Hair Cut Time

I guess it's true what they say, "If you want something done right, do it yourself". I thought for the babies' first haircuts we would take them somewhere to get it done - a nice outing and something special for the first time. Well, it didn't turn out quite the way I had planned.

Ladies, you know that sick, sinking feeling in your stomach when you get your hair cut and the hairdresser takes way too much off? That's how I felt after seeing how much the hairdressers took off Casey and Mitchell. I told the them that I didn't want much taken off at all - just a tiny bit to clean it up and take off some of the fuzzy stuff. I still wanted it to be longer and shaggy. Maybe that wasn't specific enough because they took off a lot more than I wanted.

Mitchell was the first one into the chair. He was such a good boy, he sat on the quad so nice and quietly the whole time and did everything the hairdresser asked him to.



Maggie reluctantly got into the pink jeep but then once the girl tried to put the cape on her, she wanted out of there. She just snipped a little bit off the back of Maggie's hair, not too much. After she was done she got onto the quad that Mitchell had been on and then didn't want to get off.



Casey didn't want to sit in the chair by himself so I sat with him and then he was okay. He ended up getting the most taken off and granted he probably needed it the most, but it was definitely more than I wanted.


A week later I've gotten over it. They look so much older now with their hair cut, but are still as cute as ever. And I learned my lesson...do it myself next time.

We are almost all packed up to take off on our week long camping trip tomorrow. Daniel and I are really excited not just for a holiday but to take out first trip together as a family. We've got a lot of fun things planned to do with the babies so as long as the weather cooperates for us, everything should be great.

Casey's Big Day

Last Thursday Casey had surgery to fix a hydrocele (an accumulation of fluid around one of the testicles) that he's had for about 6 months. I was unsure how things would go because he gets pretty upset whenever we see a nurse or doctor and they don't take a fair bit of time to let Casey warm up to them. We got to the hospital at 7:45 and he was really good for the almost 2 hours that we were just hanging out and waiting. We went down to the holding area and he was still fine, he willingly got into the wagon that they were going to take him away in. Then the surgeon came out and wanted to mark where the incision would be in his diaper area and that's when it all fell apart. The doctor did his thing and then right away the nurse took him from us to go into the operating room, meanwhile Casey was screaming at the top of his lungs and trying to wriggle out of her arms (good thing she was a big, strong nurse!). I of course got upset after that just from seeing him so upset and knowing that he was in there alone.

The surgeon came out to talk to us about an hour later and told us everything went well, no problems. Once he woke up and I went to see him in the recovery room the nurse told me that he was "quite the handful" until they put him under. I can just imagine what it was like in that operating room. He did really well coming out of the anesthetic (although he was dead set on getting the IV out of his hand) and we got to go home less than 2 hours later. He was kind of groggy the rest of the day but didn't seem to be in any pain. He was running around like usual.
I have noticed something with Casey since the surgery. If he thinks he is going to be left alone he starts to panic, cries hysterically and is terrified. It's happened a few times this week when we've been downstairs and Maggie and Mitchell have already gone upstairs. I start to walk up the stairs like I always do and he starts screaming. He won't walk on his own, just stands there and cries until I pick him up. I've also noticed the same sort of thing when I bring him in from the van and from a walk. I usually bring him in first and then go back out and bring Maggie and Mitchell in together. He used to just hang out and look out the window of the door until I get back a minute later, but this week he's been doing the crying hysterically thing. When I go down to pick him up he is truly scared and wraps his around my neck and won't let go. He's never done this before so the only thing that I can think of is that he remembered being taken away from us in the hospital and is scared now of being left. I'm not sure, but it seems logical to me. Poor little man!

On a totally different topic - this is the reason we keep our bathroom doors closed.
The plumber had been fixing the downstairs toilet a few days ago and apparently I forgot to go down and make sure the door was closed. Mitchell and Maggie had almost the whole toilet paper roll torn up into tiny pieces by the time Daniel found them. They were having so much fun we let Casey join in and then took a bunch of pictures before we cleaned up.

Usually the suggestion of a bath can get them away from anything. As you can see in this video shredding up toilet paper was more appealing that having a bath.

3 Baseball Fans

Daniel's baseball team, the Muenster Red Sox, hosted the Western Canadian Baseball Championships 2 weekends ago. That gave us 4 days to realize that our munchkins could definitely be ball park kids....especially if there is lots of rain and puddles. The guys played pretty well but unfortunately didn't make it into the final.

Our front row seats right behind home plate.


The kids had so much fun at the ball diamond. Their buckets and shovels kept them entertained for quite a while and their cousin Julia joined in with them too.



They sweet talked Grandpa into moving the bench over for them in between games.


The last day we were there they discovered the swings so we hung out there for a while. We squished Mitchell and Maggie into a baby swing - that didn't last too long.

There were a lot of puddles around and at first they did pretty good at staying out of them. Then as their confidence grew they would stick just the tip of their shoe in the water, then half their foot and soon they were standing in the puddles with water above their shoes.



With all of the time outside and running around they slept really well but we did realize that we have 2 escape artists. One morning when I went into the bedroom to get everyone up Maggie was sitting on the floor outside of her tent. Then the next afternoon at nap time I heard some banging around in the bedroom. Shortly after that Mitchell opened the bedroom door and stood there staring at me for a few seconds. He must have realized he was busted because as I started walking towards him, he quickly shut the door. Both he and Maggie were out of their tents. It's funny because I took the zipper piece off the inside of tent because I knew they would open it - obviously that didn't work very well. Luckily though, there was no more escaping the rest of the weekend.

This was the best picture I got of Daniel and his 3 future ball players.

We went to my uncle's farm Saturday morning. The kids had fun but of course there was a fight over who got to ride on the lawn mower and no one was happy with how long their turn lasted.

Thanks so much to both grandmas and grandpas for helping keep track of everyone. It was a really fun, but tiring weekend.

I just had to share these last 2 pictures of Mitchell - what a handsome dude!

Very Unwelcome Guests

I debated whether or not to write about this because everytime I think about it I get the shivers and grossed out. But I thought that maybe what we've found out can prevent someone else from having the same problem or to the same extent as we did.

We have gross, disgusting, blood sucking bed bugs. We discovered them almost a month ago, but realize now that we've had them for much longer. Back in February Daniel started getting red spots all over his body. Soon after that he got different spots which was the start of shingles so we just kind of thought that the original spots had something to do with the shingles. Then about four weeks ago I started noticing bites either first thing in the morning or welts that would appear throughout the day. I started looking up bed bugs on the internet and started to see more signs. We tore back the sheets and found two bugs in our bed that day. The next day we found two more that I took into an exterminator company and they confirmed that were bed bugs. I was so mortified and just about crawling out of my skin!

They asked if either one of us had travelled recently where we stayed in a hotel. Looking back at our calendar, Daniel had been in Vancouver for meetings (and stayed at a fancy hotel) at the end of January which makes sense why he started noticing the bites in February. They told me that not all people react the same way or even at all to the bites which explains why Daniel has had spots since February but I only started getting them recently.

When the guys came in to spray for the bugs they found them in our bed (mattress and box spring), headboard and bedside tables. They checked the babies' cribs and the room we've been sleeping in downstairs and thankfully didn't find any. We had to take everything out of our bedroom and closet and put it into garbage bags sealed with a twist tie. All of that stuff has to be put in the dryer and run on the hottest setting, then put back into clean garbage bags. So we have been living out of garbage bags and the laundry room for almost the past month. I've reached my breaking point a number of times but I also know that it could be so much worse! If the bugs were in the kids room or throughout the house we would have had to put everything fabric into bags, into the dryer and then back into bags. So thankfully I've only had to deal with all of the things from our room, not the whole house.

The guys came back a week after the first treatment to spray a second time which was supposed to get rid of any that were missed the first time or that would have hatched since the first spray. We found a couple more bugs that night but the company said they should be gone in 24 hours. Well, a few nights ago I had started moving some of our clothes back into the closet, vacuumed and started putting things back in place and I found more live bugs! I was fuming!!

So, this morning the company came back to spray for the 3rd time and will be back again next Friday again. Ughh! I have spent so much time and we've spent over $1,000 on these "%$@!#?%$" bugs!

So onto to whole reason I posted this - some suggestions on what you can do when you're travelling to reduce the chance if bringing bed bugs home with you:
- Look on the back of the headboard, in the folds of the mattress and around the corners of the boxspring either for bugs or for black spots.
- Pull back the sheets and look for black or blood colored spots.
- Do not put your suitcase on the bed or on the floor near the bed. Instead put it on the luggage rack if there is one or on a table, bathroom countertop, tub, etc. Just somewhere not near the bed and preferably off the floor.
- When you return home everything from your suitcase (whether it is was worn or not) should either be put straight into the laundry and dried on the hot setting or put into a garbage bag with a twist tie until you get to it. Change into clean clothes from your closet and put the clothes you were wearing into the laundry.
- If you are concerned about your luggage you could spray it with Raid or other spray for bugs.

If it was me and I hadn't gone through what we have in the past month, maybe I wouldn't do everything that I listed above. But after our experience I am going to be even more of a germ-a-phobe than I was and basically hose Daniel down before he comes back in the door after being away. Overboard? Maybe. But do I want to go through this again? Not a chance - it's been terrible!

On a happier note, here are a few pictures of Casey, Mitchell & Maggie.

Some of Mitchell's "cheeeese" faces when he looks at the camera.


This is Maggie's newest trick to get things on the counter that should be out of her reach. Casey started doing it first but Maggie does it most often. Look at the smug look on her face, funny girl!

Maggie's beautiful eyes.

The perfect curl around Casey's eye.


A very rare photo op these days...everyone was actually sitting on the chair with me and looking at the camera. It must have been the mellow bedtime mood.

I have to cherish these moments when I get them because they don't happen often anymore.

They're Lucky They're So Damn Cute!

That's about all I have to say after the day we've had so far. Although the same could be said for many days these past few months.


This must be a test to get me ready for when we officially enter the terrible 2's.

First Semi-Camping Trip

After a few cancelled camping trips we finally got to use our trailer two weekends ago. We had a nice weekend get together on my mom's side of the family with my aunts, uncles and some cousins. It wasn't full out camping because we were in my aunt and uncles's farm yard but it gave us a good chance to see how our munchkins would do in the trailer. And they did really well! The first morning they were up bright and early at 5:45am, which was obviously earlier than we would have liked, but they just hung out in their pea pod tents chatting with each other. They played hard that day and then slept good at night until 6:45am Sunday morning. The pea pods work perfectly in the trailer - we put 2 up on the queen bed and 1 on the double bed.

There were lots of things to keep the kids busy, they had a lot of fun the whole weekend. Casey had an absolute blast playing in the sprinklers. He was hilarious - he would shriek and giggle everytime he got sprayed or ran through the sprinklers! He would even go right up to it and just stick his face in it. Mitchell went in the sprinklers near the end, but Maggie didn't want to have anything to do with them. Casey is definitely our water lover.




I got 3 little water guns at the Dollar store which they were squirting themselves with and everyone else in no time.

Mitchell had so much fun with his water gun! He thought it was hilarious when he would squirt himself.




Grandma was showing Maggie how to use her's.


Casey needed a drink.

There was a swing set and sand box area that we spent a lot of time in. Maggie loved the swings and definitely laid claim to them. She was so cute, she would sit there swinging saying, "swing, swing, wee, wee" over and over.


We got to use the 3 little camping chairs that we bought for the kids. They actually did pretty good sitting in them to eat, not too much food ended up on the ground.


Thanks to all aunties, uncles, cousins, grandpa and grandma who helped us keep tabs on everyone. It was a fun weekend and a good chance for us to try out this camping thing with our 3 almost 2 year olds. In 2 weeks we are going camping again, but this time on a week long road trip. We are driving out Drumheller and Calgary for a few days and then we'll go on to BC where my parents have a time share. We've never driven longer than a few hours with the kids so it could be interesting, especially if we're pulling a trailer and driving slower. I guess we'll just plan for lots of stops and I'll have goody bags full of toys and snacks.

Oh man, I can't believe that our "babies" will be 2 in less than 3 weeks!!! That just seems so unbelievable!