Pajama Day

I love Sundays. I barely leave the house, and I can chill in my jammies all day if I want to. Lately I've been working on a scarf for Elijah. It seems like it's taking forever to make, so I needed a small project that I could finish in a day or two. I was thinking about our trip home coming up, and remembered that since we don't use sleepers with Katie, she would probably need something warm to wear at night while we're camping and at camp. I decided I was going to make her little Pajama pants from some our our old flannel PJ's. Below is my first set and I plan on making two more before we go home. I made them with a drawstring, and hemmed the bottom  up about an inch and a half-two inches, so there's room to grow.

The only problem i have is that I haven't tried them on with a diaper yet and she's not quite ready to go diaper free at night :) Here's hoping they fit.

Pink envelopes

Nothing cheers me up more when I'm homesick, then receiving a pink envelope in the mail. My sister writes the best letters. They're a mixture of words and drawings and always make me smile. She sends them in pink envelopes. I don't think I've thrown out a single letter from her. I have a few in my night stand drawer, and a bunch in my craft room. Every now and then they get pulled out and I read a few. I've been thinking of making a little book out of them, but I don't know what order they're supposed to be in, and I don't want to throw out the envelopes.  I received my latest one yesterday along with a picture of the prettiest little girl I know, Sophie. Eleven more days and we'll be home for seventeen. Our trips home are usually rushed and not very relaxing. This time we're going to try our best to relax while pleasing everyone at the same time. Even though we're going home for Katie's birthday, I'm more excited about going to camp for a few days with my family, and camping with Elijah's family. Between Flights, the Kennel, gas and spending money, we've managed to put ourselves back at what feels like the beginning of our total money makeover. It's frustrating having to start over again, but it will be worth while when we're done.

Watching Airplanes

We had planned to go the the pool for a swim last night, but forgot to pack Katie's swim diaper. I was a bit mad about that since I was looking forward to some family time outside of the house. We ended up going to the provincial park for a quick dip instead. It was slightly deserted, which meant we got a spot on the main beach. When we were getting ready to leave, an airplane flies quite low, over our heads and lands on the water. It does a giant loop, turns around to face us, looking like it will take off over our heads. The pilot turned the plane a few meters before the buoys marking the beach, opens the cockpit and drifts onto the sand like a boat would do. Gets out and ties his plane. What a way to travel :) It made up for not going swimming at the pool.

rant...

Begin rant.

It's hard to stay positive when your husband stresses about money. First we bought our plane tickets, which put us back to the beginning of step 2. then we had a flat tire, which we had to pay for out of our 'emergency fund'. Doing so brought us back to step one, although we should be able to pay it back today. Then we realized that in order to keep our dogs in the kennel while we're gone, it will cost us about 500$ plus the cost for the vaccines. Elijah's not sure where the money is going to come from. I think as long as we stick to our budget this month, it's do-able. On top of all of that, we had a very heavy rain storm last night, and we discovered that a good number of our windows leak...badly. So now he's stressing about how much it will be to replace all the windows next year, when we had only planned on replacing the bay window and the sliding door to the deck. Not that he's had a chance to see why the water is coming in or how much it will cost. It could be an easy fix, or it could set our financial goals back ALOT. Instead of saving for a van once we're out of debt, we'd be saving for new windows. To add more to the pot, Katie hasn't been going to sleep well lately, which means we have no couple time. Cold lake decided that it wanted to be humid this year, so it's really hot in our house. AND I have a cold AGAIN. Having a cold that keeps you up half the night coughing sucks, especially when you can't take meds for it. Okay.

End rant

On a good note, Elijah should be let off early today :) and it's a long weekend. We're going to the cabins with Nick, Josee and their little girl Laurence. They're french, but seem like the kind of people that are content just hanging out  and playing cards and stuff. It should be a fun, relaxing weekend. We went there last summer shortly after Katie was born with some other friends, which was pretty fun :) So I'm looking forward to going there again.

on an awesome note, I passed my french level 5 with a 87% overall ( the highest mark was 88%). Level 6, the last level, starts in September and should end a few weeks before baby number 2 is due. After that, I might try for my grade 12 french, which I never did. Just to say that i did it.

OH and Karen and Paul had a baby girl yesterday! Her name is Nora and she is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I couldn't be happier for them.

ramblings

Don't read this as a complaint. We found it to be quite humorous,

Yesterday we booked our flights home, more or less maxing out our credit card, which should have been paid off by now. then we get in the car and drop off the canoe we had been borrowing. On our way there, we had been talking about how good we were doing with our money, even though we're a little farther behind then what we expected. On our way back into town, one of our rear tires blew. Now, where the hell are we supposed to get the money for new tires, when we just spend every last penny on flights home and pay day is still four days away. Elijah was clearly frustrated so I just popped the trunk and started emptying it to get the spare out. He emerged eventually :) and put the donut on the car. By the time we got to Walmart, I was really hungry and needed to eat something. We checked the price on tires, picked up a can of tomatoes, grabbed a few burgers form mcdonalds ( clearly a healthy choice for a pregnant lady) and were on our way. Halfway through our trip, we were discussing whether we should wait until thursday to get it fixed, or do it tomorrow. While weighing the pro's and con's, Elijah starts laughing as he realizes, we have 1000$ tucked away as an emergency fund for things like this while we work at paying off our debt. So, we decided that we would get two new tires today after my doctor's appointment, pay back our emergency fund on thursday and buy two more tires when we get home in august.

Later last night, we decided to go for a walk, because katie clearly was not tired. We had planned on taking the dogs with us, however they decided to act up, and so we left them. Turns out i had a few dollars in the stroller, so we went to walmart and bought jujubes, which we decided against buying earlier, so that I could get right away. When we got back home, the kitchen was destroyed. Have I mentioned just how much I love my dogs? Included in the eaten list was my diaper bag, 1 lb of raw ground beef, which we were planning on using for dinner, a few containers and some garbage. We were very pleased with our dogs...Still in an oddly good mood though. Katie went to sleep easily, although she woke twice to feed instead of the one feed at 3am she had been doing lately. I lay awake coughing most of the night and had finally stopped when she wanted to feed a second time, so Elijah fed her for me. Katie woke around 630 as usual, and Elijah brought her to me with a bottle. She didn't have much before snuggling back down to sleep until 8, which i was very grateful for. Thank goodness for small blessings and good attitudes.

Healthy homemade french fries

I am a salt lover. My cravings seem to either get slightly worse while pregnant, or I just have an excuse to eat whatever I want. What ever the reason is, today I really want a salty snack. Most people would just say " hunny I have a craving for chips" and out their spouse would go to the nearest variety store to buy their pregnant wife chips. Us on the other hand, we are on a budget. We don't have any money left for food or snacks until pay day, so I'm going to be awesome and do the next best thing: Make homemade french fries! This recipe in particular is one that I absolutely love. It does take awhile to make, hence why i'm starting at 1030 am, but they're so worth it! I can add as much salt as I desire to mine and Elijah's, while I keep Katie's salt free. Mmmmm I can't wait for lunch, I've been craving a basket of fries with salt and vinegar on half and ketchup on the rest.

http://zestycook.com/healthy-homemade-french-fries/

The past 24 hours

What a fantastic couple of days I've had. Last night we went fishing! Elijah and i both brought in a fish, although we had no idea if they were 63 cm or not, so we released them. Katie absolutely loved being in the canoe, up until her bed time when she started to get a little bit fussy. I think the fish freaked her out at first, when they were flopping around in the canoe. I figured it would be difficult to take a trip like that with an almost one year old, but it was actually fun! Once asleep in her bed, Katie slept well. She woke twice for a bottle, and stayed dry until the morning. She decided that she wanted to play around in our room while I was still asleep...in the dirty clothes pile of all things! I woke up to her talking to herself with different clothes over her head and around her neck. Maybe she was trying to dress herself? I'll never know. She must have peed while playing, because it seemed like a fresh pee when I took her diaper off. Since she hadn't had a bottle in a couple of hours, Katie actually ate breakfast this morning. Shortly after 8, we went for a walk to Walmart to buy more milk for Katie. My little girl absolutely loves being outside. anytime she's driving me nuts, we just have to go outside and do something. We returned home around 9 with Katie fast asleep and in a dry diaper. I put her on the couch for a nap and decided that we should go to the provincial park She slept until I had everything packed and ready except for the bike and trailer. This was a blessing, as it would have taken me twice as long with her awake. We left at 10, biked 45 minutes to the park, put on sunscreen and her swim suit and played at the beach for a hour. ( Katie's diaper was still dry when we got the the park) We both had fun and Elijah came to pick us up around 1215. We figured out how to put the bike rack on the car, which turned out to be pretty simple, and we were on our way. Kay was asleep by the time we got home, and so is now sleeping on the couch again. ( hopefully in a dry diaper ) After she wakes, i think we'll have lunch and then go for another walk to No Frills to pick up a flyer. Hopefully french class is fun, as we only have two classes remaining and we've already written our final exam.

On another note, now that we know how to hook up the bike rack, depending on when we have to return the canoe and on the weather. We will either be attempting a day trip to a lake, or to a section of  the iron horse trail and bike and explore for the day. Who knows, maybe we'll do both!

Oh, and the Krafchek's leave tomorrow :( makes me wish we were posted to Borden also.