jenthemom.com

Enough with the procrastinating, already!

Jen the Mom — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:06:04 +0000

I feel like I have spent the last six months or so dropping balls all around. I have been struggling with keeping my house clean while I’ve been busy with so many other things. Today I put everything else on the back burner and I focused on getting my house under control. I constructed the boys’ bunk beds, trundle beds for both the girls and the boys rooms. I also deep cleaned through all the toy boxes and closets and threw out a whole ton of stuff.

I have been asked to take some pictures of our newly constructed basement and thought that I better do it now, while everything is in it’s place. I took the camera with me while I cleaned and then wouldn’t let the kids come in the room until I had cleaned it adn then documented that I did in fact do something today.

Our new playroom

My storage room

The boys’ room

The main floor

Bonus room

Girls room

I was tempted to take pictures of my linen closet and my laundry area but that isn’t going to be interesting to anyone but me. I just wish I could have stayed on top of things better so I wouldn’t have to invest an entire day to cleaning but on the bright side it’s done now!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Jen the Mom — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:06:11 +0000

I am very excited about having a renewed energy about blogging because it gives me the chance of writing about how much I love my little woman, Jocelyn. Jocelyn turned 10 today and although I feel like we’ve been celebrating for days I still had a great time enjoying this young woman who was once my baby.

I took a very long hiatus from blogging while I was busy with other things but two years ago I wrote a blog post just for Jocelyn for her birthday. It starts out with Jocelyn’s birth story because when I was growing up my mom started the tradition of telling us our birth story on our birthdays. I’ve tried to keep that same tradition with my kids and they love it. If you want to read my birthday blog post, and I highly recommend it, it’s linked to here.

Jocelyn inspires me to be a better person because she is so thoughtful and loving. She helps remind me that being a great friend is one of our greatest responsibilities. I am lucky to be her mother and I hope to be worthy of the position.

Happy Birthday sweetheart!

Breaking out of the cabin fever

Jen the Mom — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:16:45 +0000

I don’t know what happened but Mother Nature decided that she hates us. She must have gone on vacation or forgotten her distaste for canada because we have been having a fantastic winter. Then Mother Nature threw minus 50 at us. Seriously! It was fifty degrees below freezing. I have never felt anything so cold in my entire life. We didn’t leave the house for a week. All of the kids’ activities were canceled and many stores in town shut down entirely because they didn’t want to go to work and they knew that no one was out shopping.

When the weather finally broke we were anxious to burn off some energy and no one wanted it more than Daisy. The poor girl didn’t need to be inside so much since her winter coat keeps her plenty warm. We decided to go to one of the dog parks today. I have become somewhat addicted to the dog parks. I love to watch Daisy run around and play with the other dogs and I enjoy talking with dog owners. Everyone is so friendly and easy going as they’re walking along with their pets. I try to go every day or two and on this day we decided to try a new (to us) park. It turned out to be deserted except for two awfully behaving dogs that I didn’t want anywhere near my dog. Thankfully the owner just kept on trucking right past us.

The kids and I had a blast even though we were alone.

Don’t let all that snow fool you. It was great weather. We ended up stripping out of almost all of our winter gear. I always make the kids carry it around though because Alberta weather can change on a dime.

A soft place to sleep

Jen the Mom — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 06:57:58 +0000

We didn’t quite get the basement finished for Christmas like we had hoped. We did get to move in the week after Christmas though. It’s been so busy though that we haven’t been able to move into the rooms all at once. We’ve been moving in piece by piece. Right now Jason is sleeping on his mattress on the floor until Chuck and I get his bed built.

With a soft mattress on the floor Daisy has taken to sleeping with the boys. Right on top of Jason’s mattress. I think she might be a bit of a blanket hog though. Jason’s not complaining so I’m not going to worry about it. Daisy is going to be pretty sad once we get that bed put back together.

Candy trains, Christmas Eve and sleeping it off

Jen the Mom — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:50:56 +0000

We have been very distracted this Christmas season by the new dog in the house and the basement construction. Hopefully by Christmas we’ll have a basement to let the kids play in. There have been construction men in and out of our house, construction noise all day long and daily dog walks.

I know that it’s Christmas Eve and we’re just barely getting to making our candy trains but the kids were just thrilled to see the bags of candy come out!

After all the candy consumption was over the kids were feeling a little nauseous and a little sleepy.

Once the collective nap time was over we were rested enough to open our Christmas eve gifts. The kids were SHOCKED to find pajamas in each of their wrapped presents. Who would haev thought that they would get pajamas on Christmas eve. Weird.