I must apologize for the bloggy drought going on at MOAWM lately. It’s been insanely busy between stomach flus, a bad cold, hockey, shopping for kid’s clothes and canteen duty!

My mom finally came home from her trip to Europe. There were a few rather unpleasant experiences which tainted her trip a fair bit, so she was quite disappointed with the whole thing. The highlight of her trip (in my opinion) was her stay in Turkey and her spur-of-the-moment impulse shopping experience in a jewelry store. After much negotiation and several cups of tea, my mom splurged on herself (way to go Mom!) and treated herself to a beautiful ruby and diamond ring. It looks something like this, but the ruby is 4 carats! My mom NEVER splurges on herself and she sure deserves it! I hope she wears it often and enjoys it!

Since my last post, we ended up buying a new truck. Not new-new, but used-new-to-us-new. It’s quite lovely, although it’s much bigger than I thought it was. I’m hoping that I might lose some weight parking at the far end of the parking lot because I’m too chicken to try to fit it between two parked cars! I keep having visions of the Smith Falls wedding. We had a nice Thanksgiving with Randy’s parents and then re-did the whole dinner again last Sunday so that my Mom could have a turkey dinner too. Unfortunately, we weren’t all in the most thanksgivingest mood, and the turkey (fresh off the BBQ) flew across the kitchen at one point in time. And who said turkeys can’t fly?

I enjoyed the twin sale on the weekend, particularly getting to spend some quality time with two of my girlfriends. The fact that we got some great deals on clothes for the kids is a tremendous bonus! I’m selling a bunch of my kid’s clothes THIS weekend at a sale in the Glebe. The sale is called “My Kids Funky Closet”, and I’m hoping that it will be a huge success! Go to their website to check it out!

By far, the highlight of my week thus far has been my evening of canteen duty. Who doesn’t love to stand for 4 hours at the canteen, and come home covered in slushie stains and stinking of fried grease? Come on, you know you’re jealous! But speaking of hockey, we’re pretty proud of our Matt – he’s been chosen to play centre for his team, which is fantastic! Now, if we could just teach him to want the puck. I’m hoping that will come soon. First game is this Saturday, with a second game on Sunday. Wish us luck!

Ever had one of those moments where you're ready to see your children to the next random stranger going by? We're currently in "have-to-buy-a-new-vehicle" hell. Our old truck is ready to die, and will take a significant amount of effort to become road-worthy (read: lots of money). So, we either sink a whole lot of cash into a vehicle that's pretty old and who knows what's going to go wrong with it next, or we can get a more reliable, "younger" used truck. Randy is stuck on getting a truck. To be completely honest, I don't really think we need a truck, per se, but hey... who's to argue with a man who wants a truck, right? We're on a budget, too. So finding a decent truck without a ridiculous amount of mileage on it for the right price has proven difficult. We thought we had found one, but upon close inspection by our mechanic were told to stay far, far away from it, unless we were getting it at a ridiculously low price.

Last night, we embarked upon a family adventure that consisted of driving around the used car lots in Ottawa with the children in the back of the van, looking for a truck. how. much. fun. is. that. First of all, the children were hungry, and the cries of "I'm hungry" from the back seat over and OVER AGAIN, PLEASE STOP!!!!! ...ahem... finally ended up with us running to the good old Golden Arches. ick. I was totally flustered with trying to keep the kids quiet in the back seat, with numbers and figures and facts about trucks running through my head, and my husband telling me where to drive, and trying to avoid pylons on the road from ALL OF THE FREAKING CONSTRUCTION IN OTTAWA......breathe, Vanessa.... that I drove right through an intersection on a red light. ugh. Luckily, I didn't cause an accident, nor did I get caught, thank goodness! It really wasn't that bad, I ended up in a left-turn lane that I didn't realize was a left-turn lane until it was too late to get out of the left-turn lane, so just drive on throught he bloody intersection crazy woman driver!

We eventually ended up driving to a dealership just outside of Ottawa, and thank.God. we didn't have to deal with anymore construction. Grace has started this charming effect of using "funny" voices when she's playing. Now, when she's playing at home, with her Ariel and other dolls, and uses different voices and such, it's actually kind of cute! When I'm exhausted and driving down a multi-lane highway, and she keeps repeating the same thing over and over again in a high-pitched-squeaky-nails-on-a-chalkboard voice from the back seat? Not. so. charming.
So discussion ensues like this:

Grace: "Going to see the truck Mummy? Going to see the truck Mummy? Going to see the truck Mummy?" (in squeaky falsetto voice)

Me: "Yes, baby, we're going to see another truck. Please don't use that voice."

Grace: "Going to see the nudder truck Mummy? Anudder truck? Where the nudder truck? (still squeaking..)

Me: "Yes, Gracie. PLEASE don't use that voice. Use a normal voice, like mummy."

Grace: "Okay... I use nudder voice, ok mummy?" (still squeaking)

Me: "Gracie, PLEASE. STOP. NOW" (voice of doom, with evil eye reflecting off the rear-view mirror)

Grace: "Okay, mummy. We go see the truck, now? The truck the truck, the truck, the truck, the truck, the truck" (increasing in decibels and pitch, ever higher, you would think only Satan's hounds could hear her now... but NO!)

Me and Dad: "Grace! Enough! NO MORE SILLY VOICE!" (I think the van was dangerously veering toward the ditch by this time)

Grace: "I like my silly voice, Mummy!" (you got it... still squeaking)

Dad: "Gracie, no more. You're giving me a headache."

Grace "Okay Daddy" (in a regular, adorable voice. Why will she only listen to Dad? Who has changed most of her diapers, cuddled with her when she's sick, endured 9 months of gestational diabetes hell??????)

Me: "Thank you."

Grace: "You're welcome" (squeaking, yet again....)

Thank God we got to the dealership at that moment, otherwise...who knows what might have happened.

WHY am I so tired....? I just can't seem to get ahead of myself with this sleeping thing. I'm going to bed early, and I still wake up in the mornings feeling like something the cat dragged in! I think it might have something to do with the lack of light these days at 6am, but MAN, what I would do to just be able to sleep uninterrupted until oh... let's say.... 9? for a week? Gracie summed it up for me this morning. I went into her room to wake her up to bring her to the sitter's (what a sin). She was buried under her blankie and her various bears, bunnies and friends. When I turned the light on, she burrowed deeper into her nest, and pulled the blankie over her head. I suggested it was time to go to Carrie's house, and she said: "I go soon, Mummy. I sleeping with my bunnies now." What I would give to be sleeping with my bunnies right now.

I apologize to all my loyal readers (ahem) for the dead air over the weekend. Between some kind of stomach bug, hockey sort-outs (oh yes, the drama continues), birthday parties, wedding, sleepover at Grandma & Grandpa’s changing the brakes on the van, it was a little busy.
It all started with a call from Matt’s school Thursday afternoon…so off I go to pick up said sick child, and we head for home to sleep on the couch and watch cartoons…right?
Wrong. Do you think I could spend an afternoon at home without doing laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, sorting through baby clothes for an upcoming consignment sale? No. Had to do it all. And then said child miraculously feels better after only an hour on the couch and insists that he’s STARVING. We then went to yet another night of hockey evaluations and then for a quick bite at a local restaurant. Poor Gracie must have been starting to feel the effects of her brother’s bug, because she promptly expelled the contents of her belly all over the table as soon as she was done eating. How embarrassing is that that??? Poor thing. I brought her straight home, put her to bed and she didn’t pull an exorcist again. Thank. God. I don’t do vomit very well. By this time, I was starting to feel a little green myself, and ended up staying home on Friday with the kidlets. Again, didn’t take the opportunity for a restful day, but spent most of it doing laundry and tidying… a hopeless cause at our house! Matt had a birthday party that he couldn’t possibly miss on Friday night at 5 – who starts a birthday party at 5 on a Friday???? – across town, so off we went and spent a nice evening with Grace, looking for a new truck. She was terribly upset that we left Matt at the birthday party place “No leave Matew dere!” but eventually got over it! We all fell into bed by 9, and were up and at it again the next morning!

Saturday brought a 2-hour hockey session in the morning, during which we ran across the street and bought a new truck. Hopefully we’ll have it by the end of the week! From there, we raced to a bowling alley to drop Matt off at yet another birthday party, for which we were ½ an hour late…sigh… Matt was terribly disappointed that he didn’t make the team he wanted to make. He’s only playing with one other boy that he played with last year. We’ll see how this turns out… We flew home from the birthday party, got dressed for the wedding, and flew back to the birthday party to deliver the little one to Grandma & Grandpa for the night. And then flew to Smiths Falls for the wedding.

I HATE being late. We snuck into the church right behind the Bride. I was tempted to ask her if she’d like us to walk with her… but thought better of it when she turned around, shot me a look and said, “You’re late.” Could I please just shrink into a little speck and not be seen? Please? We let her go down the aisle and snuck in a side door, so that no one would notice. Lovely ceremony, and reception to follow at the church hall right next door! You know all those weddings when you have no idea what to do to kill time between the ceremony and the reception? This family has it wrapped up. Let me tell you about the “drunk bus”. Oh yes, it’s every bit as glamorous as it sounds. Picture an old camper from the early 70’s… watch your step, and don’t get hung up in the shag carpeting covering the inside of the van…. Basically, the way the “drunk bus” works is that the family loads into this thing, and drives around for the time during the ceremony and reception … makes a stop at the liquor store, beer store, swings by the photo location… you know… the usual! We had a police car following us most of the way. When we returned to the church hall, someone had (Oh…the horror!) parked in the RV’s original parking spot. I had gotten out of the bus when the Bride had to use the facilities (yes, the “facilities”) at the back of the camper. I figured a girl needs her privacy, after all. Unfortunately, said Bride forgot to close the blinds at the back of the camper and lo and behold…we had a bridal moon… anyhow. The RV driver was desperate to get back into the original parking spot, and decided to try to fit the RV between two parked cars to get to the premium spot. When he realized he only had a ¼ inch clearance on either side, and his door handle got caught on one car’s wheel well…the logical solution was to get some of the male wedding guests to PICK UP the offending car and move it. I have NEVER seen anything like this in my life. The owner of the other car (a much newer, shinier, SUV-type car) came out of the hall when they gentlemen attempted to lift and move his car. I can’t begin to tell you how not impressed he looked. After all, the RV got back to the premium parking spot, no fights were started and the party continued. Unfortunately, DH ended up feeling very ill after dinner, so we left around 10:30 to head home, where he was up all night feeling very, very ill.
Sunday was a quiet, lazy day, and we spent it changing brakes, doing laundry, running to the grocery store, and making a lovely dinner. Nice Sunday, after all. Now we’re back to work and back to hockey… fun…