Honesty: You Better Believe It!

I think this is something that is truly lacking on the world. There are times even I struggle with it during various situations. Maybe if we all worked harder at it, it would be easier for everyone to be honest. I admire the courage of the tall man in the class. I wish to someday have that same courage and honesty.

What would you have done?

Ok, You may be thinking, "What 2 posts in one day? WOW! Special day"

Not really I am just needing to finish getting my frustrations out and this is the best to do it.

Some of you may know, and some not, that I have been working on a special project for the past little while. I have had to remember skills I haven't touched in a long time because doing such things with kids around and under foot is hard. Well this opportunity came up and I thought, hey, why not. My kids are older, just have Cloe to really watch, I can do this! I know up beat eh. Well I worked hard.. beat myself down a little for being out of practice but things were starting to come together when today happened. I had had a long night, early morning and just needed a short nap. You know the 30 minute kind to refresh and keep up with the day. Mike was here, the boys were here, whatever could go wrong? Well Cloe out smarted them all and did this...

Yep coloring and smudges and oil EVERYWHERE. I sat down and just started crying. I had the boys keep Cloe away because I was to upset and I didn't know what I would do. I have to have it done it a couple of days and half the details are gone and scribbles all over the rest. I guess this lack of doing anything to punish Cloe hit her harder than a time out because she has been extra careful around me and my stuff since then.

After about an hour I did manage to pull myself together and spent a few hours trying to fix it up and I think I managed ok. It still doesn't have as bright and vibrant of colors as it use to but I think it looks good. Stay tuned and when I am able I will post the finished product and what this was all for.

What I would like to know is what would you have done?

A Story You Won't Want to Miss

So I know I still have day 7 to post of the Toronto Exchange, but Sam brought me home this story and I just HAD to post it. Trust me, It will make you smile. So without further ado I present:

Something New

By Samuel Lybbert

"But Mom, I want it!" said a little boy.

"No, Jimmy. I'm not getting a laptop" said his Mom. "You already have a computer remember?"

Jimmy said "I don't like it! It's small and slow and doesn't have Internet!"

Then his Mom said "Fine, I'll get you a football, ok?"

"I don't want a football" said Jimmy. "I want something new and high-tech, like a phone!"

"I'm not getting a phone, I'm getting a football." said his Mom, again.

But then a miracle happened! Football Laptops!! Yes thought Jimmy. "Fine Mom, you win. We'll get a football" said Jimmy. He took a football laptop and put it in the cart. And so, Jimmy finally got a laptop.

Yes sirree.. that made me laugh out loud. Hope that brightened your day a little.

Hope you have a Great Day!

Toronto Sudent Exchange Day 6

So on the Wednesday of the Toronto Student Exchange the kids all headed out to Camp Friendship saying good bye to their brief University life. Most of the day was packing and cleaning and then driving. Camp Friendship is run by the Native Friendship Center here and is a Great place and resource. They offer a lot of free camps for our Youth throughout the summer. It was a great place to finish off the trip. The Native Elders also joined us out there for the last couple of days. After a lovely dinner the Elders taught all the kids how to make Tie Blankets. It was one of the favorite activities, next to the horse back riding, the kids enjoyed. Plus it helped keep them warm that night as it was cold and rainy. I loved seeing the youth engage and listen to the Elders. It was quite the experience. Enjoy the Photos

Weigh In Wednesday

Yep you read that right... I have decided that I don't care if the doctors want me to continue to take it easy with my weight loss anymore, I NEED to feel like ME again. I have been taking it "easy" to the tune of being 325.6lbs!! I am in shock!! I have 6 kids to live for and all the doctors can offer me is fat blocking pills for now so that I increase my chance of pooping in my pants? Yep not going there, I am done with diapers remember. When my mother-in-law was here this past week we were talking about things and I had mentioned how I wanted to get a pair of walking shoes and a scale so that I would be ready when the doctors said it would be ok to try again. She encouraged me to just go and do it and I am grateful she did. When I stepped on that scale for the first time I just wanted to cry. I didn't feel like I should be that heavy. I can still move and do things, but I had been feeling more tired. Maybe it was all the ordering out that I did while I was working because I would come home late to no dinner made and to tired to make something. Whatever it was, I am done with not doing anything about it. I feel ready for a change, my body feels ready for it and so I am just going to do it! The scale I bought happens to be a Biggest Loser scale that I have inputted my goal and it helps me keep track of my progress towards that goal. I also signed up for the Biggest Loser Club as well. It was on a 3 month trial and I still have my Weight Watchers as well. I thought at first I would which over 3 months of time I liked better, but I am going to have to say that after a week of comparing I am loving the involvement of the BLC and the community there more. I think it is just a better fit to me, especially since it is a plan that is working around what the doctors have told me and it is working... as this is my first weekly weigh in and I am down to 318lbs! back down to less than when I stared weight watchers.. I lost 7.6lbs in one week with out too many big changes in my diet, just counting calories and stuff now instead of calculating points and having an actual fitness plan to help guide me through the steps of introducing my body to being more active and being ok to not store all this fat. I like that there are people on there to talk to about this that have the same troubles and even amount of weight to lose. If the problems come up again I will work through them better this time and not give up. I will not be so hard on myself when I slip up, but rather brush myself off and carry on. So every Wednesday I weigh in and I will share my positive and negative moments here and I will carry forward.

I WILL BE ME AGAIN!! 

And since a post is not the same without a photo, here is one of the sunset that the Toronto Kids enjoyed the night before they went home. More posts on them tomorrow.

Toronto Student Exchange Day 5

So Day 5 was Horseback riding and Bowling. What fun we had. I have a lot more pictures for this day as it was harder to choose the ones I liked the best. The ranch we drove to Is called the Triple J Ranch and you can find their website here. The kids loved that the head guy was on 2 episodes of Mantracker which you can find here and here

He was great with the kids, especially Claudia. She was crying at first because she was told she was too little to ride the horses but he made her feel better by giving her rides in the yard.

We also went bowling that night at Strike Zone and we had a blast there too but I have to tell you the kids were tired by the end of the day. Tommy came bowling with us so Cloe could get some rest. That little guy is  amazing with what he will try and continue to try until he gets it right. Enjoy the pictures.

Cute Video To Remind Us

I want to say thanks to my friend Erin for showing me that this video had been posted and now I am going to share it with you. Have a great Sunday :)

Toronto Student Exchange Day 4

So Today's post is about Day 4, or Monday May 9th, and we spent the day being UNBC Students for the day. The kids had fun taking a tour of the grounds and I have to admit I was really impressed with what our University has to offer. We enjoyed time in our sports center and in the various departments. We did some classroom work and even had to make a presentation about what else an orange could be. Claudia, being the only other kids not in school, was who joined us for this trip and she had a BLAST being a student for the day. I think she may have stolen our guides heart at the same time ;) So here are a few select pictures from Day 4 for you to enjoy.

Toronto Exchange Students Day 3

So today posts is from Day 3, the Sunday they were here. We missed out on most of the activities because Ben stood up for doing his Church Duties. It was an amazing moment. After wards we gave Josh a chance to met the kids as we went to Bubba Baloos for a few games of Laser Tag. After that we went for a BBQ at the Reconnect center. Not many photos today but we still had fun.

This is Josh trying to Show Charity how to dunk the ball but he ended up slipping.. it was cute and funny.

This is some of the kids coming out of a hard played game of Laser Tag

The Girls and Boys took sides and played an impromptu game of keep the ball away while we waited for the food to cook.

Toronto Exchange Students Day 2

So as you know last week I spent my time with Ben and the exchange students from Toronto. It was long days but sooo much fun. The first day they were here I posted a picture of Ben with his Toronto twin Charity at their Welcome Dinner. Today I am posting pictures from Day 2 of their visit. Most of the time was spent walking around Forests for the World. Unfortunately I missed most of that part as I am still a Mom of 5 other kids ;) They also spent time hanging out at the University Residences which is where the exchange students lived for the first part of their visit. We kept things simple since they were still recovering from their long plane ride. Thomas joined us for this day of fun. Here are a few of the pictures I took that day.

This first one is of Ben, Charity, and Tommy. You can tell Tommy was having fun.

After long time walking in the woods they relaxed with dinner and card games in the rooms. This was a really intense game of Crazy Eights LOL!

About 9:00 the Toronto Kids got a second wind and wanted to check out the UNBC grounds. So we went on a night walk.. the rest of the pictures are from that walk. First is my picture of the University at 9:15 at night. I just loved how it turned out.

This next one is most of the kids across University road checking out what PG looks like at night. This was taken at 9:30pm

This is of all the girls that came on the walk. taken at 9:45 just before we headed back.



Happy Mothers Day

I may have posted this before, but even if I did I think today of all days it is worth repeating.

To all the mothers I have known, still know, and yet come to know

Have a Wonderful and Special Day!

My Heart Skipped A Beat

So yesterday we had scary moment. You know one of those ones that you dread as a parent.

We had gone to the Native Friendship Centre for a welcome dinner for the exchange students coming in from Toronto. Ben needed to be there as well as the parents. We took Sam along as well because sometimes he can be a handful for other people. He was so exited that he was going to be included. We had dinner, with a little bit of a show as some of the girls sang some traditional songs. I was able to Meet Charity, Ben's "twin" from Toronto. What a Sweetheart!
After dinner the Toronto kids headed over to UNBC because they are staying in the residences there and we went downstairs to have a quick meeting to go over the schedule for the week and the meal plan. Sam started reading a magazine in the hallway and Mike and Ben went into the Games room. I was standing in the door to the office right in front of Sam. After the meeting was over I went into the game room to get Mike and Ben to say it was time to go. It took a few minutes for them to stop their game and when we went back out in the hallway Sam was gone. We thought at first that maybe he had gone out to the car with Erin who was our ride home but NO. We checked the entire building thinking maybe he got lost looking for a bathroom, but again NO. We went outside and some said they had seen a kid walking up third so then we thought maybe he had gone out for some fresh air and got locked out and decided to try and walk home. So we had people walking up and down the sidewalks, driving all over the place, still nothing.
About 20 minutes after this all started I waved down an RCMP vehicle and asked them for their help. One of the officers knew Sam because he does some volunteer work at the school and I of course had my camera with me that happened to have a picture of Sam balancing on some balls in the yard earlier so we knew exactly what clothes he was wearing and everything. They put a report out to all cars and went off to help look. Not even 5 minutes later I got a call on my cell telling me that they had found Sam and he was at the reconnect building. Now that is 9 blocks or so in the opposite direction from our house. We headed down there right away. It turns out that a wonderful lady and 4 teenage boys had seen Sam walking down that way and thought he was a little to young to be walking on his own. When they tried to talk to him he wouldn't stop but they could see he looked scared. They went and got some staff from Reconnect to talk to Sam and bring him inside. They had phoned the RCMP at the same time I was talking to the officers in the car, which is why we found him so fast. After the officer checked my ID to make sure I was who I said I was he took me to Sam.
He was sitting in the office with some extremely nice people and I had to the best I could not to completely break down as I asked Sam what happened. Well he tells me that he thought I had left without him! He was so focused on his book that he didn't notice I had walked into the games room to get Mike and Ben. He thought he would just walk home on his own, but he went the wrong way and got lost. After a tearful we didn't leave without because we could never forget him, we went home.
After I watched him walk into the house I just started to shake and cry. Things could of been soo much worse and I am so grateful they weren't. I am also glad to know that Sam did remember not to talk to people he didn't know and to wait until he found people with uniforms that he knew would be safe to talk to. This as also taught me thought that the kids need to know where home is no matter where they happen to be in the city. I think that will be our next family home evening activity... to drive to various spots around PG and to point the direction home, as well as go over some other safety rules like if you do get lost to find a safe spot with a phone and to call, I always have my cell on me and the kids all know the number.
Anyways to end to post on a happy thought I thought I would add the pics of the night... first the one of Sam balancing on the balls that helped get us the description of the clothes he was wearing and then the other one is of Ben and Charity, exchange twins.

Our Other Princess

This is my other princess. I have had her for almost 7 years now.

She was born in the month of May and came to us in the middle of June.

She came to our family as the tiniest kitten I had ever seen.

We were sure she would never survive a family such as ours because the boys loved to play with her.

She quickly became my special kitty being the only other girl in the house.

Up until her we had only seemed to have boy kitties.

Shortly after we moved to PG she was hit by a car on the same night and even time I broke my foot.

It was touch and go for a little while there and she had to stay at my mothers for a while to make sure she could get her rest but she survived. The only hint that she had the drama, the permanent cranky look she now has on her face.

She is patient with the kids for the most part and has only just begun to have moments where she gets up set because Claudia "Loves" her too much and she has always liked her space.

With out her our family would not be complete and so today I celebrate My other baby girl.

We Love You Butterscotch!

What would you caption this as?

Ok so I will be honest and say that I wasn't going to do a blog post today until I was outside playing with Claudia and snapped this picture.

I think it should be captioned as:

"Don't forget to look before crossing the street"

Mike says:

"To fly away or not to fly away"

I figured there are some of you who have even better ones so I would LOVE to hear them.

Have Fun!

What was for dinner?

Ok so yesterday I was still exhausted from working for the past 3 months. Between taxes all day long and then taking care of 6 kids and cleaning I really think it is a possible fatal combination if the person isn't strong enough. So I woke up in the morning and said I wanted real food for dinner, since most nights while I was working was pre-made frozen meals or take-out. I also didn't want to spend a ton of time cooking though because I knew I was just to tired to do that. Then I looked in my cupboards and fridge and realized that I really didn't have a great selection of choices either. I kept stocked on most of the basics while working, Milk, eggs, a few frozen and canned veggies.. that type of thing but not a great selection of stuff. Have you ever got to that point. Now I am not really a cookbook type of cook most of the time. I have learned over the years what flavors taste good together and so usually I make things up as I go along.  So today I am posting my latest creation for you, We named it Meatball Sloppy Joes. I documented what I did this time just in case it tasted good.. and it did, so I am going to share it with you today. I am sure there is probably some great recipe out there in the great world wide web that will be more professional than mine but remember this is me just throwing things together from my pantry and freezer.

Ok soo when I was rummaging through my cupboards I came across Crushed Tomatoes, and Whole Tomatoes and though a sauce would be good and then decided to add in some tomato soup for the flavor and a can of V8 juice again the extra flavor it has. Now 2 of my kids are not big tomato fans (don't ask me why since we cook with them soo much) so the trick I use to get them to eat them is I add a touch of molasses to those meals. That dark hint of sweetness changes enough of the flavor that they love what ever it is I make. I also found some meatballs I had bought for Mike and the kids to use for meals while I was working and thought that would make for some nice protein. 





At that point I was thinking more towards a soup and then I found my Brown Minute rice and the idea of the sloppy joes jumped into my head. My aunt had shown me once how Wheat could be cooked to look and taste like hamburger in meat sauces so I thought why not try the same with the rice. I also looked into my collection of epicure goodies to see what would taste good. I picked out my Chive and Onion Sea Salt for both flavor and seasoning as well as my Herb & Garlic Dip mix. They were simple but both have lots of flavor.

So I added the first group of stuff, including about a 1/4 cup of the molasses into my slow cooker and also about a teaspoon of the sea salt and 2 tbsp's of the herb & garlic mix. Warning!! When dumping whole tomatoes in, next time I will do them first because they splashed up my crushed tomatoes. Claudia laughed so hard that she fell off her stool!

I then added in 3 cups of the rice and 2 cups of water because I wanted to keep the saucy texture.

I stirred it all together and wiped up my mess and put it on to cook for 6 hours on high. It probably didn't need that much time but I knew we weren't going to be eating before that time. and you have to admit when tomato sauces of any kind get that little extra cooking time they just taste sooo yummy!

So this is what it looked like after 6 hours.. so goood! I tasted it and thought it could use a touch more kick so I added a few of shakes of Worcestershire Sauce. Not all people like it but I love that extra dimension it adds.

I lightly toasted up some large hamburger buns and then filled them with 3 meatballs and a large scoop of the sauce. I cut up some watermelon and cucumber for a summer feel to the meal and to keep with the made easy theme and we enjoyed an extra yummy meal :)

As a side note here, this would all make for a yummy meat free sloppy joe, just leave out the meatballs. The kids had seconds of this with just the sauce on the buns. If I do this I might add a bean in of some kind to replace the protein element to the meal.

Now what would a summer type meal be like with a dessert so we fired up our center burner on our BBQ and grabbed some of our new EXTRA LARGE campfire marshmallows and roasted them for a special treat. It was the perfect end to the perfect quick and easy meal.

Hope you enjoyed my version of a quick and easy meal... enjoy it yourselves, or make up you own. My kids favorite meals are the ones I don't use a recipe for. I have learned to write them down now since they complain when I don't know how to make it again.

And to finish this post a picture of how Josh loves to cook his Marshmallows :D

Burnt Sugar, Yum ;)