Holder House

OUTSIDE!!!!

YES!!!!

It's summer!!

Let's go OUTSIDE!!!!!

I love this time of year. Those of you that put up with my pissing and moaning all winter long prepare to be equally annoyed by my constant praising of the spring and summer.

I can't help it. I just love the warmth, and the feeling you get being outside in the fresh, fragrant spring to summer air. 

Only in spring do you get to watch the ducks that come to our yard every year lay and warm their eggs. 

Only in spring to you get to watch the eggs hatch and follow the fuzzy ducklings on their first walk down to the pond. Their first swim! Imagine that!

It is the time of year for feeding the tadpoles and listening to the bullfrogs...or in our case, getting our neighbour Ryan to catch one for us so we can hold a bullfrog the size of a rotisserie chicken.

It is time for smores at night, staying up too late, and dirty feet.

It is time for hose fights, water balloons, and vegetable gardens.

It is time for sangria in the backyard.

It is time for fun.

Beat that, winter.

A Seriez of Snapz.

I have been accused of only putting "good" pix here on the blog, so I am going to defend my honour by putting a whole whack of the snapshottiest snapshots you have ever seen. 

You are going to see the good, the bad and the ugly....but I want to show that I do try and take time to capture the special moments, the crazy moments and the moments no one cares about except for me.

So here goes...

Some Art By Samuel.

And here is a series of odd and different things I have found written around the house:

OOOOOOkkaayyyyy......

Now here's some good old fashioned cookie decorating:

Now here's a whole bunch of the L-Man, rashy face and all.

Now, for some really snapshotty snapshots...Easter! Including Lucas' first experience with chocolate...based on his reaction, probably not his last!

Well, that's it for now!

Enjoy!!!

Not A Traditional Anniversary.

Anniversaries.

They are usually associated with happy moments. Birthdays. Wedding days. Notable celebrations and milestones.

But (don't you hate that word, "but"?), they can also mark days that aren't such a reason to celebrate. Deaths. Injuries. Tax day. Or, as in our particular case, job loss.

Yes. Can you believe it? It has been a full year since Jim was downsized from his job. This fact, I find surreal. That he has been out of work for such a long stretch of time, with no real end in sight.

March 14th is our un-anniversary.

I knew that things were not going so well in the economy in general, and even in Jim's company. Somehow, I thought we were immune to the financial shifting and groaning. Safe from the global economic craziness. What a laugh! We were one of the first wave of people thrown under the bus.

I now know I was naive. It's not like we hadn't felt the pinch before this. In fact, our arms were already black and blue with pinch marks. We had been drawn to opportunities here in Chicago that promised Better Bonuses! A Better Life! More Success! In reality, the bonuses failed to materialize, and all we ended up with were tighter purse strings, greater stress levels and higher credit card bills.

2008 was not our best year. It was like God was testing us every step of the way to see what we could take. To see what we were made of. It was a pretty tough year for all of the family. Are you ready for our litany of woes?

It kicked of right before the start of the new year with Jonah breaking the absolute HECK out of his arm and elbow, requiring surgery and a hospital stay. When little Lucas was born, he spent spent a few days in the NICU, otherwise known as the "expensive care unit :-)". 

Once we got our newest family member home, I had a true struggle with a case of PPD. Not so much fun! I descended into a fog that affected everyone in the family. Who knew that I'd get my first case of PPD after bambino #4! Go figure.

Then the flu hit. First me, and then Jim. And how did it hit Jim!!!! The poor guy was in bed forever, and man did he feel bad. Now this is not newsworthy in and of itself, but when the flu runs a guys down so much he ends up fighting a case of MRSA in the hospital - then it becomes news!

And for all you socialized medicine loving Canadians out there, if you have ben counting, that is FOUR hospital stays in as many months....yes, major buckaroonies, baby.

So, Jim fights the MRSA, gets out of the hospital (red as a lobster, mind you becasue he was allergic to some of the antibiotics they gave him), having narrowly escaped death by streptococcus. he goes back to work the next day, and yes. this is the day it happens. 

Fresh out of the hospital.

Looking like a lobster and feeling like $*%#. 

This is the day he gets laid off. 

Talk about kicking you when you are down!!!

So. We've covered the injuries. We've covered the depression. We've covered the hospital stays, illnesses and what all. Now we're covering the big one - job loss.

At first we recovered from the initial shock pretty well, figuring it couldn't be too long before someone with Jim's qualifications got snatched right up. We had 3 months severance, we were fine!

Fast forward to a full year and many other nasty bumps in the road later. Still no job. 

So yes, 2008 pretty much sucked eggs. 

However, 2008 was also a lot of other things. You know all the cliches. You can't make lemonade with out lemons. It takes pressure to make diamonds. All that crap.

Well, it just so happens that some of that stuff is true.

I learned how to be a real tough cookie this year. I now have more cojones than I ever thought possible. I have confidence that I can take care of business on my own, whatever that business may be. 

2008 was also the year of Lucas.

It was the year Samuel learned to read.

It was the year Jonah decided that he wanted to be a rock star.

It was the year that Georgia announced that her hair was not red, it was pink.

It was the year of Summer Zephyr.

It was the year that I found out how many friends really do care about me.

It was the year of Merrifield Photography!

It was also the year that Jim realized how important family really is.

So - would I change the past year? Would I exchange everything that happened, both good and bad, if we could go back to mid-March '08 and not be a victim of downsizing?

In all honesty, probably not. Although I do wish this was over, that we had our financial security in place, probably not.

I learned things about myself this year that you can only learn in a trial by fire.

There are no rainbows without the rain. (sorry about the fromage, mes amis)

So please keep us in your prayers over the coming months. Please pray that we find our security and that our lives can move on in a more carefree fashion.

After all, I don't want to get any tougher !!!!!:-)

More New Pics

Because I gotta post something!

There's not much new around here, so here are some pics to tide you over.

Here's the G-ster doing her thing:

Here's a few in actual clothes, as opposed to a costume (which she spends 95% of her time in, btw).

This one's a little out of focus but I lurve it anyway.

Now - some of ther L-Man, who, by the way, is VERY tough to get an in-focus image of, as he moves FAST, and ALL THE TIME.

But here's a try.

So that's it. Enjoy, and hopefully next time I'll have something interesting to say!

Bird's The Word.

Or caused some people around here to say some words, anyway. 

BAD words.

Let's start at the beginning, which is of course, always the best place to start things.

It starts with the Christmas wreath on our front door.

What does this have to do with birds and bad words you ask?

Well, pretty much everything.

You see, said aforementioned bird had decided to build a nest in said, aforementioned wreath.

So, the other night, Jim opened the door, and this dumbass bird flies in. Or maybe not so dumb, it is, after all, 72 degrees in the house, and colder than a witch's you-know-what outside.

You can imagine the pandemonium which followed the entrance of Senor Bird in the house. Screeching. Laughing. Running. Pointing.

And that was just me.

The kids totally flipped out! There's a BIRD flying around in our house!

Well, Jim set to work trying to catch the bird. He tried to get it down from our upper window sills, which only succeeded in driving it upstairs. He finally got close enough to throw a towel over it, and that bird was caught. Just like that. Lickety split.

So he takes the bird downstairs, opens the door. Sets it free.

And the effing thing flies right back into the house.

Enter a string of VERY bad words.

This time, Senor Bird proves to be a little more elusive. He has headed upstairs, but we can't quite locate him. He has gone to ground somewhere in my bedroom we deduce, clued in by the bird crap all over the silk lampshade on my nightstand.

We decide to give up for a short while, sure in the knowledge that the bird can't hide forever. 

We put the kids to bed. They all request closed doors, as they all have slight fears that the bird may peck/crap on them during the night.

I decide to get ready for bed as well, head into our little toilette room when, like an angry god after a sinner, who arises out of the floral arrangement on my toilet tank all set to divebomb my head, but Senor Bird.

We've got him cornered!

There's nowhere he can go! 

So I shut the bathroom door and yell for our resident bird catcher extraordinaire.

He does it again!

He catches the bird!

And this time, he CLOSES the front door before he lets the little sucker go.

Without further ado, I present to you, Senor Bird, and his nemesis, Bird Catcher Man.

Senor Bird, are you ready for your close up?

And yes, this is bird crap.

And So It Begins...

One Thing Leads to Another.

A new flower bed.

That's how things like this get started.

Step 1) Decide on new garden.

Step 2) Order dirt for the abovementioned garden.

Step 3) Dirt is delivered.

ummmmm....so is a toad.

Yes, perched atop this enormous pile of dirt is one little, lonely toad.

Step 4) Five year old boy discovers said toad.

Step 5) It is LOVE. For the boys at least. Not so sure about the toad.

Step 6) Five year old boy makes a pallet on the floor and sleeps beside the toad, because the toad was too far away when boy was in bed.

So, now I have this toad sitting in a piece of tupperware in my kitchen.

Toads eat bugs.

I don't like bugs.

Not a relationship made in heaven.

So, I have talked the little toad lover into letting us make a "Toad House" for the garden.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Five bucks says Jonah tries to talk me into letting him sleep outside with Senor Toad tonight. Wanna take me up on it?

Time for Some Random Snapshots.

  Why? because I'm still sick. And lazy because of it. So no fancy photographs today.

Today, we are going to celebrate the old fashioned, good old snaphot.

Dammit.

Daddy and Georgia at sunset in the backyard. And in case you were wondering what made her look so sticky.....

Here's a clue. And GK wasn't the only one involved.

Ok - here's a few more pulled from the archives...hmmm...what will they be? Oh yeah! Some driveway art!

Ok - now for the favourite family pastime (according to the boys, anyway) - Wrestling!

Hmm....what else can I find? Hey! how about some L-man with a big old zit?

And here's Samuel on his first day of First Grade!

Here are Samuel and his peeps at the bus stop

Getting on the bus for the first day of ALL DAY school....sniff sniff...

Well- that's all for now - hope you enjoyed the fruits of my laziness!

Blown Back By the Eastern Winds...

We are back.

Summer Zephyr 2008 has officially come to a close.

I hope you all missed me!

We had such a wonderful time, that I am unable to even express it in words right now.

And many many thanks to my wonderful sister and brother in law who hosted my wild horde of children for an entire month, as well as to my father who flew up and back just to share the fun of the marathon drive with me. I LOVE you all.

Thank you also, to my family who hosted us on our stops there and back again. I love you too.

It wouldn't be a post without a few pics, so here are a few from the trip. There are many more, and plenty of stories to go with them, but I'll get to it another day.

 

Webkinz.

Webkinz. Small, furry stuffed animals which all of my older chillun are obsessed with.

No matter that for the past 6 years, the only stuffed animal Samuel cared anything about was his Curious George. No matter that I have a whole bin of plush in the basement gathering dust...

The whole kidlet universe is crazy about Webkinz. They play all kinds of games with them, ranging from "Webkinz Hide and Seek", "Webkinz Slide" to "Throw your Webkinz into the Neighbour's Tree".

Hey. At least they're not playing video games.