Summer Reading

I wanted to share some of my summer reading – as I know this is why so many of you click daily onto my blog site.


I’d wanted to read the Birth House for quite some time and it was much different then I had thought it would be. I thought it was about a house unwed mothers went to have their babies; instead it is the story of a girl growing up in Nova Scotia who become a midwife.

From The Birth House:
"My house became the birth house. That's what the women called it, knocking on the door, ripe with child, water breaking on the porch. First-time mothers full of questions, young girls in trouble, and seasoned women with a brood already at home. (I called those babies 'toesies,' because they were more than their mamas could count on their fingers.) They all came to the house, wailing and keening their babies into the world. I wiped the feverish necks with cool, moist cloths, spooned porridge and hot tea into their tired bodies, talked them back from outside of themselves.
The Glass Castle is a heart breaking memoir of Jennette Walls. Jannette grows up in total poverty; her father being a alcoholic, who moves his family from one town to the next to follow his latest idea to make them rich, all the while feeding his kids tales of a Glass Castle he will one day built them.


After starting this Novel by Anita Shreve, I’ve decided that I very much enjoy her books. I love the style she writes in and I find her books are a quick read. This is the first book of hers that I’ve pick for myself ,as Spencer usually buys one of her books to put in my Christmas stocking. Pick up this book if you want an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Just the way we like him

Screens

When I was a young mom, I remember listening to my friend, Nicole communicate her frustration with her inability to keep her kids off The Screens (computer, T.V. and game system). I remember at the time thinking and probably expressing, “what’s the problem; you just turn off the T.V. and tell them television time is over and that’s it”. Once again as the years have gone on, and my second child has reached the age of television watching, game cube playing and computer exploring I have once again been taught that valuable lesson – Never say Never.

Jarom is a Screens fanatic! He will wake up at the crack of dawn rush down to the game cube and play until I rip the control from his tightly clutched fists. At which time he will head for the T.V. and masterfully manoeuvre the remote to the channel of his choice. He loves the remote so much he hides it in his coat pocket when we go to pick Nolan up from school, thus ensuring two things 1) that he is guaranteed sole use of the control upon returning home and 2) he gets to feel the remote in his pocket while we are driving and dream about all the wonderful cartoons which await his arrival.

This has been a totally adjustment for me; Nolan who still doesn’t know how to work the remote complied with my turn off the TV and just say no policy. Jarom will sit for hours trying to undo the lengths I’ve gone too to prevent his screens addictions. The only thing I have done that seems to work is physically removing the TV and hiding the controllers.

I'm off to go round 6 for power of the remote. Wish me luck.

Alone at Last

Yesterday was the first day of school; Nolan started grade 3 and after lunch Jarom attended Pre-school. Normally at this time of the year I feel sorrow and a desire to shut all the curtains, lock the doors and keep my kids with me. This year however, I felt a little relief at seeing them securely in their classrooms.

I’m not sure if it's because I've caught some sort of nasty illness from my kids that is leaving me drained of all energy, achy body, and a sore throat among other complaints, for over a week now or if it is the ever constant sibling rivalry turning into more than one fist fight and a couple of biting matches, that helped make the transitions of a new school year a lot easier than I have anticipated.

Nolan’s new teacher is Miss Sopka who is apparent very good for boys. He came home happy at lunch and tired afterschool. His best buddy Leon is in the other class, which caused a couple of tears, but with the promise of lots of play dates, he seems ok. I guess time will tell as the school year unfolds.

Jarom is attending preschool 3 times a week for 2 hours. It’s just enough time to give me a few minutes to myself to enjoy all the things I love to do like watching soap operas and eating bonbons. Ummmm – maybe in my dreams. I remember when Jarom started last year I thought I would have all this time to accomplish everything, but in reality my "free time" managed to be taken up with things like volunteering and Vt'ing.

Jarom had a great day and like his teacher very much.

P.S. Jarom insisted on wearing his soccer medal to show his teacher.

Thank Goodness for McGavins

When I was a little girl one of my favourite things was rounding the corner of our block at lunch time and seeing my grandparent's orange truck. My mouth would start to water as I broke into a run because I knew what would be waiting for me when I opened the front door – homemade scones.

My grandpa Blumel was an expert bread maker; we grew up on homemade bread. White was our favourite, but once we’d polished off the white bread we start on the brown. Rarely did a loaf of storeboughten bread make it into our home. I remember sitting beside my grandpa as he ate the sacrament bread and hearing him muttered “McGavins” as if it were a swear word.

With such a talented grandpa, I figured bread making was in my gens; I could pictures my family gathered around the table feasting on home baked cinnamon buns or enjoying their bedtime snack of toast that I have lovingly prepared with my own hand. This has not proven to be the case. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. I have absolutely no skills in the bread making department. Any recipe calling for yeast should just ripped out of my cookbook because there is no way it will ever be made by these hand of mine.

In an effort to still supply my family with fresh baked bread, I asked for a bread maker for Christmas one year. Even the bread maker refuses to deliver a perfectly made loaf of bread.

I just tried to make pizza crust for my kids for lunch and that was a huge bust – so it’s official. If I can’t even make pizza crust I was not meant to enjoy the comforts of home made baking.

Grocery Shopping tales

Ok, My cousin Amy posted this on her blog and I thought it was so funny, I wanted every mother I know to have a chance to read it.

I hope you're sitting down and your blatter is empty.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130144061675

My first video

Well, my plan to do a daily post of our summer fun didn’t exactly pan out; so instead I’ve made a movie. One of my young women showed me a movie she had made and I was so impressed I had to try one of my own. Since I am computer challenged it took me longer than I would have liked; I had to wait for Spencer to come home from work every day and fix the latest road block I had run into. But here it is!!!

We had so much fun, although lots of our activities are missing since, once again due to dead batteries, I used my parent’s camera and have yet to receive those pictures.

We were so fortunate to see so much of our family (some by birth other by us claiming them as our family – Sheena and Michel and the Taylors). It was hard to say good-bye to them again, but at the same time; I felt so very blessed to have such wonderful people be a part of our lives.

My Boys

WHAT!!!

This is a funny story about Jarom I wanted to share before I forgot it.

One Sunday in my parents ward the priests were talking about preparing for their mission. As the priests were talking Jarom was coloring with his book on the seat, so he was kneeing on the floor facing me. As one of the priest talked he mentioned that he knew that he had to learn how to cook and clean and do his laundry because his mother wouldn’t be there. Jarom whipped his head up and yelled, “WHAT, you’re not coming on my mission with me.”

Good-bye Rachel

Well its official – my summer of fun with my family is OVER.

Bright and early this morning we set off for the airport to bid farewell to our Rachel. We were running a little behind and since the plane was leaving at 8:50 whether Rachel was on it or not, we were saved from a tearful good-bye. Nolan however, had a really hard time with Rachel leaving us and tried to stage a protest by refusing to get out of bed; in the end he resigned himself to his aunt’s departure and settled for a long hug.

Our time with Rachel wasn’t action packed, like I would normally like, but I think we were all a little tired from our time at Grandma’s and need a couple of low key days. We did however manage to squeeze in a movie (Oceans 13 and although I have been a great fan of the Ocean movies in the past I wouldn’t recommend this one), Lunch with Spencer and a stroll around the Forks, bike riding and tennis playing and a couple of movies: Fracture and 300 (I am still a little shocked Spencer rented it and thought I would enjoy watching it - nasty).

Thursday being our final day we thought we should have an outing, so we decided to go to a little place called Emu Ville – it promised to be a good time, learning about Emus and going on a train ride, what could be better? After driving all over the southern part of Manitoba we decided it no longer existed (apparent there aren’t a lot of people wanted to visit an emu farm – imagine that) and decided to visit the Zoo instead.

On our way to the Zoo, we passed the golf dome and decided we would rather go mini golfing. After a highly completive round of mini golf which proclaimed Rachel the best golfer of all, we headed off to the greatest Gelato store in all of Winnipeg – Nucci’s.

We finished off our afternoon with a little frog hunting in Kings Park. The kids had a wonderful time, and although Rachel and I were fine with the small frogs, when Nolan captured a great BIG frog we turned into the girls we are and screamed and screamed as the frog tried to make his escape.

It was great to have Rachel here and we ( me especially) am going to miss her.

(due to dead batteries I was unable to capture any of our fun time with Rachel, all the memories are on her camera; these our some pictures from our time in Alberta)

2 down 7 to go!

He's done it again...

passed another exam.

HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY!!!

We're Back.

I’m sure you have all been checking my blog daily to see any new posts I may have posted (or given up entirely on me); fear not, your wait is over. We have returned to Winnipeg and have lots of fun stories and pictures to share. We even managed to convince Rachel that her time off from work would be best spent with us in Winnipeg – very excited to have her with us!

We had five glorious carefree weeks of freedom. It was so good to be around family, allow my kids the freedom to run around and explore grandma and grandpa’s acreage to their hearts content. Time went by much too fast and there were lots of tears as I brutally ripped my kids away from their grandparents and brought them back to the “Houde”.

I’ve decided to draw out my summer posting a little bit and everyday (or so) post a new activity we did over the summer.

The Pictures are of Nolan with the dogs, Max and Matty and Jarom in grandma and grandpa’s crab apple tree.

1 down 8 to go!!!

Congratulations

to Spencer for passing his

Materials and Methods exam.

We are so very proud of you.
Love, Angela, Nolan and Jarom

It's a boy

Congratulations

to Rob, Tanya and Dalin on their new arrival.

Braden Parker Court

(not 100% sure the spelling is right)

We can’t wait to see photo’s of him!!!

Soccer Wind Up

Last night was Jarom’s soccer wind-up. We all gathered together to enjoy a bbq of hot dogs, chips and pop. Jarom received his team photo and medal. He has been talking all season about the medal he is going to receive at the end of soccer. He was so excited to FINALLY get his very own medal (just like Nolan) and proudly wore it all evening. We had to display it on his wall as soon as we got home.

More Baseball Pictures

Drowning Ruth

It has recently been brought to my attention that many of my blog viewers do not enjoy my book reviews, but would rather see more pictures of my adorable kids and stop wasting their time with my thoughts as I turn the last page of my latest novel. I was shocked to hear this news, well not shocked exactly, it bought back memories of Spencer, Tricia and James with their eyes glazed over at party night while I tortured them with the latest developments in my book.

For you who dislike my book review I have 2 words for you - TOO BAD! I like writing them and since this is my blog you can just skip them.

“Drowning Ruth” is an Oprah’s Book Club selection that I picked up at a garage sale for $1. In the past, I’ve read a few of Oprah’s selections but found them to be a little too on the darker side of life; although I always find the main character’s in Oprah’s selections to be complicated and they hook me in as soon as I start reading. This book proved to be no different. "Drowning Ruth" is a thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the last page - what happened on that frightfully cold evening in November which caused Ruth’s mother to break through the ice and drown.

I very much enjoyed this book; if you have an opportunity to read it, take it!

Baseball Jamboree

Saturday Nolan participated in his first Baseball Jamboree, I’m not really sure what the difference is between a Jamboree and a Tournament, they seemed the same to me.

Nolan’s team played 3 games and Nolan was in heaven. In the first game he played first base and kept catching pop fly after pop fly. He was so thrilled; catching pop flies in his favorite part of the game. He has a running total of how many he has caught during the season and is more then happy to share his stats with anyone willing to listen. He is a great little player and plans to continue his baseball career again next season.

For all those wondering… I did not join the ranks of the Spit Spitters.

Grandfather Frog

What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails,
And that are little boys made of.

Friday was a beautiful day. The hot temperatures had finally broken and the humidity level had come down to a tolerable level; Nolan had the day off school - so his teachers could do their final report cards of the year!!! We headed off to Kings Park to do some frog hunting. We’d actually never been before, but the kids were super excited, really how could life get any better than hunting down Grandfather Frog?

Nolan was great at catching the frogs and everyone else enjoyed touching them. There were also tons of tadpoles at different stages of development; it was fun to see a tadpole with a long tail, but also tiny little legs.

After the kids had their fill of hunting frogs, we headed over to the “waterfall”, the kids climbed the rocks. Nolan and his friend Logan built a dam to stop the water, and then had a great time destroying it.

This is a little footage of Jarom doing what he loves to do – Sing. He sings all the time, when he is walking, eating, doing a puzzle. He sings church songs, nursery rhymes and songs he has made up, usually about what he’s doing. One of his favorite songs is “Old Suzanne”. He has a little tape recorder that he carries around the house playing his songs and singing.

Honeymoon in Purdah

I read about this book on Kirsten Anderson’s blog site; she had just finished reading it and I thought it sounded very intriguing.

This book is full of surprises. Not at all what I had expected when I read the title of the book. The author Allison Wearing went on vacation to Iran with a friend – posing as a married couple so they could share a room. They travel all around Iran and the book is her experiences with the Iranian people.

I love this book from the first page until the very last. It portrayed a very different picture of life in Iran and the people who live there than I ever would how expected. I highly recommend this book.

I’m on the look out for a great read… any suggestions?

Dancing in the Rain

One of my favorite memories as child is running around in the pouring rain. For the last couple of years I have tried and tried to get Nolan to share in this experience and run while being pelted with rain drops.

Yesterday I bribed him with a dollar if he would run around in the rain. After much trepidation, the money finally won out and Nolly ran for his life. If was fun to watch them run and play tag, spash in puddles, slide on their knees (although, I probably should have changed Jarom out of his church cloths first).

They had a great time. So much fun, that we couldn't get them to come in the house. Nolan finally came in when he teeth were chattering and his lips were blue.

Spitz

Since this is my first year as a baseball mom I was unaware of certain cultural aspects that company the sport. The first thing I noticed was all the parents camped out in their lawn chairs with a gigantic bags of Spitz sunflower seeds. When I say gigantic I really mean it; the bags are huge. One family even doubled up and each parent had a bag of their own. All the parents sit on the side lines eating their Spitzs and then spitting the shell all over the ground. By the time the game is over everyone is forced to wade through an enormous pile of spit covered sunflower shells.

At first I was a little in awe of this ritual, but after sitting through my first game I realized the wisdom of it all or at least the reasoning behind the Spitz spitting. Baseball is at times a bit mind numbing. A game that is scheduled to run for 1 1/2 hours can at times feel like an eternity. Although I am very fortunate in that Nolan is a great player; he hits the ball easily and even though he is assigned to play left field shortstop (I’m not even really sure if that is a real position) it’s not uncommon for him to catch a pop fly on the other side of the field.

Dragon Bones

If you check out books on Amazon it is very informative in that it lets you know that if you enjoyed a certain book, then you will probably enjoy these other books, and it usually list about 3 or 4. “Dragon Bones” was recommended if a person enjoyed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”. Since I thoroughly enjoyed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” I felt “Dragon Bones” was worth reading. I’m not really sure what Amazon was thinking when they linked these two books, pretty much the only thing they had in common was that they were both set in China. Dragon Bones seemed more like a main stream murder mystery (with some very gruesome passages), than a beautifully written piece of literature like “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy lying on the beach reading a good murder mystery, I just expected a little more since it was link to such an amazing book.

A visit from Michel

Yesterday we were so fortunate to be able to spend some time with Michel. Our favorite friend Sheena moved to France about a year and a half ago to marry Michel and so it was good to hear what is going on in their lives. We were very sad that Sheena wasn’t able to accompany Michel on his trip, but we are looking forward to seeing her this summer.

The end of Pre-school

Last week was Jarom last week of preschool. He loved it, I loved it. His teacher’s name is Mrs. Falconer and she was born to be a pre-school teacher. She is so patient and so fun, I wish she could teach my kids until they graduate. We are going to miss her very much.

This is Hopper (Mr. Grass head). Jarom made him at preschool and loves it. We have to water it every day and talk about how he is going to cut its hair. I can’t wait to see what finally happens when Jarom goes crazy with the scissors.

Earliest Memory

Last week I was trying to clean up some papers and I found a paper that had all my church information on it. I was reading it over and read that I was sealed to parents in 1977, which would have made me about two. I have vivid memories of being sealed to my parents and for this reason I always thought I was around 5 when we were sealed as a family.

I remember being in the temple nursery before they took us (Shane and I) to our parents and having this overwhelming feeling of love and feeling at home.

Lumpia

Girl’s camp here in Winnipeg is way different than any other YW’s camp I have ever heard of. I remember my days at camp; sleeping in a tent on the hard ground probably in a puddle of water because it rained the whole time we were there. Eating burnt food, which we cooked ourselves over an open fire or better yet, on a rock, and the only bath we got was whatever magic we could be work in the frigid glacial water.

Here in Winnipeg the girls go to what in my mind seems like a resort. I’ve never been, but from the reports I’ve heard it seems as close to paradise as yw camp could ever come. The girls sleep in cabins with bed and mattresses. There is running water, and daily hot showers, they have cooks to cook their food. When I first arrived in Winnipeg, I was horrified that the Winnipeg stake had the nerve to call this camping, but now that I am in Young Women’s and will soon be attending my first girls camp in many, many, many years I can’t tell you how excited I am about these luxuries.

As you can imagine, along with all these comforts comes a considerable cost. As a fund raising project I thought it would be easy for us to sell Lumpia (a Filipino spring roll, very small). And it was; a little too easy in fact. We had to roll 11, 863. Yes that’s right almost 12,000. And we still had tons of people coming and asking if they could buy some, we probably could have sold twice that amount.

It took way longer to roll the lumpia than I had anticipated, and I was never so happy and when I saw the last lumpia being rolled. The only thing that makes it all worth it is the at we raised enough money to pay for all the girls camp fee.

Lego Master

Nolan's Lego Creation.

Crocs

Jarom is a Strate through and through. He has been cursed with super wide feet, which over the years has presented a problem in finding sandals he can squish his ample feet into. I’ve never really succeeded in finding a pair, so this year after contemplating what to do for him in regards to summer footwear I decided that Crocs were the way to go. We headed off to the store, where I tried to convince him that black would be a lovely color for him to buy, but he insisted on the shiny bright blue ones.

Jarom has loved his Crocs, he wore them everywhere without me begging and pleading with him to put them on, always a bonus.

Yesterday he went to put them on and we realized that during the cold weather last week when I had to turn the heat on, he had left them on the vent and the hot air had melted them. Grrrrrrrrr.

These pictures of Jarom are him trying to look sad about his crocs, but since I already bought him a new pair he didn’t succeed. I thought the pictures were cute.

Killer Bunnies Update

Ok, so I really hate to say anything bad about my favorite game on earth Killer Bunnies, but the purchase of the green deck was a huge disappointment to me. The green deck introduced the Zodiac cards, which I feel do little to improve the game. If it was possible to skip this deck I would suggest it, but it’s not. HA HA

However, the introduction of the Twilight deck has renewed my love of the game. Lots of fun new cards that make the game take new twists and turns.

Victoria Day

I guess I’m developing a bulk blogging system. It seems I don’t post forever and then I post more than I really should.

Victoria Day
Since the weather man predicted such horrible weather for Victoria Day we decided that taking our kids mini golfing would be a wonderful way to spend a rainy afternoon. This was our first time to the Golf Dome and the kids loved it; Nolan’s little introduction to golfing, a couple of days before, had him unusually excited to participate in something I suggested. We all had a good time… I of course would like to say that I was the champion but it would not be the truth, I was a close second… ok maybe third… alright I was the big loser. It doesn’t really feel all that good to lose to a four year old, although he in counting challenged so that may be a factor in my fourth place position.

When the last putt was sunk, and the kids had enough of pretending to play the video games we ended home. Since the weather man was WRONG and it turned out to be a beautiful day, we decided it was perfect weather for a backyard weenie roast with the Northcotts, our first one of the season. A very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

Golfers

Many of you may be aware of Spencer love of golfing. He patiently waits for the boys and me to head to Alberta for the summer so all his spare time can be spent on the golf course. In an effort to be able to spend more time on the golf course Spencer has been plotting to get Nolan his own set of clubs. What mother would say no to quality time spent between father and son? Thanks to our friend Ryan, Nolan is now in the possession of a set of golf clubs. Saturday morning, Spencer took Nolan and his friend Leon to the driving range. Nolan loved it; he had more of a hockey approach to hitting the ball, whacking it as far and as hard as he could. He still needs to master the finesse that goes into golf. I’m sure he’ll be a pro in no time.

BETRAYAL

As many of you may be aware there has been a feud going on between Anne (my sister from another mother) and Shane (my brother currently residing in Thailand). Shane has been vying for top spot on my blog link list for quite some time now. Because of my deep bond of friendship with Anne, I was VERY reluctant to change the positioning of my links. A private e-mail sent me from my brother begging and pleading with me to change him to the top of the list, combined with the birthday present my brother so gave me, tugged at my heart strings and even though I knew it would be causing pain to my best pal, I relented and moved him to the top spot.

Imagine my surprise today, when I was merrily reading over everyone’s blogs and I happened to notice that on my brother’s blog I had been demoted to second place. I refreshed the page many times thinking that something had been mixed up in the loading of the blog page, but I kept coming up second. Then I clicked on the link thinking maybe he has just miss labeled, but it wasn’t my blog page that appeared.

The gloves are coming off.

Soccer and Baseball

The kids and their spring time sports are well under way. I think this time of years just flies by, because we run from one sporting event to the next.

Nolan decided to play baseball this year instead of soccer; a choice I was very surprised at, but I thought it was probably good for him to try different sports. He loves it. He seems to be a natural, and with the genes he inherited it’s not really a surprise. My grandpa Blumel was an awesome baseball player.

This is Jarom first year playing soccer. I think he loves the idea of soccer more then soccer itself. He is very excited to put on his uniform and shin pads, but when he gets to the field, he loves to lie on the ground, play with the feather floating around the field and tackle his own team mates. If it was someone else’s kid I would think it was very funny. Not so much when it’s your own.

Happy Day!!!

Nolan’s front tooth finally fell out. It was a happy day. I’ve been trying to get him for WEEKS to let me pull it out. But he wouldn’t consent; he wanted us to pull it out while he was sleeping. The tooth was so loose I know I could have pulled it out with my fingers, but every time I tried he locked his jaw shut.

Where have all the snake gone?

A couple of week-ends ago we loaded the kids in the van and headed off to the Narcisse Snake Dens (located about 1 1/2 hours north of Winnipeg). This is an attraction I have always wanted to see here in Manitoba. It is the largest gathering of Red-sided garter snakes in the world. Right here in our backyard!!! How could we not go? I’ve always heard tales of there being so many snakes that they were falling off the tree branches in huge clumps, the dens were covered with hundred, even thousands of snakes sunny themselves and searching for their perfect mate.

Well, this was not the case, the one Saturday we were able to go. It was cold, and raining and the hundreds of snakes crawled back in their dens and waited for the sun to shine before they were willing to put on a good show for the tourist. I think we saw maybe 4, ok there could have been a little more, but there was no where close to the numbers I had been expecting.

On a brighter side, because of the cold weather the snakes were very slow moving and the kids were able to handle them. Nolan wasn’t to sure about the snakes, but in the end held one long enough for us to take a photo. Jarom loved the snakes, a little too much some might say. He was letting the snakes crawl all over him, putting the snakes over his eyes and kissing the snakes. It was great!

Radio Troubles

Lately I've become more aware that my kids are listening to song on the radio.

Nolan is frequently humming the tune to and singing the lyrics to “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls. Spencer and I have tried to stop him, but he seems to have passed his musical talent onto Jarom. At least Nolan limits his singing to home and the van, Jarom on the other hand thought that the passing of the sacrament was the perfect time to loudly sing “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?” I’ll let you imagine the mad scramble that ensued to cover up his mouth.