Brothers

Brushing away the sugar bugs from Sugar High Sunday.
We love our sweet Easter Bread....

Paska

This is what happens when you start making Paska (traditional sweet Easter bread) at 8pm.
It was our first attempt. The recipe is old school. You know...add enough flour to make soft dough kinda thing. (yah..thanks for that. 10 cups later......)
We didn't let it rise long enough. It was already 11:30pm when we "finished" the final rise.
We set 3 timers and threw it in the oven for an hour and went to bed as neither one of us could muster the strength to stay awake that long.
About 15 minutes after the timers went off (one repeatedly every 10 seconds), we finally woke up to JOEL! Dan rescued the bread, but it was already too late.
Crispy Paska anyone?
 

Pears

We were at the vegetable store in Langley (yeah Ralphs!) the other day when we saw bags of pears on the clearance rack. $1.99 for a HUGE bag of pears.

So, the pears weren't pretty looking. But they are completely edible. Dan and I decided that we would can the pears since we had been rationing our pear supply for months. Joel really enjoys them and we were 3 jars away from completion. We grabbed 5 bags of pears to start. I kept telling Dan that he shouldn't leave that lonely bag on the shelf. Well, needless to say, 3 bags later, we ended up with a total of 8 bags of pears for a little under $16.

When we got home, we threw them all in a box to weigh them. We were surprised to find out that we had just purchased 50lbs of pears!!! That works out to 33 cents a pound! Steal! (Dan wants to note that grocery stores are currently selling them anywhere from $1.39-$2.48/lb)

We ended up with 56 jars of pears for a mere two and half hours of work. Not bad!

Shoes

Micah's favorite thing to chew on: shoes

You think he was a dog or something...

(better than Joel's affection for licking toilet seats)

Epic Meltdown

This is what happens when your two year old realizes that we are NOT going to Grandma's house.
Epic tantrum. Two seconds after this picture is taken, he threw the toy in protest.
He proceeded to scream and kick for a few more minutes until we promised to see Grandma again soon. That just lessened the screams into a whimper and deep sobbing. What can we say?
This boy LOVES his Grandma. A LOT.

Super JOEL

 

Dan-isms

Dan came home from work and saw this mess.
 He said, "It looks like Noah's Ark threw up in our living room."

On turning 30

This past Monday, I turned 30. Yep, the big 3-0. I have to admit, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Perhaps, because I spent most of the previous year stressing about turning 30.
There was a large part of me that felt like I should have my life together at 30. But here I am, a college drop-out with no long-term career. For some reason, I equated 30 with having a successful job. Nope, not for me!
But some wonderful people kept reminding me that I don't need to have my life figured out. I don't need to know what I want to do when I'm grown up. I have a wonderful husband and two lovely boys. And if I finally admit it to myself, I am doing what I wanted to do when I grew up. All my life, I wanted to be a mom. As a kid, I would play house with every stuffed animal and doll I had. I was always a mother to a large family. So far, the large family is on the back burner. Two is enough for now. But being a mom is one of the greatest blessings I have.

Yet, on my birthday, I was blessed even further.

I was blessed by a birthday greeting a few hours before my actual birthday, but in Korean time! Greg and Karmen sent me a happy birthday message so that when I turned 30 in their time zone, I already had a birthday greeting in my inbox. (This meant that on Sunday, one full day before I turned 30,  I already had my first Happy Birthday email!)

I was blessed by a surprise phone call from the Philippines. A truly encouraging phone message from Christina. Thanks for reminding me how blessed I am.

Later that night, I was blessed by a skype call with the Philippines! Getting to see the Barkman family was amazing. I have never laughed so hard about a flashlight or a coffee grinder in my life. Exactly what I needed!

I was blessed by an email from a friend (yeah Katrina) who had just returned from vacation, but yet took the time to wish me a happy birthday.

I was blessed by my mother who spent the whole day with me. She took me shopping for some new clothes (she may be the only reason I get to be frivolous!) She played with the boys in the park and stayed for dinner and dessert!

I was blessed by a surprise card in the mail box containing money just for me! Thanks Dad.

I was blessed by a great gift from my thoughtful husband! I love my new pepper mill!

I was blessed with well behaved children and lots of hugs and kisses.

I was blessed with a hand coloured card from Joel. So sweet.

I was blessed to not change any poopy diapers all day. (Thanks Dan and Mom!)

I fell asleep Monday night feeling truly blessed. Turning thirty isn't so bad...especially since I've got the greatest friends and family to support me.

Backyard Play

Sunshine=Backyard Fun

"CONE!!" (as in pine cone)

Always watching Joel intently, trying to keep up with him

Hockey! (Croquet, actually)

Micah's new laugh. He opens his mouth like this and breathes in and out. Super funny!

Watching his brother play!

All smiles for this little one

Mmmmm....dirt! Thanks for weeding little buddy.

Too cool for photos. Sitting on the fence.

Papa! Airplane! Papa!

Kisses for his brother...and an eye poke

Spinning in circles...we were both so dizzy afterwards.

Outdoor Play

We finally had some sunny days last week and we took full advantage of them.

We took our toys outside and ran around for a bit.

We rode down the little slope in our driveway on our ride-on toys.

Ohhhh!!! Fun!

Not on the street Joel!

Joel LOVES running around with this push toy. Best MCC purchase EVER! Literally every walk we go on, he brings it with him. Its nice though, since it folds flat and I can just throw it on the stroller rather than drag it around.

Micah likes the tricycle. We traded our large one for Asher's smaller one. Much better!

Joel can actually touch the pedals on it. 

Joel insisted we go for a walk. The parking lot just wasn't covering it.

The next apartment over has a nice slopped driveway. Joel wanted to go down. But he lost his toy on the way!

Micah likes being at home sitting on the cars. Good times!

When all else fails...

...drown your sorrows in a bowl of salad.

(we must have been out of cookies)

Joel and the Potato

Joel woke up early this morning. Dan got up with him (as he usually does, thank you Dan!) and was lying on the couch half asleep. He could hear Joel rummaging through the cupboards and then playing in his kitchen. Dan told him to put our pots and pans away. Dan heard Joel closing the cupboards and assumed that he had put things away (never assume Dan., never assume!) Dan opened his eyes up long enough to see Joel with a real potato and his play knife, trying to chop the potato. Hashbrowns daddy! Hashbrowns!

I think we might need some professional help. Do they have cooking boarding schools for toddlers? Lord help us. The day he gets a hold of a real knife will be a scary, scary day.

Sleep....or the lack thereof

These past two (and a half) months have been two of the hardest months of my life. Or rather, two months of the hardest nights of my life. I guess when you have kids you expect sleepless nights...at least at the beginning. I expected to be awake every 2-3 hours and eventually gain more and more sleep as they grow older. But we learned, rather quickly, from Joel that kids do not sleep through the night on a regular basis. Yes, children wake up at night...sometimes even two or three times. But what I never expected was these last two and half months.

Let me tell you about the last two and half months of our lives. We have had ear infections, crazy amounts of teething (we've gone from 2 to 8 teeth in two months), stitches, growth spurts (a minimum 3 lbs gain), never-ending colds, bad gas and the inevitable stranger anxiety stage. Oh, and that's just Micah. Which has led to months of bad sleep. I can handle waking up every 2-3 hours. But waking up every 45 minutes to hour and a half has really started to wain. Literally we have had sleep in 45 minutes increments for the last two months. And its been exhausting.

I've been told to "cherish" these moments. I have...sort of. But let's be honest. I can only cherish this time with him so much. After about a month of him waking every 45 minutes, the cherishing was OVER. I was frustrated and exhausted. I stopped praying for "sleep" and began getting a lot more specific. Two hours God. Please just two solid hours.  Literally I was done. Done with getting 45 minutes of sleep in a two hour period. I was done with his pain. I was done with the tears. I was done with the colds. I was done with him growing. One night, I literally fed him every 45 minutes. And it was a FULL feed every time. That night, I lost 1.5 pounds (probably the only upside of the whole situation).

There is only so much "understanding" one person can have. One night, when Dan and I were so exhausted that we couldn't handle it anymore, we let him cry in his crib (which is in our room). We both fell asleep, listening to his cries and woke up two hours later to Micah still crying (we were in and out of sleep so we know it was constant).

We tried Tylenol and Advil to help him with the pain. Both have adverse hyperactive effects on him and don't necessarily mean he'll sleep. It would soothe him enough that we could finally put him down (at least for a few minutes). We went through bottles of the stuff. Why they make such tiny bottles and charge an arm and a leg for them, I'll never know. Nothing seemed to soothe this little baby. He was in agony. I felt bad, I really did. But I was just too drained to care. I just needed sleep. My only saving grace is that Dan would let me sleep in from whenever the boys woke up, till about 8am. Sometimes it was the only constant hour of sleep I would get in a night. It was the only way I could still function as a "decent" mom.

Do you know how much sleep deprivation affects your daily life? Simple tasks would take hours. Composing an email with three sentence would take 45 minutes. Part of that was used to focus and the other half was used to "stay awake" and on task. One morning, Dan took a "sick" day and stayed home. We dropped the kids off at my mom's and went home to sleep. Now I know why they say that driving tired is like driving drunk. That morning, I should NOT have been driving. Literally, my peripheral vision was blurring. But those three hours were enough to get us through the next month of sleepless nights.

I have written this post every night (sometimes multiple times a night) for months. But by the time the kids are sleeping, my brain is mush and I can't remember what I've wanted to say. Sleeplessness is hard.

Its hard on your body. Its hard to be motivated to exercise when you are so tired. Its hard to eat well when cookies give you the burst of energy you need to make it through the next hour. Its hard to be motivated to cook nutritious food when you have no energy. Those cookies got me through some hard times and gave me the motivation I needed in order to cook a healthy meal for the boys.

Sleeplessness is hard on your marriage. When your brain is in a constant fog, its hard to communicate. I've found it difficult to think of words and get frustrated when Dan doesn't understand what I'm saying. Or even when I don't understand what I'm saying. It hard to love one another when you are too tired to do anything but sleep. Sleep ALWAYS wins out. (Do you know how amazing an extra hour is when you get 4 hours a night???? And that's VERY interrupted sleep. That hour is a God-send).

Sleeplessness is hard on your parenting. You have a short temper. Those little quirks that you can handle normally seem like the most annoying thing. I've yelled more than I ever have before. I've been frustrated more. I've repeated the phrase, "Why are you so annoying? Oh ya, its because you are two..." more than I care to share. We've thrown educational play out the window and concentrate on staying awake during the day.

These past months have been hard. And I can probably write that without crying only because we've been sleeping in 3 hour increments for about a week now.People would ask me how I was doing and it would take every last reserve of energy not to burst into tears out of sheer exhaustion. I don't know how we've done it. I am amazed at our strength. I am amazed that we still have two (living) children. I just hope that this chapter of our lives is done. It might just take the rest of my life to make up that sleep deficit.

Dear God, thank you for sleep. Three hours of continuous sleep feels soooo amazing.

Great Big Surprise!

This past Sunday was date night! We went to Kyo Sushi and Korean BBQ House in Vancouver and then went to the Great Big Sea Concert.

We were going to meet up with Jordan and Carlye at the concert since we all bought tickets separately months ago. Little did we know, but not only were we in the same section but our seats were right beside each other!

 

Surprise!!!!! Look who I found!

 

 This was my view during the concert. Yep, I had dancing couple blocking my view. No biggie. Except swaying lady was a few seats in front of them. And then big man in orange shirt didn't sit down for pretty much the whole time...not even when they were talking. Hello???? Where is your concert etiquette? This pretty much blocked my view for most of the night. Bummer.

Especially since I come to the concert to see this man. Swoon! Alan Doyle you make my night worth while. He's pretty funny to watch, especially when he's interacting other band members.

Overall it was a fantastic show! No warm up band (thank goodness) but two full sets of great music.

 

The second half was fantastic. They usually are. Probably because they have a beer or two in between. 

  

 
The best part of the show was when they sang the song, "Good People." They asked fans a week previous to send in photos of themselves to use during the show. And guess whose picture was up first???

The McCrimmons!!! We also had another picture show up a bit later in the song. Yep! Twice on the big screen.

The boys jamming away.

Enjoying the show...

...with two really cool people!