To do:
Bake muffins
take out garbage
charge ipod

And all in prep for my visit to Ikea! I am happy as a clam (are they happy? I have just heard the saying.. maybe it was happy as a yam) I am happy as a yam!

I cut my own bangs this morning because they were making me go crazy! CRAZZZZIIIIYYYEEEEEE

So yes, Dave, Corrina, Bre and I will be driving tonight so pray for us if you think of it. I will be in Ikea tomorrow, so pray for me to shop smart and find deals, if you think of it! Our house sitter will keep our place clean and shiny and feed our cats and we will shop! Good deal. Bre is weird in cars so I am doing some mediational preparation for the trip. But, I am weirder, so she might want to get prepared as well! I think I will drink coffee all day that way when we leave at dinner time I will be so hyper that they will hate me, then I will promise to be good if they let me spend 5 hours in IKEA! Manipulative!!! Wahh. Yes, I am excited to get this ONE things from ikea (at least for sure)
Our Noodle bowls are all shiny now: take a look! Corrina wanted in on the fun of eating with chops sticks.

She did a fairly decent job I think!

And we all know that the real and only way to eat with chop sticks is to actually eat with you fingers!

So until our return from many wonderful American materialistic adventure we sign off!

Vacation:

Wonderful Things I've did on my Vacation:

Attended Islendingadagurinn, the icelantic festival in Gimli Manitoba, where we spoke to ancient Icelanders and learned to play a

Helped setup and attended a friend's wedding

Swam in the wadding pool with Corrina

Ordered a Krabby Patty! The burger was alright, but just saying the words was FANTASTIC!

Played MANY Board Games, including kicking BUTT at Seafarers of the City and Knights of Catan! (Then got MY butt kicked at Pirates of the Spanish Main)

Painted Pottery

Saw the Simpsons Movie

Advocated for our daughter's hearing

Went to the ZOO

Operated on a Human Heart (via Wii)

and FINALLY saw Casablanca for the first time, which was FANTASTIC. NOW I can see what all the fuss is about!

I'm sure there was more, but still that's a pretty good list!

Many thanks to my wonderful family for the good times,
-Dave

Sneak Peak

I know Corrina is up from her nap, but she hasn't made a peep yet so I will take time for a normal post.
Dave and I went on a date last week, and this week to do an activity for our third anniversary. Yesterday I remembered to take pictures of our project at the ceramic painting place Brushfire:



We both painted noodle bowls, which in the pictures are not fired yet of course (they will be shiny and bright next week!), so this is a sneak peak. We painted VERY different scenes: flowers vs. autronaunts saving Tokyo. This place is incredibly fun and I am hoping to take the mom and sisters-in-law here to paint when they visit in September (mom, rachel, claire: details to follow in an email soon!) This place is comfortable, inspiring, cute and holds alot of artistic fun. Even polkadots turn out amazing!

Last night I went bowling and had coffee with some good friends. We had fun playing with the camera at the coffee shop!

Monday night we had our good friend Allison and her visiting parents and sister over for dessert! I baked and Dave decorated with berries and icing. Delicious!

Dave is back at work, life is normal again and I miss having him around. But, we do have lots of plans for visiting and activities in the next few weeks and then before we know it school will be starting and youth group will be picking back up!

unimportant

This post is truly silly. For the last while I have taken a photo on our computer, using photo booth on mac, whenever I have gotten my hair cut, or just happen to like my hair that day. Like I said: Silly! Today I thought I would post a few of these pictures, just for fun! And, because I know everyone likes looking at me!
So, starting way back when... i don't know the date, but the hair sure is short! And these are some very idiotic photos of me too, so do laugh! Of course, as you can see, i have been working on growing my hair out, and my hair indeed has been growing! I guess this first one is Christmas:


This one, above does not really look like me! HA, funny!








So I am angry at my hair for not being straight, but today I am actually okay with it's curliness because I found this sweet piece of trim that I bought in a grab bag. I will officially sew it into a headband later! My bangs are hanging out in my eyes too much, so that needs to change, but other than that I think I will keep on growing things out!
That's it for my silly post!

All sorts!

I love summer today! I have our camera back now and a little bit of time this morning to make a post! Dave has been on holidays the past week. We still know nothing new about the house. On with the photos:


Our good friend Heather married a fellow called Peter this Saturday. We have known them both since college and enjoyed seeing them promise ridiculously lovey-dovey vows to each other! Featured below is not the new bride and her groom, but all of us "girls" that have been friends for the past 5 years! Many happy days to Peter and Heather!

The rest of the photos are all over the place in order. Last week we had a delicious Sunday dinner with some friends from church. They are the sweetest couple and have a number of their own grandchildren, but have taken time to show lots of love to Corrina as well! They always give her lots of cuddles and kisses, not to mention playtime in their lovely backyard! They have a cute, kid sized path through a cluster of flowers. Once Corrina discovered it and learned to go around on her own there was no stopping her:


Eventually Corrina lost balance and fell down onto the rocks. Steve, our friend, rushed over to help her up, gave her a kiss and patted her bum. She took one more step, stopped, and slowly lowered herself down onto a stone, assuming a very upset face. Steve saw that she was playing, but went over and helped her up again. She was on her way for the second time when she again lowered herself down very carefully, shot Steve a very upset look, turned back the other way cracked a smile and so quickly made a frown again. It was HILARIOUS!
Here is where my rant begins, consider this your warning!!!
Now, some may deem this situation to be her sinful nature coming forth manipulating or tricking us into thinking she is hurt. I don't think this though. When she first started doing it I was just shocked that she knew how to pretend like this. When we shared the funny story with our very wise friend, Brenda the ECE-III worker she said "wow, Corrina has learned how to engage people in play with her without using words!" She has always done this in many different manners, but she really liked that Steve came into her world and realized that she could 'play' with him by 'falling down'. Children with words can do this so much more easily just by asking someone to come "Mommy, come walk me!" or "help!" Corrina has to use her body and actions to engage people in her world right now and she has mastered it in yet another way!
I am always of the opinion that the "bad" or "sinful" things we label our children as doing really are not at all. Little people's minds develop as they grow and if Corrina was not learning to pretend or seek attention I would be very worried about her development! Often times I find the only reason that she misbehaves is because of the environment I have put her in. Is it really bad behaviour for an 18mnth old to make some noise in church? Not really, it is an unrealistic expectation; it is the environment, not the child. Of course not all situations lean this way, but I find as I watch families in all different places that perhaps the parents need to change the environment and not the child. I also really believe in all the joys of curiosity, decision making skills in little children, and the acceptance of the feelings that kids have. I believe that children need help with each of the above because they need to learn how to use those gifts appropriately, but nothing else makes me cringe as much as hearing a parent/adult deny or discredit a child's feelings "You don't need to be shy; You're not scared of the nice doggie; Forget it, it wasn't that bad!" This only teaches children to mistrust their feelings, but we must remember that feeling provide us with information. Feelings are neither good nor bad, they are different from actions, and furthermore feelings change! I believe we need to learn to listen to our children with as much care as we do to our best friends! Simple listening gives our children attention and let's them know you are actualy listening. Simple words like Uh-huh, really?, yeah, hum, and tell me more can help our children stay in charge of the problem themselves and it validates the way they are feeling because of a situation. It also helps to describe the situation and the child's feelings sometimes because little kids are learning what they are feeling and may not know if they have not been told. Sometimes kids need help working through feelings (anger can lead to some crazy behaviors, but it can always be worked through in positive ways without discrediting it!) and other times they just need to know you know how they feel: "Oh, you're mad you can't go to school with your sister." Sometimes that is it. It's okay for kids to feel! Actualy accepting feelings and helping kids learn to deal with mad feelings (take five deep breaths, go for a little walk, etc...) helps reduce power struggles! As you can imagine this is difficult with a little person who doesn't hear, but we have our ways! Rant over now.. I really could go on and on.. but instead I will leave you with a book title: Love and Limits by Elizabeth Crary. It has great examples of setting limits and consequences (do you know the difference between a reward and a bribe, or a consequence and a threat for instance? I'm sure you do!!!) but it also has amazing ideas for helping parents and children learn to deal with feelings!
Back to the pictures:
We went to the Gimli Icelandic festival. There was a a really neat viking village set up. People who have viking ethnicity or just interest actualy set up authentic camp for the weekend. We saw a women dying linen with onion skins. I loved the bedframes they had in their tents but forgot to take a picture.
Corrina liked playing in the rocks with mom and dad!

Dave and I are going on a 'date' this afternoon to a secret place. I know, he doesn't... he he he. Corrina is in daycare and dave is on holidays. We can keep her home if we want, and we did last week, but today we are going to use the time for a date. Plus, Corrina is so happy to be at daycare!

Promises, promises

I, Janie, am successfully through a one week intensive course on Ethical decision making in Social work! Ack! At first the days moved by quickly and I was overwhelemed at the thought of one day being responsible for making very important decisions regarding the delicate lives of vulnerable people. By Wednesday I was ready for a break from being in class all day, and the house was a mess, but of course I would have to wait until friday! Come friday, besides feeling tired, I actualy felt equipped to work through ethical dilemma's that I may one day face in practice. By Novemeber, although i don't want to leave it that long, I will need to turn in my last assignment for the course, a lengthy paper detailing my decision for a certain ethical scenario. I am actually looking forward to writing this paper! But, I don't have the time to start just yet as we are working on some rather important life decisions right now.

I have a lot of pictures to post but we left our camera at a friends house and won't be able to get it back until sunday.
We still do not have the house we are looking at because the engineer's report we had done uncovered a number of very major issues regarding the structure. Unfortunately the people we need to talk with at the North end housing project are on vacation! Very frustrating, but let's hope they have a great vacation and are refreshed and feeling generous when we are eventually able to meet with them. We need to see if they have grant money to fix the foundation. If they are able to pay that without raising the buying price of the house then we will buy. If not then we really don't know what will happen with our house buying dreams...
We have spoke with a number of people regarding sending corrina to Newfoundland for a bilateral implant. It seems that something may come of this, but of course we still really cannot say how it will all play out. We will keep everyone posted as much as we can! Family, if you would like more detailed information regarding the gazillion phone calls and all the information please do ask!
Dave is on holidays today, so we started the week off with a major deep clean of the house, removing all the pesky piles up cat hair hiding in places like under the freezer and behind the bed. I HATE CAT HAIR. Dave says I act like it is my mortal enemy. The rest of the holiday time can now be spent with minimal cleaning and maximum relaximum!

Word Out Believers!