It's UBP 2010 Party Time!

The Ultimate Blog Party 2010 has officially started and I'm so excited that you decided to pop by. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and this blog.

I go by the name Cheri; a nickname I had growing up. I started this blog just over 3 years ago because I wanted a place to share our family tales with friends and family, as well as create a keepsake of the journey life had us on...the times we laughed, the times we cried, the times we learned valuable lessons, and the times when God was so good (both recent and past). I wanted to share craft ideas (like this cool Webkinz shirt) and even share a few stories from my childhood too.

Who are the "and Family" part of my blog? For the most part, that would be Hubby and C. Hubby and I have been married for almost 11 years and we have one lively, bold, beautiful 7 year old daughter, who fills our life with many unexpected things, but at the same time brings us so much joy. We are also a homestay family, and have hosted numerous international students in our home. We often joke that we are practicing our parenting skills on other people's teens, so that we don't mess up our own.

This is my first time participating in the party, so I have no idea what to expect, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I'm really excited about the prizes too.

My top 3 picks from the 5 Minutes For Mom prize page are:

• USC13 - A $100 Gift Certificate from Kay Jewellers
• USC8 - A $55 Amazon Gift Card from Kelly's Lucky You
• USC60 - A $200 Gift Certificate from Modern Wall Graphics, the Makers of Wall Slicks

If these are gone, I'd love to win USC57, INTL9, USC23, USC37, USC56, USC53, USC36, USC44, USC43...or anything else because winning is fun.

Blog Party Time

Most of my blogging friends are going to the party this year...so I thought I'd check it out too. "What party?" you ask...it's The Ultimate Blog Party 2010 put on by the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom. Head on over there to check out the prizes and see how you can participate too.

Sunday Afternoon Adventure

Last Sunday, hubby and I drove to a funeral visitation in a city that was an hour and a half away. We left after church, and drove in separate vehicles because we had borrowed my in-laws truck and needed to return it to them. Hubby drove in front...and drove faster than me. I didn't want to go faster than 10ish km over the limit as it was raining and I didn't feel like being on the alert for police. I had a general idea of where we were going, and assumed that hubby would slow down once we neared our exit off the main highway.

So...I was quite shocked when 2 exits before the exit I assumed we were taking, I noticed the truck on the off ramp as I passed by. I tried not to panic as thoughts raced through my head...Where is he going? Does he know a short cut? What should I do? Turn around? Wait for him on the side of the road? What happens if he tries to find me while I'm trying to find him?...Neither of us has a cell phone.

I decided to pull off on the shoulder of the exit ramp I thought we were taking to wait for him. I figured he would come looking for me as he would have seen I missed the exit. After 20 minutes of waiting, I decided to turn around and go look for him, assuming he must be waiting for me back at the other exit.

I made my way back to the other exit (which took a lot of time because all the roads I was travelling on were highways and I had to rely on exits to turn around)...but he was not there either. It was now close to 45 minutes since I had lost him. I figured he must have continued on to our destination (which was about 25 minutes away) and I should just head there too and ask for directions to the funeral home once I got there.

Upon arriving at our destination, I pulled into the first gas station to ask directions. As soon as I got out of my car, a black vehicle pulled along side and the guy insided hollered..."Excuse Me." As I stepped towards him, I noticed the crest on his arm...a police officer. I was quite surprised when he asked me if I was looking for a funeral home...Hubby had phoned the police.

When I got to the funeral home and chatted with hubby...we figured out what had happened. It wasn't his truck that had got off the highway early...but an identical truck. He was still in front of me the whole time. He had pulled off the highway just before our destination to wait for me and assumed that I had had to make an emergency washroom stop for C. But after too much time had elapsed, he became concerned that I had had car problems. He had gone back a bit to look for me, but when he didn't find me, had continued on to the funeral home. Here, he phoned the police to find out if they had come across my vehicle on the side of the road. They must have put a notice out for officers to look out for my car.

And what did C think of the whole ordeal? When I got back into the car at the gas station she said...

"That was nice of daddy. That just proves that he really cares for you."

"Why?"

"Because he sent the police to find you."

Under Construction

After 3 years of blogging, I've decided to jump on the blog redesign bandwagon. Some of my friends have been modifying their layouts...making some cool changes...and I want to do that too. I used to do web development at work, and I loved it. I'm not sure why I waited so long to give my blog a make-over.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be tryng some different looks out on my blog to see which one fits/suits me. I'm already on my second look. I first tried a green-themed background. It was nice and simple and matched my profile pic, but I soon realized it was too green and matching other colours to it was difficult.

So let me know what you think as you see the changes evolve.

Happy Birthday / Blogiversary To Me

Today is my 37th birthday, and 3rd blogiversary. Yikes! I find it a little scary that I'm creeping closer and closer to 40. One thing I have noticed over the past year is that I have started to forget my age. I used to think it really strange when other people would do this...but now I realize why...once you reach a certain age...it becomes just a number and mentally you feel younger even though physically you may not be.

Yesterday, C and hubby went shopping. The minute she came in the door she shouted with excitement..."I got your birthday present! Do you want to open it now? Please!". Waiting another day would have been torture for her. Inside the bag was a small furry toy kitten with a button that made it purr. It was the perfect gift from her.

Today she told me on the way home from church..."Mommy, I took your advice when I picked out your present. I picked out something I would like." She is right. I have told her this, but it was in regards to picking out birthday presents for her friends.

Hubby told me that she spent all her money in her purse to buy it for me...and did not complain once. Parting with money is a big thing for her...and knowing that she did it so willingly made the gift even more special to me.

Fabric Painting

Over the last few weeks, C and I have been working on some fabric painting projects. The most recent being a Webkinz T-shirt which turned out really well and wasn't that difficult to do.

C picked out the Webkinz she wanted to paint from a website I found that had cartoon drawings of all the Webkinz. I copied the image to Paint, blew it up, and printed it out in Black and White. I then outlined the print in black marker so that I could easily see it through the shirt to trace it in pencil. C was then able to go over the pencil outline using fabric paint. Once it dried, the painted outline provided a nice border to help keep the paint inside the lines when we painted the inside.

I was really impressed with how well it turned out, as well as how well C did. We have not fabric painted for almost a year and she has improved so much since then. She did a good job at suggesting colours/ideas too...the neon pink nose and hearts were her idea, and blended so well with the neon green shirt. I have learned that the neon and glow-in-the-dark colours are her favourite paints to work with and have suggested that we paint a colourful Webkinz fish on her next shirt...instead of neon orange whiskers on the cat.

Valentine Treats

This year for Valentines, I thought it would be fun for C and I to make chocolate suckers for C's class. They turned out really cute, and C really enjoyed making them. I used a stove top steamer egg poacher to melt the coloured chocolate, which made it really easy to keep it melted. Originally all the suckers were going to be heart shaped, but when I realized how long it was going to take to make 21 suckers using a single mold that made 4 suckers at a time, I decided to use the flower mold as well so that while one mold was setting in the freezer, C could be working on the next batch. We had one extra sucker left over at the end, which C decided to sneak into her daddy's lunch on Friday with a Valentine.

The Tag Issue

A couple of months ago, C started complaining about her wardrobe...something she's never done before. She complained about pants being too loose (she's a lean kid), sweat shirts being too heavy and...tags being scratchy. The tag issue bugged me the most. It seemed absolutely ridiculous to me that clothing she had worn recently, was now a problem because there was a tag.

At first, I told her I wasn't cutting tags out. She would just have to get used to them. After all, lots of people get used to tags and she couldn't cut tags out of her clothing for the rest of her life. For some reason, she didn't understand my reasoning and getting her dressed in the morning often resulted in lots of conflict.

I asked a few friends about their experience with tags and was told that for some kids, it's a real thing...tags do irritate them. So I relaxed...a little, and said I would cut out the scratchy, stiff ones. Once she knew I was cutting tags out, she'd brought me any piece of clothing with a tag...regardless of whether it was scratchy or not. I still wasn't ready to cut tags out of all her clothing, so mornings still contained lots of conflict.

On one such morning a few weeks ago, I was really irritated about the tag issue (and the whining), and concerned about the amount of conflict that was occurring between C and I. As I went to get ready for work, I heard a little voice say to me..."Are you going to build a wall between you and your daughter over tags?" I paused...All of a sudden, the whole situation seem silly and I realized that I was the one that needed to change. It was wrong for me to jeopardize my relationship with C over tags.

So I apologized to C, and I have now become a parent that cuts tags out of their kids clothing. I still have a hard time believing tags bother her that much, but it's not a battle I need to win.

Another Look at 2009

Here it is already halfway through January and I'm just getting around to posting this now. Here are a few stories and pictures from 2009 that I never got around to blogging about.

C turned 7 this year. For her birthday, we made a Dive-On-In cake. In the months leading up to her birthday, C had poured over the Kraft website and watched lots of the cooking videos and looked at all the cakes to decide which cake she wanted. The Dive-On-In cake was her favourite. It was fun to decorate and yummy too.

I noticed early in the summer that wasps were getting into the brick wall on the front door side of the garage. There wasn't that many at first, but the activity gradually increased to the point that we knew we had a nest somewhere in the wall, or up in the soffits. Hubby called around for advice and was told that if there was only one entrance, we could block it and starve the wasps. That seemed easy enough, so one night after the wasp activity settled down, we blocked the entrance and figured the problem was solved.

The next day, there were a bunch of angry wasps flying around and pecking up and down the brick wall as they searched for an alternate entrance...we could no longer use our front door for fear of being stung. The wasps found what they were looking for and I watched in horror as I saw them getting in through many places under the soffits and front porch......we knew it was time for an exterminator. The exterminator told us that we should never block an entrance because they are determined critters and will find alternate entrances...even into your own home. Also it's much easier to deal with the problem when there is only one entrance. He laid the poison down and the wasp activity settled down very quickly. After many weeks of wasp activity by the front door, I was in awe of the silence that now greeted us when we opened the front door.

In the summer, hubby and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We had planned on taking a trip to Europe, but decided to put it off for another year. Instead we spent time at my in-laws trailer, as well as taking some day trips to a couple of Ontario attractions...Marineland and the Toronto zoo...both highlights of the summer for C as she loves animals and rides.

She wanted to go on all the rides at Marineland... starting with the Sky Screamer...the scariest ride in the entire park. I said we'd have to work our way up to that one. She and I rode most of the rides in the park, but never made it on the Sky Screamer as she changed her mind after riding a real roller coaster for the first time.

At the Toronto Zoo, C could barely contain her excitement about seeing so many different animals that she starting screaming, pointing and jumping up and down when we first arrived and she saw wild geese in the parking lot. She wanted to see every animal in the zoo, so we walked the entire 10+ km trail through the park in one day. However, C was really disappointed that she didn't get to see the lion very well. He spent the whole time we were in that section sleeping with his back to us.

In the fall, I started to teach C piano. She had been asking me for a while to teach her and I thought now would be a good time to start. She was keen and enthusiastic at first, but that soon wained as she realized that it was going to be work if she wanted to play like mommy. I'm trying to take it at her pace and use a little bribery, or rather rewards, too. I have purchased some special dollar store items that she can pick from once she obtains enough lesson points. Hopefully one day soon I'll be able to post a little video of her playing.

C's reading ability has skyrocketed over the last couple of months. She loves to read and will read multiple early chapter books (around 75 pages) in one day. We love it...C is a talker so the silence of reading is music to our ears.

We hosted another Irish homestay this year. And like usual, it didn't take long before C became very attached to her and we were soon joking that our Irish girl had a fan club. We didn't realize how attached C was to her until she left for home and we were left with a sobbing child who was inconsolable. It made me wonder if we should be putting C through this all the time. The morning she was to leave for Ireland, C wrote her the cutest letter and pushed it under her door with chocolate. It read...I miss you a lot. I hop you can come to canada again. you give me the best presits. rit to me soon ok. Frum your #1 fan. The best presits being a matching hat, mitts and scarf set in leopard print...it was the perfect gift for C as she loves leopard print.

My sister-in-law works for an organization that was looking for kid voices for their Christmas fundraising radio ads. She asked us if C would be interested in recording her voice for these ads. It was a neat experience for C, who did really well...so well that they want her to come back next year.

Two years ago, my sister and I started a new Christmas tradition for my dad...we fill a stocking for him and leave it out with the kids stockings so that it looks like Santa brought grandpa presents too. This year, my dad wanted to tease the grand kids so he went out and purchased the largest stocking he could find. When he showed his large stocking to the kids and told them that he was going to leave it out for Santa, C's responded with...That doesn't mean you are going to get more stuff.

Blessings

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

I've been a little under the weather over the last few weeks...feeling bummed at times that the recovery process has been a little slow...especially during the time of year when there is so much to do. But as a friend reminded me, I need to remember God's blessings.

I am blessed with an amazing husband who has had to do so much more over the last few weeks and has never complained once.

I am blessed with an amazing church family which has provided meals and even cleared snow too.

I am blessed with an amazing Heavenly Father that knows what his daughter needs....

Last Friday I was feeling really cooped up and wanted to get out for a walk. With the nasty weather, snow and being unsteady on my feet, I thought a walk at the mall would be perfect...but had no one to take me. As I humoured options of who could take me and whom I would feel comfortable taking their arm for support, I thought..."I want my dad". I knew my dad would be the perfect person to walk me around the mall...but I also knew that it wouldn't happen as he lives 45 minutes away and would probably be working. I decided I would just have to get hubby to take me after he came home from work.

But God had another idea.

At 3 pm, the door bell rang and when I saw whose face was pressed against the window, tears welled up in my eyes. I flung the door open and said to my dad as I gave him a hug..."Oh dad, I'm so glad you're here. I wanted you to come." I had not called him to come...but my Heavenly Father knew I needed my dad and had him come. Isn't that cool!