"There ain't no party like my Nana's tea party. Hey! Ho!"

Yesterday the girls went to their Nana's house for the night. Nana lives in a relatively new home with a nicely finished walk-out basement/MIL apartment. When we went to pick them up today, Nana said there had been some issues with where they would sleep at night. Hanna wouldn't sleep downstairs and Grace wouldn't sleep there alone. I forgot to mention there are two new twin beds in one of the bedrooms downstairs just for visits like this. Hanna ended up on the couch and Grace on a futon in an upstairs bedroom. As we were pulling out of Nana's house, I was already giving the girls a stern talking to about causing Nana unnecessary stress. I might have used the words "spoiled brats". My brother called and interrupted my rant. I told him that I was in the process of yelling at my kids for being mean to their Nana. We agreed that there were probably many times our mom was embarrassed by how we treated our Gram when we slept over. I then started to think about sleeping over at Gram's house. There was a lovely upstairs pink bedroom, a lumpy pull-out couch or the house of horrors that was her basement. Here my kids were, whining about a completely finished, heated basement with new beds while I grew up with a Grandma who had a basement that most likely had a gremlin living under the stairs. Only those of us who ever had to sleep in Gram's basement know the true terror of it. It was a dark, unheated (this is Canada folks!), cemented dungeon that featured a dry-walled "shower" closet that we all knew the boys peed in instead of walking upstairs to the bathroom. I remember many a time Gram asking me to grab something out of the cold storage room down there and I always ran back upstairs like Lucifer himself was chasing me. So yeah, I told the girls they would get no sympathy from me about their Nana's basement because I've endured the most terrifying basement of all. That shut them up.

"Grandma? Is that you?"


School picture time again! I think the girls both had successful photos and mine was just "meh". Since I donate my package to Grace, I only get an ID badge with my photo on it.

I wish the photographer would have helped with the bangs in the face but mostly I'm happy it's combed. I have her substitute teacher to thank for that. She stopped me in the hall after school and said she made sure Grace looked nice as a personal favour to me.


Grace has been indulging my hairstyle urges by letting me do her hair most mornings. I love it because it keeps her natural ragamuffiness to a minimum. Hanna will let me help her sometimes but she is a bit more reluctant. I've been really liking the website thebeautydepartment for hair tutorials. I've even subscribed to their youtube page. Usually I work with braids but here are a couple I did without french/fishtail braiding.



This entry was pretty kid-centric. I've been doing my thing. You know, going to work, hanging with the family, going to the gym, riding my bike and thinking of products I'd like to purchase. I'm super exciting! I've been spending time on Pinterest mostly for school ideas. I have finally found a place where people who are more creative than me will share their talents. My classroom never looked better. I'm still trying to eat according the the Live The Life plan and am probably successful 80% of the time. Little sugar, a lot of protein and I lift a lot of weights. I lost weight and inches, blah blah. No one really wants to hear about someone's crazy diet/exercise regimen. I do feel better so I've decided to continue with it. I'd like to slowly switch to gluten free all organic but that's easier said than done ('cause I'm LAAAAAZY). I'm going to stop wearing deodorant so you might want to stay clear of me in the summer. Hopefully by then I find a natural deodorant I like. Yep, I'm becoming that person.

I've been thinking lately about qualities I have that people might find annoying. Ya, I think about these kind of things when I'm feeling down on myself. At work, when I get stressed or feel like things aren't going according to plan, I get a little irritable. So I apologize to my co-workers who read this. I'm going to work on it. I hope that my otherwise overly sunny disposition will make up for my infrequent bitchiness. Luvs ya!