Photographer Jonathan

Jonathan has been taking over some of the picture taking duties while I'm at work during the day. I just downloaded all the pictures off the camera card the other day and discovered some good ones that Jonathan  had taken... and I though that some of them needed sharing!

Edison has become a regular at the skatepark while hanging with his Daddy during the day 

Drool face 

Yummy waffle breakfast 

"Hey what's that prickly thing?" 

"Hey! I can't reach it!" 

Edison loves playing on the deck... something he won't be able to do for much longer (without getting cold and wet that is) 

Could he get any cuter?

Hope you enjoyed them. I know I sure did!

Around and Around He Goes

Edison's new favourite thing to do is drag things along the floor... good thing we have laminate flooring and it's quite durable.

While dragging a certain object, he has a route he likes to take around the main floor of our house. Jonathan followed him around one day and took a video. It's pretty funny.

Enjoy!

Monday's Musings - Working + Motherhood = Exhaustion!

Well, by now people are probably thinking I've dropped off the earth. I assure you, I'm still here! I'm just trying to adjust to this foreign concept called Work... on top of being Mom and Wife.

Most days I'm tired... I come home exhausted from dealing with 10-12 year-olds all day, I then have to entertain Edison all evening by myself because Jonathan is at work. By the time I get Edison into bed to have a bit of "me" time (to work on the bog or whatever else) I'm so exhausted all I can think of doing is sleeping... and so I go to bed. It's been a bit of an adjustment! But as each week goes by, it gets a little easier.

It doesn't help that the beginning of the school year one of the busiest times of year for me, because I have to recruit kids and get them signed up for band and choir. It's a lot of work... and there are a couple of events that take place in the evening... which makes for an even longer day. Now however, the business of the first part of the year is over. I don't feel quite so overwhelmed and things can settle into a nice routine.

I do love my job! Thank goodness... otherwise it would be even harder to be apart from Edison all day long, 5 days a week. I'm happy to report that Edison is doing just fine without me. Some days I get home, expecting this big reception of "Hey, Mommy's home!"... however I quickly learned that's just not going to happen. Edison takes one look at me, and then goes right back to whatever he was playing with. But it's good that he does so well at home with Daddy all day. Everyone is adjusting to this new way of life and the transition has been remarkably smooth.

If you have a minute, check the video out below. I've been listening to this song every day on my way to work. I sometimes need to be reminded that no matter how busy life gets, no matter what my day brings, He is here and His grace is sufficient!

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Wordless Wednesday - Turning into a bit of a daredevil

Tons of People + Tons of Food = Fun at the PNE!

Last Sunday afternoon, Jonathan and I decided to close off the summer with a visit to the PNE. In my opinion, the summer is just not the same without the PNE.

This was Edison's first time at the PNE and he was very excited to see cows and lots of other fun animals. Edison is at the point now where he really doesn't want to sit in the stroller, he wants to walk. However thats hard to do when you are accompanied by hoards of people. When we were in the barns, he was happy... he could walk around and look at all the fun animals. When we were walking around in the Food Alley or the Marketplace and he was in the stroller, he wasn't such a happy camper.... but there were just soooo many people!

Cows!! 

I love Clydesdales  

Baby ducks 

These are the tallest cows I've ever seen... they were taller than all the people 

Unfortunately I only got pictures of their butts 

Arabian dancers 

Cooling off in the water 

Jonathan's one and only interest at the PNE is food. It was quite entertaining watching Jonathan go on a food rampage, eating everything in sight. I won't lie... I had my share of PNE food as well, but Jonathan took it to a whole other level. He even made a video to document it:

It was a fun and filling time at this year's PNE and we're looking forward to taking Edison back again next year.

Wordless Wednesday - Hi cow!

Hi Ho Hi Ho... it's off to you know where...

Today is September 1st and the thing that I have been in denial about (a.k.a... going back to work) is less than a week away. It's unbelievable to me, how fast this past year has gone. After 14 months off, spending 24/7 at home with my little boy, I'm going to have to venture back into the real world. Yikes!

The only saving graces that are keeping me from bursting into tears right about now are: (A) -  I'm finished work at 2:15 every day (thanks to an earlier start time) so I can rush home to the little one, and (B) - Edison will be home all day with his Daddy, which is awesome.

In the beginning of July I ventured in to the school, which is an old school - but new to me as this will be my first year teaching there. When I saw the band room... well I just about had a heart attack. It was a mess! There was stuff laying around everywhere. And there was DUST, DUST, and more DUST... which goes along with it being an old building I guess.

Anyone who knows me, knows I like to stay fairly organized at work... it's much more productive that way. Well, this was an organized person's nightmare and I knew I'd have to tackle it before the first day of school.

Last week Marilyn (who has sadly retuned home to the real world as well) went in with me one day while Jonathan stayed home for a trial-run with Edison for the whole day. My band room has three storage rooms, all of which were a total mess, so Marilyn and I dealt with one of those rooms that day. The room we cleaned was the one that stressed me the most because it had all the band music piled in it... in no order what-so-ever. It doesn't make for a very efficient music library when none of the music is in alphabetical order!!

While Marilyn put all the music in order (and entered it into the computer as she went), I dealt with binder upon binder of old stuff.... like outdated music resources and about 10 years of attendance binders. I don't know the music teacher who was at that school before me... and I don't want to be mean... but I think he was somewhat of a hoarder. There was so much stuff that just needed to be thrown out... that was clearly garbage, that he was hanging on to.

I took a few before and after pictures... they were taken on my phone so they aren't the greatest quality, but you'll get the idea.

This is the music room... my new home away from home 

The storage room BEFORE... binders, binders, and more binders 

The other side of the storage room BEFORE... this was the disastrous state the band music was in 

AFTER... the band music relocated as is now in alphabetical order 

AFTER of the other side. Note how you can actually see the floor!

This was all the garbage and recycling that came out of that room

On Tuesday my mom came over to hang out with Edison while Jonathan and I went in to deal with the other two storage rooms. I knew the school had a lot of guitars (63 to be exact) and a lot of them were missing strings, so Jonathan had the fun job of replacing strings while I dealt with the other stuff. I was absolutely covered from head to toe in dust!

Another example of the disorganization that I inherited  

Jonathan, hard at work 

Another storage room BEOFRE. There was so much piled in front of those filing cabinets, I had no idea what was in them.  

 Part way through the clean-up

AFTER... garbage gone, things back in an organized way

The guitars, after some TLC from Jonathan

BEOFRE... I didn't get a great picture of this storage room before because it was very full of stuff, and I couldn't find the light switch at the time 

AFTER... full but organized... we even found a floor in this one too! 

The garbage... there were a lot of things that would cost more to fix than to just buy new... so a lot was thrown out that day. 

As we were leaving, Jonathan said "I feel dirty"... and it was true, we were pretty gross. I'm glad it's dealt with now so that when I show up for my first day of real work next week, I don't have to worry about tackling any more dusty junk. Thank you to Marilyn and Jonathan for helping make my return to work a whole lot less stressful!