Dreaming of the sun

Yes, this has been a most dreary and wet month. All we got in July was sun, sun, sun, making the clouds so dreadfully jealous that they took August hostage. What I wouldn't give for an Indian summer in September. Wouldn't it be lovely to just have to get out of the house because the weather won't let you stay in? So, I'm starting a petition. I don't know how many signatures God needs for a change in weather, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I've about had it up to here with mushrooms growing on my lawn.

The brain of a 3-year-old

Titus' birthday is coming up soon and we were talking about birthdays in the truck. He was wondering if he would ever have any more birthdays.

"Of course you will," Ethan replied. "You keep having birthdays until you die!" All was silent for a minute, and then a heart wrenching cry started in the back seat.

" What's wrong, Titus?" I asked.

"I don't want to die on my birthday!" he got out between sobs. As of today, he is still making sure that he will not die on his birthday. Poor little guy!

Wrapping things up

I'm getting a little bored regaling you with holiday stories, so I'm going to end off with a quick recap. After Revelstoke we ended up in Salmon Arm for some water skiing and sitting by the lake. We then travelled down to Kelowna for a family reunion that was a lot of fun. So nice to see my cousins and uncles and aunts and my grandma! Also very hot there - we sure used that air conditioner in the trailer. As per family rules, we did the required go-cart racing. I was second over all the cousins, and quite proud of that. Luke didn't count as a cousin, he competed in the highly professional uncle division and came so close to the top! After Kelowna we drove to Calgary/Okotoks for some visiting of friends and family. We then went to Edmonton for a day of West Edmonton Mall fun (the kids all agreed that this was the best part of vacation!). Rides, waterslides - can life get better than this? We then wound our way home a few days early because I was starting to get a little homesick.

The next week, Caleb went to camp for the very first time. So scary for me! Luckily our church was in charge of the cooking for that week, so I spent a day out there in the kitchen and made sure he was doing OK. After that week, the days have been spent in summer-like pasttimes. Swimming lessons, pickle making, drag race watching, etc. Now I'm all caught up! Hopefully I'll have something current to share with you next time.

The Wind

An interruption in my regularly scheduled broadcast - a commercial titled The Wind. I wish I was the wind...

Next Stop - Revelstoke

We meandered our way to Revelstoke to visit Dan and Jocelyne and their baby girl. I have never met a happier, more content baby in my entire life. Nyola is such a doll! Of course, we went swimming, hiking, swimming, canoeing, and swimming (can you see a pattern emerging?). It was pretty hot and we were again grateful for the air conditioned camper! We traded babysitting with Dan and Joce - I think we got the easier part of the bargain. If a person isn't use to all the energy that three strapping boys can produce, it can be a little overwhelming. It was nice to go out for supper with just Luke. It doesn't actually happen all that often. Dan and Joce, thanks. We had such fun at your place!

*This is just an aside for my dear brother-in-law Ken. If you guys are going to have another baby, that's great. However, you are sadly mistaken if you think I'm going to keep calling everytime you leave a comment with the implication that the next Krahn is coming!

On To Invermere

After we left Grande Cache we headed out to Invermere. Talk about nice and hot! We stayed in a beautiful campground and spent time with some friends from Rainbow Lake. Curtis took Luke and I on flights with his ultralight plane. So awesome!! Only two people can fly at a time; the pilot and one passenger. It was pretty tight quarters! Curt took the plane up to 8500 feet when I was with him - we could see so many mountain tops! I only wish I could have brought my camera. He advised against it because of the wind - if it blew off it would fly right into the motor. Not good at 8500 feet.

Luke and Curt went golfing so Erin and I took the boys mini-golfing (they wore their golf shirts - so funny!). Big mistake; it was 38 degrees Celcius. We told the kids that girls only golf 15 holes in mini-golf. I think they believed us. After ice cream we went and had a big steak supper at Curtis and Erin's place with a few other former Rainbow Lake residents. Ethan managed to contract a serious case of heat stroke and spent the evening throwing up and sleeping in front of the fan (poor guy).

We had such a nice time, and were very grateful that we had rented a trailer with air conditioning! That campground ended up being the nicest one we stayed in for the entire trip. Thanks, Curtis and Erin (and Bernice, the nicest, most kid-friendly St. Bernard I've ever known)!

Hello again!

Yes, I am still alive. July seems to have flown by, what with all the vacationing and post-vacation laundry and jam-making and ... well, you see the way my life has been. July just wasn't the month for blogging. It did give me quite a few things to blog about though, so without further ado...

We had been planning on leaving on Thursday (July 5th) so that Luke could help me pack for a day before racing off to British Columbia. Of course, planning and this family generally part ways at some point, and we ended up leaving Tuesday night after Luke got home from work. We were renting a trailer, so we packed all our clothes, pots, pans, camping gear, firewood, and groceries into the Suburban to take to the rental place. Luke was the only one who could get into the 'burb without some major manuevering. The rest of us had piles of food, books, backpacks, etc. at our feet. A bit of a stuffy drive, if I do say so myself. Of course, no picture. I was just a wee bit too frazzled to be thinking about such things at the time. It was our hope to make it to Grande Cache and camp there for the night, which was only a two hour drive - what could go wrong?

We only had fifteen minutes to go when we saw the elk standing in front of us. Luke hit the brakes and we narrowly missed getting our front end smashed to bits. A mile down the road we came across a truck that hadn't been so lucky. The elk had come over the hood and broken in the windshield before sliding off and dying. We stopped and Luke helped drag the elk off the road. Being in the mountains, we had no cell service to phone an ambulance, so we brought one of the men whose face had been cut up into our trailer and tended to him. Both of the guys were in a bit of shock. We were there almost an hour when a police car came on the scene and took charge. We stayed for another hour and loaded the luggage and speakers from the truck into our trailer to take to Grande Cache for them. It was 2 in the morning by the time we got to town - we stayed in the mall parking lot that first night with a reassurance from the police that if anyone tried to bother us we were to tell them to phone the police station and it would be taken care of. What a way to start a holiday!

In the summertime ...

It has been a good couple of weeks here in the Willms' household. Grandma came from Manitoba to visit her grandsons. It was heaven on earth for Titus. Someone who would play with him while the boys were at school and Mommy was busy doing Mommy things. All day there were dinky car races, Uno games, colouring, reading ... oh, the bliss! Grace left early Monday morning before the kids got up. Titus was OK until he decided to go wake Grandma up. When I explained that she had gone home, he was inconsolable for a good while. Poor little guy!

Now we are into the heady days of summer when all we have to do is go camping, eat s'mores (it took a hands-on lesson from Jim and Heather for me to figure out all the logistics), and do crafts. One thing to get used to are the boys home from school. As I write, Ethan is reading over my shoulder and correcting my grammar! Not bad for a grade one graduate, I say. Other things we plan to do - watch some car races, play more golf, ride the bikes, have a water fight, and go on some boyish adventures. Our vacation is less than a week away and everyone is looking forward to it. It ought to be a blast of laughs going with these three goofy guys!

New nephew

I have a new nephew! He was born on Father's Day (on his due date! what are the chances!) to Eric and Jana. Owen Robert. What a cute name. I'm going to see him today for the first time. This is my first nephew/niece that I've been able to see in the hospital fresh out of the oven. I'm so excited!

Grammer School

Well, I've been checking out preschools for Titus to attend this fall. After last year and his "imaginary" school, I thought the time was right for a foray into the real thing. Naturally, I started looking at the one closest to home. I went to the registration meeting and was tremendously disappointed with the lack of organization and professionalism. Not only were there no registration packages, but no formal anything to base any sort of decision on. Parents came, saw the school, wandered around aimlessly, signed a mailing list, and left as bewildered as when they arrived. I asked a few questions after I had discerned who was on the preschool board, but they seemed to know only a little more than I did.

A month later, the registration package arrived in my mail. I opened it up, read the first page, and put it down again. I then got a phone call from the teacher telling me that the wrong package had been sent and to expect another. Yesterday, I received the latest one and proceeded to go through it. I soon discovered that I am a grammar snob. Somehow, I don't seem to care what kind of program they are offering or what method they use. If they can't write it out properly, or get someone to proofread their work, I get too upset to look past it. Apparently they are only "excepting" 24 students. And the teacher is "nearly" a facilitator of learning. I mean, come on people! Put that together with run on sentences and words out of place, and I go nuts! I don't mind bad grammar in, say, a blog, or something informal and personal, but in a business or school? Something professional? From someone who has been to college for 4+ years and has a degree in Education it is appalling.

So there's my rant, and I'm guessing that it is not all grammatically correct. In fact, I know it isn't. I do, however, want my son's teacher to take this seriously even though it is only preschool. Right?

Great Mosquito War of 2007

Yes, that is a dead mosquito. Slightly mangled. And it's all his own fault!

Sunday night we were the victims of a raid on our bedroom by the relentless invader Mosquito. The Mosquito tribe attacked us in the style of guerilla warfare, complete with camouflage and subterfuge. We responded with a method of seek and destroy that seems to be so popular with the U.S. army nowadays. Battle was joined for nearly half an hour with a dozen casualties for the Mosquito invaders. The reason for the assault - a window mysteriously open in our room. Who was their inside man? We may never learn the identity of that perfidious traitor, but through criminal profiling we have learned that he is very young, between two and four, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. When we catch the perpetrator (and we will!) he will face the severest penalty of the law in Willmsland.

All about the color

Ok. This is the before picture of my beautifully orangy bright kitchen. I loved having an orange kitchen - so cheerful and happy to see me in the morning. Luke, on the other hand, had some choice words to say about it. I think "ghastly" summed it up quite succinctly in his mind.

Now for the end result. A much tamer, safer, and not so in-your-face yellowy color. Official name: Sahara. Truthfully (and I reeeally hate to admit it) it fits into our kitchen better. The wood seems like just wood and not something that totally clashes with the walls. It mixes well with the countertop, the lino, the backsplash, and pretty much everything else. So, while I am sad to see my bright kitchen go, I am happy to be in a place that is not at odds with itself. Luke's just happy it isn't orange!

Sickness

Remember when I spouted the drivel that my cold was the "best bad cold ever"? I'm sure you could see the writing on the wall. Well, "best bad cold" turned into "most miserable long cold" that I've had to deal with in quite a long time. It was sooo bad that I stood up in the middle of movie night with Luke and went to bed, groaning and holding my head and being generally the biggest baby ever. Of course, now I'm all better and the memories are fading fast, but at the time it was not good. I couldn't even knit! Or read!!! Thank goodness no one else in the house seems to have caught it. Which, in and of itself, is rather remarkable since I touched most everything they ate, wore, and slept in.

Well, this weekend was good since Luke was home and I was feeling exponentially better every day after Friday. We had a campfire behind the house and roasted weiners and marshmallows (does anyone know how to make s'mores?). We flew a new dragon kite that I picked up in Costco and managed to get it caught in some power lines (very embarrassing for us adults). We went out after church to a brunch buffet and stuffed ourselves silly. We went swimming. And then, on Monday, we painted the kitchen. It was a beautiful (to me) orange, but Luke was not liking it. Apparantly it reminded him of A&W. So now it is a kind of yellow called Sahara. It is really nice. I wish I had pictures for all the fun stuff we did, but I managed to forget the camera, or forgot to take pictures. Sorry! Next time, I promise!

New hobby

Can you believe it? I am apparantly going about my life as if time doesn't even exist. I took up knitting. Yep. I can just see you shaking your head now. Luke sure did, and managed a nice little roll of the eyes to go along with it. It is rather fun and a way for me to not feel totally useless when I sit in front of the TV for Heroes or Lost or Survivor. I am creating. It feels good. And the boys are totally enthralled with the process. "Use this one now, Mom!" "Ooh, that looks good, Mom!" "Make me a sweater, Mom!" It's nice that they get all excited like that, makes my day. Of course, I learned just in time for me to get bowled over by a head-plugging cold. So I sit and I knit and I let Luke do little things for me. This is the best bad cold ever!

Soccer

Yes, soccer season is upon us. One nice thing about soccer is the hours. I don't have to get up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning just to take a tired boy to the rink. Another nice thing - soccer equipment is shin pads and shoes. No big bag to lug around, no fifteen minutes getting everything on, no stinkiness taking everything off. Sigh*. Did I say how much I love spring?

spring has sprung

The grass is green.The jackets have been put away.
Bikes and balls have come out to play.

Isn't spring marvelous?

Getting older, wiser, and more mature

OK, maybe not the wiser and more mature part, but I am getting older. In fact, I had a birthday last Sunday and turned 31 years of age. Or, as my Uncle Bob would say, I am now in my 32nd year. It was a good day - no cooking for me! After church we went to Uncle Jack and Auntie Cheryl's house for some yummy BBQ fish (with burgers on the side for the boys) and raspberry shortcake. Mmmm. And then we were off to my parents for faspa and chocolate cake. Luke (the brother, not the husband) was up from the endless prairie of Saskatchewan, unfortunately without his bride (we missed you Lindy!). Eric came after work with a beautifully pregnant Jana. Even my cuz, Keri, showed up. Of course, we couldn't stay too long since we had two children who came down with fevers during the course of the day. Yep, the neverending merry-go-round of illness struck again. Last week was Ethan, and he managed to pass it on to Caleb and Titus this week. Sorry, no pics!

On Monday, Heather picked me up for a little birthday shopping without the kids. Do you know how long it's been since I tried something on in a dressing room without a small child trying to open the door whilst I am in a state of undress? We then went out to Earl's for supper.

Of course, a birthday isn't a birthday without a present. Let me just say, my life is now complete.

Busy, busy, busy

Wow, has it really been so long since I've posted? Gotta say that it doesn't seem that long ago! So much has happened. The kids have been sick, then well, and now sick again. First time was some sort of flu (a lot of laundry came of that!) and now there are stuffy noses, coughs, sore throats, and in two out of three cases a fever. Thankfully the first illness only stopped long enough to say hello to me, and this one has ignored me entirely. So far. I think. My poor children and husband, on the other hand, have taken the brunt of it.

Next on my busyness list is keeping a clean house. I know there are some of you out there that this comes quite natural to, but for me it's a struggle against my innate procrastination and laziness. Wow, was that L word ever hard to write! It's been two weeks and I think that I wouldn't have been too embarrassed if anyone had dropped in, which is a major step in the right direction for me.

I am also one of the music team leaders at church, and that tends to take up a lot of room in my brain on the weeks we lead worship. Too much, in fact, and much of it unnecessary. A lot of it is panic because too often I have forgotten to contact someone or do something that should have already been done.

Thank goodness for the boys. They are so precious, even though my mountain of laundry gains new height daily (can someone PLEASE tell me why little boys and mud are so attracted to each other! Three, yes, three pairs of pants a day for each child!). Caleb so cheerful, Ethan so cuddly, and Titus so funny. Really, what more could I ask for?

Paska overload

Easter just isn't as fun without the traditional paska. It's a sweet bread served on Sunday topped with butter icing and sprinkles. My past paskas have been dry, but this years was quite good, so I thought I'd share the recipe in case anyone has a hankering!

3 tbsp. yeast

1 c. warm water

8 eggs

2 c. sugar

1 c. whipping cream

1 c. milk

1 c. warm margarine

1 tsp. vanilla

Rind & juice of 1 lemon

9-11 c. flour

Dissolve yeast in one cup warm water. Whip eggs and sugar. Add warm margarine, milk and cream. Add yeast, vanilla and lemon (I didn't use the whole rind, try 1-2 tsps). Add flour to make a soft dough. Let rise until double in size(1 1/2 to 2 hours). Form into small loaves and let rise again. Bake at 300 F for 30 minutes or when the top is a nice golden color. Ice with vanilla icing and decorate.

Hope you enjoy!

Let's Get Real Monday

Well, I decided to take part in a little something called "Let's Get Real Monday". Randi from the I have to say... blog has been hosting this for quite a while and I decided to play along. The topic this week is about my favorite things. So here goes...

My favorite movie is and always has been The Princess Bride. However, I am quite partial to British movies like Waking Ned Devine, The Full Monty, Calendar Girls, and Ladies in Lavendar. I don't know why, since I'm not a Britophile, but that type of humor is my cup of tea!

My favorite food is ... OK, I can't think of just one. Mennonite food as a collective, maybe. And Italian. And Mexican. Anything that is guaranteed to add a little jelly to the belly. ( I know. It's sad. Why, oh why, don't I crave salad?)

My favorite saying is "I love you mommy" followed closely by the exasperated way Caleb says "Mom" when I am acting silly.

My favorite song (lately) is "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" by the Scissor Sisters.

My favorite household chore is laundry, which is good since with the three boys that seems to be all I do.

My favorite verses are Romans 8:38 and 39 - "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall by able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."