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.