Hockey decor 2

Lots has been added to Grady's room since my last post on Hockey Decor.  The past few months Grady has been combing his 2 passions, hockey and art.

Grady has spent many hours printing coloring pages off the Internet and coloring the team pictures.  We load the real picture on my phone so he can match the colors.  He even draws them free hand from time to time.  

While his love for hockey has grown. I'm glad to see he hasn't given up on the artistic side.  I hope that he continues to develop both of these passions.

Five on Friday

{one}  Today I rode up the elevator with a guy wearing Levi's jeans.  I notice that the size of his jeans were 36 as it was printed on the tag.  Why does Levi's do this?  I certainly don't want my size advertised on my butt?

{two}  I had a dentist appointment this morning. I dread going.  It seems like every second appointment I have to have filling repaired or they've found a new one.  I always treat myself with a coffee after.  Always.

{three}  The forecast is for snow.  Again. In almost May.  At this point I kind of hope it snows tonight.  The kids start outdoor soccer tomorrow at 9am.  If it isn't cancelled it will likely be freezing temperatures with a high of +2 forecasted.  Poor James is coaching both age groups so he will be outside all morning while I will be the chauffeur that drops and picks of the relevant kids.  So if it has to snow this weekend. I hope it is tonight.

{four}  We have dinner arranged with 2 different families this weekend, both at our house.  I'm looking forward to it.  It has been a while since we've hosted people at the house and I think it will be fun on this sprinter weekend.  Sprinter, a word I l learned at the dentist office that is a combo of spring and winter.

{five}  I planned to wear my new maxi dress for the first time today and then saw the forecast and decided against it. I wore my teal jeans instead. They still say it is spring, but in a much warmer way!

Have a good weekend!

Spring at the Rink

This spring, in addtion to outdoor soccer, the kids are taking skating and hockey lessons.  I think it is inevitable that our oldest boy will be playing timbits hockey next year so we might as well get him in some extra practice.  That, and the boy still eats, sleeps, and breathes hockey.

Our little Cooper has never been in skating lessons so we registered him in skating since we were going to be at the rink any way.  What we didn't anticipate is that the lessons were going to be 2.5 hours apart!

Coopers skate was first and he was very excited.  We registered him back in February and put him in parent and tot.  This winter while Grady was playing outdoor hockey, we always brought Coopers skates and he would skate on the ice beside the hockey rink during the lesson.  Well, let's just say he didn't need James' help on the ice.  Cooper was by far the best skater in his class.

I tried to change Cooper to a more advanced class a few weeks before lessons began but all of them were full.  Of course.  I wait listed him on one and never got a call.  I figure it is better for him to be on the ice skating then to not get a lesson at all so we just stuck with parent and tot.  When they got off the ice after the first lesson Cooper told James that he didn't have to come on the ice next time and that he didn't need help anymore.

When Grady took parent and tot for the first time, we (James) had to hold him up from the armpits for he entire lesson.  The kid couldn't even stand on the ice and he was almost a year older than Cooper!  It is amazing how quickly the younger siblings pick up on things, and how much earlier they start activities.  I think it is safe to say that Cooper's lesson was a success!

A few hours later, it was Grady's turn to hit the ice.  The night before he had told me how excited he was for indoor hockey.  When we arrived and he saw all the other 5 year old boys filing in he told me he didn't want to do this hockey anymore.  He was nervous.  Totally understandable.  The indoor rink and the slew of kids all getting their equipment on was intimidated.  I was intimidated.  After we came to the conclusion that he didn't need the mouth guard he seemed to be ok with making his way to the ice.  James walked him over to the bench and got him all set up with his water bottle on the ledge and we waited for them to start.

There were 35 kids enrolled in the program.   35 kids aged 4-6.... yikes!  Along with all those kids there were 8 instructors.  I was very impressed with the 4:1 ratio.  They set up different drills where some were skating related and some were hockey related.  Overall I thought the program was fantastic.  The true test lies in what Grady though of the class.  As he walked over to us I told him how proud I was of him and asked if he liked it.  With a big grin on his face he said 'I loved it!'.  Melt. my. heart.

While the idea of being at the rink all Sunday afternoon for the next 10 weeks does feel daunting, if he tells me he loves it every time he gets of the ice like he did on his first day, it will all be worth it.

I took very few pictures but I did take a video of Cooper during his lessons.   Password is skate.
Cooper on skates from Christy R on Vimeo.

Easter Weekend

For the Easter long weekend, our little possy headed to visit my brother's family and meet their 4th child, and first son, Kiptyn.

He is the sweetest little thing.  He was so quiet you often forgot he was in the room.  Except when you changed his diaper.  He got exceptionally louder when he was naked.

The kids were a little scared of him at first.  They didn't want to hold him or get all that close to him.  Grady asked me at one point why his eyes were open.  Well, because he is awake.  My kids do not see many babies so it was almost like a foreign concept to them.  By the last day they agreed to hold him and they were all smiles.  I can only imagine the trouble this trio of testosterone will get into in the years to come.

IF you look super close at Cooper's face in the above photo you'll notice he has a scab right between his eyes.  The poor guy took a stick to the face by his brother.  It was an accident that resulted in his first hockey injury.  First, but probably not the last....

Over the course of the weekend you would often find Grandma entertaining many kids.  Keep in mind that we had 6 kids (0-9 years), 6 adults, and a dog, all staying in one house.  There were lots of little people around needing entertainment and granny is great at it!  What you can't see is Madi running a connect 4 marathon at the opposite end of the table.

  This is what is what 10 people and a dog look like when they lounge around on a Saturday afternoon.  I am taking the picture, I have no idea where my brother is, and I am going to assume boomer the dog is either in the corner of the couch of following my brother around!  Once I took a harder look, I noticed boomer at my kids feet by the table hoping to get some crumbs!

Every time we get together with my brothers family we always pack our bathing suits because my niece, Madi, loves to swim.  This trip was no different.  We ended up at the pool one morning.  Aside from a water slide 'incident' with Grandma and Taiya, the trip to the pool was a success.  Grandma brought my kids each a snorkel set that she had laying around the house. Cooper's set says 'Disney Princess' on it.  Thankfully, he can't read.

This trip I loved how my little nieces opened up to me.  In the past, Tessa, this little brown haired beauty, wouldn't let me get near her.  Her older sister would tolerate me, but wasn't a big fan.

This time, the girls let me play with them.  Taiya even called me aunty once.  Made my day.  This is the benefit of these big family sleepovers, the kid have no choice but to get to know me since we invade each others personal spaces for the weekend.  I so badly want to develop a relationship with these girls.  I want to take them shopping and go for pedicures when they are older and do other girlie things I can't do with my boys.  That is what having nieces is all about!  

At least I know it will come.  Me and Madi started out slow, but now we crack jokes and this weekend we even had a ladies outing with Grandma, her, and me.  She is such a mini teenager!

One of my favorite moments was meeting baby Ben in the hospital and visiting with Carmen in the hospital.  For years, whenever a baby is born, all my friends head to the hospital to meet the new little one and shower the new mom with flowers and hugs.  They send a group photo to me each time.  And each time I feel happy and sad.  Happy for them, sad for me that I am not there.  I love these girls and always wished I could be a part of that tradition.  Thank you Ben for being born the day before good Friday and helping make my wish come true.  Carmen, you make beautiful babies!  Congrats!

I was very fortunate that my friends took time out of their family Easter plans to spend some time with me.  The weather was terrible in Saskatoon, terrible.  It snowed all day on Friday and these fine ladies (with the exception of Dee who lives out of the city) loaded their kids up at 9am when everything was frozen, literally, and came over to Sara's for a one hour visit.

That same night, after visiting Carmen and Ben, we went out for a fancy birthday dinner with lots of laughs and a little wine.  To the surprise of most, I ordered fish and to my surprise it came with the skin attached.  Weird.  It has been years since I was able to celebrate Dee's birthday with her and it was a special treat.  I am so fortune to maintain these friendships across the distance.  I am already looking forward to our yearly shopping trip in Edmonton. Can't come soon enough!

While Madi and I were out on our 'ladies outing', she insisted we stop by candy store at the mall that had this game she wanted to buy.  The game was sold out but she managed to get a refill box of for the game.  The just of it is that there are 2 jelly bellys the same color and one is good tasting and the other, not so much.  Two people each take one and you don't know which one you got until you ate it.  For example - there were 2 yellow jelly belly's - one was tutti fruity and one was barf.  James got the barf one and spit it out.  It was an interesting game to say the least.  Here is Madi handing out the candy.



We spent a good portion of our weekend playing mini sticks.  When asked what the kids wanted to bring to Uncle James it was hands down, the goalie equipment that the Easter bunny brought them the weekend before.  Over the course of the weekend, almost everyone had a chance to the goalie.  Seriously.

The most intense game we played was in Aunty Kolby's basement.  At one point it was 3 on 3 when one of the James played.  It was the perfect set up with a big clear concrete area to run around on.  No knee hockey there, it was full on running.  Grandpa Lorne was a pretty good goalie and gave the kids a run for their money. 

Grady asked me countless time why we didn't bring his roller blades to Aunty's house since it was such a big open space.  We don't have protective gear yet so up to this point we have been skating in our house.

I love this next picture.

I never in a million years guessed that the 2 little girls would want to bath with my boys.  It was quite the site.  At one point, Cooper stood up and said there was no room for him in the tub!  They stayed in there more than 5 minutes before all of them wanted to get out at once.  Go figure!

We finished the weekend off with an Easter egg hunt.  We had a LOT of eggs.  Keep in mind that we also had 5 kids that would be searching for them.  John thought I was crazy hiding all those eggs and it turned out that the hunt lasted approximately 2 minutes.  I could have hidden more! 

We ran into a little problem with Boomer the dog... I started hiding the eggs under things and he kept finding and trying to eat them.   Since we didn't want to deal with a dead dog in the morning we had to hide all eggs off the floor.  They were pretty easy to find just sitting on the counter!

I love the weekends that my family gets together.  Whether it be at my house, my brothers, or at my moms.  We have a full weekend to catch up on lost time from living in different cities.  But somehow you don't notice it has been months since you got together, it is like you haven't skipped a beat.  My brother picks on me, we both pick on my mom, we eat blizzards and watch big brother.  I couldn't have asked for a better weekend!

I hope every one's long weekend was a good as ours!

Five on Good Friday

{one}  Yay for long weekends and newborn snuggles.  I have many plans for this Easter long weekend that I will share with you next week.

{two}  James and I went to spin this week.  I hated it less than last time.  I went in with a new strategy, don't give it your all in the first five minutes.  It seemed to work.  I love that I sweat non stop and feel like I really worked out after.  I will continue to go, but not to often.  This was James' first class and I asked him what he thought and he told me 'Hard, but rewarding'.  I'm not convinced he'll be joining me again.

{three}  I wore my first slip ever this week.  Like the slip you wear under a skirt.  My skirt kept sticking to my tights and my new maxi dress is slightly see through so my co worker suggested a slip.  I didn't own one so she brought me some from home to try.  I wore it for the first time with a tunic and leggings to keep my cotton shirt from sticking.  Worked like a charm.

{four}  Cooper started his first unparented swim lessons this month.  He did really well.  He is the shortest little guy in the class and when they stand in the pool the water hits him almost at his neck.  He looks sort of pitiful out there.  This last lesson we could tell he was crying a little and it took everything in me not to go running for him.  After class I asked him if he cried during class he said 'No... well just a little, like this, wah wah'.  All in all I'm just happy I don't have to go in with him anymore!

{five}  We registered the boys in some summer camps this year. Last year G did pedal heads and loved it. This year, he told me he already knows how to ride a bike and doesn't need to go.  So.... we have Grady registered in a full day hockey camp which terrifies me just a little.  I hate the idea of leaving him there all day, but I know he'll enjoy and he'll be doing that everyday next year in grade 1.  Cooper is doing a half gymnastic class which I know he'll do fine at.  That boy is just an easy going little tyke.

Milestones

When you children are babies, they go through milestones very quickly.  You celebrate the first smile, first laugh, first role, first sleep through the night, and the list goes on.  As your child gets older you still celebrate the milestones but they aren't as frequent as they once were.

This weekend, we celebrated a milestone with Grady, he lost his first tooth.

I can not explain to you how long he has been waiting for this.  As far as he was concerned, all his friends had already lost teeth, even his younger friends.  He wanted nothing more than to show of a toothless grin.  He waited and waited and waited.

About 3 weeks ago, during spring break, he was sleeping over at Nana's and the phone rang right around 5pm.  It was Grady and he wanted to talk to Cooper. I asked Cooper if he wanted to talk to Grady and Cooper says 'no' but I put the speaker phone on anyway. I hear a very excited voice that says 'Guess what Cooper?  I finally have a loose tooth!'.

Since that day, he has been wiggling and wiggling that tooth waiting for it to fall out, and Friday was the day.

He told me that his tooth was extra loose today.  I took a wiggle and told him that I thought he would lose it this weekend.  I grabbed the camera and took a before shot.  This my friends, is my eldest son's last photo with all his baby teeth.  tear, tear.

I told him to try using a Kleenex to wiggle tooth so he could get a better grip and left him in the bathroom to do his thing.

While I was face timing with my my brother, Grady yelled that his tooth was out.  I got off the phone and admired the new grin that Grady was showing.  He was so excited.

He promptly rushed to show Dad and Cooper where his tooth was.

I was prepared, I had bought a tooth pillow off etsy to give to him when he lost that first tooth. I only took one photo and of course his eyes are closed.

We put the tooth in the pillow and magically the tooth ferry left $5 for him.  He was thrilled. 

My little boy is growing up too quickly.

A little bit of Spring Fashion

Could spring have possibly arrived?  If you live where I live we had both snow and +20 weather last week, so it is hard to say.  I am going to be positive and say the worst is over and spring has finally arrived.  The calendar says so, after all!

So join me over on Dee's blog where I am posting all about my favorite spring outfits.

My Husband

I've had a comment from a certain male reader (who is not my husband, you know who you are!) that the blog is getting boring with all the clothing posts.  While I tend to disagree strongly, I have taken what he said to heart and decided to dedicate this post to tid bits about my husband that you may or may not know, to man it up around here.  This certain someone pointed out that the blog is a family blog and I only talk about the kids and I and you already know what we like (hockey and shopping!).  So let's take a look at what my husband likes to do.


First, James likes poker. He is in a poker league that plays once a month.  I'm not sure exactly how it works, but they play each week and accumulate points and at the end of the 'season' they have a tournament and there are 3 winners.  One of the rules of the league is that if you win first (or second I think), you have to go to Vegas and play in a poker tournament.  This is totally a boy thing to do, as a woman, I would take the money and shop.  To each their own.

James like fantasy sports pools.  He runs the football one, meaning he collects and holds the money.  What that really means, is that he collects the money and spends it over the course of the football season and then we have to pay out the winnings at the end if he doesn't win.  I think he does hockey and baseball pools as well.  I asked him and he is currently in third place in what I assume is the hockey pool.

James has been doing the Jillian Micheals 30 day shred for about a year.  Now he doesn't do it 30 days in a row. More like 2 days a week, and usually on the weekend.  I am proud of him for fitting exercise back in his life as there was a few years where he didn't exercise at all.  I think it is great for his health and wonderful that the kids see us exercise.

James like NFL football better than Hockey for the most part.  He is super pumped for Sunday night football.

His team is the Oakland Raiders.  From what I understand, they are not a good team but it has been his team for ages. 

For Hockey, he cheers for the Flames and the Penguins.  Not sure where the penguins fan comes from but it goes way back and he has a super small jersey to prove it!  He still wears it sometimes.

Speaking of Jerseys, he has lots.  For every draft that they go to the local pub down the street with free wifi to do, he wears the sport specific jersey.  For real.  I also think he has 3 flames jersey.  He has at least 2 anyway and I do believe I bought him one.

James really likes HBO shows and I don't. I like a few but James likes them all.  I couldn't say which one is his favorite.

James and I have been commuting together for about 6 months.  I hate it and he loves it.  James makes me late for work every day and then I become his secretary on the way home.  Not cool.  Although to his defence, I told him I would commute with him as long as he left at 4 and so far he always wants to leave before me.  It is nice having him home in the evening.

Despite my kids love for hockey, James was a soccer player growing up.  He played soccer in an adult league for the first few years we dated then stopped. 

James loves NYC.  So do I but for completely different reasons. 

So there you have, a few things you may or may not have known about my husband.  I hope that mans it up a bit since we are back to fashion on Monday!

Have a good weekend!

Easter

From this...

To this....

You guessed it, we decorated for Easter this weekend.  Grady has been asking to dye the eggs for a week!  The kids enjoyed it and lasted well over an hour before calling it quits.  We just bought the kits from Superstore for a couple dollars each and did our thing.  One tip, do the eggs the day before.  If you tell the kids it is time to do eggs and then start to boil them and prep, you won't actually dye the eggs for hours and the kids will lose interest.  It takes longer than you think!

We also decorated our Easter Tree.

James thinks is is silly but the kids (and I!) love it!  I've had it since University and it still hast he 9.99 Walmart price tag on it!  The kids were super excited when I pulled it out and it took a grand total of 5 minutes to decorate. It was well worth the effort.

Now to wait to see if the Easter Bunny will bring the goalie equipment that the kids have asked for.  Repeatedly.

Online Window Shopping

In past few weeks I have become a big online window shopper.  While I watch TV, I surf the web for random things.  While sometimes find myself wanting to buy everything!!  For the most part I just want to see what is out there and scope out the latest trends.  Not to mention that I am on a spending freeze for the month of April after buying 2 dresses unexpectedly while going to the dollar store for a few things.  oops.   So since I won't be buying anything.... I thought I would show you a few things that I found online this weekend.

All the items are from The Bay.  I started out heading the the website to look at tea kettles as I got an email saying everything was 20% off with your Bay card.  I want to get a yellow kettle for my kitchen as it is always sitting on our stove out in the open.  I currently have a stainless steel one that is burnt and yucky looking.  It is time to update it.   I somehow found myself looking at the clothing.  Here are some of my finds.

First, let's look at these hue floral leggings.  LOVE.  At first I thought I preferred the black, but when I took a second look I may like the white just as much.  I'm usually not a floral kind of girl, but this season I'm tolerating it, and maybe even enjoying it.  What I don't enjoy about these leggings is the price.  A little expensive for my liking.

 

 

 While I was browsing the leggings I saw these Hue rose chino leggings as well.  While I don't like them as much as the colored floral ones, they are a great neutral print and price point is much more tolerable.

Next up is these fun Sam Edelman Felicia flat.  I have been eyeing these babies for some time thanks to Pinterest told me to.  I finally noticed them on the bay website and they were on clearance and an extra 20% off putting them at $74.  I am on a spending freeze though so resisted buying them. No excuses. If it is meant to be, they will still be on clearance next month.  I hope.

This next one is going to surprise some of my friends that know I am not wedge kind of girl.  While I love me some pumps, I just can't make friends with wedges.  This summer I am going to try them again.  I love the way they dress up a summer outfit without being too fancy like a pump tend to do. 

This strappy wedge from Steve madden would be a good transition shoe since it looks like it has lots of support.

And of course I love these mint ones from Gentle Soul that are completely outside of my budget but so darn cute I had to post them.

 One last find before I turned off the computer for the night was this great dress from Jessica Simpson.  I am trying to get away from buying strapless and trying to be more modest, but as I look at this dress I realized it is a little low to be considered modest.  I do like the cap sleeve and the print very much.  I have already started looking for a perfect dress to wear to the weddings we have this year.  Can never start looking to early in my opinion!

So while I will not be purchasing anything after my shopping session, my first choice would be the colored floral leggings. There is just something about them that I love.  Maybe they will be on clearance next month!

Cooper's Speech - Take 2

I haven't talked much about Cooper's speech on here as there wasn't much to update.  Cooper 'graduated' from his speech in August and we decided to reassess once he turned 3.  By November, the kid had a lot to say.  During 2013 he went from having about 10 words to having many many words.

There was one teeny tiny little problem.  We couldn't understand much of what he was saying. 

When we had our speech pathologist 'R' back in early December to address these concerns she agreed with us that he was still a little difficult to understand.  Our session this day was much different than our 'language building' sessions where it was essentially just play based.  This time she brought many, many, MANY flash cards and had him tell her what the pictures were.  At the end, she had identified a major deficiency, s-blends.

She noticed that Cooper could say the 's' sound and he could say 'no', but he couldn't put them together and say 'snow'.  He was essentially dropping the S from the beginning of words or replacing with a different sound, most often 'd', so snow came out 'dow'.  I had never noticed this, ever.  I guess that is why I am not a speech pathologist!

She went further to say that to treat it we would need weekly sessions compared to monthly sessions as to treat enunciation issues you need constant exposure and practice.  I told her I had to think about it.  We didn't want to start in December with the busy-ness of Christmas or in January where we would be away.  Then she was away for a good porting of February.  So I had lots of time to think about it.

We really went back and forth on the decision to proceed.  It would be expensive and while I have good coverage at work, it would not cover the whole thing.  It was a big time commitment that we would have to work into our already busy schedule.  My biggest question was would this be something that he would grow out of over time. 

Over the next 3 months I really listened to Cooper and tried to correct him on his S words and really elongate the sound when I used it.  I contemplated emailing R many times but always got distracted or lazy.  Then, she emailed me to ask how it was going and if we had made a decision.

 We decided to go for it.

I don't know if it would have corrected himself, and in the end, getting some extra help was not going to hurt him.  The next week we started our sessions.

The sessions always use flash cards and last about 45 minutes.  R is great about including Grady in the session and encouraging him to say the words clearly for Cooper.  Each session, she leaves a game for us to play that involves practicing the s-blend words and getting a turn for each one he tries to say.  We are instructed to do this home work every night.  Every night.

While one would expect this homework shouldn't take long, it usually takes at least 20 minutes.  And usually Grady wants to play and Coop doesn't.  Convincing Cooper to play is the hardest part.  I am super proud of James and I as after 4 weeks, we have only missed 3 homework nights max.  We figure if we are paying the money for R to come we have to really work at doing our part to help Cooper.

I am happy to say that we are seeing HUGE differences in his speech.  The first week, I would show Cooper a picture of a snail, he would say 'nail'.   Then I would break the word apart and he would work on the 2 sounds.  This week, 50% of the time he will say the word right when he looks at the picture without modeling us.   We still don't see it in everyday conversation, but at least he is making steps in the right direction.

I am happy that we took this step and have made the commitment to get his homework done each night, especially now that we are seeing the results!  Although let me tell you, I am NOT looking forward to the next 18 years of homework!

I couldn't end the post without a picture of our little goofball.

Pinspired

 Its time to get Pinspired again! I'm linking up with Sheaffer over at Pinterest Told me To for another month of pinspired where we recreate an outfit inspirted by Pinterest.

This month I decided to focus on my new Gap 1969 always skinny destructed jeans.  I've never had a pair of destructed jeans for fear that one of my kids would stick there finger in and pull the hole bigger, thus wrecking the jeans.    So far this hasn't happened, but Grady has told me numerous times that my jeans have holes in them and I should throw them out.

Here is my inspiration picture.

I am usually a color gal, but I liked the simplicity of the black.  I also generally wouldn't throw a black blazer over a black tee, but I decided to give it a try.

The inspiration photo didn't have a necklace, but I think it gave it an added Christy flare.  I also added a long and lean tank from Target for a pop of color.  I like the look with the  necklace better.

In the photo, I am wearing black socks, however I could see myself wearing my black patent heels with this look.

Thank you pinterest for showing me that it is OK to layer black on black and a blazer with destructed jeans.  I am very happy with how this look turned out!