may is a great month!

Lots going on in May lots of birthdays, Mothers day, Amber's grad, I can't believe she's going to be 19 soon... It seems like it was just the other day I came up to GP to visit my boyfriend's family and me this tiny 11 year old who likes to boogie to the hamster dance! This upcoming friday the whole Shaw family is going to be up for Amber's grad we are throwing a surprise shower for my husband Dale's older sister Tawnia who is expecting her 4th boy in a month you ask why is she having a baby shower? well they tried for a looong time for the 4th and then gave all the baby stuff away thinking they were done having kids. Murphy's law! so we are so excited for her! Saturday dale gets to be Amber's escort to grad. I will definately post photos.
I think we are going to buy rock band for Dale's birthday. We got to go over to the Palmer's house in Edmonton friends of my sis Marilyn and Jeff. WE LOVED iT! we didn't want to stop. I got to sing, most of the night. I got 99% I just felt like a star. Dale Rocked on the drums.I almost lost my voice. It was awesome. we got right into it with costumes and everything but of course we didn't have a camera...I'll be sure to remember the camera for all of the events coming up.
and what's a post without a few photos???

Jonah is 4

Feels like I just did a post for Jonah's 3rd Birthday party.
He really wanted to go bowling. Preschoolers bowling is a tad chaotic. They just don't like waiting. We ended up just making them all just line up and slide their balls down the pipe cheater thing. We jammed up the ball return 3 times because the balls were going down way too quickly.
I wish I got better pictures but between chasing geneva, and helping the "bowlers and making sure Aubree was still alive in her car seat this is pretty much all I was able to capture.
Now presents with preschoolers is another funny thing. They come to the child with their present and hold it 2 inches from their face and say Jonah open mine first! and sometimes if he doesn't open it fast enough they "help" and just open it for him .... then Jonah or the other kid wants you to take it out of the packaging NOW...while the other children are shoving their presents at you to open it now! the whole time I'm trying to get Jonah to ackey arrive to the child and says "here Jonah it's a present for you it's a transformer, but don't tell"
Love it
The Cake
first off, thanks to Maurita for the brilliant idea...
Well the the day of his actual birthday is when I decided to attempt making him an optimus prime cake. I had been dreading it all day and actually talked myself out of it then I thought "no, I could still pull this off" so I Phoned dale and asked him to pick up the food coloring. And after dinner, in a group effort(okay the kids didn't really help, they just ate the icing and got in the way) Dale and I constructed PRIME by the time we were done it was like 9:30 and the kids had to go to bed. Instead we took a picture of it and had it for lunch the next day on April 1st. IT was so fun making it. Next time I will plan a little better than starting it at 7pm the day of the event

I got tagged! I've always wanted to be tagged!

My cuz Lindsay tagged me it's craszy how many questions we have the same...It's like we are related or something.

1.. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My middle name is Louise after my mama.
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? yesterday at a fireside put on by a couple in our ward. He has ALS ( also known as LOU Gerigs disease) Ithe fireside talked all about their Jouney. they are an amazing couple! very inspiring!
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? nope. I'm a leftie...looks like chickenscratch
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LUNCH MEAT? chicken fajita
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? If you read this it's obvious 3 cuties
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? heck yeah
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? heck yeah
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yep
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Sure.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CEREAL? honey nut cheerios or the occasional Golden Grahams
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? never
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Physically? no. Emotionally? no Spiritually? Yes, I have my moments
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM? anything breyers. Really diggin the Vanilla with white chocolate pieces in it
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their skin. Mostly because I'm jealous of them because I still have a teenagers skin.
15. RED OR PINK? Red
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? While we are on the subject my skin. But I am also a huge procrastinator.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? having a clean house and time.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Of course
19. WHAT COLOUR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Jeans and black socks w/ red and grey polkadots on them.
20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? superstore brand Nacho chips the best.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? bugs life
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE? Green
23. FAVOURITE SMELLS? after Dale takes a shower and puts on cologne and aftershave he smells great
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? dale
25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes!
26. FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH? none rather be playing
27. HAIR COLOUR? recently a brunette! first time I've done that. kinda like it!
28. EYE COLOUR? Blue
29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No I should though
30. FAVOURITE FOOD? love all sorts I made a great roast beef dinner yesterday even with yorkshire pudding deeelish!
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings of course.
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? I fell asleep in the last Die Hard movie have a hard time staying awake lately with the baby getting up every 2 hours in the night
33. WHAT COLOUR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? cream
34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer for sure. I'm waiting for it right now.
35. HUGS OR KISSES? hugs from everyone! kisses from Dale!!!
36. FAVOURITE DESSERT? I made magic bars the othr dsy recipe on the eagle brand website. evil. I love nanaimo bars
37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Everyone I hope!
38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I'll be optimistic and say everyone will respond.
39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? none, just the BOM
40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? haven't been using it it is too slippery on the desk Dale made
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? nothing no TV weird.... that is rare.
42. FAVOURITE MUSIC? I am hoping to get an Itunes gift certificate for christmas so I can download some tunes. I used to listen to a lot of punk rock. now I am more mellow stuff Ben Harper, Jack Johnson,Ben Lee to name a few...
43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles,huge beatles fan! rolling stones are to crusty and immoral, bad combo
44. WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Ottowa or Mexico which is furthest.? probably Mexico
45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? people say I can sing. I like to think I'm a pretty good scrapbooker. I'm pretty artsy I guess It's my right brainededness from being left handed.
46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? St. Albert

got the basement done!

I'll post pics as soon as the Easter hullaballoo is over my sister's Marilyn's coming up today! good times! oh and I've been sooo into the fly lady lately... check it out! I think it's my answer! check it out! www.flylady.net/

day 6

So maybe I started Operation Organization. on the wrong week. Our Renters Move into our other house on March 15th. Maybe I should fill in the small crowd of people who read this. We rented out our old house to someone I thought was mature and responsible. but last month she went AWOL. left the place pretty trashed. we didn't know until about the middle of the month, even though she had left the second of Februrary. Luckily we went on a little vacation the beginning of Feb. so he took out the his vacation pay so it covered both mortgages. so we were fine when her stop payment cheque came back to us in the mail. I am a little embarrassed to say that we didn't even notice. I should have kept better track of that. Anyhow. Dale and I (mostly Dale) have been spending any or all of our free time Paining, and cleaning and hauling out all of the junk she has left behind. After some prayers and faith (they were needed because it has been sowing down here) we found some hopefully good renters. references have been checked, but who knows.
So needless to say I have not been focusing on my little plan to have my house in better order. and the toy room was a bad place to start and see some real success, because every time I have gone down to organize the toy bins the kids are right behind me dumping the bins out and playing with them, can you blame em?? I did buy a frame for a really cute poster I bought so I will take some after shots it just might not happen in the timeline that I had hoped for... Rarely anything does in my world.
Wow can I blab!
on a different note I got to go over to a friend in the ward's house to record a song for the enrichment this Tuesday. It's a song off the Curious George soundtrack called "with my own two hands" I am putting together a slide show with the sisters in ward in it . I hope it turns out. it's late. sleep time is precious.
Over and out.

Day 1 of Operation Organization

I've had enough!
My house is in a rough state. We've been so busy lately with the rental property and all I just have been using this house as a pit stop. I want it to be more organized.
I don't want anything to be on top of our dressers unless it's supposed to be.
I want stuff in my house to have a home. I want my scrapbook room to be more welcoming to scrapbook in rather than just a dumping zone. I want just one or two bins of toys out at a time- not ALL of them.
The books go back in the shelf after we are done reading them.
Heck! maybe we will make our beds everyday!
bills will get filed and payed right away when they come in the mail.
Videos and DVDs will go back in the basket when we are done watching them.
CD will not be left out of their cases.
Laundry will go in their laundry baskets at the end of the day. Not all over bedrooms and our living room or wherever my kids strip.
There will be a place for the too big and too small kids clothes and they will go directly in there right when I think of it..

Mind you I am good at some of these things some of the time. Just never all of them all of the time. They say that your surroundings reflect how you feel inside and that is so true. I'm feeling pretty chaotic lately with three kids, and just life in general. I'm done procrastinating. I need more order in my house and in my life. My house just doesn't have a lot of square footage so I can't afford the chaos.
the whole reason I'm recording this online is to be accountable to a source. I have to record my progress everyday. Have goals of the week and such. so here goes...
This week I am working on toys.
All the toys have to go back in their respective bins and in the closet downstairs. I had this cool idea that I actually will carry out -of printing off pictures of the toys on the outside of the bin so Jonah and Geneva actually know what is inside. The toy room is in the basement. a real cave looking place. but I have had some art and stuff I was going to put up to make it look more welcoming. I think I will actually do it.
So that's this week!
I'm just putting toys away.
Hopefully journaling about this every night will help me stay motivated , but if all goes well I am going to have a well oiled machine of a house by April 5!!!!
these pictures are embarrassing I know but i knwo that i can get it to look better in one week. Who knows??? maybe I'll lose some weight in the process!
she's got a soother in her mouth I know... don't go there

Respect.

my house is in a state.
Today I'm using an "oprahism" .
I'm going to clean up and take care of the stuff I have because I respect the things that money can buy.
Whatever mindset it take to tidy-up hey???

for all of those who read this...

I know not many read this but every now and then I like to post my thoughts. Well I had my third baby, Aubree May Darling Shaw. she is a darling and by far the best newborn I've had, not that I don't love them all she's just such a a contented baby. Dale and I have said If we knew they would all be this good we would have 2 more (Dale says 4 more, but not bloody likely). Problem is, you have no guarantee what they are going to be like. I was reading my cousin Rhonda'a blog and she had this questionaore which I found interesting so here goes:


Motherhood Questions


Typical time of wake-up:

between 8 and 9, that's not counting all of the feeding times with Aubree during the night which is usually twice, sometimes 3:00AM , then 5:45AM. I'm trying to get rid of those.



How long you have been a momma:

3 years and 23 months

How many times have you been a new mom:

3 times

How old were you when you became a mom (is this to personal?):

23, almost 24

Favorite Kids show:

mine or them?
Mine is Sesame Street all the way
Geneva's is Super Why
Jonah's is Transformers the old ones that he watches with Dad on youtube
Aubree's is anything with lights, so Ellen, or the news, or anything really.

Least Favorite Kids show:

Raggs

Favorite chore:

sweeping and mopping. Not to say that I do it as often as I should, organizing can be fun once I get into it, but really honestly favorite chore? isnt' that and oxymoron???


Least favorite chore:

cleaning up kid's #2 accidents in their pants.

Meal you cook most often:

Spaghetti, Ling Lings, meatloaf lately, roasts on sunday. hard question because I like to switch it up a lot.

Kids favorite meal:

macaroni and cheese, chicken noodle soup, peanut butter and jam, McDonalds Happy Meals

5 things that make you smile when you are being a mom:

1. the cute thing as Jonah and Geneva say, like "you are the best mom I ever had" or geneva's Latest" What the heck?" ( I wonder where she learned that?)
2. When Jonah gets dressed and put his jeans on backwards, and when you call him on it he said he meant to do that
3. Aubree smiles so easily even if you just talk to her , even when she's crying you camn calm her down so easily with just a little attention.
4. Kids singing Geneva sing " we will, we will, rockem"(rock you). Or Jonah's version of Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys "splash monkey, funky monkey"
5. Hearing them pray

Favorite thing your husband does with your kids:

Playing outside , Wrestlemania (I've got an awsome video I should post on here that shows them in action)

Last time you went out with no kids:
Rare to have none because Aubree goes everywhere with me, but I left the other two to go shopping for a couple of hours last saturday.

If you could take your kids anywhere where would it be:

Back to the waterpark, they love the water it...better yet To Hawaii, now that would be and even warmer waterpark.

Favorite pastime/activity with kids:

playing toys cars, barbies, blocks whatever, I like to play toys too, when I take the time

1 thing you said you would never do when you were a mom:

put my baby in bed with a bottle (huge no no I know)


If you had an afternoon to yourself what would you do?

scrapbook and sleep, not necessarily in that order

1 thing you do that your mom did & now you do:

bite my lip or cheek when I feel really frustrated or angry at the situation (my sisters would laugh at this because they remember my mom doing this)



Favorite quality of your own mom:

Patience, and always giving us validation

Favorite kids book:

Where the Wild Things are

Best advice for a new mom:

just realize that newborn babies cry... that's just what they do...that's how they communicate. With my 1st an 2nd I would get uptight at hearing them cry, but now with my 3rd I've chilled out about it and not taken it personally.

Scariest or most heartbreaking moment as a mom:

Jonah getting burned on his hand and there was nothing I could do to take that pain away. Burns hurt alot.

Most joyful moment as a mom:

When they first lay that baby on your chest after they are born.

Last time your child told you they love you:

yesterday from Jonah. I love how it will come randomly when he feels it

Last time you said I love you to your kid:

Right now


I love all three of them so much, It is a great feeling to know I am exactly where i want to be in life right now.
That is being a mama

Long overdue

It's Been a while and my last entry said we were thinking of moving .... well we moved !!! We bought a house with an big half acre lot in the middle of town. It's one of those worst houses in the best neighbourhood. But that's okay we are going to do major renos in 2 years and make it what we really want. For the time being all the things that really bother me i'm just going to have to suck it up and know that there is an end in mind. We really love the yard and the upstairs has all been redone it's just the basement that is a dungeon the house is 60m years old. we are in the process of sprucing it up enough to make it liveable. we'll put the scrapbook room, toy room/ family room, laundry room and food storage. I'll post pictures soon.
Aside From that- I'm getting huge!! bending over is starting to get tough. and once I'm picking up toys on the floor and sit down, I'm planted! I'm going nowhere what I've found works best is sittinfg on the floor with a broom and sweeping all the toys and crap in my direction! it works great.

My stress level lately is pretty high for the following reasons
- the move
-boxes
-lack of the right furniture/ shelves to put the stuff in the boxes.
-2 toddlers, and bing 7 months preg
-potty training
-My husband being in the bishopbric, and working 10 hours a day
-No washer/ dryer, they are in Mexico... we ordered them the 4th of sept they won't be here until at least the 25th, so I've been hauling my launry over to my great friends houses(Thanks Candice, and Leslie) to do it that's an all-day event.
- the rental property, our old house we kept and I've been dealing with the new tenant, which luckily has been relatively smooth.
-sewer back-up (I"m not going into the gross details, but Dale took care of it)
- Normal life still has to go on, house cleaning, dishes( I have no dishwasher either in this new house I might add), My calling which has'nt gotten as much attention as I would like. Van repairs maintanence, which remind me it need an oil change!

This may sound like a list of complaints but I thought about that too and decided I don't have much right to complain when most if not all of these things are blessings. I'm blessed to have such great kids, and have the chance to have a third baby, and we are so blessed to be able to afford another house and keep our old one. And Dale in the bishopbric has been a huge blessing too! It just becomes a little challenging when all of these blessings happen at the same time!

I'm still here

Hey i'm still here. Summer just got in the way. we got a lot going on right now. we're thinking of moving and i've had to deal witht the paperwork of that to apply for financing . I actually have'nt downloded a single photo since ths last time i posted and we can all admit that photos are the best part of a blog. so i promise I'll post a more interesting blog soon with photos I promise.

April/May updates

So much to tell so I'll make it point form

• This last ward conference in april, Dale got called as the first councillor in the bishopbric! boy were we ever shocke! my friend Jackie put it right when I told her " I don't know whether to congratulate you or say sorry" Really it hasn't been that bad though they schedule their meetings in the mornings, so he's not away that much. I'm just thankful for the blessings.


• Dales Grandpa Passed away (Doc Ames) the end of April when we were on our way to Utah luckily we did'nt go any further than Edmonton so wew were able to come back for the funeral. It was a beautiful funeral service with full military honors. He lived a good full life with his last 7 years spent working full time in the Edmonton temple. What a reunion it was for him and his wife on the other side! I'm happy for them.


• Right after the funeral my mother-in- law DD and three of my sis-inlaw's Tawnia ,Danielle, and Chantelle. got to go down to women's conference in Provo Utah. I couldn't believe how many women were there 20,000 approx. I was an amazing feeling to feel the spirit along with all the other women in the Marriot center. I want to go every year! If i'm not nursing a baby


• So that brings brings me to our next big news as of today i am 13 weeks pregnant. which is awsome. baby de to arrive Dec 7th I've been sick but it's starting to go away.


• My sister Ashley came to visit in april that was fun my kids love her we had some good talks.


• My parents and Doug came May long weekend I was feeling really sick so my mom was a big help. Dale got to help them in designing their new house that they bought with my sister marilyn.
• We celebrated Dales and mines birthday in may we got a new fancy TV it's much nicer than our old 20 incher. Dale got me beautiful roses as well.
• here's Jonah enjoying a root Beer

more from the shoot

here's more

photo shoot

We had a photo shoot last week just at a local they turned out pretty nice.

Jonah turns three!

I might be a little insane, but Jonah had fun. I had a birthday party with 5 of Jonah's 2 and 3 year old friends! Jonah wanted a soccer ball cake. So I expanded his idea and we had a soccer birthday. Soccer ballons napkins, plates, candles, tatoos, and a basketball pinata ( I would've made a soccer ball one but I ran out of time. I was chaotic at times, but for the most part we all had fun. toddlers are so cute!

The Fish

Rainbow trout

27 inches

7lbs

tasty

I have been complaining about my husband going fishing all the time lately. but after this last fishing trip I think I was more excited about his catch of the day than he was... (maybe not)

my 1st scan-n-stitch!!

I have never taken the time to figure out this scanning thing to show my 12x12 pages on the internet. I finally did! It took me about an hour to follow and re-follow the instructions but I finally got It ! I'm so excited now I'm going to start showing some of my favorite pages! this one is kinda a steal from Becky's sketches 2 book. I just love this set of photos taken of my smiley girl on the deck this summer. I'm crazy! it's 1:31 am. I'm sure this little delight of a girl will get up soon... she's been awful for sleeping lately. I best be going to get what precious sleep I can.

Emerson has said it for me

well I actually have been busy... Dale and I were able to go down th Utah this past week to take a couples training at visionworks In Utah. I was AMAZING ! Dale and grew so close. hope the high stays.We left the kids with Grandma Shaw( dale's mom). So we missed them a lot . I 've just been trying to catch up on life since I'e been home. Cooking, Baking,Laundry, vaccuming , unpacking, card-making, catching up on almost 100 emails,cooking, copying all my photos onto CD's (after hearing Maurita's story I wasn't procrastinating that anymore!) reading, hanging out and wrestling with the kids and playing in the melting snow. Geneva's been sick. so she likes warm baths and clinging to me lately that's about all.
I was blog sufing and I found this quote on Rebecca sower's site.
Ralph waldo emerson said:

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you
could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as
you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a
spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

that's the advice I give to all of you and especially to myself.
I gotta go to yoga now
Peace out

Officially potty trained!!! (i hope)

It a miracle Jonah figured it out. he's decided to be a big boy.
he's so independent about it too.
yesterday I thought for sure he'd had an accident when he yelled up the stairs
"mom I peed"
I tore down the stairs to see that he was in the bathroom with his pants off trying to
pee standing up. he just missed a little.
that has been the highlight of my week. pretty cool huh?

After he pees he often says to Me,

"I'm so proud of you mom"

so funny.

the deal with the ears

so here's the deal we took her into the doctors and he said that she has minor eczeema in her ear canal. Go figure! why did'nt I think of that. He gave her some eardrops that have a minor sterroid in it and she rarely sticks things in her ears. At least I have a few photos of when she was little to prove how weird she was(is) weird, but cute

The beard is gone!

So my husband is so random! one night I politly asked for his beard that he'd been growing for the last two months to go and he said "sure" and promptly went to the bathroom. to shave it off. Of course no all at once. NOnO he has to show me all of the stages of redneck he can go through and trust me they're lovely!