Superbowl Weekend

f you’re looking for football in this post, you won’t find it.  Well, the game is on in the background, but the kids are all sound asleep, D’Arcy is marking, I’m interneting and we had roast beef, potatoes & vegetables for supper rather than nachos & chicken wings.

In the real sports news, Team Fitzner-LeBlanc won the mens Provincial Curling Championship today!  We knew them when…  Our nephew, Chris, curled with that team until he moved to Calgary last year and they always stay with us when they are curling in this area.  Like this tournament, they have never been defeated when they slept here, so we’re thinking that we’ll offer them some rooms during the upcoming Brier. When Evan was four, they went to the Nationals as Juniors and won the bronze.  Evan watched them on tv and got hooked on the sport; as a result, he now has a goal to go to the Olympics as a curler, so we’ll watch to see how dedicated he is to practicing…

We’ve had a busy weekend.  After curling on Friday, we all (all six of us) went to Martha & Stephane’s for dinner.  They do not have a peanut free home, and this was the first time Olivia had been there since her diagnosis when she was 10 months old.  (Everything went fine, so they should watch out because we may be coming over for Stephane’s scallops all the time!)  Martha had made sure that the kitchen was extra clean and we brought along safe ham and dessert (cupcakes for the kids and pies for the grown-ups).

When we first got there, I handed over a gift my father had given me to present to Martha; a drawing of Martha & Chloe from a photo taken at Sarah’s birthday.  There were a few tears shed…

Martha & Chloe

We made pizzas for the kids and then Chef Steph took over the kitchen and made Coquilles St. Jacques for the grown ups.  Let’s just say I cleaned my plate.  (I would have licked it, had it been socially acceptable.  I love scallops!  The kids got along great (save for one moment when a very tired Sarah couldn’t wait 30 seconds for her turn on the wii and the fact that Olivia just wasn’t used to being “out” since she usually is left with my parents…)

Thank you to Martha for sending along all the Polly Pockets which necessitated an overhaul of our toy closet this morning!  Not that it wasn’t long overdue…  Congrautlations Phinn on the new toys you are about to score!  Chloe is going to be coming over soon to give me a tutorial on how the Pollys work.

(The following photos are from my phone; I forgot to take my camera:)

The boys

Chloe's lost teeth

The girls

Every party needs some rhythmic gymnastics!

Sarah & Olivia get their first look at an "American Girl" catelog

Chef Steph

The boys work on a puzzle

Chef Steph is a good sport!

Mart & Darce

Steph, getting his sleeping baby fix

The rest of the weekend was taken up with basketball, a free-throw competition, grocery shopping, a play with Ginna & Beanah for the kids, Thesis Meeting, Family Games Night, Sunday School, Mass, Choirs for Comfort, Cookie baking, Skating, etc…  We’ll look forward to the school week for a break!  ;-P

Various Matters

*I have discovered how to ensure that none of my children will ask for a bite of my sandwich: add pickles.  In fact, by adding enough, they will hold their noses and run away.  (Perhaps if I just carried an open jar of pickles around, I could buy myself some alone-time; wish I’d discovered this one years ago…)

*Still haven’t found the missing Valentines.  Going out and buying another box will guarantee that they are found, but negates the great buy of purchasing them for a dollar weeks ago.

*I fed my family salmon burgers on home-made whole-wheat buns for supper last night.  Olivia took one look and put herself to bed, sleeping until 7:30 this morning.  Must remember that recipe for future cranky days…

*I had a wonderful, fun visit getting caught up with my childhood friend, Carla yesterday.  She was visiting from Ontario with her husband Mark & son Jack.  Neither Carla nor I could remember the last time we’d seen each other (she moved away in Grade nine) but we were as comfortable as if we’d seen each other last week.  It was fun to have an eight-month-old in the house too!  Unfortunately, we didn’t take any photos, but she’s hoping to be here this summer for the Reunion.

*My daughters do a great imitation of Jack Sprat and his wife.  When eating leftover supper for lunch, Olivia had a plate-full of only spare ribs & rice while Sarah would eat only squash & broccoli.

*Still looking for the missing library books…  Sarah asked this morning, “Is there anywhere we haven’t looked yet?”  I don’t think so, but there must be since they have to be in the house somewhere.   I guess we’ll have to renew them to buy ourselves some more time.  When my brother was about this age, one of his library books went missing.  My mother searched and searched all over their house.  (Sound familiar?)  Eventually, it turned up under the crisper in the fridge where he had hidden it; he loved the book so much he didn’t want to return it! (Yes, I’ve checked there too!)

*I’m currently selling cheese (band), blueberries (school) and hanging baskets (choir).  The cheese really sells well, hanging baskets in Nova Scotia in February – not so much!  (They won’t actually be delivered until May.)  Of course there are 588 kids around town selling blueberries, so who’s left to sell them to?!  If you are interested in any of the above, just leave me a comment!

*I kept track of all our grocery receipts last month since we’re trying to be more frugal.  There are some things we’d like to do to the house this year on top of the maintenance we have to do and the money has to come from somewhere!  We spent $1277.63 on groceries, 11.63 eating out (I treated Olivia & Alex to a trip through the McDonald’s drive thru after their appointments at the IWK) and zero on alcohol.  D’Arcy freaked out a bit when I told him that number, but if you work it out, it equates to $6.87 per person per day.  We’ll see how we do this month…

*When we registered Sarah for school last week, we expressed an interest in French Immersion.  Yesterday, we had a call that enrollment for that program was lower than expected, so they have extended the deadline until March 10th.  Back when the boys first went to school, there was a lottery to get your child into a French Immersion class!  How things can change in only a few years!

*The other night, our seats at the supper table all got switched around.  Sarah was sitting in her father’s seat and he was sitting in Alex’s seat.  As a result, he was pretending to be one of the kids and started playing with his carrots, becoming a walrus, unicorn, etc.  The rest of the children joined in, brining much laughter while their mother told them not to play with their food.  Now they ‘re asking to have carrots every night…

*From the sounds of things, D’Arcy’s Thesis will not be defended in time to walk across the stage in May. Bummer. He’s still going to try to have it finished ASAP so that it is no longer hanging over his head. December graduation, here we come…

*We went curling at a fun-spiel on the weekends with our friends. We drew tiles to be assigned teams and I happened to be put on a team with a man who didn’t seem to realize that it was “fun night”. He got after me in the first game because I had my broom in the wrong place when he was delivering the shot. One of the other men on my team told me that no one ever wants to curl with this man because he’s an a**. Later, I was spoken to again, for talking to our friend Janice, who was on the opposing team in that game, as he was delivering his shot. We ended up winning both of our games and at the end of the evening, as he was leaving, this cranky man said to me, “You were pretty good – for someone who doesn’t curl!” Gee thanks! Can we curl together again sometime?? All in all the evening was really fun and it was great to get out on a “date”. I’m hoping that Evan, Alex, D’Arcy & I will be able to make up a team in the family curling event this year!

Back to regularly scheduled life…

Urban Dictionary

People on Facebook have been going to Urban Dictionary and looking up their name, then posting what it says as their status update.  I present to you my family:

D’Arcy:  The human drug…awesome, lovable, great, fun, crazy, wild, randomly different, and peaceful.

Anne: An attractive and classy young woman who lives up to the simple beauty of her name.

Evan: 1. to be awesome beyond contemplation 2. to be so good looking that one is attractive to every female present and at least one guy present 3. to be incredibly smart

Alex:  Someone that is of extreme greatness. Often considered as a god in some religions. Also means cool.

Sarah: The name “Sarah” is translated from the Hebrew language. It means “Princess”…and rightly so!

Olivia:  A beautiful wonderful hearted girl. Wonderful to talk to . Always there for someone, great person. Absolutely FUN.

So what’s the definition of YOUR name?

Missing

Missing:  One box of  ”Maisie” Valentines and two library books.

Last seen:  Under Sarah’s pillow; she’s been sleeping with them for weeks.

We have turned the house upside-down looking for these items, with no luck and many tears.

Seriously – I even took the drawers out of her dresser to see if they might have fallen down behind.

Let’s hope, for the sake of my (sanity) the family’s ears, they all soon show up…

Winter Wonderland

We’re in the midst of our first “real” snow of the season. I’m enjoying the view out our kitchen window, since we are snug and warm inside.

We were incredulous that school was not cancelled this morning and D’Arcy ended up driving the boys to school as we were both worried about them taking the bus. They catch it at 7:15 am on the corner. It’s still dark at that time on a good day, and visibility was not great this morning. Not to mention that the first time we saw a plow was at 8:34!!

All three boys did get to school safely, only to have it cancelled mid-morning. I can’t imagine what a nightmare that must have been for the staff, since they have nearly 600 children to find a safe place for before they can allow them to get sent home. Lucky for us, Auntie Kay was working in the library, so she brought Evan & Alex home with her.

The high-school kids were already in the middle of writing their exam when school was cancelled, so D’Arcy’s school will be dismissed at 1:00.

When I looked out our window at 5:00 this morning, I was sure that school would be cancelled. Someone at the school board made a bad call today and I hope that all students, teachers & staff manage to make it home safely.

The wind is supposed to pick up later and it’s still snowing heavily.  The kids have asked to go out and build a snowman this afternoon, so we’ll see how long we last outside.  The driveway needs to be shoveled again for the third time anyway…

Eye Clinic Graduate!

We got some unexpected, but much welcomed news at Alex’s eye appointment at the IWK Eye Care Clinic on Tuesday – he no longer has to go there anymore!

EVER.*

(*Unless something happens to his eyes, or his right one starts to turn again.)

From now on, he will be seen once a year by a local ophthalmologist.  (The same ophthalmologist that Sarah sees.)

Alex first got his glasses when he was 3.5, after we noticed his eye start to turn. Thinking he had a “lazy” eye, we took him to the eye doctor to find that he was legally blind in his right eye. His vision was 20/400. (And here we just thought he was clumsy!) He had strabismus which led to amblyopia.

Over the years, we patched, dropped, argued, bribed & begged. We had sticker charts, bought webkinz and occasionally sat on him to get him to wear the patch. D’Arcy wore a patch to the school fun-fair one year, so that Alex would feel less self-conscious and couldn’t believe how difficult it was to get around and how many people asked rude questions. The Atropine changed Alex’s personality and sometimes gave him nightmares. When he started school, his vision was so bad he qualified for special education funding; he had special paper with black lines, and pictures to color that had been glue-gunned so that he could feel where the edges were he was supposed to be colouring. We had to buy a sippy cup because he couldn’t find his dishes on the table and would knock things over. I got a call from the school on his very first day because he couldn’t tell where the playground ended and the pavement started so fell and got scraped up. He was allowed to sit as close to the tv or computer as he wanted for years.

I can not even hazard a guess at how many sets of frames & lenses we went through in that time period; we had to replace his lenses the very first day he had glasses because he tripped and fell flat on his face, scratching them up…

He was never a “text-book” case, and the orthoptists actually presented his case in their classes on different occasions. His stronger eye was so dominant that at one point, it was “seeing” through the atropine for him. In essence, his brain would rather decipher the blurred image than use his weak eye!

Now that it’s over, those trials & frustrations seem like a lifetime ago. He has gone from being legally blind to being capable of  20/40 vision (he sits between 20/50 & 20/60) which means he should be able to drive. He does not have 3D vision (depth perception), yet manages to curl & play golf! He is colour blind, but so are lots of people.  His turn has gone from being greater than 30 degrees to one degree when they manipulate it!  In other words, it’s imperceptible to the naked eye!

I’m going to miss our monthly “date”, Alex & Mommy to the IWK, but I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with a better use of our time!

Alex, age 3

Alex's first day with glasses (and chicken pox)!

Alex, age 5 - eye turning more

Age 6

Age 7

5.5 years of patching and drops...

A jealous brother who wanted glasses of his own...

The night before surgery, April 7th, 2008

Recovering from Surgery

A week later...

A few months later - Love those straight eyes!

Age nine - newly off the drop!

Our handsome boy, Age 9!

It was a long road for all of us, but especially for Alex.

We couldn’t be happier or more proud of him!

Family Literacy Day

Today is Family Literacy Day.  How appropriate that today was also the day that Sarah registered for Primary.

School.

Where did the time go?

When the school had called with the appointment, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and wasn’t sure I was ready to send her to school.  However, she is very ready.  We have registered her for French Immersion which we didn’t do for the boys.  At that time, we would have had to commit to driving them to school each day and running a B&B, I just couldn’t commit to getting them there on time in the mornings.  Now, then program is located at their home school, so the decision was easy.

I waited in the hall, talking to Auntie Kay and Neil (who will be in her class) while Sarah had a visit with Mme. A.  She was a little bit worried that she wouldn’t know everything, but came out smiling.

I had a Tourism Board Meeting in Halifax, so kissed Sarah goodbye and sent her to preschool with Auntie Kay.  (But not before getting a photo of Sarah & Neil in front of the school together!)

I had a great meeting and actually passed D’Arcy & his carpool on the highway on my way home, so arrived just as he did.  When I walked in the door, my father was sitting on the couch in our family room, surrounded by many children.  They were reading a Curious George counting book; my mother had gone to their house to get some of the food for our “Family Literacy Day” Celebration.

I don’t remember which year this tradition started, but we’ve celebrated it for quite a while now.  Our celebration always involves food, family & books.  Does life get better than that?  This year, we had celebrated at our house because we have two rooms of guests and didn’t want to leave them.  The books we received were:

Olivia: “The Big Green Book of Beginner Books”, Dr. Seuss

Sarah:  “The Quilt Makers Gift”, Jeff Brumbeau & Gail de Marcken

Evan:  ”The 39 Clues Series – Beyond the Grave”, Jude Watson

Alex:  “A Good Night for Ghosts” (Magic Tree House Series), Mary Pope Osborne

Anne:  “A Week from Sunday”, Dorothy Garlock

D’Arcy:  “Teachers Touch Lives”, Hallmark

Ginna & Beanah (share):  “Selected Stories”, Alice Monroe

We got a few photos of the celebration, and of course, Alex got it all on video(just  in case you’d ever like to listen to me “I Wish That I Had Duck Feet” to my children!)  (One of my favorites as a child!!)

The poster Sarah made

Casual supper

All family events are now being well documented...

Sarah & Beanah

Reading "I Wish That I Had Duck Feet"

Everyone's books were a hit this year!

My favorite kind of gift - a new book!

A family who reads together stays together...

“My Kangaroo is gone!”

I’m not sure what it was we ate, but Evan, Olivia & I have each had a mouthful of cankers this week – ouch!  This morning, Olivia woke up, came downstairs and pointed to her mouth, announcing, “My kangaroo is gone!”

No wonder she’s been so cranky this week…

The Laws of Sisterhood

Overheard on Friday night when the girls were on their way upstairs for baths & bed:

Olivia:  (In the lead)  I’m going to beat you Sarah!

Sarah: NO OLIVIA!  It’s only a race when I’m in front!

Overscheduled?!

In looking at the calendar, it would appear that we have just two (2) weekends between now and the end of school on June 29th that are totally open and unscheduled.

Let’s hope it’s true that time flies when you’re having fun…