Edition one!

Today's Thursday Thirteen will be about the New Year's Resolutions I would make...if I made New Years Resolutions....which I don't....but I guess if I am writing them..I am kind of making them too aren't I?...now ... if you have made it through that muddle....

1. SPEND MORE TIME WITH GOD...more time reading my Bible and praying....I miss the amount of time I used to spend in God's word....

2. SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY TEENS...they are teens and don't REALLY want to hang out with me...but we only have Brandy a max. of another 7months..and Bree is 15...so they can just suck it up and hang out with the old lady....LOL!

3. Have some me time with Kendal before we are expecting the next baby. We haven't had any since Jeremy arrived on the scene....of course.....Kendal and I spending time together could end up with Jeremy having a sister sooner then we want.....

4. Play Guitar much more then I have the last two years...I am missing my music.

5. Sing more often. Something I haven't done quite as much the last couple of years....

6. Get back into painting. I have a whole series in my head...

7. Lose about 70 lbs....:) Yeah...I am sure that one will happen.....

8. Try to post a blog a day for a year....

9. Get my photographs taken care of....we have tons...and they are EVERYWHERE and need to be put in books, or on walls or sent to people...ect.....

10. Excercise....nuff said.

11. Keep my house cleaner? Yeah...right....put that one in behind lose 70 lbs.....

12. Finnish writing my kids book....Kendal keeps bugging me...but a girl only has so much time after all that excercising and keeping the house clean.....

13. AND big final thirteen...ok...has to be good....hmmmm....keep my house clean..

oh.. I said that already....

(LOL!) ok...I just asked my youngest daughter what it should be.....and ....she said "Keep your house clean!" I rest my case. I guess it will have to be #11 and #13!

Don't forget to read my post below about May.....

To see more Thursday THirteens.. click Here

May 2007

A very tired mommy with Jeremy...

May all of a sudden seemed very quiet to me after the first several months of Jeremy's arrival...With Talon gone, the house seemed very quiet...but it was also nice...We were able to start doing some things again, and were able to visit with friends and hang out at places....(Like my favorite ice cream store in the world...(Dessart) Our friends Jason and Brenda even brought us out for dinner to an East Indian Restaraunt...(one of my fav kinds of foods....)

Jeremy's favorite toy... a red bird...

We discovered by accident one day that Jeremy was a book fanatic....already at 4.5 months. We were in a bookstore at the mall...and he just went nuts..When we left he had his first book, and he never put it down. He even went through a cookbook with me one day for half an hour because he liked the pics of the food.! At one year old- today...he still loves his books best. He turns pages and looks at them by himself...

By now, Talon was a big boy of around 7 months old...we still spent time with him a couple of days a week, but now I was able to relax more when he was around, and have some fun with him...Compared to Jeremy he was huge....He was at the top of his growth scale, while Jeremy was at the very bottom of his....LOL! I think Jeremy was at a whopping 13 lbs at 4 months while Talon was over 20 lbs at 7 months. It was like having the biggest and smallest at the same house!

If this month had a difficult point...it was adjusting to the idea, that our best friend Jeremy (above) had been gone for one year this month as of the fourth of May....
(Jeremy is the guy we named our son after.) If you would like to read some of my memories of Jeremy...Click HERE

One of the fun things we do every May is go to the Cathedral Arts Festival...We have done it every year since we moved to Regina. There are all kinds of buskers, tables set up, food (how can you not like something when food is involved...) and entertainment. Best of all...it is FREE!!!

This year we had a special treat, as the girls met someone famous....

Lacy off of Corner Gas!!!

Jeremy enjoys some entertainment

Wordless Wednesday!

Baby Blue Eyes

How come all my Wordless Wednesday posts are about my son??LOL!

April 2007

Brandy and Jeremy (dedication day)

So far the New Year had proven pretty eventful for us as a family...We had successfully cared for two little ones and not gone completely insane....but the time had come for little Talon...now 6 months old to go home to his mommy....It was the first time since Jeremy was born (He was now 3 months old) that I would only have one baby on a full time basis...and I was excited to be able to concentrate on just him for a little while...He was actually starting to wake up once in a while as well...the first three months he did nothing but sleep most of the time...We were now getting little baby belly laughs as well as sweet smiles....and he was showing more interest in his toys and the world around him....

Unfortunately I was losing the battle of having Jeremy sleep in his own room though. Due to having Talon with us and Jeremy needing to nurse so often...he didn't think much of his own room...LOL!

In April we were also able to have the boys dedicated together....That was a pretty cool experience..having both my son and my grandson dedicated to the Lord at the same time. We were also able to have a lot of family down for the event which was part of the reason we chose that particular time. Our family took up three rows of the church!! Afterwards we all went back to Anna and Geralds house for a lunch. It was a memorable day. If you would like to see more pictures you can look at them here, here and here....oh...and here too!(LOL) Never a shortage of pictures in this family!

Uncle Marky and Jeremy

Daddy and Jeremy (dedication day)

The timing was such that we were also all able to go and see the passion play while they were here too! I love the Passion Play...For those of you who haven't seen it...it is about the life and death of Jesus..and they use live animals for it...All their effects are well done...they have lightening....when they whip Jesus blood appears...I have never yet watched it where it hasn't profoundly affected me, (which of course is the point...)
I was able to see it with Jeremy...he mostly slept through it, but LA had Talon and ended up in the nursery for most of it....

Friend Scott playing Judas (with Jeremy)

April was also my 38th birthday....Kendal threw me a party...and we went for dinner, pool and a movie.....

So mature Kendal....LOL!

and onto March....

March 2007

My son and grandson are wonderful...

Wow! Somehow we made it to March with a new little one, now two months old, and a five month old. However I was finding it difficult, and actually was suffering from some depression, as the result of post partum, and just sheer exhaustion. By now, I was asking for help from my MIL who started taking Talon on Sat and from Krystal who was now able to take him a night as well...I just could no longer cope on my own....I took full advantage of those days to get my shopping done, and also to go out and have some visiting time with friends....
By now...Jeremy was smiling and Talon was sitting...hard to believe the boys were getting big so very fast....

Stunned

Taco is suffering from Middle Child Syndrome...

The weather warmed up dramatically one day in March and was actually up near twenty degrees, so we went for a walk in Wascana Park...It was Jeremy's first outing...and we really enjoyed it after being so cooped up....

We really didn't do much in March...but survival seemed like enough at the time...LOL!

BTW...Happy New Years.....

Feb 2007

Talon

February was spent adjusting to parenting again...Kendal and I were feeling
pretty overwhelmed taking care of two babies, and by now Kendal had to go back to work, so it was mostly me...It was pretty hard....They were on two completely different schedules...being two different ages....They didn't even sleep at the same time, and Talon was a pretty demanding guy....

The girls were helpful when they were home, but most of the time I was by myself..but I did find some ways of coping. The boys both loved Sesame Street, and so I could usually find enough time to get dressed at least by putting them in their chairs in front of the
show...

I also ended up sleeping with Jeremy as that was the only way I could cope. Talon was waking up 2 and sometimes 4 times a night, and with both babies, I would have had no sleep...In fact I went over a week once with only 2 hours of sleep a night...that was pretty rough. At least with Jeremy in my bed, I didn't have to get up for one of them.....
Proof of how brainless we were feeling at this point?? Check out the conversation Kendal and I had on our way to church one morning....

Life with two babies

When you haven't slept properly in weeks odd things happen. For example Robyn and I used to be able to have reasonably intelligent conversations. This was a real conversation we had the other day. We were in the car, eating Mcds and I dropped my fries. So like Homer Simpson I say:

Me: D'oh!

Robyn(not hearing me properly): No?

Me(a little louder): D'oh.

Robyn(more confused): No?

Me(quite loud now): D'oh!

Robyn(very confused now): No?

Me(practically shouting): D'oh!

Robyn(very perplexed): NO what?

Me: D'oh, Ho mer, D'oh

Robyn: OHHH....

Posted by Kendal...

We were also blessed in February to have two baby showers. One was from our friend Brenda, and my MIL Judy, and the other was thrown by Naomi at our Avonhurst Church.

February was also an exciting month for my middle girl Brandy who was able to take a trip to Ottawa with a school group called Encounters Canada....She really had a blast and was able to find out a lot about the RCMP, and our countries Govt...

She also made many new friends....






Mark and LA (Kendal's brother and sister) were also able to come out in Feb...that was nice for both of them as well, since neither had met Jeremy yet, and they were able to have some fun with Mr. Talon.

LA and Talon

Once again, we somehow made it to March, but it wasn't easy....LOL!

New Year Again...January 2007

As the New Year approaches AGAIN..(for some reason that keeps happening..faster every year)..It is time to reflect on the blessings and difficulties which have occured over the last year....
I like to do this once a year at least to be reminded of all the blessings God has given us, but also to just reflect on the changes in our lives...and this year was pretty full...LOL!

As January approached in 2007, I found myself looking at a whole new chapter of my life...
Previously Kendal and I had decided to not have any children ourselves since I had three girls, but with the loss of close friend Jeremy Nelson among others the year before...we felt that maybe it was important for us to have children from our marriage, and so Jan. 10th 2007 Jeremy joined us 5 weeks early. This meant that I went to being a SAHM after working outside of the home for many years...a much bigger change then you would imagine.
Especially as anyone who knows us would testify...we had told EVERYone...that we were done with having babies...and that there were definately NO babies in our future....God must have changed our hearts...
I also had problems with the pregnancy...he almost joined us at 28 weeks...but God is good.

Never would I have guessed in a million years how much the addition of that little man to my family, would add so much joy....I can't even imagine life without him now..The night my water broke isn't something I am likely to forget about any time soon...We went to our friends Jason and Brenda for dinner...and didn't get home till about 11...I like to tease her that her Tandori chicken was responsible for what happened next...
Talon was awake, and so Kendal was getting him ready for a bath before bed when my water broke...everywhere
Quite calmly I told Kendal...you should bath Talon now...my water has broken....(and then it was all pandamonia as the poor boy barely touched the water, and both my girls were running right left and center following my orders...i just literally walked in circles....
I insisted on driving my self to the hospital...."what is up with that" Control issues or what??LOL kendal agreed on the terms that if I started to get any contractions I would pull over....Harold and Judy came to the hospital after a while and picked up Talon...and we thought we were going to have a baby...but as luck would have it...ALL that happened was my water broke, and it was Wednesday before they could induce me..I had to stay there...nothing like sleeping in a puddle of water every two hours...

Labor was relatively easy, as far as labors go...except that at one point I thought God was talking to me...LOL! (but that is a whole other story...) He weighed in at a whole 6 lbs even at birth. Much of that first month was spent in the hospital, as he had severe jaundice, and had to be under the heat lamp and monitered for his weight...(he lost over 10% of his body weight at birth, and was refusing to nurse. ) He is now a healthy little monkey..who is about the size of a 6 month old but has a much larger personality!

To add to the business of this month, we also had my grandson, Talon living with us...He had moved in with us in November, and was three months old when Jeremy was born...Let me tell you folks...There is no greater challenge then trying to care for a two month old when you are ready to pop...WOW. I won't be doing that again any time soon...LOL!

However we love Talon like he is our own, and really did enjoy the time we had with him....Even today, now that Talon has gone home with his mom...there is still a connection that is special and the boys love to see each other...

Talon and Jeremy

Talon

Somehow, we made it through the first month sucesfully, with the help of people who visited us in the hospital, and people who took care of Talon....Kendal was also able to take a couple of weeks off of work, and that was really nice as well....It was one of the most positive experiences of my life...and then somehow...we did make it too Feb....