This and that

I don't really have a theme for this post, just a few random things I wanted to remember for the future.

Nathan is at such a fun age (really, they've all been fun except perhaps the first three months). He's getting to the point where he can 'help' me with cooking and cleaning things, which is great as it means he's not upset if I'm doing that stuff instead of playing with him. As you saw in a previous post he helped make chocolate chip cookies last week (we've been making a lot of chocolate chip cookies for house showings!) and this week he helped make pizza. I gave him the leftover pizza dough and he patted it out before his nap. We put it on a pan to let it finish rising while he napped. When he got up he spread the sauce on the crust and we put it in the oven for 7 minutes (I always start cooking my crusts before I load them up with toppings). Then while I put the toppings on the two big pizzas he was supposed to put them on his ... but he decided he would rather eat the toppings instead so I had to help him. It was so fun to watch him get excited about making his own supper! I'm excited to do this more often with him as he grows. I figure I'm doing his future wife a favour if I get him familiar with the kitchen now ;) Hmmm ... what's next ... laundry? lol.

Well, despite my excitement over losing 2 lbs and despite my continued efforts on the treadmill I have managed to gain back a pound this week. *sigh* I keep reminding myself that in the past it has taken a month to see any real results from a workout plan, but it's still discouraging. I started week 4 of the walk-to-jog plan yesterday, where I have to walk 3 minutes, then jog 3 minutes and repeat that 4 times. I've been walking at 3.5 mph and jogging at 6 mph (for my own records later). I find each workout very challenging but it's amazing that I haven't quit on any of them yet. Yay!

School is continuing on. Next week marks the halfway point of the course. I finished up one of my four assignments this week. Our major assignment is a group project that we've been working on fairly steadily. I'm really hoping things will start to come together on it over the next week. I don't want to be worrying too much about it after Peter leaves.

Hannah has been doing great sleeping overnight this week! She slept until her wake-up time two out of the last three nights and the other night she slept until 5:30, so still a fair amount of time from her 10 pm feed. Hopefully I don't jinx it by mentioning it here!

Course #10 - Check

Woohoo! I just finished a decent draft of my paper for my independent study project. This will count for my 10th course (out of 15) that I need for my education degree.

The paper is due on Monday, so I'm cutting it close, but I've found with Hannah and Nathan, plus putting our house on the market, this past month has been crazy! I've probably spent 30+ hours on it just in the past week and I'm so glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I feel that way with the degree as well. Ever since my last year of my undergraduate degree I've wanted to be a teacher if I have to work in the future. Life happens and I didn't actually start my education degree until the fall of 2007, while I was on maternity leave with Nathan. At the time I planned to do 5 courses a year and finish my coursework in spring 2010. Hannah's timing couldn't have been worse for school, as she was due right at the end of winter session and the beginning of intersession so I didn't take any courses last semester and picked up a late-beginning intersession one. I also started this independent study just two weeks after she was born!

After I have finished the two courses I am currently doing I will have 4 courses left to take, all in the fall semester. I'm not looking forward to that as it will mean commuting two days a week and babysitting headaches, but I will be so glad to have the courses finished! Even though I hopefully won't have to teach full-time anywhere in the near future (with Peter's job change comes a huge answer to prayer - I will be able to stay home with our children! Yay!!) I know it is something I will / would enjoy in the future if it becomes necessary that I work. I still have a practicum to do at some point in the future, but we will wait for that until we get settled in our new location.

Peter took Nathan to a local center that allows kids to use their gymnastic equipment for a few hours on Saturday afternoon (for a fee, of course :) ). He really enjoyed it last time we went so hopefully they have a good time. It allowed me to have some uninterrupted time to get my paper finished. I will have to review it tomorrow and do a bit of formatting, but the main body of the paper looks pretty good. Have I mentioned I'm really glad to have it finished??

Peter wants to try a heart attack on the bbq (at least that's what I call it) for supper tomorrow night. To give you an idea (if you didn't click over to the video) the recipe calls for 3 lbs of ground pork and 2 lbs of bacon!! Craziness. Anyway, I'll report back on how it turns out on Monday. Other than that our weekend looks pretty free. I'm really hoping for some showings of the house to be scheduled next week - this past week has been way too quiet.

Off to feed Hannah! And I promise, a proper introduction post of her (with pictures!) is in the works. Sorry for the delay :) As you can see from the above this week has been quite busy!

Making cookies

So much has happened since my last update ... but I don't feel like recapping it all right now. I'll just mention a few of the major things then move on to what I wanted to write about today :) First, we had a little girl on April 1st (yes, I know, April Fool's baby, but I couldn't 'hold out' that extra hour as Peter requested when it was time to push. lol). Her name is Hannah Grace and I can't believe she's almost 2 months old already!

Second, Peter has accepted a new job that will require him to go away for training for 6 months (he leaves at the end of June). This means we will be selling our house (as we will be relocating at the end of that time) so I'm going to go home to live with my parents for those 6 months. As well, I have officially quit my job since we won't be here when my maternity leave is up, and I am working hard to finish my Bachelor of Education courses by the end of the fall. More details on all that stuff in future posts :)

This morning Nathan (he's 2 now!! eeks!) and I made chocolate chip cookies. It was my first time having him 'help' with cooking and it was so fun. Actually I did try one other time but it was a disaster - he fell off the chair he was standing on!

Here is my favourite picture from this morning. He has just noticed the chocolate chips in the dough he is supposed to be stirring and is on his way to pick one up and eat it. Too cute!


Of course, the best part of making cookies is ...


... eating them!