One Wedding and the Disaster

I'm not sure if you all know that I'm a hopeless romantic.  Well maybe not HOPELESS.  I don't really follow the Royal Family.  I have loosely followed Prince William's shenanigans over the years, (like most women my age); I will admit to have some "ideas" regarding meeting Dear Wills and capturing his heart with my 'carefree' attitude and realistic ideals.  However it seems it was not meant to be, our paths never crossed and now he is a married man. (SIGH)

Although I had to tend to a minor fracture to my fragile heart I had to watch the royal wedding and ensure that my Dear Prince William married well.  My wonderful cousin Teal traveled the 5hrs with her two kids to celebrate this historic occasion with me and William.  So we put together a "Traditional" English day to ensure that the momentous occasion was celebrated properly. 

It started with DECORATIONS!  What is a wedding celebration with out some decorations?

Wedding Bells

They boys helped decorate. 

Stetson helped too... Even though it looks like he just decorated him self HAHA

More Bells!

As with most Weddings there was some ups and downs.  2 weeks after the day I have still not been able to classify this next event as an 'up' or 'down'.

My friend Heather, (whom Teal and I both know from our elementary school days) lives in Whitecourt.  It is actually pretty crazy that we both ended up living in this small town at the same time!  Anyway she came over to have a couple drinks the night of the wedding.  Our intentions were pure... A couple drinks after the kids went to bed, make it an early night because we had a big day of festivities planned for the next day and the PVR was set to record the Royal Wedding which was on LIVE at 430am.  Well the next series of photos will explain what happened....

Heather... The turning point in my mind was around 1030 when Heather turned to me after we finished Bottle one of Wine and said "So are we going to do this?"

We finished the wine and started on the beer... the beer was all gone by the AM too...

Not sure what time this was taken at... Some were between when we tried on my wedding dress and when Prince William arrived at the Church.

The Script we wrote Heather for her to call in sick to work... It took about 3 hrs for her to get the guts up to call... We are still unsure why we had to call at 3am and not just wait until we got up the next morning... She didn't have to work until 8am.

About 3am... shortly after she called in sick to work.

Proof that we were up at the beginning of the wedding!

The suspense... Waiting to see Kate and the "dress"!  I shed some tears.  In the end we watched the first part of the wedding ceremony LIVE.  And went to bed around 5am.  Hunter (Teal's 2yr old) was up at 530). 

Needless to say we had a rough morning.  I wont go in to specifics as it was a very difficult day.  But we survived.  And we were able to do the special things to make the Royal wedding a celebration.

The Morning... And getting ready for our Traditional ENGLISH BREAKFAST

Our Breakfast... Sausage, Beans, Fried Toast and tomatoes and fruit.  As you can see the traditional dishes were a hit. 

After watching the rest of the wedding, a walk to the park and NAPS!!! We had a Traditional ENGLISH TEA with my good china and fancy table cloth!  The menu included mini Beef Wellingtons, and a ham appetizer, Cucumber sandwiches, fruit, scones, shortbread, and TEA of course!

Stetson is such a good eater!

Our Wedding cupcake tribute to the Married couple.   Note the blue sprinkles, my tribute to 'Princess Kate's" sapphire engagement ring.

 In the end It was a great couple days! I think that the kids enjoyed them self and even though they may think that we were crazy for having a party for a wedding we weren't even invited to. 
I'm in love with Prince William and Catherine The Duchess of Cambridge.  I watched the wedding about 3 times and cried each time.  I am so happy for the couple.  The wedding was so intimate even with the spectacle that it was.  I loved seeing the intimacy between the bride and groom.  And really in the end Prince William ended up with the perfect match.  Kate Middleton is just like me, just skinnier, prettier and richer... oh and of course now she is ROYAL!  LOL!


CANT TURN YOUR BACK FOR A MINUTE...  I'm considering writing a book on this topic.  So from here out I think I will be copyrighting these segments. 

Permanent Sharpie Marker.... Art work courtesy of William Alan Russell

1 Hysterical phone call to my Husband, several tears, lots of yelling and 3 hrs of cleaning later...

It looks pretty good here, but you can still see light blue and pink lines in the carpet.

3 bottles of Nail polish remover and the "little green Carpet spot cleaner".  I could have used one or two more bottles of nail remover.

Williams still has hints of his "beard"

Attachment to EASTER 2011 Blog post

Slideshow design created with Smilebox

Easter 2011

HAPPY BELATED EASTER!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating in which ever way is important to you!

We had a AWESOME Easter this year!!! 

William and I decorated the house a couple days before.  He was a great help, however we did have several disagreements regarding the Easter eggs.  He loves "eggs" which is kinda ironic considering he is allergic to them.

BETCHA didnt know there is such a thing as EASTER BALLOONS!

My Easter basket this year... Kinda sparse thanks to the resident 2 year old

The object of many 'discussions' regarding not touching the 'eggs'.

SO MY KID!  He took over as beater licker this time!

Decorating cupcakes for the weekend

Finished product!  Watch out Martha Stewart!  haha

 We started the weekend by driving to Fort Saskatchewan to stay with Clay's sister and brother-in-law; Meagan and Matt, and there dog Rollie!  It was really nice to visit, and William was sooo excited to see Auntie Meagan and Uncle Matt!  Saturday Clay and I headed out to look at some trucks, we test drove a couple that day and ended up buying one!  It was a really nice day with just the two of us.  William stayed with his Auntie and Uncle and had a BLAST!  He was still going strong when we arrived back in the afternoon, Matt and Meagan however looked a little tired!!!  Haha...  We got to relax a couple hours in the afternoon because William wanted nothing to do with us, he was much too busy with his Auntie!  (THANKS M&M).  Saturday evening Clayton and I headed to Jubilation's for a nice date night.

Sunday we woke up late (yes M&M 715am is considered 'late' with William!  lol).  William found an Easter basket and some eggs that the Easter Bunny left!  The eggs lead to a special Easter basket filled with goodies!  The Egg's had jelly beans in them, which William soon discovered and they quickly disappeared.  Luckily he also had a Banana.  However after a 30min car ride the jelly beans and banana were re-discovered, and we had our first road side puke-cleaning adventure!  Yeah!!!!

Following the Egg trail

Finding the Easter basket!

During one of my chats with the easter bunny he told me that in the SPIRIT of Earth day (which was Good Friday this year) he found an basket from a thrift store and used some left over ribbon and spray paint to make it all fancy.

Jelly beans...(insert horror music here)

We went to Baba's and Gedo's house for brunch and had a great time visiting with family.  It was such an amazing day the kids were able to be outside and had an Easter Egg hunt!  Thanks to the big kids for being good sports and helping out the little ones!!!  It was lots of fun!  I dont remember doing egg hunts when we were little, but will for sure be adding this event to our easter celebrations in the years to come!!!

The egg hunt

We arrived home that evening and continued our outside time by breaking in the deck chairs and pulling out the outside toys!

My boys putting together the Bike Trailer- LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! 

 (The snow is almost gone, and I will put in a formal retraction to my previous blog post regarding how Spring had Sprung.  Not 2 days after that post we had a huge DUMP of snow and icky weather which lasted about a week!  I guess I jinxed us!  sorry!!!)

AN UPDATE ON William's and My little garden experiment we started last month!

After transplanting the tomato plants we seeded in March, I have learnt a lesson, One or two seeds per peat disc is plenty.  I had 3-4-5 shoots come up in each peat disc this year and had to transplant over 65 plants to larger containers last week.  In retro-spec I should have transplanted a little earlier as they are super stringy and kinda sickly looking right now, but I am lovingly tending to my indoor garden that kinda got outta hand.  I now have a 'green' table set up in the dining area, similar to my Mother's house.  Not esthetically pleasing but Hopefully I will have lots of Tomatoes this year!!

Post Planting In March

Pre-transplanting April 20, 2011

All the containers I had to wash, cut and prep for transplanting.

My 'Green' table.  As you can see the plants are pretty pathetic looking right now!

I'll Keep you updated on the progress!

Evidence to Support my Claim of SPRING!!!!

I have been walking on egg shells the past few weeks, afraid to say out loud what my mind and heart keep telling me.  However I feel that I have collected enough evidence to fully support my hypothesis, that SPRING IS HERE!  I know there are skeptics out there and understand that many feel that this statement is risky.  So please keep an open mind and read the following analysis of my findings.


1-The snow is melting... YES IT IS!!!! I can actually see GRASS!!  It may have "snow mold" and be covered in dirt and sand, but its grass and my husband assures me that the dirty-ness will be washed away soon!  Another way I know that the snow is melting (besides the fact that my Grass is visible) is because of the lake we have been diverting out in front of our driveway.  See we live on the side of the street that does not have a side walk.  Therefore it is where all the snow is piled from the snow plow.  Permanent 6 ft snow piles have marked the entrance to our drive way all winter.  These driveway guardians have began to melt causing a large "Loch" to develop at the entrance of our drive.  Last week we spent time each night diverting our water to flow from our driveway down the street to the drain.  Well in all honestly it never really made it "down the street", it actually just collected in our neighbors driveway, (oops, but Its not our fault we ALL have to contribute to "Loch" maintaince in order to keep our street welcoming!)

2- Mud boots and Splash pants are making a comeback!  "Go play in the water?!?!" With the snow returning to its liquid state, amazing splashing opportunities have developed!!  And mud boots and splash pants have became a must on any walk.  William is pretty much set, a new pair of mud boots have been obtained and his Splash pants from last year have been pulled out although alittle short they are servicable.  Prior to being a Mother you would not have caught me dead in a pair of rubber boots.  In my defence when I think of rubber boots I think of heavy black rubber shoes covered in manure that your foot would slide out of while walking across mucky corrals.  (For those who may not have realized, I grew up on a farm).  However I was pleasantly surprised to see rubbers with attractive designs covering women's feet over the past few years!  Now that I usually have to go rescue a wet toddler from the grip of  particularly deep puddles I feel my vanity needs to stand aside for the practicality of dry feet.  So we visited the local WALMART to buy a new pair of mud pants for William and for me to find a stylish pair of "rubbers", but they were sold out!   Ahhh small town living!!  So I am destined for wet feet this year, as once again I didn't jump on the MUD BOOT and SPLASH PANT trend early enough!

3- The Hermits have emerged!  I never really realized how detached people get from the outside world during the long winter months.  Now that the thermostat reads above 0 on most days, (and the side walks are mostly passable) more people are peaking there pasty white faces out of there homes and turning their noses in to the sunshine!  I also suffered from "HERMIT-ISM" this winter, and am embarrassed to say how pasty white my skin is!  People are venturing out poking around there lawns, walking down the sidewalk, PLUS they have the summer stuff out at the Walmart, and the garden center in the parking lot is starting to be assembled!  If that's not proof that spring is here I don't know what is!!!  LOL!

4- Canadian Geese have came back!!! Saturday we seen a huge flock of geese fly over head.  And yesterday I had to have a discussion with William why we cant go over and play with the geese in the field.  Tessa and I also had to have that discussion.


In conclusion, the evidence that I have described above conclusively shows that the white, dull, dry, blistery cold winter season has lost its hold and Spring has began to transform the dirty misery left behind.  I cant wait to see my first flower!!!!

CANT TURN YOUR BACK FOR A MINUTE

I may not have trendy rubber boots but Thanks to my Favorite designer "Will-i-am" I have fancy indoor shoes!

"Go swim in the Water, buddy?"  William asked, and I turned around to see he was already dressed and ready to go!

Passing the time, maintaining sanity

OMG!  Is winter over yet????

I don't think that we will ever see green grass again!!!  Winter has over stayed its welcome, and from my conversations with friends, family and stranger's, I'm not the only one that is ready to sucker-punch Winter in its FACE!!!

The Russell's are desperately trying to keep our sanity amongst all this white.  Some days are better then others.

Clay celebrated his Birthday March 21.  We kept it a small party of 3.  Clay took William fishing the Sunday before (like father, like son- William loves fishing just doesn't have the endurance yet!)  My husband being the man he is told me his favorite food was Pizza and carrot cake.  So all I really had to do was find Panago's phone number and figure out how to  use my food processor to shred the carrots for the cake.  The cake turned out well, (http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/all-time-favourite-carrot-cake-85365.aspx)   Ive made this one before and it was awesome.  This time I tried to cut the fat by cutting the oil,  I used 1c of apple sauce and 1/4c of Oil (instead of 1- 1/4c of oil).  Still got tonnes of compliments but I felt it was a little moist, so next time I would just do the apple sauce.

 Hanging out on Dad's "car bed", the "car bed" has actually made it in the house several times since this, and has been the source of several disagreements between us and William.

 "click!"  LOL first time he did this... SO FREAKING FUNNY!

 That's right 25!!! + 3 years old!  The icing didn't turn out well In my opinion,  I haven't done cream cheese icing for a while!  (I made special little cake's with Cool Whip for my Allergy child.)

So as I was saying we are kinda home bound due to the sidewalks being impassible and waist high snow in our back yard.  I cant really take the stroller out, so the sled is getting use.  I can't take William out to the back yard as he will be swallowed by the snow.  We go "swimmin in the water" about once a week , we still take some walks with the sled and Tessa.   But mostly sit inside the house and google warm vacation ideas.

William has been finding "art projects" through out the house... This was my favorite:

 Thank god for google!!! After my initial freak out.  I googled "How to remove Sharpie" and found an idea to use tooth paste!  It needed some elbow grease but it all came off!

With all the "time" I have to dream about warmer weather, I have been planning ideas for my garden.  I'm thinking about container gardening this year.  And really wanted to attempt to grow some tomato plant's from seed. So after talking to my mom and finding out I should have started these things from seed in February, I took a trip to Walmart and picked up an indoor "greenhouse" for me and William to start some Tomatoes and cucumbers. (I'm not too sure about the cucumbers and only got them because they were called "Green Cucumber Dragons" with a dragon on the package and thought William would like the whimsy of it.  I don't think he actually noticed).

 Filling the greenhouse with water to expand the peat pellets!  William called them cookies, and yes, he tried to put them in his mouth.

 Expanding the peat pellets... Or baking the "cookies"

 William decorating the Popsicle stick labels for the greenhouse.

Finished PRODUCT!!!

Lets hope they grow!  It will be interesting to see if my Mother's green thumb has been passed down to me.

It was a great little project for us this morning to help break up the boring-ness!  And although William was more in to trying to eat the peat pellets I think that over the next weeks he will be excited to watch the little plants grow and I'm excited to see the color GREEN AGAIN!

What do you do to help pass the long winter months??