Urban Green Farm

A day of love

Thank you all so much for your prayers, notes and thoughts, I love this community, you all are loved. 

Yesterday Keith decided to take the day off, which allowed me to go to Glitter's grave alone. It was nice, to just sit and be, surrounded by peace. I have always found graveyards to be so peaceful. I sat there for around 20minutes, just talking to Glitter, thinking about what life would have been, what life is. It was a nice moment. 

I left Glitter his/her first and only toy. A little sock monkey. A toy to keep him company. I also left a beautiful african violet, a velvety soft, purple one. 

When I got home we decided to do something special with the girls, something any child would love. A trip to the farm! A petting farm!

It was a terrific experience. Ivy's favorite things was the huge sandbox, tunnel pit. Ayla liked everything. Keith liked the baby goats. I LOVED the baby chicks. I kept sneaking away and going back into their home to feed them. They would jump all over my arm and hand. SOO CUTE!!! The baby goats were amazing too, you could just go right to them and pet them, and snuggle them and they didn't care. It was a wonderful day. Filled with things I am grateful for, my family. 

TODAY: Not sure yet, but I feel an outing is in order :) Dinner at friends tonight, that always make for a good night. 

Too many photos to watermark, be kind please! 

 

ahhh

We had a weekend of bliss. Grandma time, gardening, river, bar-b-qing with friends, church and a WHOLE day at a great park with great people. Bliss. 

Ya Ayla's hair is getting crazy, I know. We really wanted to grow it out, but she won't keep a clip in, so it's gotta go. Ahh my baby is getting her first haircut. 

TODAY: Groceries. Haircuts. Walking outside. Life stuff! 

Fly on the Wall, a Millis afternoon

Back in September I wanted to get to the truth of life! It was really successful I think, people loved it. If you are interested in taking some time to take pics and write a little blurb about your life, let me know! It would be great to see some other families on this space too. 

So here's the Millis morning, well it probably looks a little different since Sept, but whatever. 

May 23rd, afternoon:

10:30am: Ayla goes down for her one nap a day now. It is usually about 2 hours long, she goes down anywhere from 10:30 to 11. I am finding this hard to manage to be honest, because at about 10 I get the itch to get out and that is when Ayla is winding down for nap. So I mess her up a lot and go out anyway and she has a crappy nap in the van, stroller or wherever and she doesn't nap for very long this way. Today we stayed at home for her nap. 

11:30: we are getting hungry but the kitchen is a disaster. So I clean quickly before cooking lunch. I also see Ivy's dinner from the night before still on the table, not a bite taken. I gave up forcing my kids to eat a while ago, instead they lose out on Chocolate Soy ice cream after dinner, if they don't eat anything. 

11:45: To get anything done with Ivy around, I try to get her to play with a puzzle. She loses interest quickly and asks nicely for a show, so I say yes. Yes she is still in her pj's, we all are. When there is no where to go the mornings take on a slow, lazy kinda feel.

 

12:00: have the kitchen cleaned so I can focus on making lunch. I open the fridge and do the normal lunch routine, pull out random left overs and bits of food here and there and throw together some lunch!

12:10 I cut up some pineapple, throw some left over pasta with more sauce and mushrooms into the skillet and put hummus and peas on the table to munch on. 

12:20 Ayla wakes up! The girls play for a bit. 

12:30 We all eat lunch in our pajamas. 

12:40 : Ivy decides, like she does at every meal, that she wants to be feed. Knowing she will not eat now unless I feed her I give in and put little forkfulls into her mouth. She eats her WHOLE bowl of noodles this way! 

12:50 Once Ivy's done she decides feeding Ayla would be fun.

1:00 I guess it's time to get dressed now! So we slowly make our way up stairs and put on some clothes. And Ivy takes advantage of a unsupervised moment and colours chalk over a few things, like walls and her media chart.

(sorry mommy face) 

Ayla is poopy, so she gets dressed down stairs. And our new everyday diaper change routine beings. Where Ayla loses her mind and thrashes, screams, claws and howls with every change. 

I get why she does this. With every tooth her bum just explodes in blisters, sores and blood. Finally on Saturday the rash cleared up. But she is getting another new tooth and it is starting up again, but even when her bum is clear she does this, because she has been so traumatized by diaper changes. Ohh does it make cleaning her hard. 

This kid can TANTRUM now too. Long after the diaper change and getting dressed is finished she is still thrashing and screaming, she also does this when she doesn't get her way. She would seriously go forever, I have tried to wait her out, but her thrashing is so violent she always ends up hurting herself while tantruming so I come to the rescue. 

I have to pick her up, with cowie and soother. Bounce her around, sing you are my sunshine and often show her her favorite thing, birds! 

Ivy during this WHOLE Ayla ordeal is doing this, 

colouring 

1:15 Keith comes up from the basement because it is hard to work when it sounds like a baby is being murdered upstairs. He has a few minutes and we decide to go on a quick bike ride before the rain hits. Awesome thing about Keith working from home, he can do little things like this once in a while. 

We head home before the rain comes. It was a fun little break at the park. 

1:45 : I remember something I saw on pinterest back in the day I was on it. I stored it away in my mind for a rainy day! Wish I could tell you the original creator of the idea, but surprise surprise pinterest didn't connect the picture to the original source. So I decided on this rainy afternoon to bust out this creative idea. 

Masking tape race car track! Sadly the fun only lasted 30mins. Then Ivy started whining about wanting to eat bananas. These kids never just eat a plain old banana. So I said no. A few minutes later I catch Ivy with all the bananas, she has peeled all of them. I lose it. She is sent upstairs for time out. 

I notice that she has actually eaten a whole banana. Of course! Sometimes I feel like they do things just to spite me, I know this is not true, but I feel it. So I go up and talk to Ivy. I say sorry for yelling and I didn't realise she would actually eat a whole banana. So I set the girls up at their table and give them more banana and kiwi for a snack. 

3:00 the kids are playing with the race car track again. I lay on the floor in the middle of the track and actually fall asleep! I wake up to screaming. Ivy has fallen off the race track when her and Ayla were pretending to be the cars! She's ok. But it is clear we have hit my least favorite part of the day. The 3 o'clock grumpy stretch. Where we are all bored, tired and uncreative. Ivy climbs the rails! 

We play baby in the mirror for a while. Ayla LOVES this game and of course Ivy joins in when she hears all the giggling in there. 

Ivy has a whiny temper tantrum after this, don't remember why, but she she pouts and stomps around for a while. 

Ivy decides to play dress up. But then she wants a prince to play princess with her and since Ayla and I are both girls we can't be the prince. So there is some more whining before Daddy must feel the end of the day itch and comes up to play!

4:00 we decide to start supper, because there is not much else to do! Keith starts the bar-b-q to cook some burgers (Meat night!) and I start making a salad and toppings for the burgers. 

The girls need a little more entertainment while dinner is being cooked! So bean soup it is. 

I just pull out my pots and fill them with white beans and give the girls measuring cups! It's messy, but they love it. 

4:30 Dinner is done super early! So we have a early dinner together at the table as a happy little family. 

A pretty normal day here in our house! Full of screaming, laughing, crying, fighting, playing and life! Please tell me what your day looks like! We would all love to see it. 

TODAY: Raining. Another indoor day :( Not sure what things we will do, Ivy wants her toe nails painted, so I will be doing that right after posting this! Skype date with my far away bestest buddy this afternoon, that will be nice. 

truths

I defiantly think it's time for another Fly on the Wall post over here! I need more volunteers friends! Let me know if you are interested in documenting part of your day and telling us all what your day shapes up to be! Check in here tomorrow to see the Fly on the Wall, Millis Family Afternoon. 

I feel I need to do another one of these, because I sometimes wonder, am I the only mom struggling through this? Is this what all kids do? And the biggest question of all, and why I really want some visitor fly posts, can I do all this with even MORE kids? 

There are moments, when the day is going REALLY bad where I question my desire for more children, even in a really BAD BAD parenting moment I have shouted at Ayla or Ivy "It's this kind of behaviour that is going to keep us from having another baby!" Wow, that is really super special, like really that's just mean! Ivy wants another baby so bad, and I can tell Ayla would be incredible with one, and their actions have nothing to do with more babies or not, it's whether Keith and I can handle their behaviours plus more from other kids! 

But, even during those bad days, those bad moments, I honestly still have a desire for more children. And I do think I can handle it. Pregnancy is hard, labour is HARD, the first year of life is hard, but there is SOO much more then those first challenging years and I don't want to skip out not having more babes because of those challenges. 

We had a special day yesterday and as strange as it was I ended up being very proud of myself and my children. A friend took us to Costco and normally my kids are superstars in the grocery store, I have NEVER had a issue. Ayla loves watching people, so she is always entertained and right when we get into the store Ivy gets a small toy, box of crayons, stickers, colouring book, bubbles or a book, something small in price, and she gets to hang onto it through out the trip. If she misbehaves or doesn't listen she loses her prize. I have NEVER had to take a toy away. This method always works for her, because gifts are her love language. But yesterday....oh yesterday. Ayla feel asleep as we pulled into the parking lot, I tried to transfer her sleepy self to the sling, but no luck. So she was a GRUMP. Ivy even was mopping and whiny about the whole thing! I ended up carrying IVY in the sling for a good chunk of time. And then Ayla lost her marbles. She thrashed and screamed and freaked the freak out. 

If I was alone the cart full of groceries would have been abandoned. Luckily my friend was there to push the cart and keep Ivy near us, while I held the thrasher. But even with Ayla' s meltdown and ear drum breaking levels we kept shopping. And I wasn't even mad, or losing my cool. I was just embracing the awkward moment and brushed peoples glances off with a reminder to myself that dude you were all babies once too. I felt bad for Ayla, I put her in this hard place. She was tired. And I pushed her nap time for my schedule, something I do a lot to her! I hate one nap. Finally she passed out in my arms and I truly just felt warm happy thoughts about my girls. I am a lucky women. 

After this you think I would head home and never leave. But Ayla was still sleeping, so we drove around and she woke up just as I was at the Superstore. I needed a few more items Costco didn't have, so back to grocery land we went. And they did AMAZING! They were better then good, they were sweet and giggling and I was like OH YA I can have more. 

Any secrets about having a large family? Any tips you can share? 

TODAY: Taking pics of all our afternoon moments to share with you tomorrow! Could be amazing, could be crazy, we just won't know till later! 

highs and lows

We survived the weekend, with lots of ups and downs. Luckily there was mostly ups! 

Ivy had been asking to open her piggy bank for a while. I told her to keep thinking about it. She asked me every day for a week and finally on Friday we did it! She wanted the Calico Critters living room set. So we opened up the piggy bank and looked at her money. The deal was she got to spend half and the other half would go to the bank. I didn't want to count it all, so I split up the big bills and a hand full of change. She had $40 in cash and a $15 gift card to spend. 

After some drama at Toys R Us, them not having the living room set, but then her finding this camper she really wanted marked up at 55.99 but rang up at 69.99, me having to fight with 2 managers to get the camper at the marked prince, we took it home much to her delight. 

Some sister loving! These two can sure play hard now. It is great to see them getting along so well, it melts my heart. 

Saturday night we had a living room picnic. 

Sunday I took the girls out for a special breakfast at Cora's, we had awesome strawberry crepes and smoothies. We also got a mall play place almost all to ourselves. 

Then we picked up my sister and went to a new park for us. It was amazing! There will be many more visits there. We had a picnic, played on the playground, went for a walk and played near the river. Perfect afternoon. 

Keith got home right before we did and we just chilled Sunday night. 

Monday we went up to Red Deer to meet the newest member of our family! A new little cousin for Ivy and Ayla. He is so beautifully perfect and these 2 little ladies were so sweet and gentle around him they melted everyones hearts. And totally made me want a little boy! AHHH

There were lots of meltdowns, tantrums and fights along the way. But it was a good weekend. We are all so happy to be outside so much, it really makes life a lot more enjoyable. 

TODAY: Walk along the river prehaps? Trip to the grocery store is a must! 

Don't feel like watermarkering. Please be kind with my pics. 

 

full

As you can see a busy, full weekend. 

A baby group's 3rd birthday celebration. Keith's sisters 30th birthday party. Mothers Day brunch. Gazebo building. 

The weekend would have been better if I didn't get my period and some cramps along with it and if Ayla didn't have 2 weeks of miserable behaviour, diarrhea and sickness with every single tooth she gets. 

But it was, what it was. And even through the grumps I can see I have a lot to me grateful for. I have a husband who cares and made sure I was looked after all day yesterday. I have 2 beautiful girls, who light up my life and fill me with so much love. I have a wonderful house to throw a party at! And now we have SHADE! This south facing backyard gets way too hot, with not a drop of shade. So we hope to make a lot of use out of that gazebo this summer. 

Being a mother is no easy job, but with every frustrating, difficult moment, comes amazing joys and wonders. I am blessed beyond belief to have these littles in my life, I wouldn't trade a second. I am truly grateful and honoured to be a mom. 

TODAY: Grocery shopping and laundry. We are in for a lonely week. My mom starts work today, which is great for her, sad for me! Keith is at a conference all week and then off to a bachelor party in BC this weekend. Boo. Luckily I am so grateful being a mom, because I have some work cut out for me. 

babes

I had a small taste of 3 yesterday. A friend of mine had a new baby, and I remember all to well those first hard days of being a new mom. How exhausted, scared, emotional and painful it all is. So I popped over to her house to help out while she got some much deserved rest! 

Ayla was supposed to nap the whole visit, but instead she wanted to be everywhere that baby was. The baby quickly ended up in the sling, and if we ever have a third baby that is where it will spend all it's time. My girls did great to be honest. They both just wanted to snuggle and hold the new baby. But for a few hours I got the taste of three. And 3 very close in age!! My life if I did not lose Glitter, that would have been crazy, but wonderful. 

It was also clear that priorities would change even more. The cleanliness of this house has gone through a OCD neat freak mom, to a oh well it can wait....another week kinda clean mom. It is entirely impossible to keep this place clean with 2 busy kids and it just doesn't get to me the way it once did. With 3 the floor will always be sticky, the windows always finger printed and the carpets always crummy and that would just be the way it is! I think that would be well worth it for another little Millis in here. 

I am not sure if it was the lack of nap, the excitement Ayla felt over the new baby, or the small amount of real ice cream she got before bed, but this kid had a BAD night. 

She has been getting up a lot lately in the night. It is frustrating. She just needs to be lied down and given her soother, but it was happening MORE and MORE and sometimes she would need to be rocked back to sleep. I was kinda done with this. I know she is teething and growing and la di da but I NEED MY SLEEP. 

So Ayla cried it out again last night. She did this back at 7 months old and it took a while but she got used to it. So after an hour of crying with me coming in every 5 minutes to tell her I loved her and tucked her back in, she FINALLY calmed down. And SLEPT THROUGH the rest of the night. I really hope this sticks. 

She is a little puffy eyed this morning and I made sure she got lots of cuddles. It is a hard thing to do and not for every family, but I think she will have a good night tonight!

TODAY: My Grandma is coming over to make buns with me! She makes the BEST buns. It is likely going to rain today, so it will be great to stay inside baking. 

updates

*** Ayla walks. This happened sometime in April, where she stopped just taking little steps here and there and started full out walking. It's awesome. She can get where and what she wants so much easier. Outside is better because she does not have to crawl over itchy grass. YAY baby! 

*** Counselling, we have had 3 sessions. I seem to be hogging them with my issues, but Keith gets the next one to talk :) It is hard to say what exact proof we have that this is working, but I know it is. I guess I am just learning to communicate better and how to let go of some things, because even if I could fix it all would it really make a huge difference? Most likely no. I know this is general and annoying, but getting into all the nitty gritty details would take forever and ya a little personal! 

*** Meals. We have been eating great! Almost all the recipes I have tried out I really enjoy. I know I feel more energized. When I do eat meat, or have real cheese my stomach gets really heavy and hard! Not fun. So I don't eat those things often. I really really think the project health smoothies are keeping me healthy and cold free! Which is awesome, because they taste good and make me feel awesome. 

Recipe:

1 cup frozen berries (I use PC organic power berry blend) 

1/2 cup wild canadian blueberries 

4 stems kale 

1/2 banana 

2 tbsp honey 

1 cup orange juice 

1 cup steeped green tea 

2 tbsp chia seeds 

2 tbsp hemp hearts  

2 tbsp flax seeds 

Blend it up and drink down the good! 

*** Tingles. I am not sure if from eating better, exercising more, or not being as stressed, but the tingles have lessened. I have to stop and think about them to feel them and the muscle weakness has gone away completely. I have not heard the results from the MRI over 2 weeks ago, so I am assuming things are good there! 

*** Cash system. AHHH we are dropping the ball here. It is so hard to remember grabbing cash! We haven't even got the cash out for May yet! I know this system would work, we have to freeze our credit cards and debit cards I think! ahh too drastic :) I know cash forces me to be more conscious of my spending, so I really need to try harder. 

*** Baby # 3. Ohh babies. We still have taken a break on trying. We really want to get the most out of counselling and focus on us. But I am feeling we are close to being done with counselling. Now I have to settle some heart stuff. I really really want to adopt, and the more I think about it the more I want to do it now! So there is some big talks, prayers and thinking in this families future. 

*** Goal for May. I am trying to get this body at its prime! (another reason to avoid another pregnancy and wine of course) We have been biking LOTS which is awesome and I can feel my muscles growing with each ride. I will be going to yoga once a week and trying to do yoga at home every other day. I also do a lot of walking and house cleaning, both are a great workout! So I plan on being in shape this summer. 

TODAY: Possible playdate, if not outside day! Tonight I have a date with a girlfriend to see a movie, The Hunger Games! YAY!! I read the books so fast but haven't had a chance to see the movie yet. Should be a great day. 

the winter itch

We had such SUCH a tremendous weekend.

Friday had us outside all day, then a ton of our friends came over in the evening for a Bar-b-que and we sat around the fire till late in the evening, basking in the niceness of being OUT. 

Sitting out there, looking into my house, with its warm lights glowing I saw how nice it is. How homey it is. How perfect for us it is. It was a weird, great moment. Looking in and really loving this house. 

I think it is hard to love something when you are stuck in it waiting out the cold season and I get the itch to run, to move, for something new. But as soon as I get outside, the extension of this house, I am in love with it all over again. 

Remind me of this next winter dear readers. 

The weekend continued in awesome. Saturday we were outside all day again, but GARDENING! Friends, I can't tell you how good Saturday felt. I could garden, for hours with no human being inside me, nursing from me, attached to me in some way! It was glorious and so wonderful to really garden like I have wanted to the past 2 springs here.

This is also a hard thing to say to, because I am supposed to be 36 weeks pregnant with Glitter right now. Nearly full term. This is hard for me to think about, because my stomach gets in knots and feel like vomiting as I write this. Glitters due date is going to be really hard. 

We planted the potatoes (2 types) the pea's, the kale, the parsnips, the onions and the garlic. All veggies that can take some frost. We will plant the rest probably near the end of May and we will start the pumpkins inside soon. We also have some new plants joining us, HUGE sunflowers that will help block out the ugly pink house and corn! We also got some flower seeds in the ground and are on the search for wheat grass for the front yard. 

Sunday the weekend continued in its greatness. Keith played guitar at church so he was off bright and early. Us ladies got dolled up and headed out to church ourselves a few hours later. The drive there was scary, crazy sounds and noises filled the van. I felt like driving was a little out of control. Finally at the church parking lot I walked around the van to discover the incredibly flat tire that I drove on ALL THE WAY THERE. Opps. 

So after church Keith got the spare on, which required taking out the car seats to access the spare! Then we drove around looking for a tire place. We got smoothies for the girls and Ayla managed to dump the entire thing ALL OVER her. She was freezing and screaming and messy. But all this couldn't bring me down! It was NICE out and spring, well more like summer was here! 

We played our hearts out for the rest of the day outside. I even set up the girls pool. I read. They played. It was awesome. 

The evening we headed to friends for dinner and spent more time outside. Great way to end a weekend of awesome. 

TODAY: BIG DAY! Election day. Not just any election. Province CHANGING election. I am not the type to tell people how to vote, but Albertans please THINK and take care today when voting. DO YOUR RESEARCH. Then later today is my MRI. I have a permanent piercing in my ear I am worried about. I guess we will see what happens with it. 

some stolen peace

I must apologize to you all. I unintentionally caused some alarm with my mysterious disappearance right after having a mysterious Dr appointment. They had nothing to do with each other, but you did not know that. Thank you for all your calls, texts, e-mails, comments and messages. I am OK! 

The Dr appointment was to tell me a nodule still exists on my thyroid. I am being sent to a specialist, again, to possibly get a biopsy on the nodule, since it has existed unchanged now for 3 years! 

The reason for the trip was that Keith has been working a CRAZY amount of time, like crazy. So he needed a break, the kids needed some quality parent time and I was seeking just some mountain peace. 

The trip provided for all. I was a awesome mom, not having to worry about a house or cooking I was available all the time. We had no computer so Keith was present with us the whole time. It rained the 2 1/2 days we were there, but we still hiked everyday and still explored the lovely town. It was a tremendous time. A real stress reliever. So much so that I realized I had not experienced the muscle weakness that comes with these tingles in a week! Something I am doing is working. 

This new diet, the yoga, the counselling, the trying to be a patient, kind human/mother/wife has done it's work and I am feeling better everyday. I have to think about the tingles to feel them and I will admit in stressful moments they come on stronger. So this all may be more related to stress then I thought. 

Still getting the MRI on the 23rd to be safe, but I am confident this sickness is in my control. 

I can tell you eating healthy (we tried our hardest in Canmore and I feel we did really well) and doing yoga as much as I can have already changed the person I am. I have more patience and energy then ever in my life and I hope it sticks! I feel like the optimistic girl I once was. I like her. 

I wish I could be filling this post with the breath taking pictures we captured during our time away, but sadly, oh very sadly I can't. Our camera, my beautiful Canon Rebel SLR camera was stolen from our van, in our DRIVEWAY 2 nights ago. I can't tell you how upset this makes me. This camera was very much apart of me, always near to take photos of this wonderful life. I am heartbroken. Heartbroken that it was stolen and that once AGAIN our space has been violated, we lost a security we had in this community and it is disappointing and frustrating. 

Ivy's birthday is very soon approaching, I NEED a camera for this day. We are going to search Kijiji to find a bargain, but we have no money for this. BLAH just a frustrating thing. 

So peek at the instagram feed for a picture fill. Sadly all the pics will be there for the next while, I will try to take some with my phone camera to upload on here, because this space is not the same without colourful photos to cover its pages. 

TODAY: Calling the police about the report I made and the insurance company. Grocery shopping for another week of fun filled, healthy meals!