Numbers of the Day

3 - # of "Snow/Ice Days" we've had this week
1 - # of short people in the house who are having major case of cabin fever
1 - # of even shorter people in the house who have 'kid hasn't been in school for 3 days' fever
2 - # of times job interview has been post-poned due to weather issues.

3646 - # of emails in over-stuffed work email box (the website job) No, really!
3458 - # (approx.) of emails that are spam or junk
124 - # of emails to let me know that my girlfriend is unhappy with my 'size'. It's so darn nice of them to let me know & to offer to help me find the right medication to fix it!

4 - # of people in this house who have a cold/sore throat/overall yuckiness feeling
2 - # of noses I have helped get snot out of today. (I can see how envious you are!)
1 - # of apologies I am issuing for the image of the last sentence.

6 - # of minutes spent blogging this that should have been spent clearing out the work email and/or snot extracting.

That's my day - what are you all up to?

Who's who?

Okay, boys & girls, this is today's game...
Can you guess which of these children was born in the Great White North and really, really enjoys snow, no matter how cold it is? And which one is the not-so-impressed version? I'll only give you 3 guesses...

Generations

Spent this weekend near Vancouver visting family and introducing Kieran to some of the relatives who hadn't met him yet. My Dad even came down - partly for this and partly for his 60th Birthday. There was a lot of talk this weekend about generations, about how kids get older so quickly, how time flies. All the usual chat that I think most families have when they get together infrequently. My cousin has a teenager! My grandma is 81, has a 'child' who is 60, and 8 great-grandchildren! And somehow I have become one of the older crew, no more sitting at the kiddie table.
My kids are so lucky - they have 5 living great-grandparents who adore them. (Even though Kieran looks like he's about to punch out Grandma in this pic.) I barely remember my one great-grandma and even that is the kind of fuzzy remembering that you get from seeing old pictures. Jaela already has some great memories of her 'greats & grands' and I hope Kieran has the chance for the same.
Here's a little story about this weekend that tells you something about the person my Grandma is... My Dad was on the search for a match and my grandma pulled out a box with some assorted books of matches. Pulls one out and it's from a family wedding - in 1963!! Can you say raised during the depression?! They weren't even dusty!
She also pulled out a waffle recipe that was written out by her mom an eon ago, held together with brittle yellow Scotch tape. It is written in the impeccible handwriting of people who learned to write in Europe (Norway) and Grandma explained that her mom learned to read & write English by reading the newspaper. My Great-Grandma Larvick, sitting at the farm kitchen table, searched through the newspapers to find the words so that she could write out recipes and letters to her son in the army. Cool.
Here's to the 'old folk'!

A Pittance of Time

In honour of Remembrance Day, (which, for you Americans who haven't heard, is kind of like your Veteran's Day), this video is really good. It's based on the real experience of Terry Kelly (the singer/songwriter) who was in a Shoppers Drug Mart in 1999 when this really happened - except for the part at the end of course. Terry was so angered by the man's disrespect and the poor example he was setting for his child, that he wrote and recorded this song on his next CD. I feel guilty for not wearing a poppy today, but they don't exist down here, so instead I've passed this on. Enjoy...

Halloween '06

Had a wonderful Halloween last night - surprisingly relaxed with the 2. 'Course Kieran pretty much slept, big surprise, but I did manage to get a couple pictures of him with eyeballs showing. Jaela beamed the whole time as Dorothy - once she had the bow in the hair and the sparkly red shoes on the feet, she was Dorothy. Brett got into the act this year (it's his favourite holiday) and did the Viking Warrior thing.

It's always interesting when there are 7 kids under 6 under one roof, but fun was had by all and no one is sick this morning! Bonus! There should be a name for today though - the sugar hangover for the kids, the cider hangover for the adults, the day the parents pick through the kid's bucket and sneak a couple (or more) pieces of their favourites out. The day here in the US when it becomes full-on Thanksgiving/Christmas season and you can just about smell the stress rising in the crisp air. Which causes the parents to take more candy out...and so on and so forth. Me, I'm not stressing, but I think it would be down right neglectful of me to leave all that candy lying around for too long.