2 week countdown!!!!

Eeeekkkk! In only two weeks I am hosting my Mom's 60th Birthday party, will I actually be ready??? My Cousin, her daughter (3), and my two Uncles will be arriving the night before the party, so I am really hoping to have everything as ready to go as possible before they arrive. I would like the chance to catch up with them before the chaos of the party starts. Nanny is already set to be here the full days leading up to the party, as well the Saturday morning if needed. I would like to only have to pick up the trays from the store, and the balloons Saturday morning. That means that for Friday I need the following done....

• Bathrooms cleaned & stocked
• Floors vacuumed & mopped
• Dinning table set up for food
• Lasagne's & other dinner food ready to cook
• Clothes set out for the boys & myself
• Dishes & glasses all washed and set out
• Dusting & spot cleaning
• Front hall closet cleared out and ready (thankfully it is very large)
• Enough Liquor, pop, coffee and tea
• Baking done (scones, cookies, cupcakes, etc), which can be done early
• Computer removed from the Kitchen Island
• Stereo set with playlists to last the day
• Chairs placed around the house

Whew! That is a lot, thankfully a fair bit can be done early. Hubby will also be home for the week leading up to the party, hopefully he will have a chance to take the Friday off to help with last minute things. This can be done, and the sooner it is done, the more relaxed I can be for the party. I will start with the deeper cleaning next week, as well as making sure the yard is in good shape (I am hoping the weather is nice to allow everyone to spill outside). The week of the party I will make sure the cake is ordered (I can't get a Mocha Torte big enough, so it will be a white cake with Mocha Butter Cream), as well as the veggie, fruit & cheese trays.

The day before the party will be assembling the lasagna, and any other dinner food. The floors will then get a good cleaning, which will be then be spot cleaned until the party starts. Bathrooms will get a last cleaning, as well as making sure there are enough supplies.

Any ideas that you have for making this as nice as possible, please let me know! I am using plates, and glasses. The only paper products will be the napkins. I know it will be a long day, but I want it to go smoothly for my Mom.

Missing my camera...

I am truly missing my camera today... :( Our truly wonderful neighbor de-thatched our lawn with his new lawnmower attachment yesterday, which left us with a LOT of dead grass to rake up. This morning I did that, it equals about 2 large bags full for just the back yard. I remember how much fun I used to have with my friends jumping into piles of leaves in the fall, and figured a great big pile of grass was just as good! Bug had a blast playing in the grass, although he certainly didn't enjoy the bits of grass that he tried to make their way into his mouth LOL. Little Man was enjoying himself as well, doing his best to copy all that Bug did. Little Man even did his best to do a somersault into the pile like Bug did... it's a good thing it was a big pile, Bug would jump into his somersaults LOL. I got (I hope) some really great shots of the two of them playing in that pile.

I do have a camera still, but it is a 35mm Pentax, which means I won't have photos for a few days! Ugh, hopefully my Canon will be back within a few weeks, I am really missing it. I will pick up some more film tomorrow, just sucks that I have to go this route again.

Surgery.

I was finally able to get surgery time for Little Man Monday afternoon, which was set for 8:15am the next morning... so we had to be at the hospital for 6:30am!!! Eeek. Lucky for us (yes, this is sarcastic here) Little Man had a rather bad night on Monday. He woke up at 9:30pm, right before I was getting ready to head up to bed. He spent the next 45 minutes extremely unhappy with me, not really sure why?? I finally got him to bed just before 11pm, and off I went. He was up again at 3:30am, although thankfully it was a short one. I had my alarm set for 5:15am, as I had spent the previous afternoon de-thatching the back yard, I really needed a shower. Our Nanny arrived just before 6am, which is the same time that Little Man woke up. Bug had gone to spend the night at Grandma's so that she could take him to school for us, which just left sleeping Monkey for Nanny.

We arrived on the 3rd floor right on time, and were assigned a bed. We waited around for a good 45 minutes before a nurse came along to get Little Man's vitals, and talk about the surgery. Little Man was actually enjoying himself there, he had cars to play with, a garage too. He was also being his cute and adorable self with everyone around us. He did start to get antsy about 20 minutes before surgery, I think he was just getting a bit tired. At 8:15 we were brought to the surgery waiting room so that we could talk with the Anesthetist before actual surgery. It was awful having to give Little Man over to the nurse... he got really upset when he realized they were taking him somewhere... away from us!

Surgery itself was really, really quick! Hubby and I went to the waiting room, at which time Hubby decided to head downstairs and get a coffee. Within 8 minutes my pager went off! I headed off to Little Man's slot, hoping to see Hubby on the way... no luck. Just as I got to Little Man's spot, they were wheeling him back already. He was just laying in his cot, sucking on a bottle, looking very out of it. The nurse warned me to NOT take the bottle out, she said that when she had he threw a fit LOL. I then got to spend the next 15 minutes doing my best to calm him down. The nurse had taken the gauze off where his IV line was, but before she could do anything, Little Man ripped it out! He got even more upset when I had to hold some gauze to his hand to stop the bleeding. Finally after walking the halls I was able to calm him down... still no Hubby at this point, and I'm not allowed to leave the unit yet. I did finally notice a door at the end of our hallway that looked to lead to the waiting area, and sure enough there was Hubby. He said he had thought he heard Little Man crying, but really didn't think he would have been out yet.

All in all, surgery was quick and relatively easy, we were home by 9:30am. The only downside was Little Man not letting me lay him down in his crib for a nap yesterday, must have been worried I would be gone again. He finally fell asleep on my chest at 4pm, poor little thing was just so tired, but didn't want to go to sleep. Hopefully we can get back on track today.

Ugh, well that sucked!

So, we had a realtor over tonight to talk about selling our house. He was the listing realtor when we bought. He suggests we list $65000 LESS than what we paid for this house 2 years ago! Last year it was suggested to list around $25000 under what we paid, which would actually still keep us on track since we have paid so much into our equity. We will be making more phone calls this coming week, and I will still be working on getting the house ready to list as well. Hopefully we can still come out even on this sale, which is all we are hoping for.

I am mostly ready for Monkey's Birthday tomorrow! I can't believe my little boy is almost 5, it's hard to believe that many years have passed since he was born. It will be a busy day around here, but should be fun. I'm sure I will be looking forward to an early night, this will be my second night in a row of getting to bed past midnight.

We are all set to go for Little Man's ear tube surgery on Tuesday. He is presently on antibiotics for another ear infection, hopefully this will be the last time we have to do this. Unfortunately I will be missing the Mother's Day tea for Bug's class that day, my Mother will be attending in my stead. I'm sure Hubby would do fine with Little Man on his own at the hospital, but there is just no way that I could be anywhere else. I will be attending with Monkey on Monday though. Maybe I should set something up on Mother's day for just me and the boys. Hubby is leaving the day before, so it will be up to me to organize something.

It's now almost 12:15am, and I really need to get some sleep... going to have a number of crazy, screaming 5 year olds over tomorrow!!!

Feel like I am trying to do too much!

I am just so tired by about 7pm these days, I barely move after getting the kids to bed. I am spending my days trying to placate the kidlets, while at the same time organizing, tidying & de-personalizing!!! It feels like a constantly upward battle. I did fairly well with our bedroom, managed to go through all the clothes. I ended up with 2 bags of baby, maternity, & regular clothes for donation. One box for our Nanny for her 10 month old. Another bag of garbage, mostly baby clothes that was just too damaged or stained. And another pile of maternity clothes that I will take for consignment.

Presently I am going through my sewing room, getting rid of material, odds & ends, (about 1 bag of garbage so far, a few piles for some friends), and in general trying to make it look nicer. The next battle will be the toy room. I am going to have to put a lot of their toys away while we are showing the house... who knows, if they don't notice it missing, I might just get rid of it permanently! After that will be the pantry, which shouldn't be too bad. Then it will be the easy rooms, front living room, front hall closet, Hubby's office, dining room, and main living room. Those rooms mainly need a quick de-cluttering, but are otherwise in decent shape. I will hopefully get through it all by next weekend, which is when Hubby will be heading back to the UK for a week or so.

My Mom's party is coming along nicely. The invites will be out tomorrow, and I am already talking to bakeries about cakes. I have also talked to a few of the ladies attending to see if they can help me with some baking for the party. The final guest list is at 115 people, hopefully not more than 80 end up coming through. I did ask for RSVP for the dinner to be held at 6:00pm, there is just no way to guess how much food to have available. Next week I need to contact some companies to rent some glasses, plates, and napkins. I would like this to be as classy as possible.

Well, there ends my break LOL. Off to finish the sewing room.

He is truly serious this time!

So, Hubby called the realtor (left a message) who listed this house when we bought it a few years ago. Not sure exactly when we would list, but he is truly serious about selling this time. He is actually considering the house right next door to my parents... not too sure how I feel about that! LOL. I love my parents, but a little distance is always nice. It also really depends on how soon we could sell our house, and of course how much we will lose selling it. When we talked with a realtor last year, we were told we would lose a good $60,000! The market has stabilized, and with the fact that there are no 4 bedroom homes on our street for sale right now (most homes on our street are 3 bedroom), we may be able to price a bit higher for that reason.

We would have a fair bit of work to make the house ready for viewings, tidying up, organizing, attention to details. Which I will be having to do for my Mom's birthday party anyways! I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about moving again, but have done it often enough the last 3 years... and at least this one won't be overseas! It will also be a bit strange to be in a smaller house, but we will adjust easily enough. When we get the boat one day, we would have to adjust to smaller living space then as well. This will also be a good time to get rid of a bunch of stuff LOL. Garage sales here I come!

So, here's to living with little to no mortgage!!!!!

Got to love curve balls!

I am always amazed at the direction that life can take us. I met Hubby at a time when I didn't really want to be in a relationship, and here I am almost 13 years later. At the time, I couldn't see us living anywhere except Yellowknife, again I am somewhere else. I never dreamed the dreams we have now, they used to be much more modest. Which brings me to now...

Nothing bad is happening, just some foresight planning on our parts. We are thinking we should downsize this year, and find a place where we can be mortgage free... as well as get us out of the City. Business is doing well, we just feel it would be prudent to start putting money aside. Our mortgage here is rather large, and I would truly love to not pay it. Yes, we can afford it, but then again why pay it if we don't need to? The money saved could really go a long way to financing the next phase of our lives.

The boys of course wouldn't care where we live, as long as we are together. With homeschooling to start soon, I don't really need to worry about any nearby schools. The further we are from the city, the less money we are likely to spend as well.

We have more than enough equity to get a decent house out where my parents live, but if we head a bit further out, we could have some land added to the house in our price range. I truly don't need anything fancy, as long as I can still have a dishwasher and my washer & dryer LOL. I love my washer and dryer!

I can't say for certain this will happen, but we are talking about it. It is like anything in life. You can plan all you want, but the end result is never exactly known. This could all be moot if the company sells, but if it doesn't sell this year, we will be prepared to wait it out.