A Monkey Photo Shoot

The Monkey is our fourth child.

This is very evident by the lack of framed photos of her in our house.

Lucky for me, I know a wonderful lady who agreed to rectify this travesty.

Peggy Wynne, of Peggy Wynne Photography, took on The Monkey last week. In a quick 25 minute session at the studio in her home, she was able to capture our youngest hooligan's cuteness in so many adorable poses that I now have a new problem.

Which one to choose?


Not only is Peggy great at her craft, but I love that she sends you a link via email so you can preview the photos online.

Peggy has taken photos for our family, as well as captured The Eldest's graduation.

Yup. Beautiful work. If you live in the Lower Mainland, I highly recommend her.

Thanks again, Peggy!

A Movie Party

An 8 year old's birthday party. Movie style.

You needed one of these to get in.



The Princess greeted her guests with one of these.



We played games to collect a bunch of these.



So you could line up here.



And buy whatever you wanted to watch the movie.



The Eldest and The Boyfriend got in on the fun. The Monkey bought a lot of candy.



1 headache, 1 spilled pop, popcorn covering the ground, nary a vegetable eaten (and they were FREE - I don't get it) and 3 hours later, the 8 year old's movie party came to a close.

"Take your popcorn containers! Here, let me stuff them with more candy to eat on the way home!"

Then I tucked The Princess into bed and she said, "Thank you for doing all that stuff for me today, Mom. It was really good. *pause* What theme are we going to do for my 9th birthday?"

Happy Birthday, My Princess. Next year's theme is "Let's go swimming at your father's pool/skate at his ice rink". Oh, but I've scheduled a massage for that day so I can't be there.

Goodnight.

Soup...Mmm Mmmm Not Good

This post should be about The Princess turning 8.

I should be going on about one of my babies growing up so quickly, and what kind of birthday cereal she chose, and what we did for her big day and what dinner she wanted.

Instead, I have nothing to report about that day because I slept her birthday away. I hadn't gone to bed until 6 am and woke up at 4:30 pm with a killer migraine and the need for a serious 10 minutes tooth brushing.

Aah, food poisoning. Chicken corn chowder, I shall never look at you the same way again.

I've had food poisoning once before. Two years ago when The Husband and I went away to Victoria for our wedding anniversary I apparently ate a bad chicken caesar salad. Nothing says loving like writhing around on a bed at the Empress hotel begging to die while your husband eats take out food beside you.

That was a bad evening. But this past Friday night? Let's just say that if you men out there truly want to find out just how bad those childbirth pains really are that your wimpy wife was going on about for 18 hours or so giving you an offspring, just go put a piece of half cooked chicken out on in the sun for a day or so, then go make yourself a chicken salad sandwich.

And that was basically how I felt as I writhed on the floor of the emergency room for several hours. In the throws of labour but without a cute baby at the end. There was a cute doctor, but let me tell you, discussing your latest bowel movements with said cute doctor while you may or may not have vomit chunks in your hair totally cancels out any pleasure from that.

I would also like to point out that vomiting into an emergency waiting room toilet is about as disgusting as you just pictured it.

But lucky for me The Husband and I got to hang around the waiting room for quite a while so we got to witness two drunk guys come in and explain to the triage nurse that one of them had been bitten in the face by a homeless guy's dog. To hear them tell it, it was pretty funny if you went by the continuous giggling coming from the two men. And to this I say, thanks. Thanks for pissing off the people that were going to be shoving an IV into the back of my hand.

Some good came from all this, though. The Husband answered a lot of work emails on his Blackberry while I slept fitfully thanks to some pain killers and intravenous Gravol. By the way, did you know that stuff really stings when they give it to you and then 10 seconds later will make your right eye go all wonky and your chest all tight and you'll start to freak out and THEN the nurse might tell you that's all normal and would I just relax, relax, already?

Here's a tip for you lady. How 'bout you tell me that before so I don't freak out to begin with? That's my suggestion. Take it or leave it.

And so, life is back to 'normal' around these parts today. My migraine finally left me midday yesterday afternoon and here I sit, 5 pounds lighter. To top it off, the soup company contacted me this morning and are refunding me the cost of that soup and just might be sending me some coupons.

For more soup.