Tomorrow morning Mark and I leave for the Dominican for a week. I am very, very sad and full of guilt (something us moms are blessed with I'm learning) about leaving the girls behind - but so excited at the same time. My parents and sister are splitting the week and coming here to watch them so Madi can still go to school. They're so good to us.

Anyhow, see you in a week!

Just checked the weather for the Dominican for next week - theyr'e calling for rain every day. Should be a nice beach vacation for Mark and I. Sigh.....

You pay hundreds or thousands of dollars on a wedding dress - and do what with it? This website is suggetsing you "trash the dress" in order t oget some really cool photos (in some cases - some of the photos just look like they're trying to hard).
LINK

So, Mark's crazy cousin Kim Handy went on Price is Right and won the showcase showdown! I think they said it airs tomorrow (Jan. 9) - she's a riot, should be fun to watch!

Just clearing out pics off my computer and realized I never shared any pics I did of Cohen (My new little nephew) and his fam becasiue tehy were using tehm for Chritsmas gifts and didn't want people to see them yet. ANyhow, here's a few...

My dearest Monica is up for an award at the Shai awards - please take a minute and vote for her!! Here's part of a note from her...

 

We have been blessed with family and friends who love to spoil us. So much so that we continually have to clear out space for the new toys (especially after CHristmas!) and clothes. I usually do this behind the girls backs - Madi gets so attached to everything. A toy she hasn't touched in years is suddenly her favorite when faced with me giving it away.

If there is one big lesson I have learned in the last couple months - it's be up front with the kids. I learned this first with drinking water. I use to think "my kids won't drink water". Then whenever they came home from Carolynn's she'd tell me they drank water no problem for her. Huh? So I stopped trying to sneak it in their cups and just told them - you need to drink some water, you can have juice later. And they accepted that answer and rank their water. Wow.

Back to the toys.

So, I said to Madi that I Wanted her to go through her toys and make two piles. One to keep and one to give away to other kids who don't have a lot of toys and would like some. I told her I was going downstairs and would come back up in a minute to check on her.

I could hear her hollering "mom! mom! come and look!"

Oh no. What did she do?

I was shocked that what it was she wanted to show me was that the bigger pile was for toys to give away. She was so proud of herself. There were some toys in there I had a hard time to give away (they're so cute, or fairly new, or in good shape, or expensive, or.....) - but she was generously giving away her best.

I have so much to learn from her. Today I was working on de-cluttering the kitchen (we're making an office upstairs so doing a lot of rearranging). We have three sets of dishes. So, decided I should give at least one set away. But it makes me sad - we picked these out on our wedding registry and can never replace them (because there's no more Eaton's) and even though colours have changed I still feel emotionally attached and even though they're chipped and some are broken and... and.... and....

I need to learn about giving things away joyfully from my girl.

My baby is growing up. Today was Madi's first time having school friends over. She could not have been more excited! I think that might have been part of the reason why she asked to go to bed last night at 5:30pm - she knew that there was "one more sleep" until Elayna and Ryley came over. She woke up and I asked her what she wanted to wear - she almost always says "My team shirt" (she has a couple of sporty looking t-shirts she loves) but today she responded "A ball gown." I dug one of out the dress up box and she put on her high heels and tiara. I said maybe her friends would want to play dress up too - she scolded me saying she wasn't playing dress-up, these were her clothes. I guess new friends deserve the very best in Madi attire. Anyhow, they had a great visit - spent most of the morning just chasing each other all through the house screaming. I was really impressed with the parenting and consistency of Elayna's mom (she brought both kids over). The kids were polite and Ryley was SO good with Eden.

A fun morning! Elayna asked me if I had a camera and if I could take a picture of them. I knew I liked this girl!



Then Ryley said "don't forget Eden!" - another way to get straight to my heart.



I have to say I am entirely enjoying Madi being on school break. And so is she. I don't think she has ever played so well at home. Just happy to be home and hanging out. I'm really going to miss her next week when she goes back.