Wow its been nearly a month since I last posted.

Basically life has been cold.
Really cold.
Seriously, more homeless shelters need to be opened and busses going around picking up homeless people to take them to those places cuz its freaking cold.
And I have a house. With working heat. And the ability to turn up that heat if I so choose.

I would like new windows. Or at least new insulation around those windows.

But I have heat.

Hubbie and I recently put the heating pad on the bed ( wedding gift from auntie Patsy....really really appreciating it this year). Now its almost like a race to see who can get to turn the pad on first. I turn it on when he wakes up in the morning and go back to sleep. When I get up first, he usually wakes up at some point, turns it on, and when i come in to wake him up its on. We had breakfast in bed the other morning ( with one child in bed and the other gabbing at herself in the mirror) with the heating pad on.

Guess its obvious how much we love that thing?


Anyway. Since I last posted, both of my babies have had their birthdays. I can't believe that E is a year old already. Time has gone by so fast. She is such a happy baby. Except when teething, but frankly, I remember my wisdom teeth trying to come in when I was 17 and I was NOT happy. Anyhow. I remember how terrified I was when I found out I was pregnant with her. How would I look after both kids and give them what they needed when I was barely getting through with one...etc etc.....
I wouldnt have it any other way. She is such a joy.
Except when Im trying to potty train Sophia. Then shes a bit challenging. What is it with kids wanting to desperately grab toilet seats and shove their hands in the toilet water?!
Hehe.

We had their birthday party on the 18th. We had quite a full house. Im still gathering up pictures to send out. Both our phones died so we only got decor pictures basically. My mother in law sent some, and a friend but there are more out there I know.  It was a sesame street theme. Momma G and Josh decorated the cupcakes/cakes as I was at work when they arrived. So cute. I was really pleased. I will post a picture of those below.



Cute eh???

Anyway, we had a good time. It was nice to see family and friends and be together. Some family couldn't make it so that was sad...its hard when we are all so scattered around. I think the girls enjoyed themselves. Sophia didn't really get it again. I think she thought it was mostly for Elisa. She threw her cupcake around. Elisa shoved hers in her face. Not surprised. Sophia likes the salty and spicy and Elisa likes sweet. I was stunned by all the gifts they got. Id forgotten what kids parties are like lol.

I managed to not sob my face off this year when the girls had their birthdays. Im also not pregnant this year so maybe that helped.

We took the girls for their checkup yesterday.

Ya awesome mother for booking E's checkup for her actual birthday.

She got three shots. Loudly protested for a bit and then recovered quite quickly. She is a trooper for sure.

S got the doctor truly laughing by showing off her language skills ( with a bit of prompting. The doctor causes her to have a bit of a meltdown so I used key words to get her to calm down)
These key words were:
mommy's wrinkle cream
           and
hot diggity dog.
If he'd been drinking, the wall would've worn whatever it was.


My brief break is now drawing to a close. The children are muttering and whining and thumping which indicates they are waking up. I get to be alone today til 9pm. Yipee! Im also sick AGAIN! Honestly! Immune system of the crappiest sort.

Thoughts sprouting from lackage of sleep

Well for those of you who are into this sort of thing you may think Im a little bonkers. If you know me however, chances are you already think Im a little bonkers so whatever.

Let me explain

So I have said for a long time now that Im pretty sure God gave me children to change me. I don't think anyone can argue that having children is life changing right? Well its definitely caused an awful lot of character revealing and refining in my life for sure.
Lately my littlest precious hasn't been sleeping.Really in comparison to a lot of other people I know, I have nothing to complain about. Again, if you know me,  you know my love affair with sleep and the deterioration of our relationship since having children. Also, when I have many nights of interrupted, unfulfilled sleep, my suspected fibromyalgia flares up with a vengeance and makes me even more tired, thus creating a continuous cycle. Thanks to my self chosen lack of sleep the last few days of christmas vacation and the crack of dawn mornings inflicted on by littlest angel,  I have been in one of those flare ups ( though it is getting better slowly but surely now) The last few days she has been sleeping terribly. Even Josh, who sleeps through everything, has had his share of being up later than usual since she keeps waking just as he wants to go to bed. This morning on her third or fourth wake up, at 316, I angrily stomped downstairs and let her play alone while I stewed inside and growled at nothing in particular and gave God the stink eye. Trust me, giving God the stink eye at 3 am is one of my nicer reactions.

Time out - yes. I get nasty and cranky. I remember a time in my life where I could honestly say I'd never been angry at God. Then I had children. I have had frequent angry words with God. Our relationship is actually stronger with increasing honesty. Not that I feel its a proper reaction. Just saying. I don't do fake. Not anymore. It causes mental breakdowns and relationship problems.

So, I went and griped, summararily ( yep I also make up words. I know at least one of you reading this is sobbing. Yes, Im talking to you :D ) that is. People left encouragement and prayers for me. I definitely felt these. I tell you there is definitely power in prayer. I can almost physically feel it some days. Anyway, I got an email from a friend who was talking about "meditating on a certain verse" and summaraily describing the context in which she was doing so.

and then it hit me

HA! Thats what meditating is.

Now, don't laugh. Obviously there are other ways to meditate than "OM" I knew that thinking about something in your mind as you go about your day is also meditating. For some reason though it didnt click. Until like an hour ago. Suddenly. So thanks Kimberly :)

Then I managed to get to have some bible time. Didn't think that was going to happen. The kids are just miserable, not settling, then settling, then taking turns not settling etc ( which is why im writing blogs....i can't focus when Im constantly interrupted) I decided to read a Stormie Omartian devotional. She was talking about how she used to pray that God would change everyone else, then learned to pray "Change me, God" At the end, she includes a prayer with scripture from psalm 51:

Lord, create in me a clean heart and a right spirit before You. Give me a new, positive, joyful, loving, and forgiving attitude toward others. Where there is anything that needs to change in me, I pray You would enable that change to happen. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

 In another translation spirit is attitude. So I began to think....WHY do I get so viciously angry with lack of sleep? Because I feel like I won't get enough and won't be able to make it through the next day. Well, that hasn't proven to be true. The early morning was rough for sure...sitting there trying to play with the girls and nodding off, but after an hour or so that went away. Clearly an attitude change for me would not just benefit me and my relationship with God, but my children and husband too. So Ive decided to meditate on this verse:  :

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
 and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Short, sweet and to the point and easy to remember. Lets see how tonight goes. I hope better. I very much dislike being crusty at God. Its so awesome that even when we are frustrated and angry and can't see what he is doing, he is still loving and merciful to us even when we give the stink eye. If you pray, please pray for me and let me know what I can pray for you. Some people say God can't move unless we pray, others that our prayers change nothing but teach us to depend on him. I say its somewhere in the middle. I can definitely tell when others are holding me up in prayer. I would like to expand on this thought but the littlest one has been whining for a bit and im expecting a blow up soon and would like to finish this.

Arabian nights....and bellydancing evenings?

Slowly but surely I am catching up.

The christmas holidays flew by way way too quickly. I miss them. But lets not dwell on that shall we?

Today Im going to talk about the christmas present I referred to in my last blog - the gift from Seester.

I just have to say Im so glad that I purchased the many avon nail polishes I have on a very good discount. They take an eternity to dry. It took me an hour and a half to get ready simply because I ended up having to fix my stupid nails three times. Gar!

We ( that would be Seester, momma G, the mother and sister in law of Seester and her friend Heather) All met downtown toronto. For this to happen I had to take....

THE SUBWAY *followed by epic deep voiced echos*

I love the subway.  I have learned to bring a book and under no circumstances should eye contact be made. Ever. This has protected me from the creepy people that I used to be a magnet for - that is until I got schooled by experience after experience. Since I was deeply immersed in the land of Katniss Everdeen this was an excellent opportunity to continue immersing myself in that land, uninterrupted. Ah Bliss. Anyhow, I love the subeay because I can read and not feel like puking and it gets you downtown so much faster than a car.

We met up at the mall ( the mall...haha. Anyone from here knows what Im likely talking about. )and their food court is all high class now. Plastic cutlery? I think not!!!! I am impressed with it though. I got a free sample of butter chicken sauce mmm mmm.

WE then made our way to a theatre and watched Aladdin. It was very good. Im pretty sure the genie acts exactly the same in real life. I had to pee towards the end and the usher wouldn't let me back in. I was very distraught but I found a slab of cement to sit on and at least I could still see the show.

We then took some pictures in a park on the way to our restaurant. Poor Seesters plans of having a photo shoot were dampened a little by ice and the reticence of all the people except me. So we had some fun with that.

The sultans tent was an awesome restaurant. We sat in a section that was basically designed to look like a tent. The open areas were closed off with sheets and the decor was all funky middle eastern. Later, at night when they do the bellydancing shows, they open up the tents so you can see the dancers.

The food was.....mmmm. I was especially fond of the maftoul, this meat in spices wrapped in phylo pastry. SO FREAKING GOOD. The waiter had informed us that people usually dont share them. I knew why as soon as I took one bite. I ate a ton of couscous. Bad. Bad idea. But so so good. Unfortunately poor Heather did not have good luck with her salmon. It was raw. Twice. The third time is wasn't, but by then she was full of basically nothing but rice and asked for it to be picked up. It was kind of hilarious and really sad all at the same time. After dinner they served us really sweet mint tea. Apparently you are supposed to pour it from way up high because...um...because.....um. Something to do with messing wtih the flavour if you dont? My dessert was a rice pudding type dessert, only with couscous. I couldnt stomach much of it since I'd already had a butt load of the stuff. Momma G gave me her amazing flourless chocolate cake because after half of it you just can't eat anymore.

Anyway, the bellydancers started. That was pretty cool. Then they invited us to join them. I was wanting to but feeling really shy cuz Id have no clue what to do. Then Jenn launched herself across me and demanded I stand up because we were going together.
hehe
Well to my relief the girl told us what to do. To my horror EVERYONE ELSE had a camera out, with video or snapping pictures. Hmph. It was a lot of fun though and Id totally do it again.

The night ended and off I went back to ...

THE SUBWAY  *followed by epic deep voiced echos*

and immersing myself in the world of Katniss Everdeen.

Its the most wonderful time of the year

There was supposed to be a big storm the first weekend of christmas vacation.

There wasn't really. We travelled to London that day, with fairly decent weather. We went to a family gathering of sorts. My mother in laws aunt's family. Her aunt had many children. Her aunt is very Dutch. She still has her accent. She is entertaining. I sat next to her at my seester Jenn's wedding shower and she kept mumbling hilarious things to me about other people's presents. She was trying to be discreet but she was a little loud. We showed her my children and I told her she was brave for having 8 cuz I can abrely handle having 2 and she  looked stunned and said "oh! I don't feel brave"
Bless her.
The family rents a school and theres a gym for the kids to play in. Sophia had a fantastic time running after balls. Elisa had a fantastic time crawling after balls. Her pink pants were no longer pink.
They also had a photo booth type area where one of the cousins took pictures. You could put hats and fun stuff on but since we were in a hurry we just wanted to try to get a nice family picture to send with christmas cards ( ha! christmas cards. didnt get sent).
We succeeded. Or rather he succeeded in photographing us all - neither josh nor i looking drugged, both girls looking; maybe not smiling but looking. I am waiting for that photo to be sent to me so I can send it out to people with "christmas cards"

We went to A&W and had supper. The girls did surprisingly well. That was the first time we ate at a restaurant with both girls without Elisa being a comatose newborn. We then drove around to look at the more fun houses with christmas lights. My father in law is a bus driver and hes all over the city so he knew of a few places. That was cool. Its been a long time since we went out looking at christmas lights.

Since I am writing about two weeks ago my memory is foggy. So I will go with what I remember.
December 22 was to be the arrival of seester and Alex - alex is seester's husband. Seester is Josh's sister. We call each other Seester.
Anyway, we had flight details, but all was chaos at Pearson. We were watching the flight tracker on united's site. At one point it said their flight had left Boston ( or washington I cant remember which) My father in law and Josh were very eager to get on their way and they left.
Then we discovered taht their flight number had changed, not left, and was delayed.
Then it was delayed again.
and again.
Josh and father in law decided to wait it out at our house. Except we had no power and according to the neighbours, hadn't since that morning at 2am.
Then the flight was cancelled so they drove back to London and got home around 930.
Sophia had not taken well to daddy not being there for bedtime -and in a place that wasn't home. It was actually really sad.

The next day they took off again, this time to Detroit, as that was the only place they could get a flight to before Christmas day. Josh didn't have his passport. Just lisence and birth certificate. So that presented a challenge as Dave didn't want to go alone ( and didnt know how to use our phone with the app we were using to communicate with Jenn and Alex) We were all a little antsy about what was going to happen, but he got through just fine ( Thank you Lord AGAIN!). Thankfully this flight actually arrived and  landed on time and we actually got to have christmas together. Too short of a time, but they arrived safe and we had a delicious dinner, fun games ( a scavenger hunt for Sue, my mother in law and I, so we could discover where we were going for our christmas present from Jenn - which will be spoken of later) and present time.

My father in law got a screwdriver that was about 4 feet long. His expression was hysterical.

The next day we had to leave....headed for home to meet up with mom at our houose. Our friends who are usually on the same power grid as us got power back monday night. Great! we thouoght. Just in time! We thought.

We made it to Mississauga and mom texts me that we have no power and the house is freezing.
Awesome.
As Id had two nights in a row of terrible sleep I began to cry. All I wanted was my bed. Lol. I cried and apologized to Josh and cried more. Then I began to have a process. We are going to Peterborough....this could be nice.....then i said to Josh, maybe Emily will come visit. Then I cried, realizing how much I missed her because I hadnt seen her in months. Then I was happy because she was excited. Then I cried because I felt sorry for the people who had no where to go....and on and on for about 20 kms. It was very hormonal. In hindsight kind of funny.

We got home, dropped off presents, picked up the rest that were at home and prepared to leave.
It was seriously so cold.

The girls were in their car seats for 2 1/2 hours by then. it would be another 1 - 1 1/2 hours to Peterborough. You better believe we were praying for a bearable trip. We started out by singing and then...miraculously...the children passed out.

By the time we reached Peterborough I was feeling much more optomistic. A little melancoly because of nostalgia and people no longer there that I wish were, but mostly optimistic.

My sweet mother let us sleep in her room and she slept in a cot in the living room. That made me cry too because I was so desperate for sleep and knew I wouldn't get it on the couch. She insisted and that was probably, honestly the best christmas present she's ever given me.

We have this tradition on christmas eve where we get Chinese food. Hello yummy!!! I also got to see my Emily.

Christmas day I made a huge breakfast. WE opened our gifts. S actually opened presents this year. She said "rip!" alot and thoroughly enjoyed it. More than she enjoyed her actual gifts. E ate the paper. Naturally I took pictures before taking it away cuz im an awesome mom like that.

Hubbie blew me away this year. He got me a variety of wonderful things. But....he got me the hunger games trilogy. I was....so pleased. As I began to read it I became even more pleased. I became like I was in teh old days, when I lived in books. Walking around, head in the clouds....living in the book and managing to still perform my duties and etc. Oh boy it was crazy. Every chance I got I read.
I finished all three in less than a week. And took care of the children. And didnt ( well maybe a little) ignore my husband. I will just say that the final movie better be a little more positive than the book. That book nearly killed me emotionally. it took a few days to get over the abuse my heart took.

Heres another "God provision"
So....our power was out right? It continued to be out. All the while I secretly worried about the pipes bursting but didnt say anything because I dont really know about these things and figured since no one else mentioned it, it probably wasn't valid. Then mom brough it up. Then JOsh worried. and worried. He was going to go back home to check it out, but we found ourneighbours phone number to call and see if power had been restored. It hadn't.....but...they had a key from when the old owner lived here.
We have been wanting to change our locks for a while. Not to mention change the STUPID doorknob that is ridiculously hard to turn to open the door ( which in the summer wasnt such a pain, but, with biting cold winter with a vengance, its been HORRIBLE) We hadn't changed the locks thouogh and that turned out to be a good thing, because they were able to come in, bleed the lines and turn off the water. Josh got to stay with us :) They kept checking back for us for the power ( theirs came on a lot sooner than ours) and boxing day afternoon it was back.

IN the meantime mom and I got to go shopping together for her christmas present, we got to visit some friends and just spend time chilling and hanging out with mom.

This was probably the best christmas I've had in a long time. I missed my dad waking me up saying " wake up! Santa was here"
I hope you all had a wonderful christmas with your loved ones :D

.

Its the most wonderful time of the year : Prologue

Dec 13th

I awoke feeling like I had been run over by a truck, my chest with stabbing pain, difficulty breathing....all the signs of yet another cold.

We had finally been a sick free home. For about 4 days.

My chest had been hurting for two days and I thouoght it was just from dry air or something. Now I knew. It was the begining of the flu from hell.

I dragged myself around, happy that we had already planned that I was going to take Josh to school. Id had a feeling the night before I was coming down with something and had no more ventolin ( I have asthma and when im sick it flares up) so a trip to the pharmacy was in order.

To make a long story short, the not one, but two pharmacies that I thought had a perscription did not. That meant to the walk in clinic for me. Since I had to work that night....I would need to go during the day. Hardly able to breathe. With two children.

I was so desperate I even posted on facebook for help. At first it looked hopeless. I sat on the kitchen floor and sobbed, waiting for one of my friends to text me back. S came over to me with her favourite stuffed bunny, said "whats wrong" and made bunny kiss me.
talk about heart melting?

Anyway, thankfully, aforementioned friend was having her first day off in a month ( eek!) and when she heard of my plight, came to save me. Armed with a roast beef, potatoes and veggies as well. I almost cried again. Especially since she probably would have preferred to stay in bed and eat bon bons or go to the spa and get a massage. This is one of those situations in which I was previously speaking about in my last post about feeling showered with blessings. In this case a blatantly intentional provision. Not to mention a dinner.

I'll spare you the boring parts. I got my medication, tried to get the night off, failed, and off to work I went.
Thankfully the parents were out. I did as little as possible and explained to my client that I was so sorry but I couldnt read him any stories as I was feeling horrendous. So I played music for us both, huddled underneath my coat and shivered for a while.
Then I began to have 1....and then 2 of my shaking all over episodes. I discovered that when I have them sitting up, if I completely relax, my head goes round in circles.....creepy no? I had a third shortly before leaving, this time in front of his mom. She wanted to drive me home. Kind of glad it did happen in front of her cuz I called in sick for the next day when I got home and I have no idea if they got saturday covered.

I basically slept all day saturday. I couldn't stop sleeping. I was convinced I had pneumonia, but my chest was clear ( well...i listened as best as you can when an 11 month old keeps trying to steal your stethoscope. I was feeling very puzzled. Finally the pain went away and i began to breathe a little better. Then Sophia came down with it monday morning. And Elisa. The last week of school before the holidays and Josh ended up coming home early because when he called to check up on us the girls were screaming like crazy and I was barely functional.

Then It got to him. Tuesday he woke up feeling awful. Spent all day wednesday sleeping. He is never sick like that. Oddly Sophia bounced back quickest. She had a fever for two days, slept alot the first day then was back to herself. Elisa was snotty for a few days. It really got mommy and Daddy. Ugh.

We were able to go out for dinner on Josh's birthday. If you go to Caseys you get a free meal up to 14.99. So that was fun. We couldnt really taste it but.....still.

Thankfully we were able to do christmas as planned.....well...sort of.....thats another blog in itself.

So many things to say....so little time.....

Well now it has been a while hasnt it?

I have blogged so many times in my head. Beginning lines as follows: ( well the ones I remember)

You know you are a mom when you can fall asleep while getting an MRI

Its impossible to not feel alive when you have a biting wind freezing your face ( and the rest of your body) off


I would like to being chronologically because thats how I roll. The fact that Im not, is actually driving me crazy and as I write this I am having an internal battle about it.

Maybe I will just write a couple of blogs. To keep you, the reader, from losing interest and therefore really wasting my time and yours.

Lately I have been having some emotional issues regarding a decision we made. Its not super personal or anything I just don't want to throw out any fodder for gossip, and frankly the issue isn't what I want to draw attention to. The issue is the catalyst for what I want to share.
Explanation:
This issue came to a head on new years eve of all times. I began to question a decision we made. Did God REALLY tell us to do this? The smart part of me answered almost immediately, "Yes Christina, you  know its true. Look at all the circumstances that screamed yes to you" -and for me, God speaks largely with circumstances and his word. ANyhow. I went to bed ( passed out actually sort of but thats another story for another blog) and the next morning woke up at the CRACK of DAWN ( thanks baby E) feeling downcast and lonely and emotional.
As always, I began to browse my facebook newsfeed in an exhausted stupor while baby E proceeded to play with an unfair amount of energy. I came across a friend's post from the bible gateway verse of the day:

Isaiah 43:18-19
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

I read it and started to cry. I recalled having read this verse at another point in my life - couldn't remember when though. Whenever a verse touches me at a desperate time in my life ( or happy time) I write teh date down beside it. Never the circumstance, just the date. Anyway, today I finally went and looked it up in my paper bible and see that I marked it ten years ago. Around that time I was ridiculously depressed and having a hard time with my parents seperation and the crap that went along with that. I was very angry and frustrated and that verse helped me hold on in that moment. It took a while but God definitely did a new thing and changed the situation 180 degrees. To me this has said that while things are difficult and it feels sometimes like nothing is happening....it may take 5, 10, 20 years but something IS going on. In this case I dont think it will take that long. Im already starting to see more proof that the decision we made ( and when I say that I mean to follow what God asked us to do and to trust him) was correct. Its so hard sometimes for me to trust God - but not just trust that he is in control, but to trust that he actually has good things planned for me. ( I have no problem believing he has good things for my family...just me) The past year has been so interesting to me. Either God has been showering me with goodness or I'm just finally able to see all the good things he has provided. Maybe its both?

and now.....I will attempt to blog about our crazy christmas and etc. ......