Special Delivery!!!

Santa Claus has made an early Special Delivery to the Armstrong's!  We woke up this morning to a mountain of presents under our tree!  It has been a busy day of unwrapping, opening boxes, trying new things, excitement, big smiles and happy giggles!  I Love Christmas!  It was wonderful to see the kids eyes light up as they opened their new treasures, and then again as they called their grandparents to tell them what they had received! 

Now we just have to do it all again 2 more times!

When family comes to town...

So tomorrow night Lauren is in the Dreamcoat (for those of you out of towners, that's a youth theatre company in North Bay) Christmas Production, and Sunday morning is our church Christmas Pageant, which both Lauren and Julie are a part of.  Our parents have decided to make the trip up here so they can attend both events. 
The thing is, I am not the best house keeper, and well, its Christmas so I have to also decorate.  This has made for a very busy week.  Don't get me wrong, my house is usually fairly tidy...but I for some reason feel I need to have it throughly clean from top to bottom when the parents visit.  Why is that?  Why is it that to get any good quality cleaning done, you have to make a bigger mess first?...not to mention the mess hauling out the Christmas decorations makes! 
To top it all off, I had decided since we won't be here for most of the holidays I wasn't going to put up all the decorations, except my mother in law has given me about 70% of the decorations we own as gifts over the 12 Christmases David and I have been together, so I ended up putting most of the decorations up anyway...oh well!  At least someone is going to see my well decorated house this year!

'Tis the season!!!

Family Pictures

As you might have guessed, family pictures with 4 children is, well, interesting. 
It takes a minimum of 1 hour to get everyone dressed and ready, and that it is only if mommy was on the ball and thought ahead to laying out everyone's clothes, underwear, tights, socks, shoes, etc. ahead of time.  Add an extra hour if this preparation has not been done. 
Once you decide the time is right to start dressing everyone (it is a skill to get the timing just right) you then have to balance who gets dressed first, and how ready they will get, in order to have the final finished product (i.e. clean face and hands, dressed right down to their shoes, hair done and smile pasted on) last until the end of the photo session.  Its like fitting together a puzzle...
Phase 1- Lauren and Julie will get hands and face washed and strip down to their underwear and wait for Mommy to help them with their dresses.  Daddy will wash Carter up and strip him down to his underthings.  Mommy will feed Maya enough to tie her over until the older girls have their dresses on.
Phase 2- Mommy puts Maya in swing.  Helps Lauren put her tights and dress on while Julie sits and reads a book.  Daddy goes and finds what clothes he thinks he is going to wear and Carter plays trains in his room.
Phase 3- Lauren goes and sits on couch with book.  Mommy helps Julie with tights and dress, while telling Daddy that the tie he has picked is the wrong colour.  Carter goes and pokes Maya while she is in the swing.
Phase 4- Daddy gets Carter and plays trains with him while Mommy combs the girls hair.  Maya lets us know she is not happy with being left to swing by herself.
Phase 5- Girls are sent to look at a book on the couch.  Daddy dresses Carter.  Mommy goes and tries on 5 different shirts other than the one she originally laid out, because she has decided she doesn't like that one anymore.
Phase 6- Daddy gets dressed, while telling Mommy to just wear the top she has on.  Mommy gets frustrated because Daddy's opinion is not the same as Mommy's, so goes to do her hair.  Carter plays trains again, girls are now arguing over the colour of the sky.
Phase 7- Daddy dresses Maya, Mommy changes shirt for the last time but tells Daddy he now has to change his pants to match the shirt she has finally chosen.
Phase 8- Mommy combs Carter's hair, Daddy changes pants, everyone gets their shoes on.
Phase 9- Photographer comes to the house and we move furniture so we can all fit in the picture...we say cheese and....the girls have managed to mess up their hair so it needs to be fixed before we can continue!
In the end we end up with a beautiful photo of our wonderful family of 6!  I bet you are all wishing getting your family photos done was this fun!

Parade!!!

Today the Armstrong's were on the Trinity United Church float for the North Bay Santa Claus Parade!  It was a lot of fun and a lot of cold!  David and I played Mary and Joseph with Maya as baby Jesus.  Carter was a (sleeping) shepherd and Lauren and Julie were angels!  We then went back to the church for lunch with everyone involved with the parade!  It was an amazing but exhausting day...bedtime can't come early enough tonight...for everyone... except maybe Carter!

Laughing...why it is sometimes inappropriate...

So the other day Lauren (our oldest) was being really mouthy.  I finally got upset with her and told her that I didn't like the way she was talking to me.  "Don't be lippy with me, Lauren, I'm your mom and as your mom I deserve some respect.  Your dad and I have taught you to be respectful, would you talk that way to your teacher?"  "NO!"  Lauren replies.  "Would you talk that way to any other adult?" I ask.  "Maybe, depends who they are."  She says rather matter of factly. 
Now, I know this was probably the least appropriate time in my parenting career to start laughing, but I was so taken aback by her honesty I couldn't help it.  I burst...
Trying to regain my composure I say "This is not funny!"  Lauren, of course, responds with "then whay are you laughing mom?"  I have to say I responded very honestly, I told her it was because I couldn't believe she was being so honest with me.  I thanked her for being honest, but reminded her to be respectful.  I'm sure that was a lesson lost...oh well- Lauren 1, Mommy 0!

Sneaky 2 year olds...

My son, Carter, has taken to not wanting to go to bed either at night or nap time, regardless of how tired he is.  His latest trick is to come out of his room about 5 minutes after he has been put in bed, rubbing his eyes, saying "morning mommy", "morning daddy", "time for bestkist" (his word for breakfast).  I give him an A for creativity...but he still has to go back to bed!

Note about Pink Eye

Just for those of you (like my husband) who didn't know...Conjunctivitis is the medical term for Pink Eye...so 'junk itis' was close...funny kid!

She paused in front of a commercial for Cascade (of all things) the other night when I had asked her to go do something...when I reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing she said "but mommy I love watching commercials, I learn so much about the world from commercials...there is a lot of weird stuff in our world mom"....

Junk-itis

So, yesterday morning Julie woke up with a case of pink eye.  After school yesterday Lauren asked if Julie would be going to school the next day.  I said no, because she could not go back to school until she was free of symptoms for 24 hours, which means no school tomorrow. 
Lauren then said "you should get Julie some Polysporin for Junk itis".
"Junk itis?" I say. 
"Yes...I'm sorry I didn't know you wouldn't recognize that big word mommy, it is a fancy word for pink eye.   I guess I should have said Polysporin for pink eye." 
"How do you know about Polysporin for pink eye?" I ask. 
"T.V." she says.
I found the whole interaction rather amusing...though I am concerned about how much the Polysporin commercial seemed to sink in, but daily reminders to put her clothes in the laundry hamper don't.

Thanksgiving

It has taken me almost a week to post this, but I still feel that I want to share because it was such an amazing weekend!  We trekked down to Chatham for Thanksgiving for the first time since David and I got married, so this was our first Thanksgiving with my side of the family in 8 years, and it was WONDERFUL!  My dad was harvesting and Carter was in his glory.  He got to ride on the combine with Papa, ride on the tractor with daddy as he ran the cultivator and ride with uncle Jared as he planted the wheat.  It was heaven for a little boy!  My brother and his wife, my sister and her husband and my grandma all came to dinner at my mom and dad's.  We laughed and enjoyed each other's company.  The girls enjoyed playing outside and making up plays in grandma's garden, we went shopping and played games.  It was just a fantastic weekend!  And to top it all off...Maya got her second tooth!  I love Thanksgiving!

Weekends!

I love weekends!  I love that there is no school and David doesn't have to go to work.  I love that our family can all be under one roof for a whole day...I love staying in our pyjamas until noon, eating breakfast when we feel like it, and just doing 'stuff' together!  Today was a fantastic Sunday at the Armstrong's...we did all of that!  I can't wait for next weekend when we can do it all again!
I also love that we can be silly together...tonight at supper David told the kids that his name was Dr. Daddy Danger Armstrong and that he was really a secret agent and government spy.  The rest of the meal was spent with Lauren and Julie trying to figure out if he really was a spy.  They plotted together to try and trick him into telling them 'the truth', and Carter sat in his chair laughing at the whole spectacle.  The girls loved trying to figure it out, Carter loved laughing with his sisters and  David and I loved watching their little minds work it out!  I have to say he really got them thinking...Lauren tried to stay awake tonight to see if Daddy left for one of his secret missions or not...  

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I seriously thought that the kids going back to school would be relaxing!  We had such a busy summer, I actually need a vaction from it!  So off Lauren and Julie head to school and what I was left with was a very busy fall full of field trips, lessons, work and travelling! 
To top it all off I have the busiest 2 year old on the planet!  My son can get into things faster than you can ever imagine...you think me being the adult and him being only 2 I could out smart him.  WRONG!!!  The other day I latched our back door waaaay up at the top where he couldn't possibly get it open.  He'd been trying to get out all day, but it was raining (a lot) and so I thought it best we stay indoors.  An hour later I found my son getting off the step stool in the kitchen where he had pushed it up to the stove, used it to climb up on the stove, where he could then reach up and unlatch the back door!  He was pretty proud of himself...I was impressed too...don't want him doing it again but I was impressed at his ability to problem solve all the same...

So this is my first attempt at blogging!  I can't believe I have opted to enter this world! 

A friend recently suggested that start a blog to chronicle the lives of my children...I have 4.  They are very cute and very funny!  Our household is indeed a fantastically chaotic, yet wonderful place! 

So, I hope you enjoy my blog!