Life's Whirlwind Adventures

I would say a lot of my feelings were from a longing to feel loved unconditionally and I felt I was missing that so my homesickness and increased desire to see my friends and family had to do with a lack of feeling loved in my own house.  I am in no way saying this is what was happening on my husbands side, but because we had let Silence become a bedfellow in our marriage we couldn't see or hear the others cries for love. This disengagement happened over a long time, and it was both of us.  I am a talker, and I like to talk out problems and I can be a visionary where I see where we need to be but I don't always have a clear path to get there so I tend to just bulldoze my way through.  My husband is more of a thinker, he doesn't always know how and he doesn't like to express his feelings, he likes to think them out and then find a path to a solution.  The problem is I would overwhelm him with my communication and then he would stonewall me and not engage with me a...

I've decided this year that I want to show my boys about giving back to others.  So I have been looking into charity organizations that we can work with as a family. 1) Ronald McDonal House: I think this would be an awesome opportunity for my boys to give back to families that are going through a terrible time and this way they can help out. 2) Women's Shelter: this one is more of donating some things to the Women's shelter to help my boys understand that everyone needs help from time to time and that it is important that you treat everyone as you wish to be treated. 3) Parkland CLASS: This is an easy one for me, I love helping out my old employer, I believe they do good things for the people they serve and I like to have my boys help out with their carnival so they understand that just because someone has a disability it doesn't mean that you have to be afraid of them or treat them differently than you would treat anyone else. 4) The Mustard Seed: This organiza...

I am a huge fan of Marian Keyes!! I own all her books and I follow her on social media, I brag about her writing to everyone who will listen! She is amazing and if you haven't read her before here are my favourite Marian Keyes novels and a brief summary of them for you to try! 1) Angel: Taking a holiday in Los Angeles to get away from the doldrums of life, the antics our protagonist gets up and the realization that the grass isn't always greener 2) Watermelon: What do you do when your husband announces he is leaving you on the labour and delivery bed?  What do you do when you realize its true and not some terrible bad dream? 3) Anybody out there: *This is an ugly cry book* Dealing with life after a tragedy, how one foot in front of the other isn't always the fastest way but it is a steady pace. 4) Rachel's Holiday: Life of fun and games, no responsibilities until your family tells you, you have a problem, then it's how do you keep yourself through the embarr...

A new strategy we are employing as a family this year is to buy our children less stuff and spend more of doing things with them!! BEST! IDEA! EVER! So for Christmas we told all our family to only buy them activities or passes to things we could do, like movies, Jump 360, Treehouse, the zoo, Royal Tyrell Museum, things we could do make a day or evening out of that the kids would build memories and maybe stop wanting so many things. Adrian took Lil Man to his Rebel's Game and I got to take Prince T!  It was such a fun night! He had so much fun and it was nice to get out with just him!  Here are some of our pictures from that night!  Waiting for Dad to get home so he could take mom out on a date!  Pre Date Selfie!! Date Selfie, mom was also getting a massage!! Best date Night!!

In my latest reading we read on different strategies to use to engage families of elementary school children, they ended the module with this question. List and describe three strategies found in the readings that can support families in helping their children's learning in elementary school. What are the implications for your own actions, strategies, and/or practice? The three strategies I would like to focus on and bring more into my teaching arsenal include guided teaching for parents of specific skills for their children (APTT), home visits, and purposeful, meaningful and consistent communication home with parents.  These three strategies were shown to be highly effective. It tears down that we versus them mentality and the whole idea that they should "know" what to do because it's elementary type school work.  These strategies would be super helpful to me as a parent because my child is in French Immersion and I don't speak French fluently.  So to be ab...

I like to spend time in the state of denial.  I like to find other things to blame how I am feeling, saying I'm homesick, that I miss my friends, my family, I need a break from life, that work is stressing me out.  I do, I spend a lot of time in denial, not wanting or not able to address the elephant in the room. By now we are in the Christmas Season, by now we are getting to the most wonderful time of the year,  and yet my Christmas spirit this year was at an all time low.  We do Elf on the Self with our kids, and I just didn't care.  All I wanted was to plan to go to Saskatchewan for part of the Christmas break and have my husband fly out to meet us for New Years. Then our puppy Sasha had to go to the vet, she fell down one morning and wouldn't get up, it was extremely scary.  My husband likes to live in denial about our pets and will often say that we have a lifetime warranty with them, I know it's a joke, but Sasha is nine this year and she's gettin...

Happy Family Day Everyone!!