Something the girlies are doing right now...

The is our second experience of hatching a monarch butterfly. The first time we hatched "Queenie" and released her the day we got home from Wawa. We have grown milkweed in our front garden to attract butterflies there (there are millions of milkweed plants growing out back). We collected 2 leaves with tiny white eggs and within a few days these little caterpillars emerged. The girls feed "Princess Flower" and "Tiny" fresh milkweed leaves every day.

The night before we left for Wawa, I watched a beautiful movie called "Four Wings and a Prayer" about the life of Monarch Butterflies. We thought it was kind of cool to be witnessing "Queenie" and her transformation, but after seeing this movie, the experience took on even more meaning.

Stay tuned for updates...

In the neighbourhood

While we were away on vacation, Patrick's friend's grandfather left a message on our machine. He told us that he had a new foal and he wanted to know if the kids wanted to come and see him. Redundant question. So we called him back and after lunch we got in the car and headed over (He lives 2 roads over from us). These are Haflingers that are trained to pull wagons. G uses them in parades, and gives rides either for free or he sometimes does it as a fundraiser for charities. Earlier in the summer, G was nice enough to take us out in a wagon pulled by 2 of his other haflingers.

The girls picked weed flowers and put them in the colt's halter.


Griffin had no fear. After looking at the mare and colt, we went to the cattle barn, where G has retired dairy cows on one side and beef cattle on the other side. Griffin tried to climb in with them. He had his hand outreached to them to pet them and he was so disappointed when they backed away from him. G grabbed a dairy cow and brought her close enough for him to pet and he was happy.

Summer cooking

Roadside

On the road to Steep Hill Falls in Wawa, we saw this young bear.

He continued to eat for a few minues.

Finally he decided to head for the trees.

Oatmeal Apple Crisp

I am here at the cottage. When we come up here, we usually bring lots of early apples from our trees. We give some away to people we know, the kids eat a bunch of them on the drive down, but inevitably we end up with extra apples that start to go bad by the second week here. I use a few different recipes for Apple Crisp, and tonight I used the following version and it was scrumptious. Good comfort food on a foggy day.

I don't have a copy of it at home, so I thought I would post it here so I don't ever lose it again. I can always search for it.

Oatmeal Apple Crisp
Serves 8 (I make a double recipe as we have usually have 10 or more to feed)

Topping
1 cup Oatmeal
1/3 cup flour
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine

Apple Mixture
5 peeled and sliced large cooking apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C).
Topping: In bowl, combine oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, and salt. Stir in melted butter until crumbly. Set aside.

Apple Mixture: Place apples, in greased 9 inch (2L) square pan (When I double it, I use a 9X13 casserole). Sprinkle lemon juice and brown sugar.

Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over apples.

Bake 30-40 minutes or until apples are tender and topping is golden brown.

Tonight I made this before we started cooking dinner. I turned off the oven and left the dish in the oven while we made and ate dinner. We served each piece with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Yummy.

Like bumps on a log

I love this photo. We are on vacation in Wawa. The kids are having a great time.

View out there

Just outside the patio door.

Farewell Brownie

I'm very sorry for what happened to you. I feel partially responsible, but I really thought that giving you to the neighbour was the best thing for you. I was worried about a coyote getting you in my yard, I really didn't expect that the neighbour's chickens would do that to you. If I knew they were capable of that I would have let you stay here. I'm still not sure how we will tell Kira. She loved you very much and she didn't want to let you go to the neighbours, I convinced her that it was the best thing for you. We will do everything we can to take care of Sandy for you.

New favourite expression

Griffin has recently started making this face when something displeases him. Sometimes he even crosses his arms in front of him. He's turning into such a toddler. I just want to scoop him up and hug him when I see him do it.

Enthusiasm

The Graduate

As the rest of North Eastern North America was feeling vibrations from an earthquake, we watched Kira "graduate" from kindergarten.

Behind the wheel

The lad loves the camera (shhhh, don't tell him that the car he was handed down is PINK!)

mmmmfudgsiclesmmmm

Our FIFA World Cake

Recently, Campbell finally had the soccer party he wanted. His birthday was in April, but because he wanted an outdoor party we postponed it until June in hopes of having a better chance of good weather. April was splendid, June was cold and wet, who knew? Even though it rained, they played on!

Around the backyard

New Connection!

Wireless High Speed has finally found its way to us. We did have to install a big tripod and extension just to get it.

It feels strange to be able to blog again, post photos again, chat again, etc. I'm not sure what to do first.

Tough Nut

In the midst of our flood damage and impending Christmas. Matt drove Damon to one of his hockey practices. I had given them a grocery list of things to pick up on the way home. Matt forgot the list on the front seat of his jeep, so he sent Damon out to get it. As he was closing the jeep door, he must have been leaning on the doorframe with his hand and got his thumb caught in the door. OUCH!

He went into the store to give Matt the list. By the time they got home, his thumb was purple. But he still had movement, so we thought that it must just be a bad bruise. We put a bandadge on, he took some Advil and went to bed. The next morning Damon woke up and his thumb had swelled so much that he could not move it anymore. He was in pain and so I gave him some Advil. The other 2 boys got on the bus and then we waited for the carpenters to arrive to install the subfloors in the lower level. Once they arrived, we left them here while we went to the emergency department.

When we arrived with the 3 little ones in tow, the triage nurse was quite rude. She asked me who the patient was, and she said that she didn't want me bringing the little ones into the triage room and that Damon would be fine by himself. Without giving me any time to respond that while he may look 16, he is only 11, she closed the door on me. An 11 year old may be able to tell her what happened to his thumb, but he is not able to tell her about drug allergies, medical history, etc.! As I waited, my discontent grew. When she sent Damon back out to wait with me, she seemed apologetic. Maybe it was her trying to make up for her mistake, but we were called in very soon after. Damon did indeed have a broken thumb. It was an open and complete fracture, so he was given antibiotics and his thumb was wrapped in a splint. The doctor said that he would need to keep that on for a few days, and that he probably wouldn't be able to play hockey for about 2 weeks. She said that after a few days it would be self limiting.

Damon had a game that night in a city 1 1/2 hours away. So I emailed his coaches to tell them the bad news. He went to the game to support his team. The next day he went to school. On the third day, he woke up, ran up the stairs with his thumb unwrapped, saying, "I can play hockey now." We thought he was being optimistic, and expected that once he had a hockey stick in his hand it would feel differently. Now if it was a broken leg or arm, my response would have been different, but being a thumb, I wasn't too worried about re-injury. I emailed the coaches, telling them that he would like to play if that is okay, but to be prepared for him to stop playing if it caused pain. They said that would be great if he wanted to try.

He did. He played the entire game, and he played well!


Damon is so tough, it is sometimes confusing for me when I try to help him when he is sick or injured, because I always have to wonder if things are worse then he lets on. For example when he was having difficulty waking up in the mornings, and he was complaining about fatigue at night. I threatened him that if he was going to give me such a hard time about waking up for school, I was going to take him to the doctor's office. He gave me a hard time, so I took him one afternoon. The doctor sent him for bloodwork which revealed that he has low iron levels. The doctor feels that it just because the tremendous growth he has had in the past year has used up his reserves and he advised me to make extra efforts to give him foods that are high in iron. He isn't a fan of spinach or liver, but Damon was very happy that his very favourite food, cereal, is fortified with iron. He is delighted that he can now eat as much as he wants. He has been feeling a little bit better since we've made those extra efforts.

I don't understand why his tough resiliency leaves me with a sense of pride and awe.

Our own nightmare before Christmas

Twas 20 days before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of hockey games danced in their heads.
I in my PJs and Matt with no cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.
When out in the kitchen there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter....

Okay, so it was 3 am, and I ran into the kitchen to discover water spraying out from under the kitchen sink, running all over the floor and rushing out into the hallway. I screamed for Matt to wake up and turn off the water, as I ran downstairs to grab a stack of old towels to soak up the water. When I got down there, I discovered that the water had already made it's way downstairs through the ceiling. Directly beneath the leaking pipe was our PC. I immediately grabbed the CPU and brought it up to our bedroom. It was already wet, but I was hoping that at least we could save our family photos from it. In my sleepy stupor, I still thought that if I just kept the water from sitting on the hardwood floors, then I could save them. We had just installed the hardwood a few months earlier. I hadn't thought about the implications of the 2 inches of water in our furnace room. That meant that the water was running right underneath the hardwood floors and pooling in the middle of the family room. I spent roughly 2 hours emptying out buckets and bowls and drying with every towel we had in the house. Matt checked our water softener and based on how many gallons of water had gone through, he estimated that the water had been spraying out of the burst pipe for about 20 minutes. Finally I came to realize that Matt may be right when he told me that this was beyond us and we would need to call the insurance company. I went to bed for a couple of hours.

I called the insurance company, and within a short time, the disaster relief guys arrived to start cleaning up our flood damage. Within a few hours, all of our floors were ripped out, the ceiling downstairs was taking out and huge industrial fans, and dehumidifiers were set up all over our house. We discovered that there was damage to our computer, our stove, one piece of artwork, and 2 pieces of furniture.

We had already planned to do our upstairs in hardwood, but it wasn't in the budget right now, so instead of letting the insurance company replace our carpet, we took a cash payout and said we would install the floor ourselves, and we will use the savings to pay for the upgrade to hardwood. So now on top of Christmas shopping for 6 kids, we had to shop for flooring, and install it.

I had already decorated the house, except for the Christmas tree. But with the floors in need of replacing, we had to hold off on a Christmas tree until they were finished. We are usually pretty good at making light of situations, but things were getting tense around here!

Belated

I've been neglectful of my blog and my friends. Mostly I blame my dial-up connection which disconnects every 5 minutes or so. But life has also taken over.

Without further ado, my pregnancy went overdue, despite all of my attempts with Evening Primrose Oil, Raspberry Leaf Tea,Chiropractic treatments and sitting on the exercise ball for HOURS.

After a biophysical profile on the morning of January 24th, I had sort of resigned myself to the fact that I would need to be induced in the hospital on Monday, January 26th. The tech had estimated baby's weight to be 8 lbs 15 oz and he scored well, so they sent me home. On Saturday afternoon, I took Campbell to his hockey practice and when I was going up and down the stairs to get to the dressing room, I found that I felt a lot of pressure in my pelvis every time the baby moved, but this wasn't new. I let the other parents know that I was feeling uncomfortable and that Damon would be coming in to help Campbell get his skates off and carry his bag to the van.

Hanna was sick and sleeping in our bed, and her tossing and crying woke me
up at about 3 am. I got up to go pee and felt a mild contraction. I lay back
down in the bed and noticed that about 10 minutes later, I had another. They
were getting more intense, so I eventually sat on my labour ball to see if
they were going to amount to anything. They were sporadic at first, 10 min.
then 7, then 13, then 15. Finally at 4 am, I had 3 in a row that were 5 min.
apart. I called the midwife at 4:20 and she said she would come soon. I was
very apologetic and said that I really hoped that I wasn't waking her up for
a false alarm. I could still talk through them. During the time I was
waiting for her, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and getting much
more intense. I could already feel a lot of pressure.

She arrived at about 4:45. She checked me and said that I was 4-5 cm. She
called the second midwife to come because she didn't think it would be long.
I got into the shower and I felt okay in there, but after a while I felt
like I needed to get out and find a different position. As the second
midwife arrived, I lay on my bed and asked the midwife if she could just
break my water to relieve the pressure. She said that she would like to wait
15 more minutes in hopes that I would be on the other side of 5 cm (I didn't
do the GBS test, so they didn't want my water broken for a long time). The
next contraction I had, my water broke. She checked me and I was fully
dilated. The pressure didn't really let up, but at least with each
contraction I felt like I could squeeze a bit and feel the baby moving down
and this made things more bearable. I stayed on my side, but then I got the
urge to push and was in a panic because I couldn't find a comfortable
position. Finally I got on my knees and held my headboard and after a couple
of pushes the baby's head was out. He began crying before I even pushed his
shoulders out.

After 1 hour and 40 minutes of labour, Griffin Matthew Samuel was born at home on Sunday, January 25th. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz.



Matt woke the kids up and they all came in to meet him while the second midwife was packing up. The kids are all smitten with him. Especially Patrick and Damon, they would hold him all day if they could.



It took us all day to decide on his name, but finally I didn't want to think
about it any more, so I just wrote down Griffin. lol I hope I don't have
regrets.

Having a home birth was great. I can't say that it was necessarily a wonderful labour because it was a bit too quick, but because of that it just made so much more sense to stay home. I can't imagine how I would have managed to get ready to go to the hospital (leaving sick children behind), gotten there and stood around waiting to be taken care of when I was feeling such intense pain. I even wonder if I might not have made it there in time anyway. And for me, nothing beats climbing into your own bed with your kids all around you after you've given birth. People have been bringing me food (that I conveniently stocked the fridge full of) and boxes of chocolates! That sure beats hospital food.

So far he is a very easy baby, a good sleeper, a great nurser and he lies
awake for long periods watching us all look at him. We feel very blessed.