An Angel Beamed Down From Heaven!

So it snowed Saturday morning here in the GTA, and I thought that it was going to be a winter wonderland day as I looked outside and saw that everything looked like a holiday Christmas card and wonderful visions of taking the boys down the street to the park to do some tobogganing got me excited and looking forward to the day... 

Unfortunately, by the time I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the picturesque winter wonderland for my blog, most of the snow had already began to melt away, and all my hopes for a nice day of gentle tobogganing with the boys also melted away with the snow, and of course, WE STILL HAD ABSOLUTELY NO NEWS REGARDING THE HOUSE ON COURT STREET!!!! IT'S NOW MONDAY MORNING AND THE BLOODY HOUSE IS STILL NOT LISTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Is my frustration coming across clearly?)

On a good note however, the boys discovered during their apartment adventures that if they stand in the corner and shout against the wall that their voice echos back at them and this has now become one of their favorite pass times. Here's Oliver giving it a go...

Followed by Benjamin doing the same thing....

They did this for several minutes and got quite a kick out of it...

As it was getting close to bedtime I decided to make cupcakes to cheer us all up a bit - Michael especially likes baked goods, so cupcakes it was as the boys looked on as I placed on the final touches....

Oliver looking on as I made cupcakes...

A close up of the cupcakes (just to make everyone drool!)

Benjamin having fun with the oven mitts he stole from the kitchen when my back was turned...

On Sunday, Michael's family friend Vicky came over to visit us and to see the boys for the first time, and to our advantage, she also happened to be a professional hair dresser! So she brought over her scissors and she cut everyone's hair for free!!! Awesome!! I'm sure other parents of multiples probably understand just how much of an exciting event this was for me - IT SAVED US SO MUCH TIME AND HASSLE - WE LOVE YOU VICKY!!!!

Vicky is an amazing friend and hairdresser - she started with Michael's hair first so the boys could see their Daddy getting his hair cut and wouldn't be so afraid to cut theirs...

Oliver looking on as his father had his hair cut...

Couldn't help but take a close up...

The boys helped me sweep up Daddy's hair...

Then it was Benjamin's turn to get his hair cut, and to my amazement, he sat through his hair cut like a perfect angel! He was so relaxed and calm...

Awww....He looks like such a grown up little boy with his hair cut!

Finally it was Oliver's turn, and again, I was amazed at how calm Oliver was as well during his hair cut. Vicky did such an amazing job...

It was my first time meeting Vicky, and I was so impressed by her kindness and patience with us. After she had cut all Mike's and the boys' hair, she drove Michael to the grocery store and helped us do our grocery shopping! Michael felt as if an angel was dropped down on us with Vicky's visit. She listened to our desperation as being isolated parents of multiples with very limited help from family (God knows they are doing they're very best to help us though, but they just can't give us the help we need as we all live so far apart from each other), and she offered to come over again and help us watch the boys and take us to do more grocery shopping! I can't say enough what an amazing help she was. 

We figured the least we could do to thank Vicky for all of her hard work and kindness was to invite her to stay and have dinner with us, and you'd think that she would be done for the day after all she did for us, but to put the icing on top of the cake, this amazing woman offered to give me a trim after dinner! 

Thanks Vicky for taking care of my family and for cutting off all my split ends!

Rest and Recover!

Ok, so this is I think attempt # 20, to try and get this post posted....Between screaming teething toddlers and a bout of whatever kind of cold virus I got, it hasn't been easy keeping this blog going so far - not to mention that I still don't have my own computer and can only really work on my blog when the boys are sleeping or Michael is not using his computer...

...Well, it's still been a slow week, and we're still waiting to hear news regarding the offer we put in on the offer on Court Street, because the listing for the house still isn't legally listed!

We don't even know if we can get this house still, but it would be nice just to hear back something - ANYTHING. It's been 2 weeks now and still no news, and all due the the listing agent placing her sign on the property prematurely before the house was even listed.

Hopefully everything will eventually work out for the best in the end, it's just hard to maintain patience right now when we will be technically homeless in about a month, and will be moving to another province without a house in line for us at the moment.

On a good note, we finally started to get some things done on Wednesday. I finally got the Mount Everest of overdue laundry done, and Michael started cleaning the balcony.


Oliver decided he wanted to help me with the laundry and was quite content pushing the laundry cart until Benjamin took over as usual and made Oliver cry....

Everything was going peacefully with laundry until I heard a loud cry, and ran out to investigate and found a huge bite mark on Oliver's forehead, placed there strategically by Benjamin who was just sitting quietly on the floor as if nothing happened, of course when I showed him the bite mark he placed on his brother's forehead, the look of guilt couldn't have been more obvious and he was give a 1 minute timeout in his crib...

I tried to put the boys down for a nap at their usual nap time, but they just didn't want to nap. They were practically leaping out of their chairs, so I figured I'd let them out and let them burn it off...

And burn it off they did! First they wrestled with their father...and then they went nuts and started running up and down the living room playing with the curtains!

Benjamin giving the curtains a really hard pull, probably trying to figure out how much more force it would take to pull them down entirely...

Oliver running around still completely unaffected by the bite on his forehead...

Benjamin playing hide and seek in between the curtains...

The downside I learned of just 'letting the kids burn it off' is that when they have a late nap they get really grumpy, and grumpy they got! And then of course they slept horribly at night time!

Oliver woke up once during the night screaming, so I checked up on him and he was fine, so I tucked him in a bit more with his blanket, and he eventually went to sleep (after about 15 minutes of crying). 

Then Ben woke up twice throughout the night. The first time he was wet, so I changed him and placed him back in his crib, thinking that he would sleep, but he didn't. He just kept on screaming. So I got up and gave him a bottle (after an hour of him not soothing himself back to sleep), and then once I got him to bed, Oliver woke up wet...So the conclusion was that we got no sleep on Wednesday night!

So all the work we had done on Wednesday, was about all we got done this week, as the next day we were  both exhausted and sleep deprived and I woke up with a slightly sore throat and sniffling and was pretty much sick all Thursday...

Well, Friday it is! And still no news from our Realtor about the house on Court Street, all we can do now is cross our fingers and toes and pray, pray, pray, that it all works out!

Funny thing is, that Michael and I have so much to do, and we intended to get to all of it right away, as soon as I finished work, and we've practically done nothing... It's really hitting us now, that we've had a chance to just stop and slow down, just how EXHAUSTED we really were from just trying to take care of the boys and balance life. 

It's almost as if our bodies were just telling us - rest first, recover and then get started! We're indeed slowing recovering and healing, but of course we still have a lot to do! So I'm hoping next week, we will have recovered enough to start moving things along...we're running out of time, and time as we all know moves all too quickly...

Farewells and beginnings...

I'm finally getting a chance to update my blog after more than 4 days of rest and after an emotional farewell at my work. So bare with me all if this blog is extra long as I have to catch up for almost a week's worth!

It's been a bit of a hassle to get this blog going, only because I don't have my own computer right now (had one, but then the boys sort of destroyed it when they learned how to walk), and I have to take all my pictures with my iphone (another long story which I won't get into), and the only way I can get them on to my Michael's computer is to email them to myself and then download them from my email. So please forgive the fuzzy and rough pictures...

I'll start with my farewell at work last Friday. My coworker Maria went out of her way to arrange a farewell for me at her desk, with delicious chocolate cake, and with wonderful food and of course some KPMG swag and gift cards for gifts.

My co-worker Ian, whom I worked with from way back in the good old days of Chartwell, made a lovely introduction speach for me, which I didn't expect him to do, and I certainly didn't expect him to elaborate on his speech and place me on a pedastal, which brought me to tears. It didn't help my emotional state much to look over at Maree, another one of my old Chartwell friends and to see her in tears. 

I was so busy running around my last week of work trying to get both personal and work related things done before I left and saying goodbye to so many wonderful people, that it never really truly hit me that I would have to make a speech for such a large group of people until I was standing in front of a large group of people! I really didn't think that little old me would even attract such a goodbye crowd, but apparently I did make an impact on people and I was truly appreciated and loved, and of course I felt the same way about everyone at work who I've worked with. 

One of the reasons on keeping this blog going is not only to document our big decision to move to Nova Scotia, but also to keep in touch with the many wonderful people I've met at KPMG as I promised I would do before I left. 

It was a rather calm weekend, and Michael and I had many plans to do several things, such as buy groceries, and go pick up my glasses, (you know normal stuff, which with twins, normal stuff becomes a luxury if you can even get it done) but of course, it snowed like hell and it was cold as hell, and so we just got lazy and stayed in.

Bennie and Ollie were happy just to put their shoes on and prance around the house. Here they are in their highchairs with their shoes on. It's one of their favorite things to do.

Here are the boys again getting goofy with their shoes on and running around the house on Saturday...

Oliver striking a pose...

On to Sunday, it was a lazy day, and we found ourselves suddenly dying for a sugar rush and we were paying the price for not going grocery shopping because our cupboards were bare! We had cake mix though, so as tired as I was after I put the boys to bed, I decided to make cake.

Oliver with his daddy Sunday evening just before bed ...

The sugar rush cake!

By Monday, we had devoured half the cake, and I still had not done laundry, and it really needs to be done! As you can see

Ikes!!!!!!!! How am I going to get this all done!!!

So Monday came and went and we still hadn't heard anything back from our Real Estate agent regarding the house on Court street on which we had put an offer in on last week. We were starting to get impatient and anxious, and just kept on playing around with numbers in our heads to see if we could still afford to buy this house. 

The house is a repo, it is going relatively cheaper then the listing price, almost half the price of what it was listed for originally, but we still don't know if we can make this work. 

We heard back from one of the Bridgetown locals on the weekend who had told us that she was also thinking of originally purchasing the house on Queen street when she was moving to Bridgetown with her family and that it was a dump, and that Court Street was a nice street to live on as she lives on Court street herself with her family and loves it.

Finally Tuesday is here, and in between chasing busy toddlers around the house climbing up on everything, we finally heard back from our real estate agent. Turns our the real estate agent who has the listing on Court street hasn't listed it yet, but placed her sign up on the yard, so it created a bit of a hassle for everyone. The Vendors won't get back to us on our offer, or any offers until the listing is legally listed. So we still have to wait! Arghhhh!! But anyways, that's ok. We know that during this whole process that we have to patient. Buying a house is not an easy task, especially when you're 2000 miles away from where you want to buy the house! Our Real Estate agent told us however, that we should expect a counter offer once our offer goes through, but that the house should come back at a really reasonable price, however, the price of the house would still be slightly over the budget of what we can afford, but we remain positive.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to come up with another $10,000.00 dollars for a home in the next couple of weeks? 

Bennie and Ollie climbing up on the chair and playing the piano, cute, but not safe! A quick click with my iphone and off they went...

If people ever wonder why I'm so busy, here's toddler #2, our Big Ben as we affectionately call him, who climbed up on the couch we strategically placed against the wall so he wouldn't climb on it!

Benjamin playing with his toy car...

 The boys spent most of their day today just riding their cars and climbing, what a shocker - who knew boys did that?! LOL!

From riding cars to playing with cars, here Bennie playing with his car under the highchairs...

One door closes, another one opens...

Well there definitely isn't any turning back now. I handed in my two weeks notice this Monday, and we finally signed the paperwork to sublet our apartment within 90 days.

Next week is my last week at work, so hopefully I will make it in for my last week as I have not been feeling well these last couple of days and already missed a couple of days of work last week.

I'm sad to be leaving the many wonderful people whom I work with, but at the same time I'm so excited for this amazing new adventure and new opportunity to start out new with my family.

So far our house search has hit a dead end in Bridgetown. It's been more of a challenge for us I suppose than for most people, as we haven't been able to find a suitable home that fits our small budget. I guess the good part of it all is that we have made a connection with a good real estate agent in Bridgetown who is keeping an eye out for us, but so far there is no luck. It's just a waiting game now to see what will turn up in the market.

Right now, the only option which seems affordable is a house located right in the downtown core with a small lot (only big enough for a garden area), which is not our preferred choice, but seems like it's the only thing we can afford.

It's a nice house, and it would need a lot of work, but because of it's location it's actually dirt cheap and affordable, and if we were buying that house in Toronto, it would cost us a fortune.

Michael made a good point in mentioning that the downtown house would be better than anything we could ever dream of owning here in our entire lifetime in the city, and that it is a good house for what we can afford right now if we want to live in the town we want.

I'm hoping that our real estate agent in Bridgetown will come up with something suitable for us before the April and May deadline we've set for ourselves.

It's a quiet day today. Mike's dad came by to visit the Grand Kids and played a bit of guitar for them. The boys seemed quite happy to see him and to hear him play guitar.

Right now the hardest part is just waiting for the right house to turn up. I guess I wouldn't feel so anxious if we already had something already lined up for us there on the other end....

Well that's it for now, still no snow on this end...it's been such an unusually mild winter this year...but I guess that's a good thing for now...