scared the crap out of me when I finally noticed it... OK- I am slow ;)

This will be the majority of my weekend....

Unexpected shopping

Yesterday was a kind of Murphy's Law day: Andreas had to go to work for a few hours so he left with our "back up" car. The plan was that I would, while he was gone, get ready and head out to Ikea when Andreas got home. About 20 minutes after he left, Alexander answered the phone for me. It was Andreas, insisting to talk to me... Oh oh... that didn't sound like good news! I took the phone, only to find out that our old car had died on the highway in a dramatic "all lights flickering on the dashboard, with loss of breaks and steering kind of way". Luckily, Andreas managed to get off the highway and onto the service road. Frantically calling roadside assistance, I had a bad feeling that we would end up buying more than a small carpet and set of dishes from Ikea ;)

Anyway, 3 hours later, we had almost $400 in our pockets from the scrap yard and a signed contract for a new (well... new to us) car. I will show the pictures when we get it next week....

Welcome back to the post-holiday reality ;) xox

Our final few minutes with the car...

This experience was total boy cool ;)

Bye bye, Mazda!

Fighting....boy version

Kids fight with each other. I get it. Heck, my sister and I used to fight all the time too. My boys, however, seem to have run out of  "good" things to fight about after, maybe, 3 weeks of summer break. That leaves us in week 4 of  "Really? You are fighting about THAT?". They have now started to fight over things like smashed up plastic water bottles, which boy's hermit crab digs down deeper at night (like, you know??), who left the plate in the living room (hey! You are stealing MY fights!), who left the wet towel on the outside table (again? That is MY domain!), how many followers Youtuber X has and who owns which IDENTICAL white t-shirt.

Boys! If you are going to fight, pick a good one. Get riled up over a GOOD subject! Don't steal your mother's nagging rights (I am, after all, pretty good at it myself and don't need help)! Before you pick a fight, ask yourself: is this a good one? If not, just walk away because your mother will be picking a fight with YOU.... and I will win ;)

Happy Thursday! May it be a fight-free day ;) xox

Once upon a time... when they did not fight.... as much ;)

New friends

When we were in PEI (on Basin Head), a teenage boy found a bunch of hermit crabs in the water. He gave them to Oliver, who decided that he was going to be the world expert on hermit crabs. When it came time to leave the beach, I told Oliver to put his crabs back into the ocean. OMG! I was totally the worst mother in the universe. In a moment of total weakness, I promised to get him a hermit crab when we got home. Stupid me! I honestly thought that he would forget... move on.... but, no. I heard from the resident hermit crab expert every day until I finally caved... and brought home.... 3 hermit crabs. Oliver is so excited that he spent 10 minutes watching his crab and is now eating left over pizza... @@ (that is my eyeroll). Names to be released at a later date ;)

Welcome to our new friends ;)

Their new home

Nicka's

Alexander's

Oliver's

Adventures with Pokemon Go

Alexander has been playing Pokemon Go for 2 days now (this is day 3) and these have been my observations so far:

- This is the most he has exercised all summer long. He is on his bike/walking NON STOP. This aspect of the game is pretty cool. Problem is that some people actually drive around, using the app. This is not so cool.

- The app actually got Alexander to want to go to the library (it is a Pokemon stop or something like that). I reminded him that books were there too. He looked at me and rolled his eyes ;)

- ADULTS are using it and randomly hanging out in odd places (ie: outside our City Hall). At first, it made me laugh. Then it started to creep me out. Seriously. Yesterday evening, I agreed to take Alexander to the City Hall Pokemon spot. Nicka came too because he wanted to see what it was all about. There were at least 20 people hanging out in front of the building. I think that Alexander and Nicka were among the youngest there. Like I said: creepy.

- While we were at City Hall, I started to tease Alexander so I loudly called him a gamer. About half of the Poke-heads turned and looked at me. Hahaha!

- On our way home, some girl noticed that Alexander was playing. She raised her fist in the air and called out "Pokemon"! Umm.... sure. Whatever....

- Our neighbourhood looks like phone-staring-zombies have invaded ;)

- I have come to the conclusion that I am not cool and, you know what, I don't care ;)

I didn't take this photo (courtesy of internet). Just so you get the idea (kind of)....

This was our City Hall last night.... hahahahahaha! I don't think that there have EVER been this many people there ;)

The cars were filled with Pokemon gamers.... I didn't know if I should laugh or cry ;)

Since my last post...

I think that I started a new blog post about 20 times over the past few days. A lot has happened but the time to sit down to write about it never materialized ;)

So, since my last post, what has been happening?

- We got our first floor back. The floors look fantastic (at least to us) and it was totally worth camping in the back yard ;)

- We celebrated the last day of school for the boys..... with ice cream ;)

- I turned 46 years old on Saturday. The concept of aging (or reverse aging) will be another blog post altogether. The older I get, the better I feel :)

- We went to a St. Jean celebration. This is a Quebec verion of Sankt Hans/Midsommer/Victoria Day... Andreas kept insisting that it was he planned it... for my birthday. Haha! Good try ;)

- For my birthday, the boys gave me a gift card to a local spa and a great t-shirt (I heart Swedish boys... see pic). Awesome gifts! :)

- We are trying to organize our first floor. That meant spending my birthday carrying boxes up stairs... Exciting? No. Full of exercise? Definitely ;)

- We had about a million soccer games over the weekend (please don't take that too literally). They were both real games and those on TV ;)

- Andreas and I went to Ikea and spent too much money on things that we didn't realize that we needed until we saw it. Enough said ;)

- Our hot water heater decided to die. Thankfully, it is in our garage so the big water leak basically drained itself. Bonus was that our plumber also installs water heaters... fast .... at a good price :)

- We had to get ready for the last phase of our renovations = the stairs! At least we don't have to camp for that one.

- The boys still have a better weekend social life than we do ;)

- I am sure that I have missed about 100 more things but I am trying to block them out of my memory ;)

Wishing you all a great start to the week xox

The floor in progress

Celebrating the last day of school :)

Yum!

Happy boys

More floor!

We get our bedroom back :)

St. Jean party

Can you tell that I posed them? ;)

Oliver in action

The old farts ;) Yes, I am older ;)

Yes, I have 4 boys ;)

Heading home.... to carry more boxes back upstairs ;)

My birthday cake.... decorated by Andreas ;)

My new t-shirt <3

The before picture of our stairs...

The leak! :0

Our driveway at 8am.... craziness!

Yes, of course, it has to rain for the stairs guy ;)

The supervisors ;)

Just saying....

This is my house right now (see pictures). I had to rush the kids to school this morning... in a thunderstorm. Now, I am hoping that the thunderstorm does not come back for our camping excursion in the backyard tonight! On the bright side, Andreas and I went out for breakfast and the whole process IS exciting ;)

Happy day to you all xox

It is kind of like moving... only to downstairs....

I cannot remember the last time that I saw the back of my closet ;)

The boys' room.... defait ;)

Empty closets

Bye-bye, junk drawers ;)

Our basement....

Chaos!

Alexander's room

Taking out the old floor

At the hardware store... yes, I had to go outside :(

Now, add thunder!

Crappy subfloor = extra $$

No more vacuuming carpets :)

Our living room

Our kitchen....

Our entrance way.... welcome ;)

I am sure that this guy thinks that I am really strange..... say cheese ;)