Before and After (from a long time ago!!)

So, on the second last day of the year, we celebrated a birthday here in our home - Mr. Lincoln's. While I did write a blog post about it, I neglected to add pictures of his cake. Going back through pictures, I noticed this and remembered that I had taken before and after pictures of his cake and have yet to post them!

So while they are 3 months old, here is a Before and After of his cake:

Needless to say, while it wasn't his requested dinosaur cake, he was absolutely THRILLED with this cake. He still talks about it to this day. In fact, it is someone's birthday tomorrow, and he thinks I should make that person a tractor cake as well! While I love the colour green, I think I'll pass on making myself a tractor cake :o)

And now some other pictures yet from his birthday:

With 3 months under our belt with a 3 year old, we are surviving. Barely, but we are. Whoever coined the phrase Terrible Twos certainly did this before they dealt with a three year old!! 3 (and 4) was tough for our darling girl, and 3 is proving to be tough on our handsome boy as well. I call it the Tormenting Threes. They are wanting more independence, and feel they need to share their opinion all day long, whether they like something or not (usually not). Oh, and in between all the "I do it!!" and "I don't want that!!", there is the "Why, mom?" Why is it winter? Why is it cold? Why is daddy at work? Why you ask me to do this? Why I have to listen? Why? Why? WHY?!?!

He made up for his antics the other day. We were in the doctor's office, looking at pictures. He saw a picture of a beautiful woman and said, "She's pretty." and then "Is that you, mom?"

Ah, bless his heart. He is once again my perfect little angel. Cough, cough :o)

Chapter 3........Tomorrow

I know, I know, it is Thursday, however with a meeting Tuesday night, Wednesday night and tonight, I am just not able to get a chapter summary done from our book. Tomorrow night I will have time, so that is when it'll be done. I've got it read, but yeah, seeing that I do most of my blogging at night, it'll have to be tomorrow.

See you then!!

On a total different strand, here is a snapshot of a Before and After:

Before:

After:

(so frustrating that I can't turn a picture once it's been chosen.....sorry for the crick in your neck now)

 

After lining up his cars ever so carefully on my table, just before lunch, I realized it was time to pull up the car mat from downstairs for him. Ah, the joys of raising a boy. I love it.

Before and After

When we moved into our home, we right away took out the existing carpet in the family room and replaced it with very light coloured carpet. Who knew our lives would be changing drastically a few years later, with the adoption of our children?! We sure didn't - otherwise we would *never* had put light carpet in a main room!!

Well, after a number of years and stains later, we knew it was time to do something about it. Having asked around as to what is best, we settled on hardwood-looking vinyl. We needed something that was most durable, that could withstand water, and all that comes with a busy family.

We tackled this project back in the Christmas Holidays, and thanks to a good friend, we were able to get it done!

But before we could get rid of the carpet, we had to empty the room, starting first with this book shelf.....which didn't stay empty for long, thank you Keziah!

 

 

No, your computer screen is not dirty - those are the stains on the carpet. See that big smudge in the middle, slightly to the left? Yeah, that was in front of our couch. Let's all say "Ewwwww" together....

With lots of help, getting this yucky carpet out was no big deal!!

 

Then the kids were dismissed as the real loud tools came out. We took out the tile that was in the room, so that it would be all one floor once completed.

Despite no couch and carpet, important things were still done, like cheering on our team at the World Juniors - especially seeing as there was so much too cheer about (missing that - cheering. My poor Leafs.....:o(

Thankfully, with the help of a good friend, the new vinyl flooring was laid within a day:

And it's done!!

 

And what it looks like today, after all the furniture is back in. We love it!!! And we are very surprised that it is *not* noisy either! And the best part? It is so easy to keep clean.

 

Before and After

This picture was taken last week Tuesday.....hence, the Before:

This picture was taken tonight......hence, the After:

Circle the differences, and see why one is Before and one is After.

Can't figure it out??

Maybe the next pictures will help you to spot what the difference is:

This picture was taken early last Wednesday morning. Before.

This picture was taken late last night. After.

Still can't tell?! I guess you'll just have to check back in a few days......... :o) And if you figured it out, you'll also have to check back in a few days to see if you are right. I would blog more about it all, but yeah, wouldn't want to get sand in my keyboard ;o)

Before and After

Growing up, we never had a Christmas tree. Well, not a vertical one anyway. My parents were "against" Christmas trees, yet my mom decorated the house with garland and tinsel and stuff. I don't know about you, but to me that is like a Christmas tree - just a horizontal one.

There are still many that I know who are not in favour of Christmas trees. I am not sure exactly why, but the fear of the tree (with presents underneath) being a focal point (idol) rather than the True Meaning of Christmas could very well be one of the reasons.

I have read up on it a bit, and like most 'controversial' things in life, there are many "for" and "against" articles in regards to Christmas trees. It also is very interesting to read the history of how things like this come to be. I think that is very important - to know the whys of what we do.

After we were married, we never had a vertical tree. Horizontal, yes, meaning, yes, I did decorate my home in December. But the vertical tree didn't come into our home until we had kids (those kids, I tell ya!!). My sister was throwing out her tree, but asked me first if we wanted it. Sure! we said!! So for the last 4 years, we've been setting up and decorating a tree.

We don't set it up for our presents - we set it up just for the fun of it. Besides, like I tell the kids, on the dark and dreary days of December, it's always nice to come home to something that brightens up the room a bit. It just gives a festive feel to the room. And the kids LOVE decorating it.

So, here is our tree, BEFORE:

An our tree AFTER:

My decorators:

The tree comes down fairly quickly after Christmas......and is replaced by balloons. Birthday balloons. Birthday Balloons for my Baby. Birthday Balloons for My Baby who Turned Three. Waaaaaaaaaa!!!! More about him next time. I need to go find a way to control my emotions.....

Before and After

I always knew growing up that I wanted to be a teacher. At the tender age of 20, my dream came true as I welcomed my very first class of Kindergarten students. 10 years and over 200 students later, I finally went to our Teacher's College to become truly qualified. I never did go back to having my own class, as Keziah was born the year I graduated from College. Although I have been supply teaching a bit over the past 6 years, I have been home most of the time.

Every once in awhile, I will bump into an "old" student of mine and we often will start chatting about that year - the year when they stepped cautiously or excitedly into my classroom. We chat about what we remember about that year. Being Kindergarten, it was many years ago for some of my students, and so the memories can sometime be rather foggy.

However. There is often one story that comes up every time I ask a student what they remember. And it has nothing to do with me. Or them. But to do with Mr. Helder, my husband (or my dad if you are 5 :o)

Now, what is this story about Mr. Helder that has stuck in most of my students' minds?! Let me share it with you:

On one of our first dates as a married couple, we went to a seafood restaurant. Having looked at the menu, I order my trusty chicken dish and Nathan orders a fish. A whole fish. A whole fish that included the head. Yummy. Not. I clarify with the waitress that while I ordered a chicken dinner, I was *not* interested in the whole chicken. No head, feet or feathers for me, thanks!!

A little while later, our dinners are brought to us, and sure enough, on Nathan's plate is a complete fish. Tail, head, fins, eyeball. It's all there.

I cautiously cut a little piece off my chicken, while looking carefully to make sure there is nothing "extra" still attached.  As I chew my morsel of deliciousness, I look over to Nathan's plate and notice that the fish is no longer whole. Yes, the tail and fins are there.....but where is the head?!?!?! I glance up to ask Nathan where the fish head went and I see Nathan chewing.

No. Tell me he didn't.

Before I could start to choke, I see him dip down to his plate and spit something out.

It was the skull.

That's right - the brains, the head and eyeball had been eaten! All that is left is bone.

While I sit there with my mouth gaping open, trying not to gag, and telling myself that there is no way I will *ever* kiss that mouth again, Nathan calmly says, "Well, now I know what that tastes like.".

Well, of course I went to school the next day and told my students what Mr. Helder had eaten. And I told that story each and every year I taught. And apparently that story stuck! Never mind the copious amount of time I spent with my students, the love, care and dedication that I put into my job, it is the Fish Story that comes up as sometimes the only memory of Kindergarten.

Fast forward to present time. A few weeks ago, we went out for dinner. Sure enough, Nathan orders a fish. A complete fish. Head, tail, fins and eyeball. And yet again, I am left trying to enjoy my dinner while he mows down on this "delicacy". After all, it has been 16 years since the last time he had it!

And this time, instead of telling my students what he ate, we had the privilege of telling Keziah and Lincoln. Just in case they didn't believe it, I took pictures.

So this is my Before and After for this week:

Before:

And his fish, After:

At least this time he didn't stick the whole head in his mouth. He did eat the eyeball though like last time. As one of my students said, "Wow!! So the fish can see what Mr. Helder had for breakfast?!".

I don't know about you, but I shall continue to stick to my faithful and dependable chicken dinners.

No comment about whether I stopped kissing Mr. Helder though. ;)

Before/After

It's a dark and stormy wintry night......and Winter doesn't start in 5 weeks!! Oiy. But no complaints here!! Why?! Because I don't live on the other side of the lake - in Buffalo, NY. My, oh my. Can you imagine receiving two meters of snow, with possibly another meter on its way?! Can't picture it? Here, have a look at this. Unbelievable.

I had these pictures planned as a Before and After, but I have now added a new category: Middle, thanks to Fall ending so suddenly and Winter coming so early.

So here is my Before picture of some trees in my front yard:

Middle:

After:

But it wasn't just my trees changing in a month. So was my driveway.

Here is my Before:

And After:

It's amazing the difference a month makes!!

Before and After!

And you thought I forgot about this newly established theme. Pfffft. Nope, haven't forgotten at all! Life, like everyone else's, just seemed to have picked up speed, which means blogging kind of takes a backseat. But life is good!! It is full. It is adventurous. It is fun.

Blogging for me is a night time activity, done in peace and quiet where I can put my thoughts down. However, my nights have been quite full with meetings etc. My days are definitely quieter than my nights, but I do not like to blog when my littles are up. It requires too much thought and concentration for me and so to be interrupted just would not go over well. Hence, the nighttime blogging.

But here I am! I have a night free AND I feel like blogging. I have some catching up to do (i.e. Thanksgiving camping etc.) but I start tonight with a BEFORE and AFTER.

I took these pictures back in September, but I thought I'd better share them before it gets too cold out there, 'cause who knows, maybe they will inspire you to get this task done while it is still do-able, weatherwise.

This task, like many "cleaning" tasks, had been in the back of my mind for pretty much, well, all summer. There just always seemed to be an excuse to *not* do it. And for the most part, it never really bothered me that it wasn't being done. Until I had to share this space with someone else. Then it was embarrassing and I would 'promise' myself that I will do it before the next weekend. I did that for 12 weeks. And then finally buckled down and got it done.

So what am I talking about?

The Car.

That's right - taking out the vacuum cleaner, dust cloth and a pail of hot soapy water to finally, finally clean that car of ours. And it wasn't that bad of a task to do - especially when you have such a willing helper!

Thankfully, we do not do a lot of eating in the car, so there really weren't a lot of crumbs to deal with. And I didn't have to use my fingernail to peel off any old pieces of candy, smarties or once-soggy fishy crackers from the carpet. We also didn't find any stale bread crusts or chewy french fries under the seats from 6 months ago. But don't worry. We found lots of dust!!

Yup. To clean the car was definitely way overdue! And so, away we went, scrubbing, dusting, and vacuuming everything (and despite what the pictures may show, I did do my part as well ;)

Within the hour, we were left with a sparkling and pleasant-smelling car!

I can see how fast I am going now.....I can no longer use the dust as an excuse: "No, sorry, officer, I did not know I was speeding. Let me just blow the dust off my speedometer for a minute....."

And now I know which way to turn the dial to get some heat!

So, why did it take me all summer to do this?! Who knows, but it sure was nice to no longer be embarrassed in the church parking lot, knowing that so many were passing my car and could see in, thanks to the lack of tint on my windows.

It felt good to get it done, even if it only lasted 3 days. The sand vacuumed up from the summer has since been replaced by leaves.

But I challenge you to get this task done, if you haven't already, before it is just too cold to haul out the vacuum cleaner and a pail of hot steamy water that will only stay hot and steamy for 2.5 minutes. Go. Get it DONE!!! And while it may not stay clean, enjoy checking this off your to-do list before the snow flies. :o)