Thankful Thursday

First of all, who's this handsome beast?! We weighed him the other day because I was afraid he was getting chunky again. Last year this time he was like 52 lbs and was having some joint issues. We weighed him (multiple times out of disbelief) and he was 44 LBS!! A MUCH better weight for him. Turns out he's just very hairy haha. I groomed him up a bit and he looks better now :)

Looking pretty good for being 8.5 years old! <3

1. Some Hope on the Horizon. Kimber Images has some exciting things coming up! Some are finalized, some are still in the planning process, but it feels good. Also, the top story on the news yesterday morning was that the Real Estate market is (FINALLY) supposed to start picking up dramatically in the next few weeks. Hallelujah! 

Gramma came over last Thursday so that I could get some work done. I went to the office for a couple hours and then popped into Starbucks for another couple hours to get some more work done for Spartan Foundation and for Kimber Images. So nice to have a change in environment! 

I've been loving the kids bonding with Gramma and Grandpa more since they've been seeing them more often! <3 Playing some memory here where (I heard) Gramma lost every game haha!

2. Spring Break Activities. We got a park date in with Ash & Phoebe at the Dino Park in Langley. We went to have a playdate with Rebecca finally. Dom got to go play some hockey with Henry & Sam yesterday! (I have been having serious playmate guilt for him. I wish he had a brother or cousin who loved sports as much as he does around his age. All day long (ALL. DAY. LONG!!!) he is begging one of us to play hockey with him. He plays by himself most of the time, but it's so depressing haha!

Such a moody bunch <3

All the Kimber cousins!

My heart fills for how happy Dom is here

3. Refeed Box. Scott & Ash were away for the weekend, so they said we could pick up their Refeed box for them. If you haven't heard of it, Refeed is a program that takes unsold produce and organizes it by quality. The stuff that is still really good is piled into boxes and sold for $25 for the box. We got this huge load of produce (at least $70+ worth) for $25. Some of it I was like what the heck am I going to do with this?! I have actually used almost everything though! Forcing us to try new things!
Made some green salsa for a St. Patty's day party with the tomatillos
Roasted the oyster mushrooms, peppers, garlic, onions, turnip/white carrot thing, added the collard greens ad parsley and made it into a pasta sauce.
Used potatoes and large carrot for shepherd's pie.

Never would have thought to make my own green salsa, but man... I will definitely be doing that again. SO good!

4. Dollar Store Art projects! I got some colouring sheets, stained glass coloring, sticker by number, scratch papers and more from the dollar store at the beginning of spring break and it has kept the big kids soo busy! Well worth the $15!!

I lumbered downstairs at 7:30 the day after the St Patty's Day party and found these two silently colouring at the table. Oh my gosh, the time of having big kids is arriving!!

How cute is this?! Comes as a 2-pack with two different designs for $1.25!

5. SPRING TEASER! We have had a couple days of 15-18 degrees and I cannot express enough how happy this makes me! We even had our first outdoor dinner with J&K since last fall. 

Car washing weather after Dave and his Golf were reunited last week. Wish we didn't have to bring it back in again tomorrow... *cryyyyy*. They replaced the transmission with a used one, but it's still not shifting smoothly and clunking occasionally so they're going to take another look at it. I'm kind of done with car crap now haha.

6. St. Patty's Day Party. The Chickalettas & "The Roosters" (or whatever the guys call themselves) got together at Steph & Brent's for a St. Patty's day party. This gathering was supposed to happen back in 2020, but then COVID happened and it took us this long to pull it together again. What a blast. Bonus points for all of us making it to church for the 9am service the next morning. I definitely had a slow start haha. 

Everyone brought green food. My contribution was "Hint of Lime" Tostitos, guacamole and green salsa. 

Steph & Brent organized a beer pong tournament with 6 teams round robin style. Dave and I (Zero Lucks Given) made it to the finals. We made one redemption shot, but in the end couldn't defeat Brayden & Alycia (Greener Pastures). 
How any children slept through the yelling that came from that tournament is beyond me haha!

7. Finally finishing our Advent checklist. I had "S'mores" on our advent list back in December, but it never happened. Dom asks at least once or twice a week to do it, and the other day I randomly figured it was time. We tried inside over a candle, but that was frustrating for the kids, so we grabbed the propane pit and did it out on the deck instead. Not the most relaxing activity, and Eva's sugar high kept her up til 8:30, but at least I can say we did it haha.

Some more happy moments from the week:

Kids wanted to send a funny picture to Myles

Revenge of the Sith in the theatre :)

Eva wanted a pepper nose

Her little ponytail in church <3

Dave hung out with her in the foyer so I could listen to the sermon. She made herself comfortable

Hard to see, but she found and opened up the change pad, grabbed a book, and laid down to read. Hard to imagine she used to fit on half that changing pad.

Thankful Thursday - Car Troubles/Spring Break/Kimber Images' New Hire/Birthday

It. has been. a week! Lots of amazing things happening, and also lots of stress! Remember how I was talking last week about our van troubles? So Dave replaced the battery and everything and then Friday night AGAIN the van was saying, "check charge system." Seriously. Can't make this stuff up. Brand new alternator, brand new battery. We call the shop and they take it in on the Friday to look at it again. As it turns out there was a loose ground or something on the alternator. They were in a rush to get it put back together when Dave picked it up the first time because they said it would be ready, so I guess they didn't cross their t's and dot their i's. So last Friday we picked up the van together (which was so nice and Dave's parents were at our house with the kids that day). On the way home, I was in Dave's car and he was in the van. I was following him to make sure nothing weird happened to the van on the way home. 

SURPRISE!!! At 160 and Fraser Highway, DAVID'S car makes an aggressive CLUNK CLUNK! Five seconds later it goes CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK. Shit. I thought maybe I hit a pot hole and got a flat tire. Nope... car is stuck in third gear. I cannot make this shit up. David's transmission blew on our way home from the shop with the van that had been in and out all week already. Whaaaat the actual eff! We called the shop right back and they were able to take Dave's car in. Miraculously we were able to drive it there - luckily it was stuck in third gear since that one is pretty versatile for city streets. The car was definitely not happy though. 

All that to say, the timing of these car troubles was actually as convenient as it could be. The kids are on Spring Break and we have no real need for two cars most of the time, we were able to get help when needed, and we're already have so much financial stress right now that all we could do was laugh about this. We should be able to pick up the car today (Thursday), and hopefully that's it for car troubles for the next few years! 

Now onto Thankful Thursday! Whew! It's been a really crazy week aside from car stuff too! We had Dave's birthday last weekend, and Dave brought me into his business to help out with admin and marketing, so we've been having meetings with potential clients and figuring out a system and working many hours a day together. 

1. Spring Break. I was nervous about Dom being home every day, but it's actually been a lot of fun so far. He's LOVING being home and involved everyday, and has been getting outside, playing with the girls, and especially getting Eva out of my hair! It does mean I make a lot more snacks during the day, but it's been fun and sort of reminiscent of the pre-Kindergarten days. I kinda miss it, but come talk to me after week 2 of spring break haha!

Took Dom & Emilia to the library one day while Eva napped. One perk of Dave being home (work has been slowwwww this year, but that's changing!) is that I can leave while she naps.

Big kids at the library means they can go grab a stack of books, I can grab a book, and we can part ways (sort of) and read in peace. Magic. Those of you with little littles, it gets easier!!

It happened to be a gorgeous day, so we went to the playground for a bit before going home to figure out dinner.

Dom got flashlights and they cleaned the girls' room and played dance party and then sleepover. They kept Eva happy and occupied up there for over an hour. What sorcery is this! I worked for almost an HOUR without her pressing my buttons (literally).

2. Help from Gramma and Grandpa. Last Friday they came over to watch the kids so that Dave and I could go to work. My boss wasn't in the office, so I decided to go to Black Tiger Co. and do some work there. Boy is it ever nice to work in a different environment - one without children running around and WITH windows! Dave and I then got to go for an early birthday lunch together as he was also out working (more on that later), and then I went to the library to get a bit more done. That day was so refreshing!

HIker was more engaged in Lion King than the kids were. 

3. Dave's work. So as I've mentioned before, this year has been a struggle so far for work. Not just for Dave, but for most in this profession. Last weekend there was some reignition of passion and light for Dave and he and I officially started working together. It feels like a no brainer since we are polar opposites and compliment each other in every way. Everything he excels at, I struggle with and vice versa. You'll hopefully be seeing some more action on Social Media, some more corporate reels and promotional videos, and we have a couple really exciting projects coming up. 

I feel like the last few months is going to act like a slingshot. We've been pulled so far back in many ways, and it's about to release and launch us forward and upward. I'm really proud of the hard work Dave is putting in and the walls he's breaking down, and looking forward to continuing to work together!

We have one project in particular that's really exciting. We will be doing a promotional/story-telling video for Healing Place Counselling Centre/Soul Matters in downtown Cloverdale. We met with the owner, Elsje, this week to discuss it and we left feeling very excited and inspired. It's hard to explain what this centre does in words (hence the desire to do a video), but she did an All of Life interview at church on March 5 and shared a bit about their story and how they hope to eliminate financial, physical and emotional barriers with mental health.  

*If you know anyone with a passion for mental health and eliminating barriers who might also have some sort of capacity to partially or fully sponsor and support a promotional video project for Healing Place Counselling/Soul Matters, please please please message me for more info!!!* 

While we went to the meeting, we dropped all the kids off at Jeff & Marta's place and snuck out. Marta and Ashleigh weren't there at the beginning, so it was just Jeff & Scott watching 5 kids AND making dinner for everyone. Love it!

Boerenkool and roqueworst for dinner! Eva was dancing and "yumming" the whole time.

Aunty Ashleigh in her natural environment, making creations with wood, sticks, leaves and rocks in the backyard with the kids. Tell me you're an amazing outdoor preschool early educator without telling me you're an amazing outdoor preschool early educator!

Eva and O helping uncle Jeff deal with the hydrangeas. 

Possibly my new favorite photo ever. 

4. Dave's birthday! Dave turned 32 on Sunday, and he had a poker night Saturday night with the guys, and then we went out to Agassiz for brunch on Sunday! That drive is SO much easier now than this time last year. Eva can just eat snacks the whole way and doesn't scream nearly as much haha. 

Short stack

Huge turnout meant that Ashleigh and I could have girls night in the theatre! It's been a LONG time :)

Pancakes, sausages and bacon for brunch :)

In the evening around 6pm we were back home, and I was working on some stuff for Dave and suddenly we (he) hears a *crack/thud* and then power went out. Crap! A truck had SMASHED into a telephone pole right outside on Fraser Highway and knocked our power out. Thankfully the driver was okay, because it was not a small crash. The kids were a bit nervous about the power, but luckily Dave had his new wands from his parents for his birthday to help with bedtime stories!

Lumos

I solemnly swear I am up to no good

That evening we ordered sushi and played games by candlelight (and some light from Dave's work lights haha). The power actually came back on around 9, but we turned the lights back down and finished our game with the candles :) I kicked his butt. 

5. Dom's soccer season is wrapped up and we got him in another season starting in April! That will be outdoor soccer at Clayton Park in the mornings. We really enjoyed the outdoor spring season last year, bringing the girls to the park and what not. Looking forward to doing that again. 

Alright! And a few random moments from the week...

She's been trying to figure out this strider thing for the last few days. She has figured out Wren's motorized quad thing and will drive that around not really understanding how to steer. 

I was making pasta and we invited Jesse & Kirstin for dinner. Wren and Eva were two peas in a pod playing afterwards.

Emilia's birthday wish list/plan
1. A frozen chapter book

2. More Lion King toys for her "collection"

3. Marshmallow (from Frozen)

4. A Calming Bottle

5. Cars

6. "Nailish polish"

7. A Frozen clock

8. Have Pizza

9. Have cake (with a picture of Eva peeking onto the table to see the cake)

10. Sing happy birthday

11. Open presents

Love it! Also she already has most of these things haha.

Emilia trying to help and encourage Eva to ride faster.