Guess who loves me!

"Her, her mom and her brother are the sweetest family! She is a little angel!"

- Donnie Wahlberg on Twitter, about MY family, with this picture included.

Oh my, I love him still. My life is super duper fun.

Conversations with my kids are the best.

Oops...I forgot I had a blog.

At dinner tonight I was telling the kids about a guy I know named Lochlan.

Max: Do they call him Locke?
Me: No, but I should tell him we have a guinea pig named Locke.
Corina: Lochlan sounds like Walkman.
Max: You should tell him you have a Walkman.

My kids grew up once we hit the splashpark.

Today Corina was in a bathing suit and I was a bit of a distance away from her. Those two things have not happened simultaneously in quite a while, and I guess I saw her objectively for a few seconds. I was shocked, SHOCKED I say, to see how long and skinny and toothpicky she is. It looks like it would hurt to hug her.


And this...this...when the hell did this happen?

Max now sits in a chair at the splashpark and watches little kids play?

MAX!!! What is happening to you?? TURN INTO MY BABY RIGHT NOW!

See you in another life, brutha.

That's what Desmond said to his cagemate as we took him away. It was all very sad.

But today they were reunited. Say hi to Charlie! Desmond's on the left with the mohawk and Charlie is on the right with all the chub.

They get along so well. Charlie sings to Desmond (super loud purring) and Desmond is constantly saving Charlie's life. I don't know how many times today he has said, "You're gonna DIIIIIIEEEE Chahlieeeee!"

Charlie's kind of a spaz and he bit my thumb, but we still like him.

I have a creature in my house.

I'm really not a pet person. Most people who know me are aware of that. I often wonder if I'm a horrible mom because all my kids really want in the world is a dog and a baby, and I won't give them either one. They ache for something little to love and cuddle and take care of, so today I gave in.

*sigh*

Introducing.....
Desmond! (Yes, Hume. I got to name him.)

He is a 10 week old guinea pig and he has a natural mohawk which makes him likable already. So far he's very scared and doesn't want to come out of his tunnel, but I'm sure we'll have more fun with him once he's comfortable. We even got him a leash so we could play in the backyard with him. Now that sounds like a party.

This is the new favourite activity in our house:
Staring. Fun!!! I hope it's everything they ever dreamed of.

Desmond better like New Kids on the Block, because tonight he'll be watching the live stream of their Full Service Tour with us. Woot! You can do it too. Just click here.

Full Service Tour In Your House!

In da house?

New Kids on the Block's Full Service Tour didn't come anywhere near me this summer, which I am okay with. Really. I am. I never once cried about it. To make up for leaving Western Canada completely out of the tour, they are going to stream their Dallas show live online on July 17! Woot!

The show will be on iClips.net, and you can order the show starting Monday, July 13. I know all my friends will want to watch it. You'll get to see my boyfriend!

This is bringing back all the memories of their Pay Per View when I was a teenager. Maybe Donnie will ride in on a motorcycle, Danny will say "Live...via satellite!", and they'll all take off their shirts - just to continue bringing back the memories.

Joe and his son Griffin

Joe has a book drive he does at each show, which is what he would like to tell you about here. Get ready for the most adorable thing ever.

The Griffster says "Sure" we can get to 25,000 books! from LET'S GET THIS FOUNDATION on Vimeo.

My ovaries just exploded. That was so sweet, and I love watching Joe as a dad.

School, singing, teeth, tattoos.

It's summer! YAY! Now the kids and I get to stare at each other for two months straight, and we couldn't be happier about it.

Both the kids did really well this year in school again. Corina and a buddy had enrichment together so their giant brains wouldn't stagnate in their grade two class. I'm so glad she had a good teacher who was willing to do extra work for her.

Max had the big transition to middle school and it couldn't have gone better. He became a superstar on the trumpet in stage band, and continued with his scary big-brained ways. He got perfect on his science Provincial Achievement Test (that's possible?), and he joined the math club and entered the Pythagoras Mathematics Contest. In an assembly he was presented with this certificate of distinction for that test, which was apparently super hard and I'm sure I would fail.
He didn't even care. He was all, "Do I have to keep this award?"

And I was all, "YES! IT PROVES I'M A GOOD MOMMY! I mean...keep it if you want, buddy. I don't know..."

This is my pretty-haired Corina heading off for her last recital of the season. She sang Ferryman. I just love her hair all curled like that. She was too busy watching tv to even look at the camera.

Max finally lost his last two baby teeth, one right after the other. He decided he was done with them and yoinked them both out.

Today we went to the Tattoo Show at the Exhibition Grounds. I was very tempted to get a whole bunch of tattoos, like maybe a single tear on my cheek and a huge flower on my thigh, but I resisted. The kids aren't as strong though.

Donnie will be proud to see what Max got:

A seahorse will be proud to see what Corina got:

Here's the video of Corina's recital. I love her sweet voice.

Alice in Wonderland

Ummm....yes please!!!

Thank you, Tim Burton.

I Built a Lamp!

Before:
After:

Am I proud of myself? Oh yeah.

Do I appear insane while I build lamps? Another yeah.

I don't really love that kind of job, and I'm not super confident with such things. I'm very against negative self-talk though. When things aren't going well, I am careful not to say things like, "I can't do it! It's too hard! I suck at this!"

Instead, if you were watching me, you'd hear things like this over and over:

"You're doing a great job! That's okay...you can just do that part again and it will be fine. Good girl! Aaaaaaannnnd....GOOD! That's SO GOOD!!!" Nice things to say, but perhaps a little creepy when I'm home alone.

I love my lamp.

Popsicle!!!

New Kids started their Full Service Tour last night. They aren't coming anywhere near me at all, and in a show of great restraint and mental health I didn't buy any tickets for far away shows. Yay me! Instead I'll be living on Youtube for the weekend watching every clip I can find. That's still healthy. Shut up.

I just watched this clip, and I LOVE it! It is absolutely brilliant. I laughed, I cried, I cheered, I bounced up and down while clapping my hands spastically...



So gangsta!!

I love it. Good job, Joe. I need to find another clip that shows more.

Women's Show and Chantal Kreviazuk

Corina and I had a special girl's day yesterday. We sent Max off to have a boy's day with his best friend, and we went to the Women's Show. They had all kinds of girly displays there, like makeup, hair things, purses, bras, and vaginas. It was great fun.

At one of the hair places, the girl did Corina's hair all fancy for her. See?

At least once every 2 minutes from then on, someone stopped her to tell her how pretty she was. After about an hour of that, she told me it's really annoying being beautiful because no one will leave her alone. I know, Corina. I KNOW.

That food she's eating is from a cooking show they had there. I wish we had been there longer, because every time the guy cooked something he gave it out to the crowd. I love free food best of all!

When the Women's Show was over for the day, they had a Chantal Kreviazuk concert. We had 4th row tickets.
Hi Chantal. You look like me.

This is one of Corina's favourite songs. She did this one while we were still in our 4th row seats. We ended up in front row almost in the centre because there were a couple of empty seats. I gave those people some time to show up, but they didn't. It's a shame to leave front row seats empty. A damn shame.

At the end of the show, Corina skipped up to Chantal with a big smile on her face, waving. Chantal crouched down and said hi to her and called her Sweetie. Corina could not have been happier.

Today she wrote a fan letter to her. She wouldn't tell me what she was working on, other than to ask for my cd so she could spell "something". This is what the letter says.

To: Chantal Kreviazuk. You're pretty and I love your music, but my favourite song is I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane. It has a pretty sound. If you ever have a concert, buy front row seats and centre and get two for me and my mom and VIP passes, if it is far away give us something to get there with. You don't know where I live. I live at (.......). Send it to that address and please do it, and put my name on it so I get to open it. This is how you spell my name. C-O-R-I-N-A.

ps. I am the little girl that at the women's show I came and waved to you and you said "Bye Sweetie".

OMG. She was so proud to show me that letter when it was done. I had to try not to laugh. She's got a sense of entitlement, eh? I blame Donnie. She thinks every celebrity is like him now.

Trickster Week

Trickster is some weird organization that goes around to schools doing a week of drama with the kids. They were at Corina's school this week. Every class had a prop. Corina's class had bins. The kids were responsible for coming up with a skit using their props, and then on Friday night each class presented their skits for family and friends.

In one part of Corina's skit, she played the bottom of a fallen tree and got cut in half. She was so excited about this. She talked about it all week long.

She was a squirrel ranger or something like that. I really need to ask her about it. It was kind of confusing. Anyway, the main thing they were talking about was the environment.

I don't know what was happening here, but Corina looks happy about it.

This is the part of the skit where Corina is the bottom of the tree. She falls when she's trying to get up. Max and I are playing the part of the great audience members who laugh WAY too loud at Corina's part. We love her! Shut up.

Meet My New Phone

I'm a little excited about this...
It's a 1950s payphone, homeboy! I'm just waiting for it to be delivered. I will have the best phone ever!

I'm a Limey!

I'm a little bit obsessed. It all started innocently enough with making my own soaps, so I could avoid nasty chemicals. I needed a yummy smelling essential oil, and the first one I picked was lime. I made some shower soap with it. I pretty much fell in love.

Then last summer when I was at the farmer's market in Salt Lake City, I found Bubble and Bee. They make great, chemical-free products. My favourite by far is the lotion stick. It is lime and coconut, but basically just smells like limes. I bought a bunch of them so they could last until my next visit, but I use them all day long until I smell green. I'm almost out. What will I do??

So often I have wanted to take a bite of my lotion stick, so I thought maybe instead I should find something more appropriate to put in my mouth that would taste like limes. Yay Crystal Light!

I discovered this recently. As if it's not limey enough, I also stick a lime wedge into the neck.

Shoving lime wedges into bottle necks helped me realize what it is I truly want to do, and it is this:

I now suck limes. Like - all the time. I crave them like they're my crack. I crave them in a way that simply can't be normal. And then it makes me giggle because my family is from England and I get to live a racial slur against myself.